A Comparative Study on Two English Versions of The Analects of Confucius

By Guan Chao

In partial fulfillment of the requirement

For the B. A. Degree

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

May 2016

Acknowledgments

Approaching the ending time of the paper writing, would like to send my most sincere gratitude to many mates and teachers around me on and outside campus at NUIST. Without their sincere help, I would have never completed this thesis.

First of all, I am indebted to my supervisor, Professor Xu Xianwen, who has offered me a lot of suggestions and practical advice since I was perceiving and writing so that I am presenting the paper for my BA graduation. At the same time, my sincere thanks should go to my friends and schoolmates for their considerable and useful advice and constant encouragement, all helping me a lot.

Last but not least, special thanks go to my family who have been supporting and taking care of me and sharing my weal and woe, for their selfless love and care help me overcome difficulty and encourage me to go ahead until now: one step to graduation.

Contents

1. Introduction 3

1.1 The Translators 3

1.2 Research Background 4

1.3 Literature Review 4

1.4 Objections and Motivations 5

1.5 Research Methodology 7

2. Selected Key-word Comparison 7

2.1 A Brief Statement of Some Key Words 7

2.2 Jun Zi 8

2.3 Qiaoyan 8

2.4 Ren and Li 9

3. Syntactic Comparison 10

3.1 Parallelism Sentence Pattern 10

3.2 Antithesis Sentence Pattern 11

4. Polysemous Comparison 11

5. Conclusion 13

References 14

A Comparative Study on Two English Versions of The Analects of Confucius

Guan Chao

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

Abstract: The Confucius Analects is regarded as a great ideological classic about Confucius,who is the founder of Confucius culture. The Analects of Confucius has been providing us with ancient Chinese cultural essence and working out profound influence on the later-aged ideological education, culture, religion etc. Its influence on China proves to be so significant as that of Bible in the west countries. There exist plenty of versions of the Analects, in the meantime, a number of studies about these English versions come up in and outside of China. On account of these existing researcher’s great contribution to the translation, this paper conducts a comparative research of the two English editions translated by James Legge and Arthur Waley from the perspective of the translator’s subjectivity. Much attention on typical examples and research tell a conclusion that translators subjectivity play a very important role in the Chinese to English version. Comparatively, James Legge tended to take advantage of literal translation. However, as a missionary, his special background made his version more religious with explicit purpose to convert Christian. Arthur Waley, a famous sinologist and brilliant translator, translated the Analects of Confucius with a flavor of poem. Concise and colloquial language helped his works keep the original literal style. But there are no wanders that some demerits turn up such as cultural misunderstanding and comprehension deviation. His version has been obvious western color and strong western ideas. Based the on studies above, a significant finding come to us that translators’ subjectivity exert a crucial influence on the translation of The Analects of Confucius.

Key words: The Analects of Confucius; translator subjectivity ; a comparative study

摘 要：论语是一部记录儒家创始人孔子主要思想成就的经典著作，蕴藏着中国古典文化的精髓，对后世思想，教育，宗教，文化，军事政治等产生不可磨灭的深远影响，可与西方世界崇拜的《圣经》相媲美。《论语》在世界范围内有着众多译本，中外学者专家对其英译本的研究也从未停歇。在前人关于论语英译所做研究之上，本文对理雅各和韦利这两个英语译本做出对比分析。译者主体性对译本产生的效果，指出两种译本的优缺点。理雅各是一名传教士，倾向采用直译方法，忠于原文又通俗易懂，其传教士的背景也使其作品带有强烈的基督教色彩，其目的是让人们皈依基督教。韦利是一代汉学大师，翻译泰斗。他的译本显露着一种诗人气息，文字精炼，语言通畅，近于原文风格，但其译作不免存在缺憾，文化误读，理解偏差，有着明显西方色彩和浓厚西方思想。本研究发现，译者主体性对《论语》英译本的形成产生至关重要的影响。

关键词：论语；译者主体性；对比研究

1. Introduction

1.1 The Translators

James Legge was born in a small town called Aberdeen in Scotland. In his childhood, he gave out obvious and explicit interest in English classics and religion. Then he was sent to Malacca and appointed principal of Anglo-Chinese college and London church printing office. After that he chose his residence in Hong Kong and can not wait take on his religious career and Chinese classics learning. As early as in 1848, he once wrote to his family that he had been bored with life in England and he had to go back to to China. From then on, he was indicated to studies of Chinese classics. In 1861, his translated works were successfully published and made a stir in the western world. He insisted that it is quite necessary to translate and introduce the Confucian classics systematically. Legge’s English version of The Analects has always been regarded as a suitable English version which exerted great influence on the communication between Chinese folks and the western countries.

Arthur Waley was born in Tim bridge Welsh in 1889. He developed a special interest in language learning and literature reading. Once some scholars considered that his version is a poetic translation. In 1903, Waley attended the famous British Rugby School where he started to form a strong interest in Oriental culture. In 1913, Waley applied to work in the oriental section of the British Museum where he explored a number of oriental books，which motivated him into learning Chinese language. Later on, to yield conspicuous results in his work, he started to read Chinese sinology books and materials under the guidance of a missionary who was adept at Chinese. In terms of classics translation, Waley had his own ideals. He pointed out that the previous translation of The Analects of Confucius gave too many emphases on Zhu Xi annotations. This is the reason why Waley began to translate the Analects on his own. He wanted to express the initial meaning to the readers. From his version, it can be explicitly seen that Waley’s version is to translate for native European readers with enough academic accomplishments.

1.2 Research Background

The Analects of Confucius, which was regarded as the great Chinese classic work, expresses the essence of the long and glorious Chinese history, whose influence on Chinese proves to be so profound that it can be comparable to that of Bible in western world. Involving so many aspects such as education, politics and morality, The Analects of Confucius is not only respected and adored in China but widely known and researched abroad.

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