The Cultural Identity of Translator and Its Effect on Translation： The case of Two English version of Analects

恩浩

【Abstract】This paper will focus on how the identity of translators affect the translation based on the analysis of the two translation versions of the Analects translated by James Legge and Ku Hungming respectively. The thesis will analyze the identity types the translators have， and then offers in-depth analyses and discussion of how the cultural identity affects translation strategy which can provide us with a special angle on the ways we see translation. Through analyzing， it can be easily found that cultural identity has a great impact on translator and translation which cannot be neglected.

【Key words】Cultural identity； Legge； Ku Hung-ming； Analects； Translation strategy

Part Ⅰ CULTURAL IDENTITY AND TRANSLATION TRATEGY OF JAMES lEGGE

1.1 The Cultural Identity of James Legge and his Translation Strategy of Foreignization

Religious identity is defined as a sense of belonging to a religious group， which can be an important dimension of many people's identities. Lefevere believes that the ideological component constrains the choice of subject and form of its presentation. Legge was born in the town of missionary. After strict training and examination， he became the missionary of London Missionary Society. Legge studied and translated The Analects mainly for two reasons. Firstly， Confucianism was the orthodox thought of Chinese feudal dynasties. A better understanding of it was good for penetrating into Chinese upper class. Secondly， he believed that there were similarities between Confucianism and Christianism. He was faithful to the original text to a great degree， especially on the lexical， syntactic and semantic level. Adding a lot of annotations is another characteristic of his translation. Here is an example from the Analects： 君子有三畏：畏天命，畏大人，畏圣人。

Legge： There are three things of which the superior man stands in awe. He stands in awe of the ordinances of heaven. He stands in awe of great men. He stands in awe of the words of sages. Kung： There are three things which a wise and good man holds in awe. He holds in awe the Laws of God， persons in authority， and the words of wisdom of holy man.

In this translation， Legge did not alter the sentence order and use “he stands” as beginning in every sentence for repeating and parallelism to get close to the original structure. In Kus translation， he use some words， which can be easily understood by western people. So， Legge's translation method can be ascribed to the foreignization.

PartⅡTHE CULTURAL IDENTITY AND TRANSLATION TRATEGY OF KU HUNG-MING AND HIS TRANSLATION STRATEGY OF DOMESTICATION

In 1877， Ku Hung-Ming graduated from the university in Edinburgh. The experience of living and studying abroad exerts a great influence on his entire life. The good command of English and the great literary cultivation lay a solid foundation for his translation of the Analects. Kus purposes aimed to show the extensive and profound Chinese culture to the western. Affected by Romanticism， Ku formed his own cultural perspective， which includes two major aspects， one is to criticize he western material society， and the other is to promote vigorously the superiority of Chinese culture. The translation strategy of Ku is quite the opposite of Legges. Ku omits the original text of Analects and reduces the footnotes. So domestication is the mainly translation strategy. When it comes to some terminology， he almost left out all the names of people. As to the place names， he usually use “ a certain state ” or “ a foreign state” to avoid the elements influencing the target readers. In a sense， Ku use a modern western concept to explain an ancient Chinese term.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion， through the analysis of the background of translators as well as the translations of Analects， it is easy to find that translator and its translation are influenced by cultural identity inevitably. As to Ku， he chose the translation strategy of domestication to make the target readers have a better understanding of Chinese culture. Different cultural identity has an impact on translations with different translation strategies. Therefore， when analyze a translation， It is necessary to attach a great importance to cultural identity of translator.

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