Abstract:Confucianism stands in the main stream of Chinese culture, casting a great influence on Asian even western civilizations. The Analects is a master piece of Confucianism and essence of Chinese culture. One critical way to acquire the spiritual meaning of this classic is to digest the meaning of “Junzi” which is referred to for 107 times in the book. More than a person pronoun, it has been given other definitions in culture, politics, social status, morals, etc. Currently, the most welcome versions of translation of The Analects, in which the word “Junzi” has several translations, are those translated by Gu Hongming and D. C. Lau who are Chinese and by James Legge and of Arthur Waley, two foreigners. They are translators under different social and cultural backgrounds, which affected their work in different means. 

This thesis consists of five chapters: Chapter One, a brief introduction of the translations of “Junzi”; Chapter Two, a literature review of the studies of “Junzi”; Chapter Three, an introduction of the development of hermeneutics, Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and its three principles—historical understanding, fusion of horizons and effective history；Chapter Four，under Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, an analysis of four different translation versions of “Junzi” from the perspective of the translators’ life experiences, academic backgrounds and translation aims; Chapter Five, a natural conclusion that it is reasonable and necessary that there should be different translation versions; Fusion of Horizons decomposes the creation of a translation work; Effective History indicates that retranslation is necessary, which would be a course of discovering new connotations of source texts and is conducive to the perfection of them. 

Keywords: Gadamer；Philosophical Hermeneutics; The Analects; Junzi

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

Chapter 1 Introduction-1

Chapter 2 Literature Review-3

2.1 Studies of EnglishTranslations of“Junzi”-3

2.2 Studies under Philosophical Hermeneutics of Translations of The Analects and “Junzi”-3

Chapter 3 An Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics-5

3.1 The Development of Hermeneutics-5

3.2 Three Principles of Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics-5

3.2.1 Historical Understanding-5

3.2.2 Fusion of Horizons-6

3.2.3 Effective History-6

Chapter 4 A Contrastive Study of Junzi’s Four English Versions under Philosophical Hermeneutics-7

4.1 Translations of “Junzi”-7

4.2 A Contrastive Study of Junzi’s Four English Versions from Philosophical Hermeneutics-10

4.2.1 Analysis from the Perspective of Historical Understanding-10

4.2.2Analysis from the Perspective of Fusion of Horizons-12

4.2.3 Analysis from the Perspective of Effective History-13

Chapter 5 Conclusion-15

References-17

Acknowledgements-19