Abstract

Chinese culture enjoys a long and eventful history. The classical literatures, especially lyric poems, can reach readers of all times for their culture that they contain or convey. The Book of Songs, content-rich and far-reaching, is one of the representatives of Chinese literature. It is a great mirror reflecting the culture and customs of ancient Chinese people. The English translation of this book is apparently a wonderful source to show the westerners Chinese culture, at least, a tiny part of it.

In the 1950s, Hockett became the first man who put forward the theory of cultural vacancy. Then, many began to pay due attention to and study it, and therefore which makes it become clearer and more systematic step by step. Cultural vacancy means some cultural factors of one national culture cannot be found in another one. It will turn up and become an obstacle for the readers’ understanding and appreciation of the poems if the writers and readers come from different cultural backgrounds. What the translators need to do is fill cultural vacancy in order to keep the appeal of the original text.

Many scholars and translators have contributed tremendously to the studies of The Book of Songs. The translation of the images in this book is inevitably an important research object because the images are to the poems what hearts are to human beings. Translating such a cultural classic will result in cultural vacancy because the writer and the target readers do not have the same background. There is not so active research about cultural vacancy in the translation of The Book of Songs, let alone that the translation of the plant and animal names in it. Names of 125 plants and 90 animals are used in the part of “Airs of the States”. The present thesis explores cultural vacancy in order to study its compensation strategies by comparing the two different versions (Fu-Shiang Chia’s and James Legge’s) in terms of plant and animal names in the “Airs of the States”. 

Keywords: 

cultural vacancy, compensation, plant and animal names, translation, The Book of Songs 

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

Chapter One Introduction-1

1.1 Significance of the Study-1

1.2 Objectives of the Study-2

1.3 Organization of the Thesis-3

Chapter Two Literature Review-4

2.1 A brief introduction to cultural vacancy-4

2.2 Studies of The Book of Songs from different perspectives-5

2.3 Studies of the plant and animal names in The Book of Songs-6

Chapter Three Theoretical Framework-8

3.1 Culture and cultural vacancy-8

3.1.1 Definitions of culture-8

3.1.2 Definitions of cultural vacancy-8

3.1.3 Formation mechanism of cultural vacancy-9

3.1.4 Compensation for cultural vacancy-9

Chapter Four The Translation of Plant and Animal Names in The Book of Songs: An Analysis-11

4.1 Plant names in The Book of Songs-11

4.1.1 Classification of plant names-11

4.1.2 The translation of plant names-11

4.1.2.1 The translation of ornamental plant names-11

4.1.2.2 The translation of utilitarian plant names-14

4.2 Animal names in The Book of Songs-17

4.2.1 Classification of animal names-18

4.2.2 The translation of animal names-18

4.2.2.1 The translation of common animal names-18

4.2.2.2 The translation of mythical animal names-21

4.3 Subjectivity and restriction of the translations-23

Chapter Five Conclusion-25

5.1 Major findings of the thesis-25

5.2 Limitations of the study-25

References-27

Appendices-29

文献综述报告-35