Abstract

The Analects of Confucius is one of the major works of Confucianism, which, for thousands of years, has been the moral and behavioral guidelines for all Chinese  from the emperors to the ordinary people. 

Since the end of Ming Dynasty, The Analects of Confucius has been translated into foreign languages by many famous scholars, among which, most are western sinologists and missionaries. Generally, Chinese scholars' translations of The Analects of Confucius, much fewer than western translations, are not as influential and popular as that of Western scholars. 

Among the translations of Chinese scholars, Gu’s translation is the most influential and accepted one in western countries, and domestication, or even called extreme domestication, is adopted throughout the book. It draws a lot of controversies at home and abroad.

Western researchers rarely studied The Discourses and Sayings of Confucius separately, most of them made comprehensive evaluation of Hongming's works, and lay more importance on the cultural meaning.

In China, Wang Guowei thought that Gu Hongming's translation is a failure, distorting the essence of its original text; and more researchers confirmed the rationality of Gu Hongming’s translation The Discourses and Sayings of Confucius based on various translation theories, but its conveying of cultural meaning is not delved deeply.

This thesis will look into the gains and losses of domestication applied in Gu Hongming’s translation The Discourses and Sayings of Confucius from multiple aspects such as ancient Chinese, history, philosophy, religion, politics and focus on exploring the cultural meaning, which, hopefully, can be helpful for Chinese classics translators.

Key Words：Gu Hongming; The Discourses and Sayings of Confucius; domestication; Chinese Classics translating

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1.Introduction-1

2. Literature Review-3

2.1 The History and Development of Chinese Classics Translating-3

2.2 The History of Translating The Analects of Confucius-4

2.3 The Researches on The Discourses and Sayings of Confucius in Western World and at Home-5

3. Domestication-8

3.1 The History and Adoption of Domestication-8

2.2 The Backgrounds of Gu Applying Domestication-9

4. Analyzing Some Representative Examples in Detail-12

4.1 Domestication in the Main Body-12

4.1.1 Addition in the Main Body-12

4.1.2 Omission and Adaptation in the Main Body-14

4.2 Domestication in the Annotations-16

4.2.1 Comments-17

4.2.2 Quotations-18

4.2.3 Analogies-19

5. The Gains and Losses of Domestication in Translating Classics-23

5.1 The Gains of Domestication in Translating Classics-23

5.2 The Losses of Domestication in Translating Classics-24

6. Conclusion-25

Bibliography-27

Acknowledgments-28