Abstract

As the essence of Confucianism, The Analects has played an important role in cultural exchanges between China and western countries. More than 50 English versions of The Analects have been translated by many domesticate and foreign scholars, among which two versions are the most classical and representative: The Analects translated by James Legge who is a British missionary and Ku Hongming who is a respected master of Chinese culture. It is commonly recognized that Legge’s version tends to adopt the strategy of foreignization while Ku’ version the strategy of domestication.
This thesis is to try to discuss domestication and foreignization in The Analects from four levels: the lexical level, the syntactic level, the stylistic level and the cultural level in order to prove that there is no absolute answer to the debate, and which strategy should be chosen depends on translator’s purpose and readership. As a missionary, James Legge’s purpose is to do mission cause and his target readers are those missionaries, so Legge chooses foreignization to help readers have a better understanding of Chinese culture. On the contrary, Ku adopts domestication, because his purpose is to remove westerners’ prejudice toward Chinese people and his target readers are English gentlemen. Different translators employ different translation strategies with a view to achieving different goals, so we can conclude that there is no answer to the debate over domestication and foreignization.

Key Words: domestication  foreignization  purpose  readership
 
摘 要

论语是儒家文化的核心，在中西文化的交流中起着重要的作用。中外学者翻译的《论语》英译本已达50多本，其中最具典型和代表性的是由英国传教士理雅各和研究中国文化的学者辜鸿铭所翻译的两个译本。大家普遍认为，理雅各的译本主要采用异化的翻译策略，而辜鸿铭的是采用归化。
这篇论文从归化异化两种翻译策略的角度出发，从词汇、句法、风格和文化，这四个方面来讨论《论语》，目的在于证明，归化和异化的争论没有一定的答案，采用哪一种方法是取决于译者的翻译目的以及译文读者。作为传教士，理雅各的目的在于传教事业，他的读者对象是那些传教士，所以采用异化可以让传教士更加了解中国文化。辜鸿铭采用归化的翻译策略是因为他的目的在于让西方人消除对中国人的偏见，他的读者主要面向于英国人。不同的翻译家采用不同的翻译策略来达到他们不同翻译目的，所以结论是，对于归化和异化的争论是没有绝对的答案的。

关键词: 归化  异化  翻译目的  读者对象