Abstract:

The word “De” in Lao Tzu contains rich connotations, and the Tao Te Ching has been studied and translated by a large number of scholars at home and abroad. The translations are different from each other, and, the accuracy of the translated versions into English is worth judging and studying. As a significant philosophical concept, the translation of "De" remains controversial because of its profound connotations. From the cross-cultural perspective , translation is not the simple linguistic exchange, but involves integration of certain cultural, social and individual ideology. This paper will, based on corpus techniques, from the perspective of cultural background, make a preliminary study on "De", a very important philosophical concept in Tao Te Ching, and an analysis of the possibilities of different factors that underlie the translation. Also, this paper will make a comparative study of Lin Yutang and Arthur Waley on the translation of "De". With the common influences of cultural, social and individual ideology, the two versions show different characteristics. Arthur Waley's version attempts to fulfill the purpose of producing a readable and simple version for common readers; Lin Yutang's version interprets the thoughts of Lao Tzu by referring to that of Chuang Tzu and stresses the philosophical ideas of the book.

Key words: translation studies；Tao Te Ching；corpus；De

摘要:

老子的“德”字蕴含着丰富的内涵，而《道德经》曾被国内外大批学者进行翻译研究，其译本各存差异，正因翻译版本之多，因此各版本所翻译成英文的准确性值得探究。“德”作为《道德经》中一个重要的哲学概念，蕴含着丰富的内涵，其英译也存在颇多争议。从文化视角来看，翻译并不仅仅是简单的文字转换化、社会和个人意识的交融。本文从文化视觉出发，基于语料库技术，将对林语堂和亚瑟.韦利 关于德的翻译进行对比研究,对作为《道德经》中的一个非常重要的哲学概念“德”字的翻译进行初步比较研究，并对导致译文差异可能性因素进行初步分析。在翻译“德”这一哲学概念时，由于文化，社会和个人意识的共同作用，两位译者的译本都有其独特性，韦利偏重于使译文通俗易懂，林语堂尝试以庄解老。

关键词：翻译研究；道德经；语料库；德

Introduction
Throughout the history of translation study on Tao Te Ching, the translation mainly focuses on the traditional qualitative model of study. It is either to carry out systematic analysis of a large number of language facts, or find out the language rules through studying the practical application of language. Because of the limited amount of text, such studies are carried out in small scale, and with translators’ strong subjectivity.