论文总字数：27461字

摘 要

《道德经》不仅是一部哲学经典，同时也是一部文学经典。它在国内外有着深远的影响力，因此也有多种译本。该文旨在以阿瑟·威利翻译的《道德经》版本为个案,从精神文化词、形象比喻词和数词这三个方面来说明该译本所存在的诸多误译及翻译不当现象,并从译者主体性角度探究其原因。

关键词：阿瑟·威利；《道德经》；误译；译者主体性；原因

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Study on the translation of Tao Te Ching at home 2

2.2 Study on the translation of Tao Te Ching abroad 2

3. Arthur Waley’s Mistranslations of Tao Te Ching 3

3.1 Spiritual cultural words 4

3.2 Metaphor words 5

3.3 Numerals 6

4 . Analysis of Mistranslation and Improper Translation in Tao Te Ching from Translator’s Subjectivity 7

4.1 Definition of the translator’s subjectivity 7

4.2 General manifestation of the translator’s subjectivity 7

4.3 Causes in the limitations of the times 9

4.4 Causes in the translator himself 10

5. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction

Tao Te Ching is a classic book about the ancient Chinese philosophy and only has five thousand words, but contains unique and profund thought, which classifies the life experience in poetic language. The whole book with incisive language describes Lao Tzu’s World view, outlook on life and world politics. Tao Te Ching classifies the origin of universe, the rules of development, the existence mode of the world, the controdictions and solutions of human society, which is full of dialectical logic power and deep beauty of poety. “Tao” is the centre and philosophical comerstone of Tao Te Ching. Lao Tzu has a great contribution to Chinese philosophy, which makes the Lao tze’s thought have deep and charmful metaphysics and expands the pre-qin philosophy from ancient to the modern, and thinking of life ontology.

As is known to all, “translaion is a very complex activity, it involves linguistics, rhetoric and communication semiotics theory, as well as ethnic, social, cultural and other fields.”(Nida 64)The translation contains the objective elements and subjective elements such as envision and preference. Throughout the research about Tao Te Ching at home and abroad, the author finds that Arthur Waley’s translation is still worthy of in-depth study, in which exists many mistranslations. Language difference, cultural difference and the translator himself do influence the translation of Tao Te Ching. The thesis will explore the role of translator and the limitations of the times via Arthur Waley’s Tao Te Ching. In the recent 20 years, new translation productions still appeared by almost one version a year, which makes the author of this thesis be interested in this phenomenon and decide to make a research on it.

Under the cultural renaissance of the Chinese nation, this research will help us spread the Chinese culture to world, and also help us to look at the national culture inheritance and innovation in a more rational attitude.

2. Literature Review

Generally speaking, the translation of Tao Te Ching has exerted the great influence at home and abroad.

2.1 Study on the translation of Tao Te Ching at home

In 1997, Wang Rongpei, in his essay“Yi Ke Yi, Fei Chang Yi(译可译，非常译)--probing into the English translation of the Tao Te Ching in Length and Breadth”, made a comparative study of the four translations of“道可道非常道，名可名非常名。无名万物之始，有名万物之母” by Bynner, Blakney, Lau and Mair through the retroversion, and thus concluded that the translation of the Tao Te Ching was not external, instead, different translations are possible from different angles.(Wang 51)

Yao Xiaoping got the inpiration for the essay“The English Translation of Tao and Tao in the Bible”, in which Yao affirmed Wang’s opinion. What’smore, on the basis of the comparative analysis of the translations of“道可道非常道，名可名非常名。无名万物之始，有名万物之母” by Bynner, Blakney, Lau and Wang Rongpei, Yao explored at length why“道” was translated into“way” by most Westerners. Moreover, Yao probed into the connotation of“Tao” in the Bible.

Wang Hongyin, in his article“Tao Ke Tao, Fei Chang Tao--the translation of the First Chapter of Tao Te Ching” in 2005, made a comparative study of the translation of the first chapter of Tao Te Ching in different versions. Wang compared some versions of contemporary Chinese translation and thus concluded that the author could not judge who the first person was to introduce the Chinese classic into contemporary Chinese or first into the English world and believed that the philosophical ideology was the important one.

So far the number of studies on the translations of Tao Te Ching has been actually far beyond the above-mentioned. Next, the author will make a further study on the translation of Tao Te Ching abroad.

2.2 Study on the translation of Tao Te Ching abroad

Both sinologists and amateurs, fascinated by the intoxicating qualities of Tao Te Ching, have tried to capture its flavor and have appeared new translations. With the large number of translations of Tao Te Ching coming forth, studies on these translations have been made continuously. Among these studies, some focus on the rendering of a certain translator, at the same time, comments on more than the translation.

As early as 1885, in the China Review XIV, Herbert A.Giles published a long article named“The Remains of Lao Tzu:Re-Translated” which was reconstructed by Giles according to his own comparsion of some traces of the findings in Han Fei Tzu, Huai Nan Tzu, and the writings of some Taoist scholars in the late Han Dynasty.

In 2000, the co-writers Damian, J.Bebell and Shannon，M.Fera. of Comparsion and Analysis of selected English Interpretations of the Tao Te Ching, the authors finds that Tao Te Ching has been translated and adapted into the English language more than 100 times in the last 150 years .（Damian,et al. 105）“Tao” and its subtle philosophy are being actively assimilated into mainstream Western culture actually. By means of inquiries, a specific understanding of the cross-cultural relationship between East and West was investigated.

Besides, there are a lot of translators focus on the translation of Tao Te Ching, such as Arthur Waley. Waley’s translation has been reprinted for many times.

In a word, the translation on Tao Te Ching has a great influence on the translation study at home and abroad. Next, the author will focus on Tao Te Ching translated by Arthur Waley and illustrate the mistranslations in it. In addition, the author will explore the reason about mistranslations on the basis of Arthur Waley’s translation of Tao Te Ching.

3. Arthur Waley’s Mistranslations of Tao Te Ching

Arthur Waley’s translation of Tao Te Ching adopts the literal translation more often, respecting the original. Language is fluent, concise and easy to understand. Sentence structure is compact, orderly and full of sense of rhythm. What’s more, sentence pattern is flexible and changeable, and also handed properly. However, there exist some serious semantic errors, which are worth of reference and learning. This thesis attempts to analyze the mistranslations and improper translation phenomenon from the three aspects of spiritual cultural words, metaphor words and numerals.

3.1 Spiritual cultural words

The spirit culture is the way and product formed by people’s thinking activities, including the religious belief, the way of thinking, the esthetic appeal and so on. Spiritual culture belongs to a deeper level and involves country’s culture. The implication of Taoist thought essense of the theoretical works in Tao Te Ching, endemic to china, reflects Chinese ancestors’ world view and philosophy of spiritual cultural--loaded words. However, these words handed by Waley seem too simplistic, so that a considerable part of the original words have lost their cultural connotation in translation.

It is said that the “tao” is the cornerstone of the philosophy of Taoism. “Tao” is a special noun and central category of Lao tze’s philosophy. It frequently appears in Tao Te Ching, but it has different meanings in different places. “Tao” mainly has three kinds of meanings:(1) refers to the metaphysics of existence, the initial origin of all things in the universe; (2) refers to the universe, existence, development and movement rules;（3）refers to the standard of the human society. Take the translation of the spiritual cultural words in the first chapter as an example.

道可道，非常道。

The way that can be told of is not an Unvarying Way.

“Tao” appears three times in this paragraph, but the meaning of the text is not the same. The first “tao” is regarded as a noun and means that the way, method of phenomena., such as statecraft, way of doing things and a way of life. The second is a verb and means that the description, narration and exposition. The third is a noun, refers to the creation of world population and the etenal meaning of“tao”. In fact, Lao Tzu’s concept of“tao” is not replaced by“way” simply. According to the Penguin English Student’s Dictionary, “way”is translated by“method, manner, or road and so on.” Waley translates “tao” into “way”, which makes its original meaning from broad and profund to narrow. Philosophical word is generalized to ambiguous conpect of “road”. Cultural connotation and philosophical meaning of the original words become disappeared.

In addition, the “Tao” in the Tao Te Ching has different meanings in different places, such as the ninth chapter said: “功遂身退,天下道也”. “Tao” belongs to the the universe, existence, development and movement rules. In addition to the translation of “tao”, there are many spiritual cultural translation of the words lost the cultural connotation of the original word, here may wish to cite another example.

名可名,非常名。

The names that can be named are not Unvarying names.

Obviously, the “names” is not correspontant to that noun “name”. “名” is one of the specific terms of Lao Tzu’s philosophy and refers to the specific name of “Tao”, which contains the meaning of the concept, but it is more than the concept and has the sense of unity with name and content. However in English, the word of “name” is limited to the name and reputation, and the meaning of the name is much narrower than “名”.

3.2 Metaphor words

Many of the image words have experienced the accumulation of culture and gone beyond the own meaning, and it is given a more profund, more typical of the abstract meaning or figurative meaning. These metaphor words translated by Waley are limited to the literal translation causing mistranslation.

Take the translation of the metaphor in the fifth chapter as an example.

天地不仁,以万物为刍狗;圣人不仁,以百姓为刍狗。

Heaven and Earth are ruthless, to them the ten thousand things are but as straw dogs;

The sage too is ruthless; To him the people are but as straw dogs.

This image of the metaphor word “刍狗” and philosophical thoughts by Lao Tzu have gone in the version, “刍” refers to the grass and “狗” here refers to the animal, so “刍狗” refers to the propagation and it is expanded to grow freely and develop, rather thanWaley’s translation of“straw dogs”. In this sentence, “不仁”is not the current menaing of“残酷，无情和怜悯之心”,but rather“无所偏爱”. But in Waley’s translation, “不仁” was translated into the“ ruthless”, so it caused the mistranslation.

The sixth chapter in the Tao Te Ching, there is another image of the metaphor word“谷神”. “谷神” was translated into“The Valley Spirit” by Waley literally. The metaphor word“谷” is the meaning of fertility, and“神”does not mean that God, but refers to “Tao” as this kind of invisible miracle. In fact, “谷神” is as the empty as the valley of the“tao” and the rules of the movement of“tao”. Because of “Tao”is able to bear the world, but there is no form, so Lao Tzu called it“谷神”. The world“spirit”in English refers to the supernatural image of soul, ghosts, elves, fairies or creatures. Undoubtedly, without any additional annotation, Western readers see“Valley Spirit” as the supernatural beings in the valley to choose seclusion, and the meaning is quite different.

3.3 Numerals

In Chinese especially in ancient Chinese, numerals will appear frequently. Many numerals are not used to indicate the number, and have no actual reference, but used to represent a fuzzy concept. It refers to the generation of abstract meaning. Waley’s translation of these numerals have adopted the literal translation. As a result, the numerals make a lot of local translation not natural, and even have mistranslations.

Take the translation of numerals In the twelfth chapter as an example.

五色令人目盲，五音令人耳聋，五味令人口爽。

The five colors confuse the eye, the five sounds dull the ear, the five tastes spoil the palate。

“五色”, “五音”and“五味” indeed have referring objects in Chinese, represented respectively by“青、赤、黄、白、黑”, “宫、商、角、微、羽”and“酸、甜、苦、辣、咸”. But it refers to a broader category, which refers to the colours, numerous music and good things and other types of sensory enjoyment. Colour, music and taste are different in the eyes of Westerners and Chinese, and the difference with the Chinese ancients is even greater, and can not know the referents and implications of“five colors”,“five sounds” and“five tastes”. Waley thinks that it can adopt the method of dilution treatment for such reference meaning of numerals. Using free translation to point to the deep connotation of its abstract will not only eliminate the barriers caused by cultural differences, but also can convey the idea of Lao Tzu more directly.

In the eighteeth chapter, emerges“六亲不和”. For a person born in Chinese culture background, the word“六亲”given by the people’s association should be simliar, and that refers to the relationship between family members. Unless there is a special need to the textual meaning, and generally it is not to think about“六亲”，which should be specific to the relationship of father, son, brother, husband and wife. It can be said that“六亲”has expanded its extension in the long term. Therefore, Waley translated“六亲”into“the six near ones”. In the assurance of the meaning of words as well as Westerners have never made such a classification of kinship, and also the concept“六亲”never emerges. Therefore, Waley’s translation will let the Western readers feel difficult to understand.

4. Analysis of Mistranslation and Improper Translation in Tao Te Ching from Translator’s Subjectivity

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