Translatability of Culture
Abstract: The object of this paper is to study the translatability of culture through the enlightenment from Legge’s translation of Lun Yu. A critical study of Legge’s translation from a cultural angel is made before two principles peculiar to the translation of Chinese classics are proposed. The combination of classiczing and orientalizing the English language should be strived for in the translation of Chinese classics, and at the same time, it is of great significance to observe rather than break the limit of translatability.
Key words: translatability; culture; Legge’s translation; Lun Yu
1 Introduction
Confucianism, which represents the way ofChinese
people’s life for over 2,000 years, may be described as antique and modern, statical and dynamical, conservative and progressive, at the same time. It seems so because it carries with it a long, long tradition, stretching itself into time immemorial as well as into this day.
A good translation of Confucian classics is indispensable for the introduction of Confucianism as well as the Chinese culture to the West. Among these classics Lun Yu is the earliest and most reliable source on the life and teachings of Confucius and is regarded as the basic “scripture” of Confucianism. The history of the translation of Lun Yu is as long as over 300 years. The first English version was published in 1828 in Malacca, by David Collie. James Legge’s version appeared in 1861. During the following years of more than one hundred, dozens of new English versions have been produced. The translators include the famous ones in history, such as W.E. Soothill, Arthur Waley, Ezra Pond, D.C. Lau and Ku Hungming. However, none of these later versions can replace Legge’s version, the pioneering work. It remains the standard work by which subsequent translations of the classics have been judged. Its faithfulness, scholarly accuracy and linguistic vividness have been carefully studied by many scholars home and abroad.
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As far as Legge’s translation is concerned, among all its good points the most beneficial one is that it proves the translatability of literary style and provides many useful translation techniques as well, while among its weak points, the most prominent one shou
ld be due to the cultural obstacles. Any translation is inevitably confronted with the problem of how to deal with cultural differences, especially in translating a Chinese classic. In this artical, Legge’s translation is to be analyzed from a cultural angle, from which some enlightenment is expected to draw.
2 A critical study of Legge’s translation from a cultural angel
2.1 Non-correspondence in Meaning
Lun Yu is full of many cultural-loaded words or expressions, so the translator finds it very difficult to provide equivalents in meaning. In these cases, Legge mainly adopted the method of annotation. Let’s look at the following example:
子贡问曰、赐也何如。子曰、女器也。曰、何器也。曰、瑚琏也。(公冶长)
Tsze-kung asked, saying, “What do you say of me, Ts’ze?” The Master said, “You are a utensil.” “What utensil?” “A gemmed sacrificial utensil.”[1]
This metaphor is very difficult for Western readers, or even for modern Chinese readers, to understand. However, Legge did not replace “瑚琏” by a different image in the target language which is familiar to Westerners to achieve easy comprehension. In order to help the target readers better perceive the Chinese culture, he rendered it literally with notes to make sense. Legge’s note includes a detailed explanation: “While the sage did not grant to Ts’ze that he was a Chun tsze, he made him a vessel of honor, valuable and fit for on high occasions.”
Other words like 奥、告朔、器、木鐸,etc,were all necessarily and satisfactorily explained in Legge’s notes. In translating terms non-corresponding in meaning to the target language, Legge’s method of annotation is admirable in keeping the original image and helping to introduce the Chinese culture.
2.2 Phonological features
Since human language should first of all resort to hearing, the phonological features of the language system become the basic features of the language style, by which the uniqu
e beauty of it can be made up. Lun Yu, written in classical Chinese, is regarded as “the earliest prose poetry”. The language of it is not only philosophical, but also rhythmic, harmonious and musical, contributing to two facts: On the one hand,in classical Chinese, though most words are monosyllables, some proper repetitions can make the lines harmonious, such as “巍巍乎”, “荡荡乎” (泰伯), “申申如也”, “夭夭如也” (乡党); on the other hand, the rich rhymes in this classical Chinese work make some lines read very rhythmic and musical, as in“如切如磋,如琢如磨”(学而). Legge’s translation is to be evaluated in the following examples:

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