James Legge’s Translating Chinese Classics into English:An Examination of Translational Eco-environment and his Multidimensional Adaptive Selection

University of Jiangxi Science&Technology Normal University,Nanchang,China Email:lizhiping2009@163.com

[Abstract]James Legge was renowned as a prolific translator of Chinese classics and a sinologist with extraordinary achievements.His English versions are generally recognized as authoritative.The reasons for it can be examined from the perspective of eco-translatology,a new theory of translation studies,which focuses on the relationship between the translator and the translational eco-environment.According to this theory,missionary activities in China and development of sinology in Britain in the 19th century,as well as Legge’s own life experiences,constituted his translational eco-environment.Legge made appropriate selection to adapt himself to it:keeping faithful and accurate to the source text,establishing multiple cultural identities;setting up target readers precisely;conducting linguistic,cultural and communicative transformation.In conclusion,Legge endeavored to make multidimensional adaptive selection in the translational eco-environment to produce excellent translated texts with a high holistic degree of adaptation and selection.

[Keywords]Chinese classics;eco-translatology;translational eco-environment;adaptive selection

Introduction

James Legge(1815-1897)was a well-known Scottish sinologist,translator and missionary.He systematically studied and translated Chinese classics including Four Books and Five Classics.His eight translated texts,such asConfucian Analects,The Great LearningandThe Doctrine of the Mean,were collected in his seriesThe Chinese Classicsand published successively from 1861 to 1872.Another eight works,such asThe Shoo King,The Tao Teh King and The Writings of Kwang-dze,were collected into Max Muller’s series The Scared Books of the East and published from 1879 to 1891.James Legge’s translated texts were noted for fidelity and accuracy to the source text and rigorous scholarly style.These characteristics resulted from Legge’s subjective choices under the influence of environmental factors.Eco-translatology is a new theory which investigates the translator’s behaviors by placing them in a translational eco-environment.This paper aims to examine the translational eco-environment of Legge’s rendering Chinese classics and adaptive selection he made,by taking some examples from his English version ofZhuangzi(The Writings of Kwang-tze)which was regarded as the most important pre-Qin text for the study of Chinese literature and one of the representative texts of Taoism.

Analysis of the Translational Eco-environment where James Legge Translated Chinese Classics into English

“Translational Eco-environment”is one of the core concepts of eco-translatology developed by Hu Gengshen,a professor of Tsinghua University.This theory explores the correlations between the translator’s adaptation and selection,mechanisms,basic features and rules,and provides a new description and interpretation of the nature,process,criteria,principles and methods of translation from the perspective of“adaptation and selection”(Hu,2008,p.13).In this theory,the translation process is divided into two phases:the first phase means that the translator adapts to the translational eco-environment centered on the source text; the second phase means that the translational eco-environment centered on the translator selects the target text.Investigating the translational eco-environment of Legge’s translation practice is helpful to obtain a comprehensive understanding of his translation motives and methods and further make an objective evaluation to production of his translated texts.

Definition of Translational Eco-environment

Translational eco-environment refers to the world constituted by the source text,the source language and the target language,namely,a whole system of interaction among language,culture,society,author,readers,clients,sponsors and so forth.Hu Gengshen explains it as an overall environment reflecting the survival states of the translator and the translated texts,and a congregation of various factors restricting the translator’s optimal adaptation and selection,as well as the premise and basis for the translator’s multidimensional adaptations and adaptive selection(2011,p.7)Fang Mengzhi argues that translational eco-environment includes both“interaction between translation subjects and external environment”and“the external(objective)environment associated with translation activity,such as social,economic,cultural,linguistic,political environments(2011,p.1-2).

Analysis of Legge’s Translational Eco-environment

The 19thcentury when Legge lived witnessed intense collision between Western and Chinese cultures arising from a chain of social changes,such as Opium War,religion renaissance,missionary activities and sociology development.Legge’s rendering Chinese classics was a kind of adaptation to the macro translational eco-environment.His personal condition,such as his family,knowledge reserve,belief,values,feelings,also formed a micro translational eco-environment influencing Legge’s selection of the translated texts.

Missionary activities in China

In response to the second tide of the Great Awakening in the early 19thcentury,some British and American missionaries traveled to China to spread the gospel.In 1807,Robert Morrison became the first protestant missionary in China,but overall,there were very few missionaries who could enter the mainland of China.By 1842 when China was defeated in the first Opium War,the government of Qing Dynasty was forced to open the country gate.More missionaries came to China and carried out religious activities,with an attempt to persuade Chinese people to believe in Western religions.However,their missionary work was frustrated by multifarious difficulties and hindrances.The first trouble they encountered was language barrier caused by complicated Chinese characters.Next,Chinese people had such an ossified way of thinking that they were difficult to accept alien ideas,under the influence of the government’s long-term policy of secluding country from the outside world.Conflicts of cultural and ideology became unavoidable,since the Christianity regarded by missionaries as supreme was significantly different from Confucianism as the mainstream thought and belief in China.Gradually the missionaries realized that they could achieve a success in missionary cause in China only by familiarizing themselves with Chinese language,culture,ideology,rites and customs and reconciling the relationship between Christianity and Chinese religions.Some of them decided to begin with collecting,studying and translating Chinese classics,because they thought that these ancient texts covered extensive knowledge from country governance,moral and ethnic restriction to public opinion orientation,with far-reaching impact on Chinese rulers and ordinary people.Therefore,since the missionary Joshua Marshman published his translation workThe Works of Confuciusin 1809,some other missionaries translated Chinese classics into English successively.Although their initial purpose was just to strive for a success in missionary work,they eventually contributed to spreading of Chinese culture to the Western world,consciously or unconsciously.

Development of sinology in Britain

British sinology came into being in the process of learning and studying Chinese language and culture by British missionaries,diplomats,customs officers and merchants,etc.in China in the early 19thcentury.They recorded knowledge about Chinese language,geography,folklore and so forth through diaries,letters,travel notes and some other documents,but very few of them were specialized in Chinese language teaching or linguistic research.By the middle of the 19thcentury,more missionaries,diplomats,merchants,etc.rushed to China for different purposes.Among these people some intellectuals such as Walter Henry Medhurst,Sir John Francis Davis,Thomas Francis Wade,and William Frederich Mayers,were fascinated by Chinese culture,with deepening of their contact with it,so that they changed hobby to sinology into lifelong pursuit and thus transformed from missionaries,diplomates or other non-professional identities to professional sinologists.Professional teams of sinology teaching and studies were gradually built up,with the establishment of sinology professor chairs at some universities such as University College London,University of Cambridge and Oxford University.British sinology transformed from amateur sinology to professional sinology.The second session of the International Congress of Orientalists was held in London in 1874,which marked transfer of the center of orientalism and sinology studies from continental Europe to Britain.With the death of French sinologist Stanislas Julien in 1873,and Legge’s becoming sinology professor at Oxford University in 1876,Britain sinology entered“a Leggian epoch”which lasted until 1891 when Legge passed away.

Legge’s life experiences

Legge’s study and work experiences in his early days had tremendous impact on the ability,motive and methods of his translating Chinese classics.Before Legge came to China,he had possessed quality preconditions to translate Chinese classics,because of his own gift in language and education he accepted from childhood to youth,such as accepting strict translation training when he learned Latin and English grammar in Grammar School of Aberdeen in his teenage,taking courses of classical literature,philosophy,mathematics,etc.in King’s College,University of Aberdeen,and learning Chinese language in University College London.Due to his experience of studying theology and exegetics in Highbury Theological Seminary,he kept an enduring habit of reading multifarious annotated texts of Chinese classics in critical and comparative ways and providing detailed notes in translated texts.In 1839,Legge went to Malacca in the identity of missionary of London Missionary Society and took office in the local Anglo-Chinese College.He moved the College to Hong Kong in 1843 and settled there until 1873.During the period of missionizing and teaching in China,he realized,like some other far-sighted missionaries,that the protestant missionaries’the urgent task was not to cultivate disciples among Chinese people blindly,but to study Chinese language,history,literature,ethics,social formation,etc.A good way was to obtain a mastery of classical Chinese texts represented by the Thirteen Confucian Classics,and conduct in-depth research into the ancient sages’thoughts which laid a foundation of Chinese people’s moral,ethic,politics,and social life.In 1876 Legge was appointed as the first sinology professor at Oxford University.During 21 years of his teaching of sinology,he also established an academic tradition of sinology research at Oxford University.

Legge’s Adaptive Selection to the Translational Eco-environment

According to eco-translatology,translation is a process of incessant cyclical alternations between the translator’s adaptation and selection.Adaptation is made to seek survival and effect.Adaptation is accomplished by means of optimized selection.The principle of selection is preservation of the strong and elimination of the weak(Hu,2011,p.8).The translator is selected by translational eco-environment; in the meantime,acting as a part of the translational eco-environment,he selects and manipulates the target text.The translator’s selection here also includes selection to the source text,the readers,his own cultural standpoint,and translation theories,methods and strategies and so on.The optimal translation is usually the one of the highest“holistic degree of adaptation and selection(Hu,2016,p.128）.The canonization of Legge’s English versions was closely associated with his persistent efforts in making adaptive selection in the translational eco-environment.

Adaptive Selection to the Source Text

Legge pursued faithfulness and accuracy to the source text,highlighting the importance of reproducing the mind of the source text,advocating seeing things from the standpoint of the source text.To adapt to the source text,he collected and consulted plentiful materials,but in the meantime,he insisted in independent judgement based on careful verification.To achieve maximum fidelity and accuracy to the source text,Legge conducted rigorous studies of Chinese classics before translation.In the process of translation,he took great pains to consult numerous literatures including commentaries of different dynasties.For example,the Chinse reference books up to 269 were listed in his seriesThe Chinese Classics.When he translatedZhuangzi,he selected the authoritative editionNan Hua Zhen Jing(The Holy Canon of Nanhua)commentated by Guo Xiang and interpreted semantically and phonetically by Lu Deming as the original text,and consulted 6 important annotated books(Jiao Hong’sZhuangzi Yi,Lu Shuzhi’sZhuangzi Xue,Lin Yunming’sZhuangzi Yin,Xuan Ying’sNanhua Jing Jie,Hu Wenying’sZhuangzi Du Jian)and over 10 anthologies involving Zhuangzi.Legge was also ardent to collect different editions of the same classic for comparison.For instance,he collected 37 editions of Four Books,20 editions ofLaozi,13 editions of 20Li Ji(Book of Rites)and 7 editions ofLun Yu(Confucian Analects).Legge studied these reference materials carefully to obtain a deep understanding of the source text.However,he treated them critically,rather than accepting them blindly.He considered different opinions comprehensively and then added his own views into prolegomena and annotations of his translation works.In other words,he respected these learned commentators,without following them blindly; he absorbed their valuable opinions,without parroting what they said;he verified patiently information to avoid relaying erroneous information.

Adaptive Selection to Cultural Identities

Unlike some other missionaries,Legge neither took interest only in the religion he believed in and the culture of his country,nor adopted aggressive strategies for missionary work,though they came to China for the same purpose.Infiltrated in traditional Chinese culture for a long time,he developed so keen interest in Chinese culture and religions.He thought highly of Chinese religions for their pursuit of the truth Although,in the premise that he affirmed Christianity as superior to any other religion(Yue,2003,p.85).He adopted adaptive missionizing strategies more acceptable to Chinese people,contributing to integration of Christianity with Chinese religions.To demonstrate Chinese culture and religions more clearly,Legge took a scholarly attitude to translate Chinese classics.That’s to say,he selected a cultural identity of missionary-scholar to adapt to his missionary work.He resigned from the missionary task in 1874 and accepted his teaching position at Oxford University two years later.From then on,as a professional sinologist,he translated Chinese classics more out of his passion for sinology and for the purpose of promoting sinology in Britain and cultural exchange between China and the English-speaking world.Therefore,he played multiple roles of missionary,sinologist,and cultural communicator and coordinator.Norman J.Girardot praised Legge as a compassionate missionary,educator serving Chinese community,and translator and inheritor of traditional Chinese culture,and commented that he was more a person drawing the Western people’s attention to Chinese classic than a person converting Chinese people’s belief to the gospel in Christianity(Norman.trans.Duan & Zhou,2011,p.57).Yue Feng spoke highly of Legge by saying that he was so attentive to the studies on Chinese culture and so ardent to his career in China that he spent over 50 years in building a bridge between the east and the west(Yue,2003,p.273).

Adaptive Selection to Target Readers

Legge set professional and scholarly readers,rather than general readers,as the target readers,which can partly explain why he adopted the style of academic translation to ensure high fidelity to the source text.He regarded missionaries as his first group of target readers,because his initial motive of translating Chinese classics was to serve missionaries in China.The new identity of sinology professor made him cast his eyes on sinologists and those Englishspeaking students who learned Chinese language and culture.He hoped that his translation works could facilitate them to understand Chinese language and philosophical thoughts and further contribute to development of sinology.His target readers also included Chinese students studying in Britain.He expressed his hope that Chinese government could send students to Britain for study,in his inaugural lecture on the constituting of a Chinese chair at the University of Oxford.He set these Chinese students as his target readers,in the hope that his translation works with plentiful critical and exegetical notes could help them to understand their ancient sages’thoughts and teachings and inspire them to promote cultural exchange between China and Britain.In a word,Legge paid more attention to academic feature than readability.This is his adaptive selection to their target readers in the given environment.

Adaptive Selection of Translation Methods

The theory of eco-translatology advocates translation methods of three-dimensional transformation,namely,adaptive and selective transformation from linguistic,cultural and communication dimensions under the principle of multidimensional adaptation and adaptive selection.In the following sections the article will analyze how Legge applied the translation methods of three-dimensional transformation to reach a balance between the source language and the target language,between the source culture and the target culture,by taking Legge’s English version ofZhuangzias a case study.This English version was chosen for two reasons:first,Zhuangzihas great difficulty in translation.This classic contains a large collection of anecdotes,allegories,parables and fables,full of abstract thoughts and changing linguistic forms,representing high-level literary and philosophical works;second,this English version can mirror Legge’s style and methods of rendering Chinese classics since it was accomplished in his old age when Legge had developed a steady and mature translation ideas,style and methods.

Transformation from linguistic dimension

Transformation from linguistic dimension refers to adaptive and selective transformation at linguistic levels.It mainly focuses on conversion of word meaning,word class,syntactic structure,sentence pattern,voice,rhetorical device,punctuation and so on.Translating Chinese classics into English is widely recognized as an extremely strenuous task,since it involves intra-lingual and inter-lingual transfer.Legge endeavored to retain the original linguistic forms,especially surface structures of original sentences while conveying the precise meaning of the source text.Meanwhile,he took some remedies to make his translation consistent with the expression norms and structural features of the target language,such as adjusting punctuations,and adding English connectives,explanatory words or implied information in brackets or footnotes.

For example,

[1]Source text:良庖岁更刀，割也；族庖月更刀，折也。(from“Yang Sheng Zhu”,inner chapter ofZhuangzi)

Legge’s version:A good cook changes his knife every year;--(it may have been injured)in cutting;an ordinary cook changes his every month;--(it may have been)broken.(Legge,1891,p.199)

Analysis:Legge translated this sentence nearly word by word to keep faithful to the source text in the meaning and sequence of words to the maximum degree.However,due to paratactic and succinct characteristics of Chinese language,this word-by-word translation sometimes causes conflict in syntactic structure between Chinese and English languages.To solve this problem,Legge added two brackets and dashes to supplement the implied information and logical relationship to make the translation complete and coherent in structure.Legge made a clear distinction between the information in the original text and the information he supplemented by using brackets.In this way,he reproduced the syntactic characteristic of the source text and ensured the normativity of language in the target text.

One of the linguistic characteristics ofZhuangziis the use of figures of speech such as anadiplosis,parallelism,antithesis,reduplicated words,onomatopoeia,hyperbole.When Legge thought a rhetorical device in the source text difficult to transform in English,he would replace it with another one,or give priority to the meaning of the source text.

For instance,

[2]Source text:而独不见之调调之刁刁乎？(from“Qi Wu Lun”,inner chapter ofZhuangzi)

Legge’s version:have you not seen this in the bending and quivering of the branches and leaves?

Analysis:In this sentence there are two reduplicated words:“调调”and“刁刁”which mean the swaying of branches and leaves with the wind.The use of reduplicated words can demonstrate beauty of rhyme and vividness of language.However,such a figure of speech is impossible to be transplanted directly into English because it does not exist in English at all.Legge tried to retain their rhetorical effect through using two pairs of synonyms ending with rhyme.This flexible method compensates the loss in rhythm beauty of the reduplicated words to some degree.

Transformation from cultural dimension

Transformation from cultural dimension means that the translator focuses on conveying and interpreting cultural information of the original text in a way acceptable in the target culture.This kind of adaptive and selective transformation requires the translator to consider fully the differences in nature and content between the source culture and the target culture,avoiding distorting the source text from the standpoint of the target culture.In the process of translatingZhuangzi,Legge endeavored to retain cultural heterogeneity of the source text,presenting the readers outlooks on life and philosophical thoughts contained inZhuangzi,such as harmony between man and nature,tranquility and nonaction,enjoyment in untroubled ease.Legge’s transformation from cultural dimension is noticeably reflected by his handling ways of cultural-specific items in the source text.Chinese classics are abundant with cultural-specific items reflecting Chinese people’s life condition,religious belief,values,politic system,etc.,such as official positions,names of person or place and Confucian or Taoist concepts,which are absent or totally unknown in the target culture so that no equivalent words can be found in English.Legge often translated this category of words literally to retain the exotic flavor of Chinese culture.Meanwhile,in the light of their unintelligibility,Legge gave further explanations about their connotation and other relevant information,in the form of footnote or annotation.

For example,

[3]Source text:且有真人而后有真知。(from“Da Zong Shi”,inner chapter ofZhuangzi)

Legge’s version:There must be the True Man1,and then there is the True Knowledge.

Note 1:Here we meet with the True Man,a Mater of the Tao.He is the same as the Perfect Man,the Spirit-like Man,and the Sagely Man…

Analysis:“真人”in this sentence is a Taoist concept.Legge first translated this cultural-specific word as“the True Man”literally and then provided a very lengthy footnote to explain its meaning and evolution.In this way,Legge's not only conveyed the cultural information of“真人”in the source text but also maintained concision in expression of the translated text.

Besides,Legge used Wade-Giles romanization to translate some cultural-specific items excessively abstruse for English-speaking readers.His rendering“道”to“Tao”was a typical example,because he thought that no English words could not convey complete connotation of the word.He used this romanization system more often to translate the names of persons,places,animals,works cited and so forth.In the meantime,he gave some details about them,such as the origin,historical record,legend and myth.For instance,Legge translated“彭祖”,the name of a person with superior longevity in legend,as“Phäng Zû”and added a footnote to explain his identity,age,family and even the folktale about him.

Transformation from communicative dimension

Transformation from Communicative Dimension refers to an adaptive and selective transformation aiming to convey communicative intention.It is mainly realized through transformation of two dimensions above,but in the meantime it is more demanding than them in terms of communicative effect.The translator should consider whether communicative intention is manifested in the target text,besides transferring linguistic information and conveying cultural information.Communicative effect is not only restricted by the source text but also by the target readers’reaction to the target text.Based on precise comprehension of communicative intention contained in the source text,the translator should made appropriate choice in linguistic forms and cultural information to help the target readers to understand and absorb effectively foreign culture within their cognitive scope.

Legge always kept the readers in his mind during decades of translating Chinese classics.Aware of enormous understanding barrier caused to the readers by gap of time and differences in language and culture,he left no stone unturned to build a bridge of communication between the author and the readers.He provided lengthy prolegomena and introduction,synopsis for each chapter,detailed annotations or footnotes,useful appendixes and indexes in his translated texts.His annotations or footnotes covered philosophical thoughts,core concepts,difficult words,meaning of titles,characters,flora and fauna,places and so forth.For example,the footnotes amounted to 1141 and explanation of the titles occupied 36 pages in his English version ofZhuangzi.He once explained why he annotated so meticulously in his letter to his wife,by saying that 99 of 100 readers might ignore those lengthy commentaries and annotations,but as long as the 100threader paid attention to them,he was willing to annotate for him(Legge,1905,p.42).He hoped that his detailed notes would remove understanding barrier for readers so that they could approach and communicate with the author.

In order to achieve desirable effect of cross-cultural communication,Legge employed some skills such as comparison and analogy between Chinese culture and English culture in his annotations and footnotes.He often took advantage of something familiar to the readers,such as some expressions from Western philosophy or knowledge about natural science to explain terms,concepts,phenomena,philosophical thoughts and so forth in the source text.For example,he translated“太极”in the sentence“在太极之先而不为高”as“Thâi-kî”and then provided a footnote to explain it as“the primal ether out of which all things were fashioned by the interaction of the Yin and Yang”.To make this concept more intelligible to readers,Legge guided them to imagine“Thâi-kî”as something like the“protoplasm”which is more concrete and familiar to Western readers,by establishing the analogous relationship between Thâi-kî and“the current idea of protoplasm”.

Conclusion

The translator is interactive with the translational eco-environment.Only when the translator fully considers varying factors constituting the translational eco-environment and responds to them with multidimensional adaptive selection,can he produce a translation work with a broad space of survival in the world of the target language.Legge reached harmony and unity between his translating Chinese classics into English and the translational eco-environment.Production of his translated texts was influenced by various factors of the translational eco-environment.His preaching experiences decided his initial translation motive of serving missionary work done in China.Prosperity of sinology in Britain provided him great impetus and favorable condition to translate Chinese classics.His study experience since childhood made him develop a critical spirit and a habit of rigorous academic research.He made a series of selection to adapt to the environment,namely,pursuing maximum faithfulness and accuracy to the source text;establishing cultural identities of missionary,sinologist,and communicator and coordinator of Chinese and Western cultures;setting up missionaries,sinologists and the English-speaking students who learned Chinese language and culture,as well as the Chinese students who studied in Britain,as his target readers; carrying out three-dimensional transformation to facilitate readers’understanding of Chinese philosophical thoughts and traditional culture.With a high holistic degree of adaptation and selection to the translational eco-environment,most of his translated texts of Chinese classics maintain strong vitality and enduring attraction in the English-speaking world and establish Legge’s sublime position in the history of translation of Chinese classics.

Acknowledgments

This research is part of the project titled“A Study of Translation of Chinese Philosophical Classics into English from the Perspective of Eco-Translatology”(2017XJ3D003)granted by Jiangxi Science & Technology Normal University.