关键词: 先秦古籍; 文本; 传注; 翻译; 同质化; 《易经》

Abstract:

The texts of pre-Qin Chinese classics are usually appended with explanations. In a unidirectional annotative relationship, the explanations are different from the original texts in regard to the use of Chinese characters, different times and purposes, thus there existing some differences between the original texts and their annotated counterparts. A translation of a pre-Qin classical text is usually based on comprehension of its later explanations, and the content difference tends to be blurred in their translated versions. Taking Zhouyi or Zhou Book of Change and its English translation as its research object and adopting such methods as theoretical analysis, comparative analysis of texts, and exemplification, this study explores the problem of unduly reducing the content differences between the original texts of ancient Chinese classics and their explanations in the translated versions and attempts to come up with some possible solutions. As is indicated by analyzing the version of the text and those of its explanations in Richard Lynn’s English translation of Zhouyi, there exists between the two types of texts the problem of undue content homogeneity, resulting in the loss of the original differences to the detriment of conveying well the documentary value of the original text. The advance in studying pre-Qin Chinese classics has made it feasible to distance the translation of the original texts from their explanations and properly reproduce the original difference, which should represent a new direction for contemporary efforts to re-translate pre-Qin Chinese classics.

Keywords: pre-Qin Chinese classics; text; explanations; translation; homogeni-zation; Zhou Book of Change