1.2 Significance and Purpose of Research

San Zi Jing is regarded as the representative of the basic traditional Chinese children primers. It has been generally accepted since it was written in the 13th century and attributed to Wang Yinglin during the Song dynasty. The whole text is composed of 1572 words and written in the short and simple text arranged in three-character verses. As an embodiment of Confucianism suitable for teaching young children, this work teaches children many common characters, grammar structures, elements of Chinese history and the basis of Confucian morality. Although some of the contents are not suitable for today’s education, the work with profound cultural connotations has a great impact on Chinese culture. It also provides a comprehensive insight to foreign readers who yearn for traditional Chinese culture. Meanwhile, the traditional tradition studies tend to attach importance to the translation itself from the perspective of “faithfulness” but neglect the significance of translators and their creativity. Thus, studies on translators’ cultural stance as manifested in English versions of San Zi Jing are of great significance to literary translation and cultural communication.

Translating is a creative activity, in which the translators subconsciously input their cultural values. And the cultural stance that the translator stick to will influence his or her translation styles, strategy and so on, and then impact the translations and cultural interpretation. There are many English translations of San Zi Jing, but some misinterpretations appear in the rendition which fail to faithfully convey the cultural connotation. Therefore, with a comparative analysis of three English versions of San Zi Jing with regard to proper names, this thesis is aimed to shed light on three translators’ cultural stance. Moreover, the author hopes that the study will provide the further translators with some enlightenment thoughts and suggestions that what cultural stance they should stick to when translating traditional Chinese literature.

1.3 Methodology of Research

This thesis conducts the study by adopting the literature research method and comparative research method. On the basis of previous research of San Zi Jing and translators’ cultural stance, this thesis makes an analysis of three English versions of San Zi Jing in proper names and then explores translators’ cultural stance as manifested in their translations.

1.4 Structure of the Thesis

The thesis is pided into five chapters:

Chapter one serves as a brief introduction in this thesis, composed of information on background, significance and purpose, methodology of the research as well as the structure of the thesis.

Chapter two is literature review. Firstly, it provides an overview of translations of San Zi Jing, in which the English versions and three selected versions will be presented. Secondly, it demonstrates an overview of the previous researches on English translations. In addition, limitation of the previous research will be discussed in this chapter.

Chapter three includes a comparative analysis in proper names of San Zi Jing among Giles’, Wang Baotong’s and Zhao Yanchun’s versions. It is conducted from five aspects: First, the appellation of ancient scholars with the honorific title of “Zi”; second, the appellation of ancient monarch; third, the appellation of the title of nobility; fourth, the appellation of ancient officials; last, the appellation in other forms.  

Chapter four probes into three translators’ cultural stance as manifested in their translations of proper names in San Zi Jing. It contains two parts. Part one, through the comparative analysis above, what is three translators’ cultural stance? The thesis will present their cultural stance by ranking their emphasis on three features of the translation: sound, form and meaning. Second, what cultural stance that translators should stick to when translating the traditional Chinese Literature will be explored in this chapter.