3.1 Translation of Proper Name
‘Proper names refer to persons, living creatures, places, institutions, objects or processes that are peculiar to a single cultural community. In most cases they have singular references.’ (Newmark) In this part the study on the cultural translation of names appears in the analects of Confucius will be dealt with in two different ways: names of person and names of philosophical meaning.
3.1.1 Name of Confucius
Because The Analects is in the form of conversation, it is of great importance to clarify different people’s name to make out which sentence is said by which person. Throughout the whole passage, the ideas presented by Confucius consists most of the work. Therefore, the proper translation of the most frequent expression in The Analects, that is, ‘子曰’ takes the priority to other names. A glimpse at the various rending of ‘子曰’ will reveal how different translation methods influence the target text.
Eg1: 子曰：“学而时习之，不亦悦乎？”
Version1：Confucius said: “Isn’t it a pleasure for one to learn and then constantly review and practice what he has already learned?”
Version2: The Master said: “Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?”
In ancient China, people called the males they respected as “子”, which usually followed the family name, such as “孔子”. Chinese people knows that“子”here is “孔子”, but its interpretations are still various: “Confucius” and “the Master”. To call “孔子” as “Confucius” accords with the Western tradition where people are called by their names without any title. The first version follows communicative translation theory, rendering “孔子” into Confucius obviously for the sake of Western readers. On the contrary, Chinese do not call “孔子” directly, but just use one word “子” in order to show respect to him. This is also a kind of Chinese culture. The second version followed semantic translation rule, rendering “子” into ‘the Master’ in order to express the relationship between “孔子” and his students to show Chinese culture to the target readers. Although this kind of semantic translation is unfamiliar to western readers, it could help them to have a better understanding of the content, style, and intention of the original author.
3.1.2 Names of Confucius’ disciples
It is said that Confucius taught while traveling and had more than 3000 disciples in different states. Of the some 3000 disciples there are seventy-two disciples recorded to be famous ones. They were of different birth, had different positions and more importantly, were of different virtues. Each of them had a unique name, so it is helpful if the audiences can understand them.
Those who were mentioned many times in The Analects could be very important for Confucian school in different ways. In this case, different translators use various methods to translate their names.
Eg2: 子曰：“吾与回言终日，不违，如愚……”
曾子曰: “吾日三省吾身。”