Comp Stud Trans EN 2

A Comparative Study on Chinese and Western Translation Philosophy: Paradigms of translation thoughts on as Examples

Abstract

Both Chinese and Western translators have explored the translation studies through philosophy in diverse perspectives. On philosophical issues, paradigms of translation studies acts as one of the cornerstones of translation philosophy, while translation theories and translation itself are the basic subjects, which are affected by the former directly. On the macroscale, the paradigms of translation theory in China are closely related to the historical and socio-cultural contexts as well as the perception of language and ideology; In contrast, from the advocacy of translation theories such as pragmatism, hermeneutics, structuralism, etc., to the multiple theories of today, the ones in the West has been developing together with the update of philosophical and linguistic theories as well as translation activities. Similarities and differences in the philosophy of translation studies are originated from paradigms of thought, comparing and introspecting which can strengthen the construction of translation studies. --Luo Anyi (talk) 01:21, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Keywords

Chinese and Western Translation philosophy; comparative studies; paradigms of translation studies

中文摘要

翻译哲学研究以辩证的思维方式对翻译研究的建设和发展起着不可或缺的推动作用。历史上，中西方的翻译家都从不同的角度对翻译哲学进行了探索。在哲学问题上，翻译范式是翻译学基本问题的基石之一，另外翻译理论和翻译本身作为翻译哲学的根本主体，其研究直接被不同的范式所影响。从宏观上看，中国翻译理论的研究范式与历史和社会文化背景以及对语言和意识形态的认识与接受有关；纵观西方，从实用主义、解释学、结构主义等等范式的引导，到如今多元化的理论，翻译范式的变化则是与翻译活动一起发展的。中西方的研究范式造就了翻译研究哲学的异同，通过对比和反思，我们能够我们能够加强翻译学构建，共同展望翻译学科的未来。

关键词

中西方翻译哲学；对比研究；翻译的研究范式

Introduction

As the statement of British translation theorist Newmark, it should be noticed that the philosophy is the fundamental problem of translation (Newmark). The relationship of translation and philosophy not only closely related, but also intertwined and interpenetrated, which underlays the correlation that translation philosophy is the manner of guiding the development of translation studies. According to Pan Wenguo and Tan Huimin’ s Comparative Linguistics, we can say that the discipline of translation can be divided into four levels: Translation Philosophy - Translation Theory - Translation Application Theory - Translation Application Practice (190) . These four levels mutually supported to each other, which constitute an organism of translation discipline. Among them, the Translation Philosophy is at the highest level, which is “the driving force for the development of the discipline's theory and the key to keeping it alive”(191) .

Therefore, the philosophical study of translation plays an indispensable role in the construction of the discipline. In an era of accelerated globalisation, where a hundred theories and disciplines are competing and different cultures are in fierce collisions, translation and its philosophical problems, which served as the important bridge between China and the West, should be given adequate attention.

Both Chinese and Western translators have explored the translation philosophy in diverse perspectives throughout history. On philosophical issues, translation theories and translation itself are the basic subjects, which are directly affected by paradigms referring to the comprehensive perspective or model of translation studies. Thus paradigms can act as one of the cornerstones of translation philosophy. On the macroscale, the paradigms of translation theory in China are closely related to the historical and socio-cultural contexts as well as the perception of language and ideology; In contrast, from the trends of hermeneutics, structuralism, etc., to nowadays pluralistic theories, the ones in the West has been developing together with the update of philosophical and linguistic theories as well as translation activities.

With the continuous discussions on paradigms in view of philosophy, the framework of translation studies have been continually reinforced. Thus the comparative studies on Chinese and Western philosophy of translation are not only of fundamentality to the development of the theoretical and applied practice of the disciplines, but also of great significance to the study of Chinese and Western cultural backgrounds and thinking patterns.

Comparison on Paradigms of Translation Study in China and the West

Paradigms and philosophical ideas of Chinese Translation Studies

Chinese translation theory has been influenced primarily by the paradigm of dominant cultural ideology and significant translation practices guided by historical events. The dominant ruling ideology and ancient cultural heritage is dominated by Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, while the most prominent periods of large-scale translation practice are the translation of Buddhist scriptures, the translation of humanities and social sciences in the late Qing dynasties and early age of the Republic of China, and translation after the May Forth Movement.

Translation of Buddhist Scriptures

The development of ancient Chinese translation theory was enriched by the flourishing of Buddhist translations from the late Eastern Han dynasty to the early Northern Song dynasty. According to the history of the development of Buddhist translation as described by Shi Zanning (919-1001) in his Biography of the Song Monks, as well as the translation policies of the various dynasties, it can be seen that ancient Chinese translations paid particular attention to cultural exchange, aesthetic thought, sensuous embodiment and comprehensive cultural effects, as well as to the status of the translator and the humanistic dimension of the translation itself. This is closely related to the cultural tradition of Confucianism.

The Buddhist leader Shi Dao’ an (312-385) in the Eastern Jin period, in the course of his translation practice on sutras, put forward the “three difficulties” of translation: First, the sutras were created in ancient time when the Buddha was alive, and the ancient and contemporary customs were different, so it was not easy to adapt the ancient to the contemporary; Second, it was not easy to convey the sage’ s subtle words to the ordinary people of later generations; Third, those who had compiled the scriptures were men of great wisdom and courage, thus now it is not easy to get the normal to translate them. In his view, he discussed the content of translation and the conversion of ideas in a humanistic view. While in Sui dynasty, the famous monk Yan Cong (557-610) focused on the requirements of the translator’ s subjectivity in his “Eight Qualities”, which not only stated the importance of translation ability, but also took into account the way of cultivating one’ s morality —— A translator should be devoted and passionate on Buddhism, while came with a good command of Sanskrit, erudition, an upright heart, the open-mindedness, and the indifference to fame and fortune.

In addition, the famous Tang dynasty monk and translator of Buddhist scriptures, Xuan Zang, proposed the “Five situations where translation is inappropriate”, which took note of the differences of two cultures and emphasized the important role of translation as a medium of communication: “Do not use the original Chinese philosophical terms to attach to the original text, so as not to fill it with the other and confuse it with the original concepts”, “Introducing foreign cultural elements, not mixing them with Chinese names, and seeking their constant harmony in Chinese Language.”At the same time he proposed the idea of aesthetics: to keep the Buddhist classics used in an elegant way, so as not to be vulgar and to maintain a taste for reading. In The System of Translation Theory of the Buddhist Scriptures in China, Professor Fu Huisheng expresses his view on the formation of translation philosophy in the period of the Buddhist scriptures translation, namely that the framework consists mainly of a horizontal chain of subjects formed by translation theory, original text and translator, as well as a vertical theory of style and purpose. The translation theory of this period is philological which presents a hermeneutical tendency.

Translation Philosophy in Modern and contemporary China

In the late years of Qing, in order to enrich the national power and to enlighten the people, pioneers introduced and translated a large number of Western works in a variety of genres, emphasising the practicality of translation and using both the translation methods of alienation and naturalisation to make them acceptable to the normal. In this process, the Western culture and the long-established but weakening Eastern culture in the context of globalisation collided with each other, forming a special philosophy of Chinese translation studies. According to Professor Tan Zaixi, translators from the late Qing dynasty to the early years of the People’ s Republic of China have generally shown a tendency towards the study of literature and art on their translation philosophy.

Yan Fu, in the preface to the translation of Evolution and Ethics, puts forward the three difficulties of translation practice: “faithfulness”, “expressiveness” and “elegance”. The importance of these three words is determined by the order in which they are listed, but the emphasis differs in the translation of different genres. The translation of scientific and technical texts greatly emphasize on the “faithfulness” while the content must not be slightly biased, as “ a little error may lead to a large discrepancy”; The translation of literature works should focus on “elegance” and give people a sense of beauty. It is only by considering the three principles as a integration, that the overall objective of the translation can be achieved. Lin Shu, on the other hand, stressed that translators should invest his or her subjective feelings to communicate with the mind of the author or the characters in the original texts.

Around the time of the May Fourth Movement, a large number of advanced intellectuals emerged and began to import the foreign political, cultural and philosophical works for translation in order to subvert the archaic culture. They mainly concerned with the literary and art of translation with the theoretical summaries of literary practice. Many translators of this period were both enthusiastic critics of literature and attached importance to translation criticism.

The cores of Lu Xun’ s translation thought are “Legibility” and “Gracefulness" as the standards of translation, and “Empathy” and “Educational significance” as the functions of translation. Lu Xun’ s two standards encompass a more extensive scale of translation thoughts than Yan Fu’ s three words which are also enriched and deepened by the former. He believed that any translation must take into account two aspects: One is to make it easy for the reader to comprehend, and the other is to preserve the richness and gracefulness of the original work in order to preserve the exoticism. Beacause of the New Literature Movement was underway in China at that time, Lu Xun prpposed that the grammar and syntax of foreign languages should be preserverd in translation to make up for the shortcomings of the new Chinese literature and to inject fresh blood into it. Also He was the first person who advocate the idea that translation and creation should be given equal importance in the history of Chinese translation study.

Other scholars have focused on the artistry of translation philosophy and thoery. Lin Yutang was the first person in China to propose the translation aesthetics, and he incorporated the unique cultural beauty of China into his translation philosophy and practice. He believed that translation is an art with three criteria for “faithfulness”, “smoothness” and “beauty”. Lin’ s statement on aesthetic views of translation was deeply influenced by Chinese philosophy of traditional aesthetics, for instance, Lao Zi as the forerunner of Chinese aesthetics, his propositions on “Tao”, “State”, “Immanent” advanced a dialectical basis and a general rule for the development of Chinese aesthetics (Liu Miqing). Mao Dun also support the translation philosophy of art. He believed that readers can be inspired by the artistry in translation as in original work. And sometimes it’ s necessary to give up the form for retaining the charm of the original thoughts, because the essence of literature is empathy whose power is conserved more in the charm of thoughts rather than in the form. Inevitably, if we neglect the thoughts of the author, we lose the power of empathy in literature.

Zheng Zhenduo discusses the translatability of literature, arguing that the ideas contained in literature can be completely transferred from the original text, and that the artistic beauty of the original text can also be fully transplanted into the translated text, that the style of literature is the expression of literature, and that expression can transplant into words what is common to human thought. Qian Zhongshu, on the other hand, proposed the “sublimed adaption”, which he considered to be the highest standard of translation that can be said to be "to transform" a work from one country's script into another’ s, without revealing any traces of rigidity and artificiality due to differences in language habits, while fully preserving the flavour of the original work. It’ s worth noting that there were a transition from the literature and art to linguistics on translation study in the modern and contemporary period with the development of discipline of linguistics. Many scholars have begun to discuss both the literary and linguistic aspects of translation. Fu Lei suggests that translation should focus on the “spiritual similarity” rather than “concrete similarity”. When translating texts, the commonness on perception and consciousness of any two different languages is the basis of the “similarity” which refers to the idea that the translator should free himself or herself from the constraints of the linguistic patterns such as vocabulary, grammar, idioms or rhetorical.

Liu Chongde summarises the characteristics of the previous scientific and artistic schools of thought on the theory of literary translation. He argues that the first school believes that a translation should reproduce the message of the original work through the transformation of linguistic equivalents, and it emphasises the descriptive study of the process of translation and the structural form of language in order to explain the objective laws that exist in translation. The latter school advocates the recreation of a literary work through the use of expressions in another language; it emphasises the effect of translation. Combining the views of these two schools, he proposes that translation is not only a science with its own laws and methods, but also an art of reproduction and re-creation. On the basis of Yan Fu's and Taitler's views, he refined the three principles of translation, namely "faith (faith in the content), reach (reach as it is), and cut (fit the style of the original text)", based on the academic research guidelines of using the ancient for the present, the foreign for the Chinese, critical inheritance, and removing the rough from the fine. He argued that Yan Fu's "faithfulness" and "expressiveness" could still be used, while the word "elegance" should be replaced by "closeness". This is because "elegance" is only one type of style, and the opposite of "elegance" is the so-called "rugged" or "bold "The opposite of 'elegant' is the so-called 'rough' or 'bold'. Roughness and elegance are obviously two very different styles of writing, so translations should not always be elegant, but should be realistic, discretionary and appropriate to the style of the original. “Closeness“ is a neutral word that applies to a wide range of styles. In his view, only those who can make every effort to preserve the meaning, image and basic grammatical structure of the original text while the translation is smooth and readable can be called a proper direct translation, otherwise it can only be called a dead translation of a word-by-word translation; only those who depart from the image and basic grammatical structure of the original text but do not arbitrarily gain or lose the true meaning of the original text can be called a proper Italian translation, otherwise it is a haphazard translation of an arbitrary up-and-down translation.

As a representative of the Chinese linguistic school of translation theory, Dong Qiusi opposed the translator’ s subjectivity theory at the level of translation, and proposed that translation is a science with certain objective laws to follow, and does not rely entirely on genius or inspiration. He discussed the development of Chinese translation on the basis of translation studies, and argued that it was necessary to compile Chinese translation history in order to establish Chinese translation studies, and that it was necessary to draw on Western translation theories to take their essence for our use. He further made it clear that the hallmark of the establishment of translation studies is the writing of two major books on the history of Chinese translation and Chinese translation studies, the emergence of which indicates that our translation work has reached a rational stage from the emotional stage, putting into practice the proposition that translation is a science.

Luo Xinzhang, a contemporary scholar of translation, suggests that literature is essentially an art while literary translation should naturally be an artistic practice. The language of literature not only has the function of conveying semantic information, but also the function of creating aesthetic values. He believes that the translation of the source text needs to be grasped artistically, and that these two kinds of translations are “translation is work” and “”, and he obviously favors the latter, as the subjectivity of the translator is a kind of second creation in relation to the original work, which is neither worshiped in front of the source text and wielded at will, but requires a certain degree of autonomy and self-control, within the limited space where the two languages meet. The translator’ s subjectivity is a kind of second-degree creation in relation to the source.

We can see that the philosophical paradigm of translation in China in the early twentieth century and before, due to the influence of the comprehensive philosophy of the Chinese culture of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, placed more emphasis on the translator's own perception, ability, translation experience and discussion of translation principles.

Paradigms and philosophical ideas of Western Translation Studies

According to Steiner, translation theory and practice in the West can be divided into four stages. The first stage began with the classical translation theory period in ancient Rome and ended with the “three principles” of translation proposed by Taitler (1790, “On the Principles of Translation”), which took the essence of philosophy neverthless seldom limited by the definite theories of philosophical authorities. The second stage emphasized on translation essence was a period of exploration in translation theory, beginning with the challenge to medieval European ignorance by the Schleiermacher school of Hermeneutics at the end of the 18th century, which broke through the bastions of scholastic mysticism. The third and fourth stages both started in the mid-twentieth century with the development of linguistic orientation of philosophy which had led systematic shift in western translation theory. The New Period characterized by multivariate and interdisciplinary trend, included a group of philosophers. (Steiner, 2001: 248-253)

The translation of the Bible in the west formed an early translation climax, which was very similar to the climax of the translation of the Buddhist scriptures in China. The sacredness and mystery of religious texts led translators to the recurring debate between the translation standards of “word-for-word” and “sense-for-sense” . In the 1st century BC, Cicero, the first Western translation theorist of literary school, a renowned Roman scholar, said in De Optimo Genere Oraiorium that he would not translate as an interpreter but as an orator, putting forward the concept of “literal translation” and “free translation” for the first time. Cicero proposed that a translation should convey not the linguistic form but both the meaning and spirit of the source text, and supported the theory of creation and reciprocity in translation.

In the seventeenth century, Dryden broke the dichotomy of translation discussion and changed the subject of translation, proposing “metaphrase”, “paraphrase” and “imitation”. This trichotomy classification broke with the traditional dichotomy of translation discussion led by Cicero. In contrast to the devaluation to the original text of ancient Roman translators, by emphasizing the author subjectivity and weakening translator subjectivity, Dryden assimilated the relationship between author and translator to master and servant, which also has once dominated western translation theory for suggesting the low status of translators.

Philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle were forerunners observed the relationship between human, language, symbol and society (Zen Wenxiong 117). Augustine, based on Aristotle’ s theory of “signification”, proposed a triangular relationship of linguistic sign between the “significant”, “referent” and translator’ s judgment. This marked the beginning of the Western linguistic school of translation theory (Tan Zaixi, 2006a:29). German philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt started the tradition of general linguistics in which he proposed the relationship between language and thought.This is a linguistic determinism which requires translation to narrowing the gap between different worldviews caused by languages. Humboldt, and later neo-Humboldtian translation theorists, ever so concerned with the translatability, arguing that no translation could be perfect, and there were merely some less lossy ways of translaion (Zeng Wenxiong 117). Nietzsche received this view and considered the untranslatable of style. He advocated translation as a strategy of linguistic integration and cultural fusion, a form of conquest.

Modern Western translation theory has greatly received the influence of the linguistic turn in Western philosophy. Saussure’ s theory of general linguistics marked the beginning of modern linguistics. In later process, Wittgenstein’ s Daily Linguistics, Halliday’ s Systematic Functional Linguistics, Bloomfield’ s Structural Linguistics, and Chomsky’ s Transformational Generative Grammar Theory all provided theoretical support for the linguistic school of translation. Compared to the previous paradigm of thinking, linguistics is more oriented towards the nature of language itself and further extends the subject of translation concerns to include communication, the recipient of the message, and culture.

Ordinary language philosophy is one of the schools of analytic philosophy that strongly rejects formalism, arguing that it is the use of words in everyday life that we should really focus on. Wittgenstein compared language to a tool and argued that language, like a tool, has various functions and uses, and since the meaning of a language lies in its use, a language that has a use should have a meaning. Wittgenstein later argues that “translatability” is no longer a matter of identical symbolic definition, but of identical utterance functions. (Shan Jigang, 2007a: 166) Because of the intervention of language use, the translator should translate from one language to another according to the context. In this case, it’ s necessary to grasp the “differences” of the “language games”: “Knowing the ‘differences’ in cultural and psychological structures, linguistic structures, and expression systems of bilingualism, so as to knowing oneself and one’ s opponent and choose the meaningful content to translate.” (Liu Miqing, 2005a: 374)

Nida and Newmark shared a concern with the communicative function of translation. In Nida’ s book The Theory and Practice of Translation, He claimed that the focus of translation had shifted from the form of conveying information to the reaction of the reader, thus translation must serve the reader, and be measured by the reader’ s reaction. This reveals that the emphasis on translation subjectivity have changed to reader. On the other hand, House’ s translation quality assessment model, which based on Halliday’ s model of discourse analysis regarded language as communication. By analyzing meanings in the author’ s translation choice of words, we can systematically relates these choices to larger socio-cultural structures.

Hermeneutics is the discipline of understanding, interpretation and methodology. It first arose in ancient Greece and was applied to remove ambiguities from texts. The theory of hermeneutic translation derives mainly from the German literary and philosophical tradition, hermeneutics, Romanticism, the phenomenology method of existential Hermeneutics, . Schleiermacher’ s theory belongs to the classical hermeneutics, Heidegger advocated the existentialist hermeneutics, and Gadamer, following Heidegger’ s ontology, developed hermeneutics into philosophical hermeneutics. Schleiermacher argued that a full understanding of the source text should be achieved by comprehending the meaning of the language determined on the basis of context of its contemporaneous background, while dissecting the mental processes of the original author in order to reach a consensus with him/her. The main thrust of his hermeneutic is for the translator to actively create rather than passively accept the source. Hermeneutics, as a discipline about interpretation and comprehension, has a natural connection with translation, and its ideas have opened up horizons and provided methodological guidance for the study of translation.

Heidegger and Gadamer regarded human’ s existence (being) as the activity of understanding rather than knowing. They shifted hermeneutics from the paradigm of epistemology to ontology. Heidegger proposed that understanding is subject not only to subjectivity but also to “pre-comprehension”, that it is not about grasping an unchanging fact, but about approaching the potentialities and possibilities of human existence. Their philosophical hermeneutics shattered the scientistic dream of seeking purely objective meaning and discovered the subjective initiative of the interpreter. He profoundly combines the historicity of the person and the text, arguing that the text can only be understood by understanding history and clearing the obscuring of the human understanding by history.(Heidegger, 1996: 53-539)

In the 1960s and 1970s, the German translation school was deeply influenced by structuralist linguistics in which the study of translation was mostly confined to various forms of equivalence. This tendency out of translation practice fettered the development of translation disciplines. Functionalist translation theory reflected on the weaknesses of the linguistic school, drew on ideas from communication theory, act theory, discourse linguistics and aesthetics, etc., and changed the subject to the target language. Katharina Leys, Hans Vermeer, Kristina Vermel, and the author of the book The study of the target language is represented by Katharina Reiss, Hans Vermeer, Christina Nord and so on. The functionalist theory of translation has had great significance and far-reaching influence in the history of translation for it overthrew the centrism and authority of the source text, and freed the translator from the shackles of “equivalence”. Philosophical trends such as post-structuralism, or deconstructionism, represented by Derrida and Foucault, emerged and influenced a number of translation theorists. The deconstructionism of translation is a more open kind of critical theory that questions rationality and subverts tradition. It takes philosophical hermeneutics as the basic paradigm, advocates a pluralistic view which aims to break closedness of the structure of translation theory. It emphasizes the elimination of fidelity view in traditional theory and highlights the centrality of the translator.

Walter Benjamin argued that the essence of a literary work is not to convey information, but of form. Thus the translator shouldn’t take into account the reader, otherwise target text would be reduced to a translation of information. He believes that translation is the “afterlife” of the original work whose life continues through the former. He also introduces the concept of “Reine Sprache” an ideal language as the highest stage of language, considering both the source and the target as pieces of a vase of “Reine Sprache” characterized by spontaneity, originality, derivative and ultimacy. The limitations of individual languages indicate that they need to complement each other then converge to form a whole in order to express meanings sufficiently(Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator”). Derrida, on the other hand, proposed that finality and ultimacy of expression are unattainable. He sees translation as the process of continually modifying or overturning the original text to replace it. While he did agree that the aim of translation is therefore not to seek common ground but to preserve differences. Postcolonialism of translation theories considered that over a long period of colonial activity translation had assisted in constructing the subject position of the colonizer and the subordinate role of the colonized, who gradually identify with this colonial discourse - translation as an imperialist colonial tool. The task of postcolonial theorists is to trace the historical and social conditions of textual production, to analyse the role of translation in shaping the colonial discourse, to expose the lies of the colonizers, to alert the colonized and to arouse national self-confidence.

The combination of deconstructionism and postcolonialism shows clearly in Venuti’ s view. He advocate that literary translations should not aim to eliminate alien features, but rather seek to bring out cultural differences in the target text. It is wrong to require the translator to be invisible in a translation. This means that translators should adopt the principle and strategy of foreignization, so that the translation maintains an exotic atmosphere. He perceives that the history of Western translation has been dominated by domesticating strategies, especially in Britain. And that the reason for this is the deeply embedded ethnocentric ideology and literary norms at work. Venuti questions that it is a form of cultural aggression to transform something foreign into something belonging to oneself. In contrast, foreignization translation can inhibit ethnocentric tampering of target culture to the source text, and can oppose against cultural self-appreciation and imperialism, for preserve democratic geopolitical relations.

The rise of more diverse types of social consciousness all participated in the multicultural process in the 20th and 21st century. Feminism as one of the powerful armies became a significant lens for scanning culture, which in part influenced the paradigm of Western translation. Feminist translation theorist as Sherry Simon, woman and translator are relegated to the same inferior status in discourse, and the hierarchical authority of the original over the reproduced translation is linked to the imagery of the masculine over the feminine, as the original described as the strong and productive male while the translation as the inferior and weakly derived female. The language used to describe the translation often invokes images of dominance and inferiority, faithfulness and infidelity.Contrary to the traditional theory’ s demand for consistency, feminist translation is committed to highlighting difference, which owns two meanings: firstly, it does not stick to the consistency of the original work, but emphasises the different discourse between female and male. This idea, on the one hand, discards the traditional original-centred concept of translation and affirms the various factors that influence the act of translation, while on the other hand lends itself to the construction of a bastion of feminine discourse through the spiritual of translation.

Looking at the evolution of Western translation theory from ancient times to the present day, it seems to be possible to conclude that the focus of the Western translation research tradition is not so much on the need for theories and how to guide and regulate people in their practical translation operations, but rather on describing what theories exist behind translation practice and how to understand and explain translation from a theoretical perspective. The main concern of the theorists is to describe objectively the various aspects of translation practice and to analyse closely the various relationships in translation, such as the relationship between author, translator and reader, the relationship between translation purposes, translation materials and translation means, and how to deduce the rules and principles of translation through these descriptions and analyses.

Conclusion

Through the above summary of translation paradigms, we can find a basic difference between Chinese and western translation philosophy, that is, Chinese translation theory focuses on the guidance of theory to practice, while western translation theory focuses on the sublimation from practice to theory (Tan Zaixi 222). Chinese translation theory before the initial stage of 20th century The discussion of translation theory tends to be based on a paradigm of thinking at a concrete level. In contrast, the traditional Western system of translation theory talks about the principles and attributes of translation, as we can see from the classification of various schools of translation. Since the Chinese paradigm of thinking focuses more on practicality instead of abstract common theories, the tendency of translators talking about abstract theoretical constructions beyond the practical problems of translation is not widely accepted, even to this day when modern linguistics and modern translation studies are flourishing. Therefore, especially from the Renaissance to the 20th century, compared with the Chinese translation theory studies of the corresponding period, the theoretical tendency of the western translation studies is obviously more than the practical tendency.

The greatest difference between Chinese and western philosophies of translation lies in the enlightened thinking of the Chinese and the rational thinking of the west (Liu Miqing, 1991; Wu Yicheng, 1998). Idea of traditional Chinese philosophy and the traditional philosophical schools of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism all emphazise human enlightenment and comprehension of things in the process of teaching people how to understand the world and life, whereas the western tradition of philosophy of thought, which began with Plato and Aristotle, emphasises human rational thinking and that people should make rational decisions about everything in the world. They pay attention to objective and rational analysis of the translation objects, i.e. author's intention, the form and content of the text. Secondly, they pay attention to the consideration of the translation receptor, i.e. the reader. Thirdly, they pay attention to the abstract transcendence of the translation practice and the systematic summary and induction of the translation theory. It is because of the difference between Chinese and western intellectual and philosophical traditions in terms of enlightened thinking and rational thinking that the development of any translation tradition will inevitably be influenced and constrained by the relevant cultural traditions.

However, by comparing the paradigms of translation theory research in China and the West, we can still summarize the commonality and individuality. For example, Early translation theories in both China and the West was inseparable from the influence of philology and hermeneutics, which presented by Zhiqian, Daoan, Kumarajiva and Xuanzang whose translation paradigm were all based on the interpretation of scriptures and texts. In ancient Roman translation, there were heated discussions on “word-for-word translation” and “sense-for-sense translation”, while in the period of our Buddhist scripture translation , Zhiqian, Dao’ an and others also had discussions that when translating Hu language to Chinese, should translator choose either literal translation or paraphrase. In subsequent developments, both in China and in the West, the discussion of translation theory has been inseparable from the discussion of the above principles. In the modern and contemporary period, there came linguistic turn and new philosophical trends. Chinese translation theory was influenced by the Western philosophical paradigm. In subsequent process, Chinese and Western translation theory have entered into diversified development. Thus it can be seen that different translation paradigms can construct distinctive translation theories, but can also produce some ideas that are similar to each other.

By comparing Chinese and Western translation paradigms, we understand the different directions in which Chinese and Western philosophies have developed. By comparing perceptions of the abstract world between the same cultures, we are able to reveal the influence of different cultures on philosophical consciousness as well as on the construction of disciplines. This comparison is crucial, and we should learn from and understand each other's ideas, adopt a tolerant and accepting attitude towards non-stop cultural thinking paradigms and translation theories, take the best and remove the worst, and build the future development of translation together.

Reference

Zeng, Wenxiong. A Comparative Study of Chinese and Western Translation in a Philosophical Dimension. Science Press, pp.21-pp.188, 2013.

Tan, Zaixi. A Series of Translation Studies in China. Hubei Education Publishing House, pp.88-pp.237, 2000.