No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
On Translating Chinese Philosophic Terms
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
Extract
The perennially fascinating problem of translating Chinese into Western languages (or vice versa) has evoked considerable discussion in recent years. My excuse for adding to it here is that Professor Boodberg, in his review (see foregoing note) of my translation of Fung Yu-lan's History of Chinese Philosophy, has raised questions which, while addressed specifically to my rendering of certain Chinese philosophic terms, at the same time bear importantly on the larger problems of Chinese translation as a whole. In the following pages, therefore, I shall begin by commenting—I trust in a spirit of friendly discussion—on what Professor Boodberg has said about these terms (indicating in parentheses for each of them the English equivalents used by me in my translation, the two volumes of which will hereafter be cited as Fung 1 and 2). Then, using some of these as illustrations, I shall comment on the theories of translation presented by Professor Boodberg in his own article on “semasiology,” as well as that by Professor Schafer on “two sinological maladies” (both cited in note 1 above). And having done this, I shall finally try to formulate a few general conclusions of my own.
- Type
- Symposium—The Patterns of Railway Development
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1955
References
1 Cf. the articles in Wright, Arthur F., ed., Studies in Chinese Thought (Chicago, 1953)Google Scholar: Isenberg, Arnold, “Some Problems of Interpretation”Google Scholar; Richards, I. A., “Toward a Theory of Translating”Google Scholar; Fang, Achilles, “Some Reflections on the Difficulty of Translation”Google Scholar; Wright, Arthur F., “The Chinese Language and Foreign Ideas.”Google Scholar Cf. also Schafer, Edward H., “Chinese Reign-names—Words or Nonsense Syllables?”, Wennti no.3 (07 1952), 33–40Google Scholar, and Schafer, , “Non-translation and Functional Translation—Two Sinological Maladies,” Far Eastern Quarterly 13 (1954), 251–60Google Scholar. Boodberg, Likewise Peter A., “The Semasiology of Some Primary Confucian Concepts,” Philosophy East and West 2.4 (01 1954), 317–32Google Scholar, and Boodberg, Review of my translation of Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. II (Princeton, 1953)Google Scholar, in Far Eastem Quarterly 13 (1954), 334–7.Google Scholar
2 Tao Tö King (Paris, 1953), 7.Google Scholar
3 Gescbichte der alten chinesischen Philosophic (Hamburg, 1927), 263.Google Scholar
4 In T'ien Hsia Monthly 9 (1939), 404.Google Scholar
5 Chinese Philosophy in Classical Times (London & New York, 1942), 145.Google Scholar
6 The Wisdom of China and India (New York, 1942), 584.Google Scholar
7 The only exceptional reading I have found is that of Carus, whose “to be and not to be” would surely be objected to by Boodberg. Yet even Carus elsewhere (e.g., Laotzu, chap. 40) translates “existence and non-existence.”
8 Sacred Books of the East. XVI, 377.Google Scholar
9 Wilhem, Richard, I Cbing (English translation by Cary Baynes, New York, 1950), I, 347.Google Scholar
10 Le Gall, Stanislas, Le philosoph Tchou Hi (Shanghai, 2nd ed., 1923), 81 and 90.Google Scholar
11 Bruce, J. P., The Philosophy of Human Nature (London, 1922), 274.Google Scholar
12 In Wright, , op. cit. (note 1 above), 155.Google Scholar
13 In Journal of the History of Ideas 12 (1951), 55.Google Scholar
14 Cf. their Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms (London, 1937), 488b.Google Scholar
15 Philosophy of Human Nature, 4.Google Scholar
16 Liebenthal, Walter, The Book of Chao (Peiping, 1948), 19.Google Scholar
17 In Wright, , op. cit., 118.Google Scholar
18 Cf. the citations in Fung 2, pp. 366 and 375. Though T'ang Yung-t'ung, in his study of the Neo-Taoist Wang Pi, himself uses the term t'i-yung to describe Wang's thinking, this term does not seem to be actually present in Wang's own writings (nor have I found it in other early non-Buddhist writings). See T'ang's article (transl. by Walter Liebenthal) in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 10 (1947), 143.Google Scholar
19 Suzuki, D. T., Acvaghosha's Discourse on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna (Chicago, 1900), 53Google Scholar. This is a translation of the version of the Ch'i-hsin Lun by Śikṣānanda, 652–710 (Taishō ed. no. 1667; vol. 32, p. 584bGoogle Scholar), but the same terms also appear in the version attributed to Paramārtha, 497–569 (ibid, no. 1666; vol. 32, p. 575c).
20 Statements on the Lotus Sūtra 
, chüan 3b (Taishō no. 1718; vol. 34, p. 38a).Google ScholarPubMed
21 Dubs, H. H., “The Development of Altruism in Confucianism,” Philosophy East and West 1.1 (04 1951), 48–55.Google Scholar
22 In bis Philosophy of Human Nature and Chu Hsi and His Masters (London, 1923).Google Scholar
23 In his translation of the Po Hu T'ung (2 vols.; Leyden, 1949, 1952), esp. I, 292–3Google Scholar, where he offers justification for this rendering.
24 Both terms are suggested by him in his review. However, in his earlier “Semasiology of Some Primary Confucian Concepts,” 330 (cited in note 1 above), he definitely gives preference to “co-humanity” on the ground that this avoids the European and non-Chinese connotations evoked by “humanity.”
25 Mencius, VIIb, 16Google Scholar; Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 28; Book of Rites, chap. 7 (Legge, , Sacred Books of the East. XXVIII, 333).Google Scholar
26 Cf. their definition (cited in Fung 1, p. 275): “Jen is to love (ai).”
27 Chap. 20: “What is called jen is the love (ai) of others.” Cited in Tjan Tjoe Som, op. cit., I, 293.
28 Cf. Ch'un-ch'iu Fan-lu, chap. 29: “The standard for jen lies in showing love (ai) to others, not the self” (cited in Fung 2, p. 38, and Tjan, loc. cit.); chap. 30: “Jen without wisdom means love (ai) without discrimination” (cited in Fung 2, p. 39); chap. 58: “If we examine the purpose of Heaven, (we see that) it is boundless and infinitely jen.… The purpose of Heaven is ever to love (ai) and confer benefit” (cited in Fung 2, pp. 52–53); chap. 59: “Jen means to love (ai) others” (cited in Tjan, loc. cit.). These definitions scarcely support Boodberg in his decision to render jen as “cohumanization” when speaking of “Tung Chung-shu's great formula for the ‘co-humanization’ of the universe.”
29 Cf. Kramers, R. P., K'ung Tzu Cbia Yü (Leyden, 1950), sect. 9, p. 242Google Scholar, where three disciples of Confucius, on being asked by him to define jen, reply respectively that it is “to make others love (ai) yourself,” “to love (ai) others,” “to love (ai) yourself.”
30 “A love (ai) for everyone is called jen.” Cited in Fung 2, p. 409.
31 Cf. citation in Fung 2, p. 517, where Ch'eng Yi states that from a man's “feeling of distress, which is linked to love (ai),…one may deduce that he (innately also) possesses the quality of jen.”
32 Cf. Chu's commentary on Analects, I, 3: “Jen is the Principle (li) of love (ai), it is the virtue of the heart.” Cited in Soothill, Analects of Confucius (1910), 104.Google Scholar
33 Cf. citation in Fung 2, p. 693: “There is something supremely great and supremely subtle.… It has no name, but we call it the ‘ether.’ As made manifest in action, Confucius…referred to it as jen.… Mo Tzu referred to it as universal love (chien ai). The Buddha referred to i t … as compassion and mercy. Jesus referred to i t … as loving (ai) others as oneself.… The scientists refer to it as the power of love (ai) and attraction.”
34 On p. 330 of his “Semasiology,” Boodberg suggests “co-human” and “co-humanize [oneself]” as variant forms for “co-humanity,” yet on p. 328 he correctly points out that jen as a verb functions transitively. But to “co-humanize [oneself]” is scarcely transitive!
35 Creel, H. G., Confucius, the Man and the Myth (New York, 1949), 134.Google Scholar
36 Perhaps I am not being fair here, and perhaps Boodberg, despite his reference to “congruity,” does not mean that he would actually use it as a translation for yi. In his “Semasiology,” for example, after analyzing yi at length, he concludes (pp. 330–1): “Most Chinese contexts would become perfectly clear if yi were translated ‘selfshipful compropriety’ or ‘proper selfshipfulness.’ “To this I must reply with regret that as far as I am concerned, even “congruity” seems preferable to neologisms such as these, concerning which I shall have more to say presently.
37 Cf. Legge, , Sacred Books of the East. XVI, 373Google Scholar. Wilhelm, 1 Ching (English ed., I, 342), translates a little differently: “two primary forces.”
38 E.g., Bruce, , Chu Hsi and His Masters, 130Google Scholar, and Hsu, C.P., Ethical Realism in Neo-Confucian Thought (Peiping, 1933), 26Google Scholar; also Forke, , Geschichte der neueren chinesischen Philosophie (Hamburg, 1938), 48Google Scholar: “die beiden Modi”; Le Gall, , op. cit., 36Google Scholar, and Yib-ching, Chow, La philosophie morale dans le Neo-Confucianisme (Paris, 1954), 42Google Scholar: “les deux modes.” Gabenlentz's Thai-Kih-Thu (Dresden, 1876)Google Scholar was not available to me.
39 I question, however, whether even in pre-Confucian times chün-tzu had the possibly “perjorative value” suggested for it by Boodberg on p. 322 of his article. On the contrary, I believe that many passages could be cited from pre-Confucian literature to show that chün-tzu was then a respected designation. As only one example, cf. Book of Odes no. 251 (Waley transl., p. 182): “All happiness to our Chün-tzu, Father and mother of his people.”
40 I have doubts about the way in which Schafer uses “connotation” and “denotation” to describe these two kinds of meaning, but I shall not discuss them here. Instead, for the sake of simplicity, I shall use the terms “literal meaning” and “dictionary meaning” (i.e., the meaning which a dictionary or other authoritative source or evidence would indicate a term as really having in a specific context, irrespective of its usual “literal meaning”). For example, “of Scotland or its inhabitants” is the literal meaning of the word “Scotch,” but “whiskey” and “parsimonious” are both recognized “dictionary meanings” for it when it occurs in certain contexts.
41 Cf. Wright, Arthur F., “The Chinese Language and Foreign Ideas,”Google Scholar cited in note 1 above.
42 If I myself have seemed onesided in stressing the dangers of over-literalness, it is because scholarly translators often appear less conscious of these than of the opposite dangers of under-literalness. Most of us are quick enough to condemn translators whose laziness or ignorance allows them to be content with loose paraphrase, or those other translators who (sometimes for love of fame or money) are ready to glamorize and “jazz up” their work by filling it with modern idioms and ideas hopelessly alien to the original.