Portraying K’ang-hsi―Stylistic Analysis of Emperor of China and its Chinese translation K’ang-hsi

• Main Authors: Yi-chen Chiang, 蔣宜臻
• Other Authors: Advisor: Dr. Sher-shiueh Li
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/56230349532345772383

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 翻譯研究所 === 95 === This thesis studies the three-time translation involved in writing and translating Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K’ang-hsi, a work of Jonathan D. Spence. Published in 1974, Emperor of China is a pseudo-autobiography, narrated in first-person by the K’ang-hsi Emperor of the Ch’ing Dynasty. Spence selected, patched and translated historical records from various sources to compose a coherent account of K’ang-hsi’s life. Every word in Emperor of China is quoted from historical archives. Parts of the early Ch’ing Dynasty archives used by Spence were translated from Manchu into Chinese, which can be considered as the first-time translation. The reorganization and translation of the historical materials by Spence is the second-time translation. In 2005, the Chinese translation of Emperor of China, K’ang-hsi, was published in Taiwan, which is the third-time translation. This thesis uses stylistics’ research approaches to analyze these translation processes. However, due to the author’s limited ability, the first-time translation is only briefed introduced. This research focuses on the second- and the third-time translation in order to distinguish the difference between the image of K’ang-hsi portrayed by Spence in English, and the image drawn in the “wen yan”(classical Chinese) back-translation by the translator Wen Chia-yi.