Understanding and translating Confucian philosophy in the Analects: a sociosemiotic perspective
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Fan Min
Abstract
As the representative of Chinese classical works, the Analects represents a source of difficulty in both understanding and interpretation of Confucian philosophy. Confucian philosophy as a philosophy of creativity and otherness is closely related with the social and cultural values in society. Therefore, the study of Confucian philosophy in the Analects cannot be separated from the descriptive study of the effects of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, contexts, language use, and the effects of language use on society. This article attempts to explore how the meaning of Confucian philosophy in the Analects is interpreted and accepted by Western readers through complex social semiotic interactions. The article focuses on the interpretation of Confucian philosophy as a reflection of cultural assumptions, values and prohibitions, and the manipulation of the social semiotic resources in the process of understanding, translation, and acceptance of Confucian philosophy in the Analects through a discussion of its original text, different versions and the reasons behind the social semiotic activities. The article concludes with a consideration of significant social semiotic interactions that influence the translator’s interpretation and reader’s acceptance of Confucian philosophy so as to facilitate intercultural understanding.
Funding source: National Social Science Foundation Program: An Innovative Study on the International Communication Mechanism of the Chinese Classics based on the English Translation of the Analects [国家社科基金项目 : 基于《论语》英译的中国典籍对外传播机制创新研究]
Funding: This paper is funded by National Social Science Foundation Program: An Innovative Study on the International Communication Mechanism of the Chinese Classics based on the English Translation of the Analects (No. 17BYY063).
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- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Towards a stratified metafunctional model of animation
- ‘Away’ gestures associated with negative expressions in narrative discourse in Syuba (Kagate, Nepal) speakers
- Hyper(in)visibility and urban-mediatic populism in São Paulo: a sociosemiotic approach
- Narration et prédation: Pascal Quignard et la théorie cynégétique du récit
- Visual affect in films: a semiotic approach
- Measuring diagram quality through semiotic morphisms
- Pragmatic impacts, representation, and regulation
- Joint origins of speech and music: testing evolutionary hypotheses on modern humans
- Spatial diagrams and geometrical reasoning in the theater
- Modelizing epistemologies: organizing Catholic sanctity from calendar-based martyrologies to today’s mobile apps
- Signic knowledge: its niche in semiotics and its various aspects
- How Saussure is misinterpreted in Cognitive Grammar
- Operationalizing Peirce’s Syllabus in terms of icons and stereotypes
- Understanding and translating Confucian philosophy in the Analects: a sociosemiotic perspective
