International Journal of Language & Literature

Cross-cultural Travelling of Daode Jing in the U.S. and Its Filtering and Variation
Yong LIANG

Abstract
The travelling of Daoist classic Daode Jing in the United States has constituted an important part in the Sino-US cultural communication. Along with the historical changes of Sinology studies in the U.S., the book experienced four main travelling periods. The paper introduced the translation history of Daode Jing in the U.S. and had a case study of two American translators’ English translations, i.e. Stephen Mitchell’s and Thomas Cleary’s aided by corpus-based analysis. It points out that due to cultural filtering and variation, translators’ styles are different to a large extent even they were published at the same period, which were subject to both idiosyncrasies and social “norms”. Daode Jing has gained even more attentions in the 21st century and become an indispensable cultural element in Chinese Studies in the United States.

Full Text: PDF      DOI: 10.15640/ijll.v7n1a17