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A Study on the Significance of the Translation Activities of Western Science Books in the Late Ming Dynasty ― Focus on Xu Guangqi(徐光啓)

  • JOURNAL OF CHINESE STUDIES
  • 2020, (70), pp.135-161
  • DOI : 10.26585/chlab.2020..70.006
  • Publisher : CHINESE STUDIES INSTITUTE
  • Research Area : Humanities > Chinese Language and Literature
  • Received : October 31, 2020
  • Accepted : December 7, 2020
  • Published : December 31, 2020

sookhyang Kim 1

1가천대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This thesis focused on the figure of Xu Guangqi(徐光啟) in the situation that Western studies in the late Ming Dynasty entered China. He is an official, scientist, and translator of the Ming Dynasty. He is also an early adopter of Western Catholicism. Through his translation activities, I tried to examine the meaning and limitations of translation activities at the time. First, I briefly reviewed the Jesuit missionaries who brought Western scientific knowledge to China in the late Ming Dynasty. Then, I looked at Xu Guangqi’s life and scientific talents, and introduced the representative translations that were born therefrom. Finally, by synthesizing the above discussions, the meaning of the translation activity at the end of the Ming Dynasty was examined from two aspects. First, due to the development of society and economy, parts that could not be solved with the existing knowledge system emerged. As a result, a desire and demand for new knowledge arose. Xu Guangqi recognized the importance and necessity of translation in the process of fusion of traditional knowledge and new knowledge. From that time, a wonderful translation was produced by co-translating with the Jesuit missionaries. However, in the process, as unequal relations between joint translator were created, the Chinese lost their subjectivity. This lowered the credibility of the translation and revealed the limitations of failing to establish a system for the purpose, standards, and values ​​of translation to be established in the entire process of translate.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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