Title: On the English Translation of “di”(帝) in Shijing with Reference to Four English Versions of Shijing

Abstract: “Di” (帝) is an important character with religious color in Shijing, loaded with the primitive religious culture of the ancient Chinese society. This paper aims to study the English translation of “di” (帝) with reference to the statistical analysis of its translations in four English versions of Shijing. Based on the exploration of the cultural connotations of “di” (帝), the paper compares the translation strategies in the four versions from the perspective of Skopos theory, further explores the inherent causes of the differences, and ends up suggesting the employment of transliteration in translating “di” (帝) to retain the maximum cultural elements of the source texts.

Keywords: Shijing, “di” (帝), English translation, Skopos theory

Author: Xiaolong Wu, Associate Professor, School of Foreign Languages, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin, China.