On the Stylistic Characteristics of James Legge’s Translation of Lun Yu

Closeness in style has always been the highest standard or the supreme goal of translation. A successful translation of Lun Yu is inseparable from the preservation of its original style. This paper examines whether James Leggeʹs translation of Lun Yu reproduced the original style from the linguistic point of view and the literary point of view respectively. A careful comparative study on the source text and the target text reveals that the stylistic features of Lun Yu have been preserved in Leggeʹs version in a considerable degree. This pioneer, and at the same time standard translation by Legge has provided us with so many good and useful translation techniques as well as enlightenment that it will continue to benefit the development of translation theory and practice.