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Chapter FiveConclusion

5.1 Major Findings

The study ends up with a number of meaningful findings. Although a couple ofthe findings further prove the validity of some inferences deduced from translationstudy of other ancient Chinese works found in a PhD dissertation and another MAthesis, most of the findings are original.

First, Xiao’s (2012) theoretical model of frame operation is applicable to thetranslation study of Lao Tzu’s Tao Teh Ching, which is a book written in classicalChinese. This discovery further proves the validity of Xiao’s theoretical model, for itwas employed to analyze translation only of ancient Chinese poems before, but thecurrent thesis starts to examine translation of an ancient Chinese classic belonging tothe genre of philosophical and political essay. As the source text is dealing withsomething very abstract, the frames evoked by the textual expressions are mainlylocated at the upper levels of the conceptual and ideological network of frames. Thisexploration thus extends the coverage scope of the theoretical model.

Second, in translation of something with universal features, the target languageframe usually matches the frame evoked by the source text expressions. Besides, thespecific elements inside the two frames also tend to stand as counterpart to one another.In this situation, frame operation is basically a matter of finding counterpart conceptsand expressions. Such frame operation is called ideal frame operation, which isrelatively easy. In translation of something with culture-specific characteristics,un-matching is likely to occur. Sometimes neither the two frames nor the two sets of elements match one another. Other times the two frames don’t match but two parallelelements can be found. On some occasions, the two intercultural frames match oneanother, but the element in an assumed pair cannot be found in the target frame. Onother occasions, the writer’s point of view required by a certain genre differs fromculture to culture. Faced with any of those problems, translators have to conduct properframe operations and such operations are known as unideal frame operations, whichinclude frame transplant, frame substitution, frame level adjustment, elementreplacement, element addition, element deletion and change in point of view, etc. Butthis is not an exhaustive list. As for which frame operation is called for at a particulartime, it depends on the specific situation.

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