3. Arthur Waley’s Mistranslations of Tao Te Ching

Arthur Waley’s translation of Tao Te Ching adopts the literal translation more often, respecting the original. Language is fluent, concise and easy to understand. Sentence structure is compact, orderly and full of sense of rhythm. What’s more, sentence pattern is flexible and changeable, and also handed properly. However, there exist some serious semantic errors, which are worth of reference and learning. This thesis attempts to analyze the mistranslations and improper translation phenomenon from the three aspects of spiritual cultural words, metaphor words and numerals.