Sun Tzu: The Art of War, which was written by Sun Wu in the end of the Spring and Autumn period, is the oldest and the most famous military treatise in the world, and it has achieved a great popularity outside China. Sun Tzu is a book with universal value and eternal wisdom, which can be applied by people of all the times to human activities of all the fields. This book incorporates many military terms which are important for the understanding of it. All the Chinese commentators in the history have their own understanding of these terms, and the same is true for Sun Tzu’s English translators. The author of this paper aims to compare two English translations of Sun Tzu: the translation by American comparative philosopher Roger T. Ames and the translation by Chinese scholar Lin Wusun. The author selects twelve military terms from Sun Tzu and compares the translations of these two translators and makes an evaluation and comment on their renderings. In the end, he will try to explore the reasons behind the two translators’ translation methods.
A Comparative Study on English Translations of Culture-loaded Words in The Art of War