《中庸》是儒家思想的核心文献和升华之作，具有形而上的特征；它作为“四书”之一，曾经是历经八百余年的科考必读书目，对中国教育和国民思想影响至深。《中庸》英译历史漫长，但缺乏系统和全面的研究，以往的研究往往只集中于一个或几个译本，且对新世纪以来的译本讨论不足，对目标语读者把握不明。笔者对《中庸》英译本进行了全面细致的整理工作，自1691年首个英语编译本至今，共收集25个译本。本文以描写翻译学、社会翻译学和文化翻译学的多维理论视角，定性分析和定量分析的双重考察，围绕译者身份、翻译与出版、译者对文本结构的分析、标题和首章首句的翻译、译文和译者写作文本的可读性对比分析等议题，展开对《中庸》英译现象的系统性研究。除此之外，本文选取了具有开创性文化传播意义的英语首译本和具有当代文化交流价值的21世纪的三个英译本进行个案研究，分别从文化传播、哲学阐释、诗学再现以及史学追求的角度进行论述。本研究取得的突破包括：一、研究语料方面力求完整性和穷尽性，汇集了《中庸》英译研究中颇为全面的翻译史料；二、系统地探讨了翻译与出版的关系，对译著出版社进行了全面深入的社会文化背景分析；三、在研究方法上，采用定性和定量分析相结合的方式，使用Coh-Metrix3.0在线文本分析工具，对译文的可读性提供了客观定量解析，对译文接受指标予以量化；四、以翻译史料为基点，将三种理论维度与两重解读相结合，采用人文学科本身具有的多维视角，再现了《中庸》英译现象的复杂性，体现了翻译的社会属性和文化属性。《中庸》英译的多维度研究表明：一、翻译呈现方式和关注角度明显与译者社会身份有关，具有其所在学科的特质，翻译目的是实现其所承担的社会功能；二、翻译与出版关系密切，翻译目的和出版社宗旨吻合度较高，译者与出版社互为选择、互利共生；三、由于中英思维和篇章组织结构差异较大，《中庸》英译中结构和论证逻辑阐释的重要性尤为突出；四、《中庸》英译文本相比译者写作文本过于简单，与目标语读者阅读水平不相匹配；五、核心概念在翻译中宜采用多重语义，根据语境选用不同词汇表达；六、当前中国典籍英译著作的最大读者群体在大学，译者多为大学教师，一些译著源于教学之需。《中庸》英译史再次证明，翻译不仅是语言行为，更是社会行为、政治行为和文化行为。我们要善于挖掘其中蕴含的具有世界文化意义的思想观念和道德规范，多维度、多模态地传递中华文化的精髓，展现中华文化的魅力和时代风采。

Zhongyong, the key document in Confucianism, sublimates Confucian thoughts into the metaphysical respect. Being one of the Four Books and on the list of compulsory readings for the preparation of civil service examinations in the imperial China for more than 800 years, it has exerted a great influence on the education and thoughts of Chinese people. It was first translated into English in 1691. But the integrated and systematic studies on its English translations are rarely found. The weak points for the previous studies on the translation of Zhongyong lie in the over-concentration of its study on just one or a few English versions, the negligence of the newly translated versions in the 21st century, and the fuzzy ideas about the target readers. The author, accordingly, conducted a full and in-depth investigation into the translation of Zhongyong and collected 25 versions, including the first English version in 1691 and the latest versions in the 21st century. In this dissertation, the multi-dimensional theoretical perspectives from DTS, socio-translation studies and cultural translation studies were adopted to carry out an integrated and systematic study on the English translation of Zhongyong, with both qualitative and quantative approaches. Based on these versions, the translators’ identities were traced and confirmed, the complex relationships between translation and publishing were examined, the structural analyses by the translators were explored, the translations of the title “Zhongyong” and its opening sentence were discussed, and with the help of Coh-Metrix 3.0, the online software for text analysis, comparative studies between the translations and the writings of the translators were conducted with respect to the readability of each. Besides, the author also carried out four case studies from the perspectives of cultural communication, philosophical interpretation, poetical representation and historiographical pursuits, which were exemplified by the translations done by experts from the fields of philosophy, literature, and history in the 21st century as well as the first English version as a symbol of one of the earliest success in cultural communication between China and the West. The investigations resulted in several progresses or breakthroughs in the study of the English translations of Zhongyong: first, the exhaustiveness and completeness in the collection of the translations of Zhongyong; second, systematic and thorough investigation into the social and cultural backgrounds of the publishing companies concerned, trying to reveal the relationship between translation and publishing; third, the combination of qualitative and quantitative studies with the help of the online tool Coh-Metrix 3.0, offering objective criteria for the acceptability of the translations; fourth, the double decoding of the translations from three theoretical perspectives, revealing the complexity of translation behavior and fully showing the social and cultural nature of translation. The study came to the following conclusions: first, the translators were mostly non-professionals, who did translations out of their professional needs so as to fulfill their social functions, and the translations were closely related to their fields of studies. Second, translation and publishing were closely related with their purposes perfectly matching. They were mutually selective and beneficial. Third, due to the great difference between English and Chinese in ways of thinking and textual composition, it is necessary to conduct structural analyses before doing the translation. Fourth, the translations of Zhongyong are much easier compared with the writings of the translators with regard to the readability, which does not match the reading proficiency of the targeted readers. Fifth, the translation of key Chinese concepts are better rendered with linguistic clusters instead of just one word for all the possible meanings. Sixth, readers of the translations of Chinese clasics are mostly from universities; most translators were/are teaching at college and the translations were done in many cases out of the need for their teaching. The translation history of Zhongyong proves again that translation is not just a linguistic behavior, but more of social, political and cultural activities. We are supposed to draw on the traditional culture, keep alive and develop its visions, concepts, values and moral norms that are of universal significance, and communicate the soul of Chinese culture to the world in a multi-demensional and multi-modal way, so as to maintain its appeal and make it evolve with the times.