Numerical Idioms Translation Approached From The Perspective Of The Reception Theory

For a long time, the author and the text have been regarded as sacred and inviolable, while translator and reader the passive receptors. Author-centered and text-centered theories dominated the field of translation and literary criticism. But the reader has attracted more and more attention ever since.Reception Aesthetics or the Reception Theory appeared in the 1960s with Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser as two of its representatives. It is based on Hermeneutics and Phenomenology and completes the transfer of the center of the literary study from the text to the reader, and perfects the study of the process of author-text-reader system. The Reception Theory believes that the reader does not play a passive part in the triangle relationship among author, works and reader in literary works, but an active role in the process of translation.Idioms are fixed sentences or phrases, which are concise in form and comprehensive in meaning. Idioms are crystallization of human wit and wisdom. They best mirror the national characteristics embodied in a language and are thus always abundant in cultural connotation and national flavor. Numerical idioms, as one important part of idioms, have strong cultural characteristics. They are usually terse and vivid. In order to accurately understand and use these idioms in English and Chinese, it is necessary to make a comparative analysis of their structures, grammars, syntactic functions, semantic functions and rhetoric characteristics, which will help better understand and master English and Chinese numerical idioms and apply the Reception Theory to the translation between these two languages.The Reception theory is one of the sound theories to guide numerical idioms translation from three aspects: focusing on reader's role and status; focusing on the shift of horizon of expectations; focusing on reception and cultural exchange. After analyzing the relationship of culture and translation and taking some difficulties in the translating process into consideration, this thesis tries to provide some suggestive methods to the translation of English and Chinese numerical idioms.Chapter One is a general introduction of the whole thesis, concerning the scope, significance and organization of the thesis.Chapter Two first gives a historical overview on the study of numerical idioms and then makes a comparative study of numerical idioms in English and Chinese, focusing on the similarities and dissimilarities of English and Chinese numerical idioms from the perspective of range, form and function.Chapter Three introduces the Reception Theory into translation and mainly discusses its background, main ideas and the enlightenment to translation process.Chapter Four mainly applies the Reception Theory to the translation of numerical idioms between English and Chinese. It briefly discusses the relationship of culture and translation, then analyzes some difficulties of translating numerical idioms and finally applies the Reception Theory to translation, providing various methods to translate numerical idioms with reader as the center.Chapter Five is the conclusion.The primary concern of this thesis is to make a comparative study and help understand the differences between English and Chinese numerical idioms and introduce some concepts of the Reception Theory into translation study of numerical idioms from a different perspective, that is, the reader or receptor-centered perspective, providing some suggestive methods.