Translators' Subjectivity-A Study On Xu Yuanchong's Poem Translation

Translation has a very long history in the human civilization. With the development of translation studies, its focus has been gradually shifted from the source text to the translated text and translators, from the prescriptive approach to the descriptive approach. Furthermore, translation has been put under a large cultural and historical context, therefore translation studies has been organically combined with cultural studies. All these also shed new lights on the study of translators'subjectivity.Xu Yuanchong is a prominent person in Chinese translation study of the 20th century. He works as a famous translator. Those versions by him have long been regarded as elaborate works and models for the study of poem translation. However, the subjective role played by Xu Yuanchong in his translation works has not yet been paid attention to. Maybe the present thesis is initially inspired by this problem.Approaching translators'subjectivity from Xu Yuanchong and his poem translation, this thesis aims at demonstrating how translators'subjectivity plays its role in the specific translation process by studying the influence of translators'life experience, cultural and aesthetic awareness, translation thoughts and morals. The main factors constraining translators'subjectivity will also be discussed in this thesis. Throughout the thesis, many classical Chinese poems translated by Xu Yuanchong will be employed as cases of study.In order to describe objectively and explain how the translator participates in the whole process of translation as an independent and purposeful human being, descriptive approach has been adopted throughout the whole process of research. And the method of comparison has also been used, especially when examples are employed in support of the arguments.