A Comparative Study On The Two English Versions Of Luotuo Xiangzi-From The Perspective Of Translator's Subjectivity

Traditionally, the translator has always been likened to tongue-man, midwife, painter, servant, or translating machine, which obviously indicates the marginal status that the translator has always assumed. Without any doubt, traditional translation theories are responsible for this happening in that they only seek for semantic correspondence between the two different languages, for establishing universal translating strategies, totally ignorant of translator's active role and his/her subjectivity in the whole course of translating. Cultural turn in late 70s has emancipated the translator from "fettered dancer" to "free dancer" and his/her status has elevated from the peripheral to the centre, thus it opens a fresh area for translation studies. Following that, studies on translation's subjectivity have been promoted to agenda and naturally translator's subjectivity becomes a hot and major research topic. Going along with this trend, this dissertation intends to deepen the understanding of the translator's subjectivity through a descriptive analysis on the two English versions of Luotuo Xiangzi, the famous work of Chinese writer Lao She.This essay begins with a literature review on translator's subjectivity from domestic and overseas scholars. The definition to translator's subjectivity varies from translator to translator. In essence, translator's subjectivity refers to the subjective activity of the translator reflected in the translating process in order to achieve his translating purpose. The Chinese scholar Xu Jun acclaims: "the translator's subjectivity is the conscious manifestation of translator's personality awareness and his/her creative consciousness in the translation process."(Xu Jun, 2003, translated by the present author). The translator's subjectivity is largely influenced by the following factors such as his/her personal language and culture capability, life experience, cultural and aesthetic attitude, ideological power, ethical and moral value, translation motivation, and target reader etc.Recognized as "People's Artist", the world-widely known Lao She is noticeable for his humorous sarcasm, vivid description and strong local color. Luotuo Xiangzi, the first novel of his professional writing brings Lao She a household name. In this novel, Lao She, with his pen, displays in front of us the spirit degradation of the hero Xiangzi from "a man" to "a beast". A sense of tragedy and helplessness permeates the whole story, which recalls the author's strong offence against the old China and his sympathy for the lower class. The great success of this novel induces more than 30 translated versions. However, as the present author has observed, studies on the writer himself abound in literature as well as in translation history, while those on his translated version seem unfortunately very rare. To fill this gap, this article attempts to make a comparison between the two English versions from the perspective of translator's subjectivity. The purpose of comparison is not to judge which version weights more over the other but to discover how the translator's subjectivity influences the specific translating process. In addition, the present author advocates that the full display of translator's subjectivity benefits not only the prosperity of translation career but also the confidence of later translators who are going to challenge the authority.