A Case Study On Translator’s Subjectivity From The Perspective Of Hermeneutics-with Li’s Translation Of Gone With The Wind

Hermeneutics, with the original purpose of comprehending, expounding and studyingartistic works, popularized itself after phenomenology, and meanwhile paved a way for thedevelopment of the aesthetics theory of reception. As one of its foremost representatives,Gadamer, based on Heidegger’s concept, initiated his modern philosophical hermeneutics. Hesuggested that those such as “interpretation of any text should be subjected to the timesystem”,“fusion of horizons” and “the effect of history” reflected an open-minded anddynamic comprehension of the original text. And it was the translator’ subjective interferencethat put it into practice during the translating course. Unlike those traditional translationstudies which totally neglected translators’ active subjectivity interference, philosophicalhermeneutics focuses on the diversity of history, cultures and individuals of differenthistorical periods, and subsequent corresponding translations of a good variety spring up oneafter another. At the same time, however, this open-minded and dynamic comprehension hasalso led to some radical and narrow views, for instance,“Translations is nothing butmisunderstanding.” and “Standards of translations must be a castle in the air.”Based on the previous researches, this thesis attempts to investigate the embodiment ofthe translator’s subjective interference in translation with Li’s translation of Gone with theWind as a case study. It will be divided into five parts. Part one(Chapter one) is theintroduction which covers a lot of ground, including a brief overview of hermeneutics such asits representatives, the present developing status, achievements and deficiencies, as well as asimple introduction to Margaret’ Gone with the wind and its Chinese retranslation by LiMeihua. And part two (Chapter two) will relate the theoretical foundation framework of thisthesis, with the expounding of theories of hermeneutics, and the translator’s subjectivity andinterference paving the path for the study of the embodiment of the translator’ subjectiveinterference in Li’s translation of Gone with the Wind. Next is part three, Chapter three, whichis a brief review of the classic Gone with the Wind, its writer Margaret Mitchell and also thoseChinese translated versions. It is universally acknowledged that Gone with the Wind has beenbeing classified as a typical works protruding from the secret fancy garden of literary classicssince its first publication and later the long course of self-evidencing over centuries aftercenturies. And its diverse translated versions are very popular in China as well. Among thosetranslated versions, Li’s translation, a comparatively newly-completed one, is selected as thebasis of analysis in this thesis owing to its fluent and readers-friendly easy language in regardto that of our present-day life. Chapter four, as part four, demonstrates the translator’ssubjective interference in translating, which involves such aspects as language andexpressions chosen by the translator, translating style, and translation strategies andapproaches through a comparative analysis of Li’s version with an earlier version by Fu Donghua and a newer version by Jia Wenhao. In the conclusion, i.e. the last part, the authorpoints out that the purpose of this thesis is to certify the significance of translator’s subjectiveinterference in translation through the study of the retranslation of Gone with the Wind, andstrengthens the must of retranslating classics since translation is creative and evolvable as thehistory course develops. Meanwhile the corresponding requirement for translators inaccordance with the feature of being unavoidable of translators’ subjective interference is toenhance translators’ self-cultivation and be a positive-effect factor but not a negative oneduring the translation process.