On The Translator’s Subjectivity Reflected In The English Version Of Chinese Unique Political Texts In The Light Of George Steiner’s Hermeneutic Motion

The translator’s subjectivity, of which the subjective initiative is the mostprominent feature, is characterized not only by his/her interpretation and explanationfor the original work and recreation for translation aesthetics but by the selection fortranslation texts, purpose and approaches. As the translation subject, the translator whoplayed a significant role in national culture construction was hidden in traditionaltranslation studies. However, his/her activeness, passivity and self-center has beenexplained and developed with the influence of the “cultural turn” of translations.In effect, the activeness was highlighted by philosophical hermeneutics in a newhistorical perspective; the passivity is closely related to the power discourse; theself-center is indicated when the translator spares no efforts solving translationproblems in the perspective of skopostheorie. What’s more, the Functional TranslationTheory, Relevance Theory and Feminist Translation Theory are involved in thesubjectivity. As a the translation philosophy, George Steiner’s hermeneutic motion cannot only interprets or explains texts but materializes the concept of “translators’subjectivity” to reveal its in-depth role.The hermeneutic motion includes initiative trust, aggression, incorporation andcompensation. Initiative trust refers to that the translator does believe the original textof great value based on the past experience. The second procedure is that the translatortalks to the text by “decoding” linguistic signs with his/her linguistic competence forfurther interpretation. Incorporation is to add new energy for better understanding,which can be taken as a kind of “creative treason” on basis of faithfulness. As a matterof fact, the specific cultural context with special significance may disappear in theprocess of translation, which needs “compensation” to make target readers appreciate the translation as well as feel the original culture.This paper takes the Report to the Seventeenth National Congress of theCommunist Party of China (CPC) as the case study to discuss how the motion isreflected and how the translator’s subjectivity plays a role for summarizing approachesapplied to the translation of Chinese political documents or foreign publicity.The summarized translation approaches, as the key methodology, play an essentialrole in popularizing the Party’s image of equity and justice and vigor and vitality. In themean time, the writer applies the view of “people-oriented (the translator) to thescientific translation”, which she hopes to enrich the whole translation studies.