Dialectic Interpretation In Literary Translation From The Perspective Of Umberto Eco’s Text Interpretation Theory

In literary translation study, the interpretation of works has shifted its focus from theauthor to the text, and now to the translator. In this process, the uncertainty of meaning hasbeen overemphasized and the right of translator has been overstated while the effectivenessof interpretation has been ignored, which may cause chaos in interpretation. Therefore, thispaper attempts to focus mainly on the limits of translator’s interpretation, and build areasonable interpretation model, not only committed to the development of translationstudies, but also providing solutions to translation practice.From the perspective of Eco’s text interpretation theory, the paper points out thatinterpretation is open to readers while limited by the text itself. Its openness is based on thecooperation between the openness of literary works and the different backgrounds ofreaders. But literary interpretation in translation is limited by intention of text, which is anew concept posed by Eco. It sets a scope for reasonable interpretation, and if anyinterpretation goes beyond the scope, it falls into overinterpretaion. The paper proposesto take account of all the factors of the author, the text and the translator in interpretationprocess through describing and analyzing the dialectic relationships between intention ofthe reader, intention of the author and intention of the text. Thus a new interpretationmodel taking translator as the subject, text as the center and the author’s intention as areference is formed. The paper also analyzes the defects of the past researches onlyfocusing on one single element.Interpretation in literary translation is open to translators, but only to a limited scope.To get a reasonable interpretation, a translator should balance between his creativity andsense of self-restraint.