A Comparative Study Of The Two English Translations Of Xixiangji From The Perspective Of Translator’s Subjectivity

Because of the emergence of cultural turn in translation studies in the west,scholars in the translation circle have begun to discuss and do research on thetranslator’s subjectivity and have already made much progress. Xixiangji isconsidered as the most outstanding drama in Yuan Dynasty in China. It attractsincreasing number of scholars and translators from all over the world to study andtranslate it. It has been translated into different languages, such as English, French,and Japanese and so on. Among different English versions of this drama, Romance ofthe Western Bower translated by Xu Yuanzhong and The Story of West Wingtranslated by Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema earn a good reputation and arediscussed by different scholars. In light of differences of the two English renditions,this thesis is intended to discuss the manifestation of the translator’s subjectivity by acomparatively detailed analysis of the two renditions of Xixiangji, and then explorethe reasons for the differences from the perspective of the translator’s subjectivity.This thesis begins with a brief introduction to the basic information aboutXixiangji and its authorship and English translations, the research background, theobjective of the research as well as the structure of the thesis. Then, it gives a generalreview of the current studies of the translator’s subjectivity both at home and abroad.Based on the literature review, it further explains the definitions and present theoriesrelated to the translator’s subjectivity. It proves the existence of the translator’ssubjectivity by displaying the values of the translation and the importance of thetranslator’s subjectivity by illustrating how the translator exerts his or her ownsubjectivity in the whole process of translation. After that, employing the theory ofthe translator’s subjectivity into the comparative analysis of the two English versionsof Xixiangji, the author intends to manifest the translator’s subjectivity from thefollowing four aspects: the selection of the source text, the selection of translationstrategies, the comprehension of the source text and expression the source text inthe target language.Finally, the thesis arrives at a conclusion that the translators all exerted their subjectivities during the whole process of the translation of Xixiangji. The translator’stranslation purpose, career, language ability, social and cultural backgrounds all worktogether to shape the hierarchy of the subjectivity of the translator in the wholeprocess of translation and influence the fruit and style of each rendition.