On The Three Different English Translated Versions Of TTC From The Perspective Of Translators’ Subjectivity

Traditional translation studies focus on faithfulness. It had been considered as theabsolute and the most proper standard in translated works until1970s. Therefore, a lotof translators had tried their best to avoid showing their own subjective involvements inthe translated version before that period. The culture turn brought changes in translators’status.people began to pay attention to translators’ subjectivity, which brought a newperspective to the researchers. Researchers began to highlight the visibility of thetranslators and emphasized that translation was creative rewriting.Because they finallyrealized that translators had to undergo various kinds of transformation or rewriting.Furthermore, Tao Te Ching, as a systemic philosophical work in china, is of significancein Chinese traditional culture. It also shaped the spirit of the whole nation andinfluenced the nation for thousand of years. Its profoundness has attracted a lot ofpeople’s attention and they began to interpret it. But, the abundant translated versionsand connotations also brought controversies and debates in all ages. From this respect,it is worthwhile studying deeply the translation version of TTC.George steiner put hermeneutics into translation studies and put forward FourfoldHermeneutic Motion theory. In his opinion, translation process could be divided intofour steps. Trust, aggression, incorporation and compensation are included.Heconsidered that translators’ subjectivity is embodied in each step. The author tries toexplore translators’ subjectivity by adopting Steiner’s hermeneutic mode. The papershould give answers to the following questions; How are translators’ subjectivityembodied in translation process？ How do translators play the subjectivity into fullplay? The author adopts case study method and contrastive study method to finish thetask. The author analyzes the detailed sentences or phrases in three English translatedversions to explore subjectivity in translation process. When the differences are quiteobvious, the author makes contrastive study on the different translated versions.Overall, the author adopts hermeneutic mode to analyze the different translatedversions and explore the embodiment of translators’ subjectivity. The author tries tofigure out how translators convey original meaning from the source language to the target language.Finally, the author draws the conclusion that subjectivity of translators is anessential element leading to different translated versions, which takes translators’subjectivity in the whole translation process.