Translator’s Subjectivity In Literary Self-translation

As a special and rare phenomenon of translation, self-translation is defined as translation of a source text to a target text carried out by the author of the source text himself or herself. Unlike the prospering studies of conventional translation, much of the vast territory of self-translation remains untouched, though it is a century-old undertaking. Spurred by the systematic theorization of translation as a disciplinary field and the emergence of more and more prominent bilingual writers and self-translators like Samuel Beckett and Vladimir Nabokov, the practice of self-translation, once a marginalized field, has attracted renewed critical attention. In the West, various studies have been done on self-translators and their self-translation works. In China, however, the number of both theoretical and practical self-translation research is inadequate. Moreover, most of the cases studies rest solely on notable self-translators, such as Lin Yutang, Zhang Ailing and Xiao Qian. On the whole, the breadth and depth of Chinese researches on self-translation are still far from enough.Since the rise of "Cultural Turn" in translation studies in the 1970s, the translators’status has been promoted. As a result, interest in translator’s subjectivity has continued to grow and increasing interdisciplinary studies on translator’s subjectivity have also been made. Acting both as the author and translator, the self-translator, with his or her distinctive subjectivity, undoubtedly needs to be explored in-depth. As a China-born Canadian, Li Yan is an emergent self-translator and immigrant bilingual writer. Her English work Daughters of the Red Land and the Chinese self-translation Hong Fu Ping are both great successes. Both of them are favored and highly appreciated by readers of Canada and China. Thus, Li Yan and her self-translation are worthy of study.With regard to enriching researches in the field of translation studies, this thesis attempts to study the subjectivity of self-translators through an analysis of Li Yan’s self-translation of Daughters of the Red Land. Firstly, it introduces the researches of other scholars both at home and abroad in the field of self-translation and translator’s subjectivity. Besides, some key issues in translator’s subjectivity and self-translation are clarified, such as whether translator is the subject of translation, whether self-translation belongs to the category of translation, whether there is much difference between the subjectivity of self-translators and conventional translators. Moreover, the distinctive subjectivity of the self-translator Li Yan embodied in the stages of comprehending and production is examined in detail by exploration into the translation strategies she employed.By focusing on the self-translation process, the author of this thesis finds out that the self-translator is less constrained when exerting her subjectivity. She tends to make great adjustment to both the content and form of the original work and frequently employ translation approaches such as adaptation and restructuring, which are rare in normal translation. As both the author and translator, the self-translator enjoys much more freedom in the translating process and considers more about the target readers’reception. This study, to some extent, will cast a light on conventional translation and give some enlightenment for further study on self-translation and translator’s subjectivity.