Interpretation Of Derrida’s Deconstructive Translation From The Perspective Of Prototype Theory

Jacques Derrida is a French philosopher and translation theorist. As a chiefrepresentative of Deconstructionism, Derrida succeeds Bejamin’s concept of “PureLanguage”, and further puts forward several philosophical thoughts concerning about a seriesof basic questions in translation. Derrida proposes the openness of text, stresses thesignificance of translated text as well as translator, and advocates a multi-perspective researchof translation, opening up a new perspective for translation studies. However, during theinterpretation of Derrida’s deconstructive translation from several scholars, there are certainkind of criticisms or misunderstandings of it. As a common achievement combining effortsfrom both psychologists and linguists, prototype theory is firstly proposed by Rosch, afamous American psychologist and cognitive linguist, and is further supplemented bylinguists Labov, Lakoff, Taylor and so forth. Since prototype theory has intensive explanatorypower in the field of linguistics, and relevant researches to apply prototype theory totranslation field have already been made, a further interpretation of Derrida’s deconstructivetranslation with application of prototype theory will be given in the thesis. Hopefully, it canprovide some reasonable explanations for the existing controversies in deconstructivetranslation, and expand studies of prototype theory in translation to some extent as well.Literature research and descriptive research methods are mainly adopted in the research.A review of previous studies of both Derrida’s deconstructive translation and prototypetheory and translation is firstly given, followed by a comprehensive analysis and summary ofthe essence of Derrida’s deconstruction translation and the core concepts and characteristicsof prototype theory. Then, some detailed interpretations of the four basic viewpoints inDerrida’s deconstructive translation will be carried out from prototypical perspective,together with discussions on the possibility of various translated versions, translatability anduntranslatability and other translation questions. Researches show that: Discussions ontranslation from both prototype theory and deconstructionism stand opposite to traditionalviews, which break a series of binary opposite relationships involved in traditional translationand analyze translation questions from a fuzzy and dynamic perspective. Lots of conceptions and characteristics of prototype involved in prototype theory provide correspondingexplanations for the core arguments of Derrida’s deconstructive translation. The openness ofprototypical category and the dynamic abstract feature of prototype can be used to interpretDerrida’s view on the uncertainty of text’s meaning; the relationship between categorymembers can support Derrida’s proposal of the increasing status of translated text; theconcept of cognitive subject from cognitive perspective can explain Derrida’s argument forthe enhancement of translator’s subjectivity to some extent. In a conclusion, the applicationof prototype theory provides a more solid theoretical supports for Derrida’s deconstructivetranslation.