Translator’s Invisibility And Visibility In The English Version Of Wo De Qian Ban Sheng

Based on the invisibility and visibility theory of Italian translator Lawrence Venuti, this thesis systematically probes into its application to the English translation of Chinese last emperor Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi’s autobiography Wo De Qian Ban Sheng. First, the paper introduces the theory from extra-textual and textual aspects, which is also the novelty of the thesis; then typical examples from From Emperor to Citizen are specially studied to analyze the translator’s invisibility and visibility mainly at textual level.With regard to the invisibility theory, we first review the statements about fluent translation of some venerable theorists both home and abroad, then discuss it from two levels and dredge up the underlying reasons. In From Emperor to Citizen, translator’s invisibility on extra-textual level is mainly shown in the selection of the material by the press, Jenner’s inconspicuous signature, lack of preface and epilogue; and on textual level, it reveals by the adopting domesticating translation strategy such as rewriting, substitution, paraphrasing, addition and deletion.As for the visibility theory, the paper introduces its development and points out that Venuti critically develops Schleiermacher’s foreignizing translating strategy and advocates the visibility of the translator; furthermore, he brings forward the concept of "translation ethics". Domesticating and foreignizing are not merely translating strategies, instead, they stands for a moral attitude towards alien culture. The foundation of foreignizing strategy is "ethics of difference", namely, respecting the diversity of cultures. Next the writer investigates the translator’s visibility from the above two aspects and introduces a reading mode favored by Venuti——systematic reading, which shows target addressees to realize the visibility of the translator through the rifts in the domesticated translation. In From Emperor to Citizen, translator’s visibility from textual aspect mainly means how Jenner strives to demonstrate the features of the original and attempts to achieve a foreign effect and it is shown from his translation of the linguistic structure and cultural elements. The former primarily adopts literal translation while the latter largely refers to literal translation, transliteration, amplification and footnotes.This thesis aims to draw a conclusion that for those texts full of significant cultural elements, it is better for the translator to be visible, showing his respect towards the uniqueness of original culture, and demonstrate its difference through foreignizing translation. At the same time, domestication should be properly turned to if we want to enhance the readability of the translation and widen its influence.