On Translator's Usbjectivity From The Perspective Of Hermeneutics

In the traditional translation approach, the translator was usually placed in a negligible position and the issue of their subjectivity was rarely raised or commented upon. Since the “Cultural Turn” in the West in the 1970 s, the subjective role the translator assumes in translation has been increasingly accentuated, and the translator's subjectivity been accordingly recognized and researched on. Consequently, translator's subjectivity has grown to be a most popular topic in the field of translation studies, with a great number of scholars attempting to interpret it from various perspectives.Hermeneutics, as a science of the understanding and interpreting of meanings, and with its core lying in human's understanding and interpreting activities of texts, establishes itself as one of the most solid theoretical bases for translator's subjectivity. As the translating activity always begins with a full understanding of the original text, hermeneutics helps to confirm translators' active interpretation of the original text. What's more, George Steiner combined hermeneutics and translation by describing the hermeneutics of translation as “the act of elicitation and appropriative transfer of meaning” and put forward his famous fourfold hermeneutic motion, including “initiative trust”, “aggression”, “incorporation” and “compensation”, which provides a new perspective for translation studies.Translation is the only media through which Chinese literature can be recast in other languages and conveyed to people of other countries. Howard Goldblatt, an American sinologist, dubbed by many as the “midwife” of Mo Yan, the only Chinese Noble prize winner in literature, has translated and published a great number of prominent Chinese literary works, with those of Mo Yan's and Xiao Hong's featuring most heavily among them. In virtue of Howard Goldblatt's translation, many of their works have reaped prestigious international awards.With Howard's English translated version of Tales of Hulan River as a case study, this thesis seeks to explore the representations of translator's subjectivity using Steiner's fourfold hermeneutic motion theory. Through the study, the thesis aims at obtaining a scientific cognition of how translators' subjectivity exerts influence on each move of Steiner's Hermeneutics, thereby affirming the significance of translator's subjectivity in the course of translation and its contribution to the augment of the original works' literary values and enrichment of reception culture and literary system.