| An ancient and yet young academic discipline, hermeneutics has, in its long history, evolved from special hermeneutics to universal hermeneutics and, in the last century, found its rejuvenation in the realm of humanities. In the 1960s, with the collaboration of phenomenology, philosophical hermeneutics stretched its tentacles into the field of literary criticism and established a new discipline, namely the aesthetics of reception.The close relationship between the two disciplines and translation studies is beyond any doubt. While drawing ample empirical support from translation studies, philosophical hermeneutics and the aesthetics of reception have, in turn, provided a strong theoretical basis for the latter.The current research is an attempt to probe into some of the core issues of translation studies such as the nature and criteria of translation, and the relationship between the target text (TT) and the source text (ST). Specifically, we will dwell on the following subjects, which are closely related to the proposition that "translating is interpreting": 1) the basic meaning of the proposition; 2) the features of interpreting in translating; 3) the relationship between the ideal degrees of interpretation and the actual ones that can possibly be achieved by the translator; and 4) the relationship between the TT, which is the result of the translator's interpreting, and the ST, which is the object interpreted by the translator.What we will endeavor to demonstrate is not only the general features of translating, i.e. its interpretiveness, but also the principle that interpreting in translating should be restrained to certain degrees, which entails certain criteria to be followed in translating. Such criteria are nothing but the expectations of the target culture (TC) or one of its sub-cultures for the ideal interpretation degrees of interpretation. Such ideal degrees of interpretation are determined neither by the author nor by the ST alone, but by the horizon gaps between the TC (or one of itssub-cultures) and the ST.In translation practice, however, the actual degrees of interpretation frequently deviate from the ideal ones because of the horizon gap between the translator and the TC and that between the translator and the ST, as well as the translator's competence and personality. Therefore, the relationship between the TT and the ST may be described as follows: they are two different, autonomous texts but with certain degrees of similarity and certain overlapping parts.This dissertation consists of ten chapters. Chapter One is an "Introduction", in which a brief discussion is made about the intrinsic relationship between translation studies on the one side and hermeneutics and the aesthetics of reception on the other; and then, a brief introduction is given to the status quo of the hermeneutic approach to translation studies; and lastly, an explanation is made about the purposes and the main research approaches to the current research..Chapter Two examines the history and the status quo of translation studies. First, by starting with the classifications of the approaches to translation studies, it reviews the discipline mainly from the following perspectives: 1) the research levels; 2) the research objects; 3) the research approaches; 4) the understandings of the nature of translation or translatology; and 5) the understandings of the relationship between the IT and the ST.It is argued that, from the perspective of research levels, translation studies can be classified as philological approach, linguistic approach, cultural approach and philosophical approach; seen from the research objects, it can be divided into ST-oriented approach and TT-oriented approach; in terms of research approaches, it can be classified into prescriptive approach and descriptive approach; with respect to the understandings of the nature of translation or translatology, the debate whether translation is an art or a science proves to be a false proposition; as regards the understandings of the relationship be...
|
PDF Full Text Request