On The Indeterminacy Of Translation

W.V. Quine, an American philosopher, first put forward the indeterminacy of translation in his monograph Word and Object. He thought that the language is indeterminate when it is applied. That is to say, the meaning expressed by language is indeterminate. The so-called correct or wrong understanding of the meaning does not exist. Therefore, the indeterminacy exists when one language is translated into another. From the inscrutability of reference, Quine broke the myth of the only right translated version. He provided us a new approach to study and recognize the essence of translation and judge the standard of translation. Quine's view on the indeterminacy of translation arouses the broad interest in the field of philosophy as well in the field of translation.On the basis of Quine's view on the indeterminacy of translation, Derrida's deconstructionism and Benjamin's survival theory, the thesis studied the indeterminacy of the translation through literature research and comparative study. It discussed in detail the indeterminacy of translation in the levels of the words, sentences, paragraphs and imagery of a Chinese classical poem--Drinking Alone with Moon in eight English versions, demonstrating the existence of the indeterminacy in the process of translating the Chinese classical poem.This thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter One serves as the introduction, and introduces the background of the study. Chapter Two is the literary review, which comments on the research into the indeterminacy of the translation at home and aboard. Chapter Three introduces the main theories, including Quine's theory on indeterminacy of translation, Derrida's deconstructionism and Benjamin's survival theory. Chapter Four analyzes various factors causing indeterminacy. Chapter Five analyzes the multi-version of the poem--rinking Alone with Moon in English. The comparison of different versions of the same poem demonstrates the existence of the indeterminacy of the translation. Chapter Six is the conclusion that the indeterminacy exists in the translation. The multi-version phenomenon of the same Chinese classical poem is illustrative of the indeterminacy of translation.