On Translator's Subjectivity

Since the advert of translation practice in history of humankind, discussions have gone on about the translator concerning his/her role anticipated, the basic requirements entailed to be a qualified renderer, and so forth. However, it is evident that ST-orientation or reader-centrism is dominant and highly encouraged in the translation researches and studies, which largely outweighs and marginalizes the translator who actually is endowed with subjectivity. Factors that essentially affect the translator's practice, such as his/her historicity, cultural orientation, aesthetic values, language competence, literary preference, personal cognition, receive less attention than they deserve.Fortunately,"cultural shift"emerged and swept the occidental and oriental translation academy in the 1970s, which attached due weight to the dispensable initiator, that is, the translator, instead of mere comparison between the source text and the target text. Taking cue from the comparative study of two Chinese versions of Pride and Prejudice, namely, Wang Keyi's and Sun Zhili's, this thesis is devoted, by ways of statistics, comparison and analysis, to questing the substantial evidence of the existent translator's subjectivity, to uncovering and classifying forces exerting influences on it, and to prizeing open the affects it may pose on the outcome.To give an in-depth illustration and exploration, this study presents five parts: the part one offers an overview of the whole paper, encompassing a general introduction of research background, the academic significance as well as the intended organization and methodology. A historical literature review of previous studies touching upon the translator's role is elaborated in details in chapter one. On the basis of theoretical discussion on"subject and subjectivity", the following chapter clarifies the translating subject as the translator and brings to light the duality of translator's subjectivity, namely, creativity and restrictions. Moreover, endeavors are made in this chapter to categorize the influential factors that are merely touched upon, but never systematically discussed in the previous researches. A large proportion lies in chapter three where the author's intention, the style of the original text and the renditions'historical background are first looked at to facilitate the latter comparative study of the two selected Chinese versions of Pride and Prejudice which is conducted from three levels that are essential for literary translation, i.e., language, style and characterization. Hence, the comparative study provides hard evidence to the existence of translator's subjectivity and its influence on the target text. After the study, findings are made in the final part with the limitations of the paper explicitly explained. It is safely inferred that as an open subject, translator's subjectivity deserves more attention in theoretical researches and translation practices so as to nail down the merits and demerits of valuing translator's exertion of his/her subjectivity.