A Comparative Study Of The Two Translated Versions Of Jane Eyre From The Perspective Of Reception Theory

Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Bronte, is a classic in the history of English literature. It has been more than one hundred and sixty years since its publishment in 1847, yet it still enjoys much popularity in the world. With over forty Chinese versions in China, the reception history of the novel in China is also very long. The two versions to be analyzed in this thesis are the 1980s version by Li Jiye (李霁野), and the 1990s version by Huang Yuanshen (黄渊深).Reception theory is a literary theory and a school of criticism that arose in the 1960s and 1970s in Germany. Derived from modern hermeneutics, it believes translation is interpretation and that readers have active and contributive role in constructing meaning due to the openness of a text. It highlights the communicative nature or the communicative text-reader interactions in the reading of a literary text. It should be noted that though reception theory emphasizes the inexhaustibility of interpretation of texts, this is conducted within or based on the framework of the text itself. Reception theory has enlightments on translation studies. The thesis introduces such key concepts as horizon of expectation, appealing structures, aesthetic pleasure, in the comparative study. It treats the novel and the two translated versions as the corpus, based on which detailed examples are provided and analyzed.Horizon of expectation, which is formed by readers'former experience, interest, value, ideal, etc. is the criteria readers use to judge a literary text in the activity of literary reception. The horizons provided by the text and by the readers are always in a dynamic process where potential meaning of the text is gradually revealed. The subject of reception changes his horizons constantly generation after generation, and they come to explore richer meaning of a text. Li Jiye and Huang Yuanshen, as two translators in different periods, possess different horizons of expectations and personal pursuit. It can be seen that Li's version tends to be influenced by ideological and political factors, as certain words are tinted with ideological colors. Li, as a proletariat revolutionary intellectual, fuses his horizon of expectation with that of the text and intends his version to serve for revolutionary purpose to arouse people's awareness of class struggle. On the other hand, Huang focuses on translating the style of the novel, revealing the beauty and poetic flavor in both form and meaning. He cares more about readers'aesthetic expectations and adopt different translation strategies.Literary text is full of gaps and indeterminacies derived from multi-level systems of language structure. They appeal readers to communicate with the text by concretizing the gaps, adjusting their horizons, and reconstructing the meaning. There is also difference in the ways the two translators concretize the gaps either at linguistic level or at cultural level, which are generated by linguistic and cultural differences in the translation process.Literary text comes out as the aesthetic object in response to reader's aesthetic needs. Aesthetic experience is in essence aesthetic pleasure. Translators are duty-bound to cater for the aesthetic value of a literary work, and to carry out flexible strategies to represent or reproduce the artistic beauty of the original. The comparative analysis proves that Huang's version brings much aesthetic pleasure to the readers. The translation of rhetorical devices like onomatopoeia and metaphor is very vivid and leaves much room for imagination.In terms of reception theory, translation strategies are communicative strategies, through which translators play the role of the intermediary between author and reader. In sum, Li mainly adopts literal translation strategy in his version, which nowadays readers may find awkward to read. While Huang combines literal and liberal translation strategies together, paying close attention to nowadays readers'aesthetic and receptive levels. Both contribute their share in the reception process of the novel in China, and constitute the translation history of the novel.