The Negative Effect Of The Interpreter's Fore-structure On Translation: A Hermeneutical Study

Guided by Hermeneutics, one branch of philosophy of language, this thesis is intended to systematically analyze at the angle of the interpreter the three factors of the fore-structure - "fore-having", "fore-sight", "fore-conception" and their negative effects on the four levels of language - words, sentences, sentence groups and discourses respectively in the translation process for the purpose of getting into Hermeneutical circle properly in understanding and arriving at equivalence between the source text and translated text in bilingual transference.The problem with the present study of the interpreter is that studies are mainly made of the interpreter's social factor, rarely of the effect of the interpreter himself, especially the negative effect of the interpreter's fore-structure. The previous researchers studied translation from the perspective of linguistics, structural linguistics, semiology, literature and art theory. They mainly studied the objective factor in language transference, e.g. the text itself. As for the subjective factor, the interpreter, not enough study has been made, especially that of the effect of an interpreter's mother tongue. The limitations may hinder further study of the subjective factor of the interpreter and hinder the development of translation from the angle of a whole unity.According to Heidegger's Onto-Hermeneutics, interpretation is never a presuppositionless grasping of something previously given. The interpretation of something as something is essentially grounded in fore-having, fore-sight and fore-conception. The three factors constitute the fore-structure of one's interpretation. Fore-having refers to the pre-occupied cultural habits, fore-sight the pre-occupied conceptual system and fore-conception the pre-occupied assumption. All interpretation must be based on a certain kind of pre-understanding, while this kind of pre-understanding usually contain, or even set the interpretation. Thus interpretation may fall into Hermeneutical circle and the so-called final interpretation may become a kind of fantasy. The fore-structure of understanding is the condition of interpretation. Without it, interpretation would be impossible. To enter the circle in a correct way is the condition of proper understanding and interpretation. As far as the factor of "interpreter" in translation is concerned, if weare to enter the circle in correct ways, we must get rid of the negative effect of the fore-structure of the interpreter.From the angle of language, translation is the transference between different languages, or the transference between various language units of the source text and the target text. The language units in two different languages are usually not equivalent, so transference is completed through the comparison of languages. In the process of translation, the negative effect of the fore-structure of the interpreter can be avoided by getting rid of the differences in structure between source language and target language and making familiar the different expressive forms and the transference rules of the two languages. The construction forms and usage levels concern four basic aspects - words, sentences, sentence groups and discourses.The negative effect of the fore-structure on the level of words is analyzed systematically according to Leech's six types of word meaning (conceptual meaning, connotative meaning, stylistic meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning and collocative meaning) except thematic meaning, which is analyzed in the part of sentence analysis. From the three aspects (connection within sentence, arrangement of sentence order and sentence voices), the negative effect of the fore-structure on the level of sentences is also studied. For the negative effect of the fore-structure in terms of sentence groups, studies are mainly made of the two aspects (logical connection within sentence group and adjustment of structure within sentence group). The two main aspects (cohesion and coherence of discourses, development and organization of disc...