The Roles In Relevance: The Translator In Literary Translation

The translator is in the center of translating process, having close relationships with other translation factors, including the reality, the source text, the author, the ST reader, the translated text, the translating process, and the TT reader. His role and states are more complex in literary translation. However, the study of translator did not draw enough attention, and the study of translator in literary translation is much less. Some is just the implication of the theory; some is too prescriptive, emphasizing only the requirements of the translator. The descriptive study of the translator in translating process is rare.Ancient translation theories and the science of translation take the translator as the machine of transferring languages without subjectivity and the translator should be invisible. Poly-system and Translation Studies take new insight to study translation; however, the study of the translator is only a minor part without further analyses. Deconstructionism deconstructs the author and the source text, giving the translator unprecedentedly high position and right, however, only to make translation itself unclear and even disappear.This thesis takes "translation is communication" as the basis and starting point, does a systematic and descriptive study of the translator in translating process. At the same time, it deals with the several hotly discussed topics related with the translator: his style, his re-creation and the language of literary translation.The thesis is divided into five sections: the introduction, chapters one two and three, and the conclusion.The introduction gives an account of the origin of this topic and the organization of the thesis.Chapter One is the review of the study in China and abroad and raises theremaining problems in the study of translator: 1. The study mainly focuses on the requirements on the translator, it is too prescriptive; 2. The study focuses on the relationships between the translator and the source text, the TT reader, the author, but ignores the relationships between the translator and the ST reader, the translated text, and the translating process, especially the study of the ST reader is totally out side of the translation studies; 3. There is no agreed opinion about the translator's style, his re-creation and the language of the literary translation. Some of the opinions are obviously unscientific; 4. Most of the study takes the translator in literary translation and non-literary translation as one, actually, literary translation and non-literary translation are very different, and the roles of the translator are also different; 5. Most of the study is static, actually, the dynamic study of the translator in the translating process is more convincing.Chapter Two is on literary translation, arguing that the artistic conception is the maui part of literary work and literary translation is to translate the artistic conception.Chapter Three is the main part of the thesis, discussing the relationships between the translator and other translating factors. Among them, the translating process is the basis of the whole chapter, for only hi translating process, can the relationships be made clearer. Taking "translation is communication" as theory reference, the thesis talks about the relationships between the translator and the author, the TT reader and the ST reader, especially the ST reader, for he is also a member of communication. It is not complete for the study of reader to ignore the ST reader.The relationship between the translator and the translated text is the core of this chapter and also of the whole thesis, focusing on several hotly discussed topics such as the translator's style, the re-creation and the language of literary translation. The translator has his own style, which is revealed mainly by the linguistic factors in the translation, and the translating style and the writing style of one person are not the same. Re-creation is part of the translator's subjectivity, is the translator'sdevelopment of the...