The Role Of Target Readers In Literary Translation

Nowadays, more and more translators and translation theorists agree on the point that translation is an act of cross-cultural communication. Its accomplishment is recognized by the target reader's acceptance of the translated version. Considered from the communicative angle, the target reader does play an important role in the study and practice of translation. It is particularly the case in literary translation in that literary works transfer not only information but also aesthetic value. This paper circumscribes its discussion particularly on the target reader's role during the authoring process of the target text in the practice of literary translation. Based on the analysis of the achievements and defects of previous researchers, the author gives a reasonable location as to the role of the target reader in the practice of literary translation.The necessity for the location of the target reader's role in literary translation lies in the following two aspects.(1) There are defects in the previous study about the target reader's role in literary translation. Traditional theoretical study of translation focuses on the source text and the translator. There is little theoretical study about the target reader. In China, statements about target readers are generally remarks from experienced translators; in the West, the theories about target readers by such translators and translation theorists as M. T. Cicero and St. Augustine in ancient time, D. Erasmus in the 16th century and John Dryden in the 17th century, etc, is confined within the text-centered circle. Neither of them gives enough attention to the target reader.Eugene A. Nida's "readers' responses" theory shifts the status of the target reader in translation to the standard of translation, which is a significant step in the study of target readers. However, the comparability between target readers' and original readers' responses encounters great challenges in practice. Equivalence is in fact an illusion.Recently, the application of Reception Aesthetics to the study of translation has great significance to the study of the target reader. It breaks down the text-centeredtlinguistic system, and stresses the openness of a text and the reader's role in interpreting a text. However, its study of the reader focuses on the role the reader plays in the period after the production of the text. Therefore, its application to translation gives no study about the target reader's role in the authoring period during the production of a translated version.(2) It is stimulated by the prosperity of literary translation and literary criticism activities. The boom of translated literary works in quantity calls for the translator to take into consideration the communicative nature of translation and the acceptance of the target reader. Meanwhile, the boom of retranslated and plural versions of a same source text requires translation critics to take account of the target reader in their translation evaluation activities.Thus the target reader in translation should be given enough attention to and objective handling as well. The 1970s and 1980s witnessed an explosion of interest in the Russian philosopher Bakhtin's theory and thoughts of dialogue. It is concerned with the status of the reader in the authoring process of a text, and thinks that the reader has a co-authorship with the writer in the authoring process of a text. Its significance to translation lies in its provision of an initiatory angle of view to the role of the target reader in translation, namely the target reader's co-authorship with the translator during the authoring of the target text.Accordingly, the thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter one is a brief introduction of the necessity of the study of the target reader in translation and the author's hypothesis. Chapter two is the analysis of previous study on the target reader's role in translation. Chapter three is the presentation of Bakhtin's academic life and his theory of dialogue. Chapter four is the application of Bakhtin's theory of dialo...