A Study Of The Translator's Subjectivity In Literary Translation From The Hermeneutic Perspective

This thesis studies the translator's subjectivity from the hermeneutic point of view to investigate the translator's role in the dynamic process of translation and to explore how translators could practise their subjectivity impartially to best serve the goal of translation.The translator's subjectivity refers to the qualities translators employ to activate possible personal capacities to achieve better results in translation practice. In the process of translation, the translator's subjectivity may influence translators from at least these following aspects: choosing source text, determining translation principles, interpreting creatively, expressing creatively and seeking balance between two texts.Hermeneutics can be defined as the science and methodology of interpreting texts. It is closely linked to translation in that interpreting the source text is one of the translator's primary tasks, and it is important for translators to understand the problems of understanding and interpreting. Several major concepts in the theory of hermeneutics have exerted great influence on translation. Hermeneutic theory insists on the historicity and temporality of interpretation. Based on such concepts, interpretation of any text should be categorized into the time system; therefore there is no absolutely "objective" understanding of a certain text. This accounts for the significance of retranslation of literary works. A translator and the source text he chooses have distinct horizons, and it is understanding that fuses the differences to reach "the fusion of horizons" through which the translator endeavors to approach the authentic world of the writer's.In his book After Babel---Aspects of Language and Translation, George Steiner puts forward the famous hermeneutic motion of translation practice which divides translation into four stages, namely trust, aggression, incorporation and restitution. Aninitiative trust starts a translator's job when he believes in the value of the source text. Before he actually produces specific words and sentences in the target language, the translator first functions as a reader who attacks the source text and tries to capture the meaning back, no matter how explicit or implicit the original ideas might be: this is what makes understanding aggressive. With meaning and spirit in his mind, the translator then faces the tough mission of incorporating two distinct languages, i.e. to import the meaning as well as form from another culture using the local language. A responsible translator seeks equation by making reasonable adjustments concerning the target culture and possible readers' needs.The translator's subjectivity is involved throughout the dynamic procedure of translation. A case study is carried out following the fourfold hermeneutic motion to justify the hermeneutic interpretation of the translator's subjectivity in translation practice. The famous English novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and two of its Chinese versions by Rong Rude and He Wen'an are used as subjects from which examples are chosen and analyzed to help carry out a comparative study.Through this study, the thesis works out the following three findings:1. From the perspective of hermeneutics, translation should be understood as the process in which translators understand and interpret initiatively. The translator's subjectivity is one of the most important elements that directly affect the outcome of translation practice.2. The full activation of the translator's subjectivity can help translators understand source texts better to reach the balance between source texts and target texts as much as possible from the aspects of form, spirit and style.3. The process of translation and the translator's subjectivity should also be taken into consideration when translation criticism is carried out.