Horizon Of Expectations And Retranslation Of Literary Works

It is a common phenomenon that different translators make different translations for a same literary work. Why do we need retranslation? Guided by the author-centered and text-centered theory, the study of retranslation is mainly in its empirical level, namely, comparing different translated versions or making comparisons between SL text (source language text) and TL text (target language text) in technical perspectives. It is not until 1960s that Jauss proposed Reception Theory which provided a new methodological basis for literary translation. Owing to this theory, literary translation is no longer a one-way process which is text-centered and transmitted by a translator with readers passively accepting everything, but an ever-going dialogic process between translator and the literary work, and between translator and implied readers.As the core concept of Reception Theory, horizon of expectations refers to readers' aesthetic expectations and mental assumptions in accordance with their life and aesthetic experiences before reading. Considering the historical, cultural, ideological and personal influence, I subdivide horizon of expectations into historical horizon, cultural horizon, language horizon, political horizon, empirical horizon and aesthetic horizon. By defining each of them, I further point out the basic characters of all these horizons: historicity and subjectivity. In the following discussion, "horizons" refer to the combination of all that mentioned above.Literary translation is a dialogic, artistic and creative activity. In this process, according to his/her historical and subjective horizons, a translator interprets the literary work to be translated. The original work is the manifestation of the original author's horizons, and thereby full of indeterminacy (because of the author's historical and subjective horizons) and determinacy (owing to the objectivity of knowledge). Indeterminacy offers enough room for translator's imagination: as the literariness of the work and its aesthetic character increase, translation requirestranslator's participation the more, and therefore the more important the horizons of translator. On the other hand, any agent is under the restriction of objective factors, that is, a translator is bound to interpret the work under the control of the work's determinacy. At the same time, the historicity of implied readers' aesthetic expectations always limits the translator's free imaginations either. Therefore, translation actually is the dialogic result of three entities' horizons: between the author's horizons and those of the translator, between the translator's horizons and those of the implied readers, between past and present. However, the author's horizons are not only historically and subjectively restricted, but also are vaguely hid in the SL text; translators of different periods or different cultural backgrounds have different interpretations of the same work because of their different horizons of expectations; readers of different periods, out of different aesthetic expectations, will also raise different requirements for translation. The three reasons above determine that no TL text would be the perfect one that can satisfy all kinds of readers of all times. From this perspective, retranslation of literary work is possible and even necessary to meet the demands of changed readers.In the meanwhile, with the new translations, readers' aesthetic expectations are widened and refreshed, and succeeding translators' horizons are also changed. The refreshed aesthetic expectations call for newer translations, and the change of translators' horizons influences their understanding of the work from which new interpretations derive. Newer translations, in turn, change the horizons of succeeding readers and translators. So on and so forth, literary translation becomes a dynamic and mutually dependent cycle. Retranslation, therefore, is not only feasible but also necessary.This dissertation utilizes horizons of expectations as the means to explore the influence of horizons' historicity and subjectivity on literary translation. From the theoretical perspective, retranslation of literary works is necessary, possible, and sometimes inevitable. Horizons of expectations widen people's space of cognition for retranslation of literary works.