On The Subjectivity Of The Translator

Traditional translation theories hold that "fidelity" is the criteria of translation, the translator should be objective, should reproduce the original text faithfully, and it is unacceptable for him to leave any personal marks in his translation. In other words, he should be "invisible" in translation. Therefore, the subjectivity of the translator is ignored.Since the late 1970s, the culture-oriented translation research approach has been applied in translation studies. In the 1990s, the translation studies officially took the "cultural turn". With these developments, people can take a fairer and all-sided look at translation and the translator. Being put under the macro-context of social, historical and cultural background, translation begins to be considered a process of intercultural communication rather than an end product, and the translator, who possesses noticeable historical, cultural and personal characteristics, has become "visible" in translation. As a result, the subjectivity of the translator, who is the subject of translation and a vital link enabling different cultures to interact, has been brought to the foreground and become a heated subject in translation studies.The author, in the first chapter, reviews the traditional translation studies and comes to the conclusion that the subjectivity of the translator is neglected. And in Chapter â…¡ and â…¢, based on the previous studies on the translator, through reviewing polysystem theory, skopos theory and reader response theory, the paper probes into the characteristics of the subjectivity of the translator and the role it plays in translation.The characteristics of the subjectivity of the translator are analyzed from two aspects. On the one hand, the subjectivity of the translator is not arbitrary, and the translator is confined by the original text and several other manipulation powers (e.g. the literary and cultural conventions, the...