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A Hermeneutic Approach To The Translator's Subjectivity

Posted on:2006-10-14Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:F ChenFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360155956753Subject:English Language and Literature
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
In recent years, with the shift of study focus, people have come to realize that translation is a process of creation and recreation, instead of one of simple language transference from the source language to the target language, and the translator is no longer seen as a mechanical translating machine, but as a living man with creativities. This shift makes people realize the existence of the translator's subjectivity, and discussions on it become a heated topic in translation studies. This thesis is an attempt to use a hermeneutic approach to the study of the translator's subjectivity with a view to its application to translation practice.The central horizon of hermeneutics lies in people's understanding and interpreting activities concerning the text, while the translating activity is also concerned with the understanding of the original text. In essence, both hermeneutics and translation studies concern the exploration of the transference of meaning. In the phase of methodological hermeneutics, people held that meaning was objective and definite, and that the task of the interpreter was to represent the original meaning of the author. Under its influence, traditional translation studies concentrated on the SLT and the original author, neglecting the study of the TLT and the translator. As a result, the issue of the translator's subjectivity has been covered up for years. Sometimes people even neglected the translator's subjectivity purposely. It is not until the phase of ontological hermeneutics that people began to notice the multiplicity of interpretation and the indefiniteness of meaning, and that people began to acknowledge the subjective intervention and the critical role of the interpreter in the process of meaning production. The new idea about meaning held by ontological hermeneutists enlightens translation scholars, and they begin to study theTLT in the macro social and historical situations dynamically, instead of focusing on the static comparison between the SLT and the TLT. Thus the translator's subjectivity is finally discovered and recognized. Providing a new perspective for translation studies, hermeneutics not only broadens the range of translation studies, but also enables people to have a correct understanding of the translator. This thesis explores the discovering process and the manifestation of the translator's subjectivity on the basis of the theory of philosophical hermeneutics. The thesis consists of three chapters in addition to an introduction and a conclusion.In the introduction the author introduces the main theories of hermeneutics and points out the relationship between translation and hermeneutics. Actually, the connections between translation and hermeneutics are the reasons why the author uses a hermeneutic approach to explore the translator's subjectivity.Chapter One first defines subject and subjectivity, on the basis of which the author distinguishes the translator's subjectivity from translation subjectivity, and clarifies the referent of the translator's subjectivity. Then the author makes a review of the discovering process of the translator's subjectivity and analyses the reasons for the neglect and the discovery of the translator's subjectivity.Chapter Two analyzes the basis of the existence of the translator's subjectivity, and illustrates the manifestation of the translator's subjectivity with examples. First, translation can only be a kind of subjective interpretation. Second, the text horizon is open to the translator, and calls for him to concretize the spots of indeterminacy and blanks. Third, the translator's horizon will broaden with the change of his prejudice.Chapter Three discusses the limit of the translator's subjectivity. The translator will be limited both by the text horizon and by the factor of tradition in his own horizon in the translating process, so that he can...
Keywords/Search Tags:translator's subjectivity, hermeneutics, text horizon, translator's horizon
PDF Full Text Request
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