Translator's Subjectivity In Tang Poems Translation

In translation studies, one of the fundamental questions is how to define the translator's role. Traditionally it has been identified as a meek slave, faithful to the original author and invisible to the target readers. Since the "cultural turn" in the contemporary translation studies, translators have moved from behind the curtain to the forefront and become a visible translating subject. From a philosophical perspective, translator's subjectivity consists of creativity, purpose and passiveness. Theoretically speaking, aesthetics of reception and hermeneutics justify translators' creativity, for their basic notion is that readers are active meaning-providers in the interpretive process. This thesis attempts to illustrate translator's subjectivity in Tang Poems translation, which inevitably involves the concretization of indeterminacy, subjective image projections due to translators' prejudice, and distinctive poetic style related to the translation purpose. Translator's subjectivity, which is clearly distinct from the irresponsible or abusive rewriting of the original text, has endowed Tang Poems with the "continued life" in the English world.Besides introduction and conclusion, this thesis is divided into four chapters.The introduction briefs the theme and structure of the thesis.Chapter one starts with a review of the traditional translation source-oriented theories that reduce the translator to the status of a faithful servant, and an invisible medium.Chapter Two focuses on the target-oriented theories, such as Skopostheorie, cultural studies, polysystem, and deconstructionism, which have greatly enhanced the status of the translator.Chapter Three analyzes the connotations of subjectivity from a philosophical perspective. This thesis applies the basic notions of aesthetics of reception and philosophical hermeneutics to justify the reason and room for the translator's subjectivity.Chapter Four illustrates translator's subjectivity in Tang Poems translation. Through a once-considered-impossible task, translators manifest their subjectivity in their translated works to convey the source poem's content and style. They interpret and concretize indeterminacies of ST from their horizons of expectations, and make their style visible in TT according to their aims of translation.The conclusion sums up the whole thesis.