The Translator's Subjectivity And The Translation Of Some Ambiguities In Chinese

As a pervasive feature of language, ambiguity is a reflection of language universals. It can present two or more meanings at linguistic level or in the limited context. Therefore, it constitutes some problems in communication because it makes the message-sender's intention indeterminate to a certain degree. The situation becomes more intricate if we take its causes into consideration. Some ambiguities occur without the language user's intention, whereas some other ambiguities are tactically applied by the language user to achieve some special purposes. The former is usually considered a negative influence in communication and the latter a positive one.Translation is an activity aiming at expressing the ST intention in the TL. It turns out to be difficult when the ST contains some ambiguous items, which make the ST intention indeterminate and abstruse.As a "mediator" between the ST and the TT, the translator is placed uniquely to identify the problem in the translation process and seek to solve it. With the aid of his/her mediation, the communication between the ST writer and the TT readers can go smoothly.When translating ambiguous structures, it is essential for the translator to display his/her subjectivity which is mainly reflected in two aspects: first, in the interpreting phase, the translator is required not only to identify the ambiguity, but to draw a distinction between intentional and unintentional ambiguity and extrapolate the original intention of the author;second, in the reproduction phase, the translator is required to make choices in disambiguating the unintentional ambiguity and preserving the intentional ambiguity.This thesis discusses the translation of ambiguities in Chinese from the perspective of the translator's subjectivity. It consists of an introduction, four chapters, and a conclusion.The introduction explains the research topic, objectives and theoretic perspective of the thesis.Chapter One first gives a survey of the researches on ambiguity in different subjects, especially those in linguistics. Then it concentrates on its researches in translation studies.Chapter Two focuses on researches on the translator's subjectivity carried out by scholars in history. In the translation process, the translator's subjectivity is manifested in interpreting the ST and in reproducing the TT.Chapter Three analyzes the display of the translator's subjectivity in the TAC, pointing out that the translator is required to extrapolate the author's original intention and to reproduce it in the TT.Chapter Four emphasizes the fact that the translator doesn't have absolute freedom though he/she can display his/her subjectivity to a high degree. In the TAC, the translator's subjectivity is constrained by many subjective or objective factors.The Conclusion reiterates the main points of this thesis, stressing that in the TAC the translator should fully display his/her subjectivity to reproduce the ST writer's intention under some relevant constraints.