A Perspective Of Aesthetics Of Reception On Sun Zhili's Dialectical Translation Thought

This thesis is a study on Sun Zhili's dialectical thought from the perspective of Aesthetics of Reception.The Aesthetics of Reception is a theory of literary criticism, established during the late 1960's, based on hermeneutics and phenomenology, with the focus on the reader's reception. The main representatives of this theory are Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser who made the glorious contribution to the development of Aesthetics of Reception.Jauss' theory is derived from Gadamer who carries forward Hedegger's hermeneutics. According to Gadamer, any interpretation of a text is the fusion of the individual and historical horizons. "Horizon of expectation" and "fusion of horizons" are two important principles in Jauss' theory. There is a cardinal principle in Aesthetics of Reception that it is not until the fusion of the reader's horizon of expectation and the textual horizon that the reader's interpretation and reception of a text is completed.(Jauss, 1982: 21)Iser follows the phenomenological train of thought to expound the relationship between the text and the reader in the process of reading. He proposes an "appealing structure" of the text to explain the blanks and indeterminate factors in literary works. To him, the meaning of the literary text is explored by its reader. It is only in the reader's activity of actualization that blanks are filled in. (R. C. Holub, 1984: 84)Translation in essence is a kind of reading activity, according to Xia Zhongyi (1998: 24). In this activity, a translator first works as a reader of the original text, who reads with his established horizon of expectation, communicating with the appealing structure of the original text to get insights into the author's intention and the meaning of the text. Then with the help of his established horizon of expectation, he processes and concretizes the blanks and indeterminate factors in the text in the light of his comprehension and imagination. Through the dialogue between the text and the translator (its reader), the gaps between his horizon and the horizon of the text are bridged and fused together. Finally the translator communicates his understanding of the original intention and relevant information to the TL reader. Therefore, it is a positive try to utilize Aesthetics of Reception to translation studies.In the West, ever since the hermeneutic translation mode was posed and dilatedupon by George Steiner in 1975, it has become a very important orientation in the present translation studies. Aesthetics of Reception was introduced into horizon of Chinese translation in the late 1980's. It is mainly utilized to the discussion of the issues such as the translator's subjectivity, the TL reader's reception, the process of translation, and Nida's Reader's Response, and so on. However, there has so far been little study on Sun Zhili's translation thought or his translation works from the perspective of Aesthetics of Reception. Sun Zhili is an outstanding translator of English and American literature. In view of his achievement on translation, there is quite theoretical and practical significance to probe into his thought. This thesis presents a study on his dialectical thought and his translation works from a new theoretical perspective, which is necessary to the construction of Chinese translation theories.Sun's thought reveals his unique understanding about literary translation. It is mainly embodied by his "ten contradictions" (1996;1999), with which, he explains various problems in literary translation. Seeing that these contradictions are closely related to each other, three of them are analyzed as principal: Foreignization vs. Domestication, Literal translation vs. Liberal translation, Self-control vs. Creativity.From the perspective of Aesthetics of Reception, this thesis presents a thorough probe into Sun Zhili's dialectical translation thought with the focus on the three principal contradictions. To explore the feasibility study on his thought practically, this thesis offers a case study. The English novel in the case is Pride and Prejudice. There are two Chinese versions. One is conducted by Wang Keyi, and the other is by Sun Zhili himself.After the comprehensive analysis of the two Chinese versions, it is concluded that 1) Sun's dialectical thought is in accordance with the relationship between the text and the reader in Aesthetics of Reception;2) Sun's choices in three principal contradictions meet the demands meet the demands of literary translation from the perspective of Aesthetics of Reception;3) to evaluate a translation work and the strategies adopted in it, we should take a look on the reader's reception;4) in the activity of reading and evaluation, the subjectivity of the reader is self-evident in the former analysis;Sun's dialectical thought in some cases helps the translator with dual nature avoid giving too free rein to his subjectivity in translation.