Rationale For Amplification And Omission In Light Of Reception Theory

Amplification and omission are techniques so frequently employed that most translators take them for granted, without bothering why those techniques can/should be used. Meanwhile, rationale for amplification and omission provided by a few overseas researchers is not fully convincing. With a view to provide a better answer, this thesis adopts reception theory and probes the issue from text itself.Text, in the eyes of receptionists, is by no means definite; it is a schematic formation with various indeterminate areas. Indeterminacy appeals to readers, and invites their participation, thus creating a dialogue between text and readers. Realization of text just depends on the interaction between text and readers. During the interaction, readers concretize text itself, and yield a partly realized text. Briefly speaking, indeterminacy in text structure calls for readers' concretizing. Author of this thesis suggests the process of concretizing is readers' re-creation of text, which means appropriate addition and subtraction. Translators, special readers, do concretization, too while reading source text, and then they transfer partly concretized source text into target text, preserving traces of concretization—addition and subtraction. Addition and subtraction, in translated version, take the form of amplification and omission.This thesis further illustrates four major types of indeterminacy—phonological indeterminacy, semantic indeterminacy, grammatical indeterminacy and cultural indeterminacy with examples from Austen's masterpiece Pride and Prejudice. Four translated versions of the novel provide vivid evidence that amplification and omission are products of concretization. Furthermore, it points out that due to diverse horizons of expectations, different readers' concretization to the same text may be various. Appropriate concretization (amplification and omission), to a great extent, relies on literary and cultural competences, two dominant elements among horizon ofexpectations.