On The Subjectivity Of The Translator

With the development of Hermeneutics, Deconstructionism and Functionalist School and the appearance of Cultural Turn, translation studies have transformed from prescriptive to descriptive because more and more researchers have focused on the external causes of the versions rather than the traditional trans-coding based on the two texts. Furthermore, the limits of faithfulness and equivalence on the linguistic level, which cannot guarantee the acceptance from the readers in the target culture or the achievement of the translator's goal, have gradually been known by the translation circles. In this situation, the long-standing criteria of Faithfulness and Equivalence suffer from unprecedented challenge. Then,the translator, as the sole subject of translation, returns to people's studies after being ignored for a long period of time and, his subjectivity, which is exhibited by means of his ideology, purpose and the selected translating method in the course of translation, is being recognized and attached great importance to.The recent researchers usually make use of only one kind of translation theory to deal with the subjectivity, which is inevitably one-sided to some extent. Therefore, starting from Marxist principles and the definition and essence of translation, this paper tries to adopt a mix of general and social linguistics, Hermeneutics, Deconstructionism and Functionalist Theory to analyze the denotation and connotation of the subjectivity, its embodiments and causes through examples, including the social and historical ideology, culture, translator's goal and principle, etc. It is believed that the traces of translators are identified in the versions due to the different strategies, knowledge, and background of the translators. Through the features, the purpose, disposition, style and other factors of the translators can be distinguished from the versions. So, the conclusion of this paper is that the translator plays the role of subject, whose subjectivity is embodied by means of his aesthetics, outlook of translation and culture and purpose; the translator's subjectivity acts as the decisive factor in determining the version and, the subjectivity should be recognized and given a full play to for the sake of promoting the translator to make the right choices in order to produce better works.