A Comparative Study Of Two English Versions Of Hong Lou Meng From The Perspective Of Translator's Subjectivity

For a long time, critics evaluate the quality of translation works and the knowledge of the translators by centering upon extreme faithfulness or equivalence to the original work. In their points of view, the meaning of the text is definite and it can be completely understood and then reproduced intact by the translators in another language. As a result, the translators are crowned with different titles: copiers, servants, translating machines, etc. In order to translate well, translators have to abandon their identity and try to be completely faithful to the author and the original work. But actually, translation is a dynamic and complex process, with many factors involved. In this process, the translator, acting the role of a reader of the source text and also a writer of the target text, will unavoidably add something subjective in his translation.With the wide acceptance of hermeneutics and aesthetics of reception in literary domain and the emergence of the descriptive approach, the cultural turn in translation studies domain, the translator's identities and roles in translating activities emerge from obscurity and come to light. Much attention has been paid to the subjectivity of translators that subsequently the subjectivity of translators has become a new focus of translation studies. Inspired by the findings of contemporary translation studies, the author of this paper, adopts the concept of the translator's subjectivity in the discussion of the two English versions of Hong Lou Meng and intends to find a better way for the appreciation of the two versions.The thesis, by tracing back the various comments on translation and the translator through translation history and by following the shifts of translation criticism, explores the connotations of translator, the translator's subjectivity within the broad framework of modern literary theories and contemporary theories, and then applies the studies on the translator's subjectivity to the discussion of the two complete English versions of Hong Lou Meng. Analysis and discussions are carried out at two levels—macro-level and micro-level—to describe and explain the discrepancy between the two versions from the perspective of translator's subjectivity which covers mainly the specific translation purposes, the social-historical context wherein each of the two translating behaviors took place, the translator's cultural orientation and reader's awareness. With the unfolding of the discussion, it becomes fairly clear that the translator's subjectivity is an ideal perspective for the understanding of the two versions, both of which have been widely considered quite successful yet tinted with distinctive features.