Understanding The Role Of The Translator From The Perspective Of Reception Theory

Translation, as a means of essential and complex communication, has gone through a long history, but in which the role of the translator has been more or less ignored in the majority of translation studies. Nevertheless, the pleasing fact is that the practice of translation activities has promoted the development of translation studies. This process enables translation researchers to attach greater importance to the role of the translator who functions as the dynamic and irreplaceable factor in the process of translation. The study of translator has a profound meaning in this field. It has been generally recognized that the translator plays an irreplaceable role by acting not only as a simple translator, but also as the reader, the writer, and the creator and so on. This thesis introduces Reception Theory while guides translator in translation activities, analyses different roles of the translator from a new prospective of Reception Theory and explores the related factors influenced the translator.Based on phenomenology and hermeneutics, Reception Theory was developed by some scholars at the University of Constance in Germany during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser are the most important representatives of the Constance school theorists. Reception theory marks a shift in concern from the author and his work to the text-reader relationship in literary theories. This theory puts an unprecedented emphasis on the long-neglected active role of the readers and provides a new approach to translation studies. So the thesis starts with the introduction of the concepts of reception theory and the process of translation and then analyses the roles the translator play as a special reader in the two receptions. In the second reception, the translator has to take the target readers into consideration and try to produce better version as good as the source text. The conclusion is raised in the last chapter, by improving factors influence the translator will promote the practice of translation and translation studies.