On Retranslation

In recent years,retranslation of literary classics is fairly common,which can be proved not only by the quantity of the retranslation literary classics but also by the quantity of scholars who have begun to concern and study on the phenomenon.However,most of the studies on retranslation are concentrating on the reasons and necessity of retranslation by applying two translated versions by different translators.And the study on the theoretical base of the retranslation still stays on the stage of exploration.Different from the previous studies,this thesis attempts to study the retranslation by applying translated versions by the same translator in different periods-the 1990 version and 2003 version of A Passage to India translated by Prof.Yang Zijian.And some theories will be introduced to retranslation in this thesis to contribute a little to the study of theoretical base of the retranslation. At last,some evaluation principles will be established to regulate the future retranslation practices.First,factors like the literary work,publisher,book market,language, target reader,translator's subjectivities and translated literature's position in a literary system do affect retranslation by a single translator.The openness and ambiguity of the literary works lead to endless interpretations of content and form of literary works.Besides this,the publisher and the book market will be discussed to further prove the claim that retranslation is necessary.It is also worth noting that the language is time-marked as Professor Huang Yuanshen(1993:514)asserted,"the language a translator employs to convey the meanings and message is constantly changing with the passage of time.Therefore,different epochs call for different translations."In light of this, the author attempts to prove the necessity of retranslation from the angle of linguistic mutation.Additionally,readers have different horizons of expectation in different periods.As the mutation of time and society and improvement of the translators'education,the old versions will never meet the requirement of the readers.Therefore,retranslations of the literary works have to be carried through to meet their horizons of expectation.Translation is an interpreting process,requiring the translator's subjective initiative.The author tries to analyze the influences on translation strategies of the changes on the translator's translation thoughts in the production of retranslation.Additionally,according to Evan-Zohar's polysytem,the position of translated literature in literary system will affect the choice of different translation strategies.The study of the polysystem is helpful for the researchers to illustrate the necessity and inevitability of the production of retranslation and the existence of different translation strategies.Then,theories like hermeneutics,aesthetic theory of reception,and Evan-Zohar's polysystem will be employed in the division of retranslation,the study on target readers and the translated literature'position separately in this thesis.We found that some theories on translation are also applicable to the study of retranslation.However,more translation theories need to be introduced into the study of retranslation to establish a retranslation theory system.Apart from the above,the evaluation of retranslation will also be discussed in this paper in hoping to guide the future practices of retranslation.In this thesis,the factors analyzed above will be introduced into the retranslation evaluation to establish some more objective and comprehensive evaluation principles of retranslation,which may regulate retranslation and guarantee the quality of retranslation.Meanwhile,this part will contribute to the systemization of retranslation study.Since most of the previous studies of retranslation are restricted to the studies of different translated versions of different translators,the studies of retranslation by(?)translator are much fewer.But we know that the retranslation by the same translator in different periods has its own uniqueness.Like different translators,the same translator will also be affected by the factors such as the literary work,the publisher,the book market,the target reader,the language,the subjectivity of the translator. Meanwhile,the translator's undemanding and interpretation of the literary text will change with the mutation of time.However,the retranslation process of a (?)translator will be different from that of different translators because the (?)translator is much more familiar with the previous translated versions and meanwhile he or she is most likely to have a deeper understanding of the original.So we have reasons to believe that the version retranslated by the same translator will be better than that by different translators.This thesis is dedicated to the study of retranslation by the single translator on the basis of relevant theories to make retranslation study more objective and comprehensive.