Diversity Of Translation Criticism Subject In Light Of Construal On Chinese Versions Of Jane Eyre

This study aims to justify the diversity of translation criticism subject (TCS) in light of construal. Translation criticism (TC) is the link between translation theories and its practice. How to safeguard the objectivity of TC is a sticking point of translation studies. As the undertaker and practitioner of TC, TCS is responsible for the quality of TC. However, a relative lack of researches on TCS goes against the development of TC. With the help of philosophical concept of the subject, this study emphasizes the initiative and activeness of TCS and then takes all the individuals and communities who initiate and undertake the activity of TC as TCS. From this broad sense, the professionals, the readers, the translators, the editors and the publishers can become TCS. They are categorized into three kinds of TCS in this study: the professional, the reader and the census of the translation. At the same time, the fact that the professional, the reader, and the census co-exist in TC of Chinese versions of Jane Eyre implies the diversity of TCS. But whether the diversity of TCS is reasonable needs to be verified by probing into TCS'cognitive activities. As a basic kind of cognition, the construal offers the chance to penetrate into TCS'cognitive activities.Construal is not only a linguistic paradigm, but also displays general principles of cognition. There are two TC implications from construal: one is that TC is TCS'meaning construction of the content of TC; the other is that the efficiency of TC is affected by construal. Thus three factors of TCS'construal, namely, the content of construal, the resources of construal, and the dimensions of construal form the prototype of TCS'construal. With conceptual and empirical methods, this study is to seek for the rationality of the diversity of TCS of Chinese versions of Jane Eyre by applying the prototype to each TCS'construal.Based on the analysis of each TCS'construal, this study contends that the professional's construal is the cognition of target text (TT), the translator, the target reader and their relationship from the standpoint of source text (ST) with certain theories; the reader's construal is the cognition of TT, especially the theme or characters of TT based on individual feelings; the census'construal is the cognition of the readers'response based on predominant TC criteria. Furthermore, differences ranging from the selecting of the content of construal, the profiling of cognitive domains to the perspective and the prominence among TCS'construal cause to various roles of each TCS in TC on Chinese versions of Jane Eyre. In general, the professional is the defender of the quality of TC. To some extent, if there are no critiques from the professional, there is no TC on Chinese version of Jane Eyre; the reader is the disseminator of TC. To some extent, if there are no critiques from the reader, there are no Chinese versions of Jane Eyre; the census is the negotiator between the professional and the reader. To some extent, if there are no critiques from the census, there are no translations and retranslations of Jane Eyre in China. Their construals advance the quality of TC on Chinese versions of Jane Eyre together. However, as a complex cognition, each TCS'construal has its limitations. For example, the professional's construal is easily to be stereotyped treatise with obscure jargons and concepts under the control of certain theories; the reader's construal tends to be random marks or extreme value judgments without careful reading and analysis; the census'construal may blindly cater for the public without considering the values of a translation. In order to demonstrate the importance of each TCS'construal and offset the weakness, the diversity of TCS is obligatory.This study claims that the diversity of TCS is decided by construal. This extends the cognitive way to the research on TCS. Furthermore, as an efficient way to safeguard the objectivity of TC, the diversity of TCS attaches great importance to the multidirectional development of TC on Chinese versions of Jane Eyre.