The Influence Of Schleiermacher On Contemporary Western Translation Theories

German theologian and philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher is the founder of modern hermeneutics. His hermeneutics traces the root and source of meaning, opposes to the theocratic and dogmatic deciphering of the Bible and expounds the nature of understanding in relation to all human texts and modes of communication, laying the foundation for the hermeneutic school of western translation theories and influencing the construction of contemporary western translation theories.This paper investigates Schleiermacher's theoretical system in terms of his philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, his hermeneutic theories and translation theories, and the focus of the research is the analysis of Schleiermacher's theories and their influence on the functionalist school, the hermeneutic school and the deconstructional school. In other words, the discussion is centered around Schleiermacher's classification of translation types in Reiss's text typology, his two translation approaches of"author centered"translation and"reader centered"translation in Venuti's resistant translation strategies, and his hermeneutic theories of understanding and interpretation in Steiner's hermeneutic motion. The shining part of this paper is the analysis of the context, the features and values of Schleiermacher's influence on contemporary western translation theories. The conclusion is drawn that Schleiermacher's theories have profound significance, and they have influenced major schools of contemporary western translation studies and propelled the development of contemporary western translation theories.All in all, this paper is to make a systematic research on the philosophical and hermeneutic theories of Schleiermacher and their influence on contemporary western translation theories based on the researches that have been done on Schleiermacher in China and the West by the methods of induction-deduction, contrastive research and influence research. It is hoped that this investigation into Schleiermacher's influence on contemporary western translation theories can lead to a deeper understanding of the source, status and associated issues related to the western translation theories and provides a guideline for further research in this area.