The Translator's Subjectivity From The Perspective Of Deconstruction And The Tranlation Of The Analects

The 1960s witnessed the great progress of translation studies with more and more new theories and methodologies coming into being, among which the theory of deconstruction has made great impact on traditional translation. Deconstruction theory has become more influential in recent days. Through the discussion of the theory and its idea of translation, this thesis clarifies and explains some radical changes it has brought about in the field of translation, especially those which help to confirm the translator's subjectivity.Chapter one begins with deconstruction and its theory of translation. It is known that in the traditional theory the translator is placed in a secondary status and the translator is viewed only as a faithful servant, i.e. a mere conveyor of information and an invisible medium. Deconstruction is a revolt against logocentrism. In the first part of the chapter the origin and theory of deconstruction are explained. The second part of the chapter illustrates translation from the perspective of deconstruction. The writer of the thesis talks about in detail the fundamental and essential notions put forward by the celebrated deconstructionists, such as Benjamin, Barthes, Venuti and Derrida, the last of whom is of the most profound influence and whose theories have laid a foundation for the theory of deconstruction. Two concepts are of great importance among those theories: "language" and "text". Derrida insists that language is inherently unstable and fraught with ambiguity and "slippage". Consequently, when a text comes into being, it can not be asserted that its meaning is definite, but rather there are potential meanings in the text waiting to be interpreted and there are "blank" and "empty points" in them. The author's purpose and meaning are not "divine" and thus have been dethroned. The source text has become an object after it is produced. Translation is not a repetition of the original work any longer; it is the afterlife of the original work.Chapter two focuses on the concept of translator's subjectivity in the framework of deconstruction. Then the influence of deconstruction on the shift of the status of translators is discussed. Translators are no longer considered as inferior to the author, but are considered as creative subjects. Their subjectivity is confirmed. It is just this subjective concretization that results in different translations of the same source text. Chapter three is a brief introduction to The Analects and its translations. As a classic masterpiece in China for over 2 thousand years, the book is of great influence not only in China but all over the world as well. It has been translated into many languages and English versions alone amount to 20 or so. As a book full of Chinese cultures, especially Chinese philosophy, its translated versions of the book are well worth studying. Then a brief introduction to the two targeted translators—Arthur Waley and X.Y.Z is supplied and the author explains why their works are selected.Chapter four and five are the detailed analyses of the two translated versions by the two translators. Chapter four is mainly from the linguistic perspective and Chapter five is from the cultural perspective. In chapter six, the factors contributing to the diverse translations of The Analects are discussed. From the three chapters, we can see that the translated works are subject to the subjective motivation of the translators; hence the diversity of the translated versions is inevitable. At the end of this thesis the application and limitations of deconstruction theory are discussed.