A Study Of Translator's Subjectivity From The Theory Of Translation As Adaptation And Selection

With studying the translator's subjectivity as its main aim, the present thesis takes Professor Hu Gengshen's Translation as Adaptation and Selection as its theoretical framework, and translator's subjective adaptation and selection as its main line, and reviews the studies on translator and translator's subjectivity both in China and the western countries and then creatively divides translation into 3 processes, namely, the pre-translating process, translating process and post-translating process. Thus with a longitudinal analysis of the translator's role in the whole translating process, a conclusion can be drawn that the only subject in translation is the translator, who plays a central role in it and dominates the whole process and his or her activities constrain the quality of the translation work. Meanwhile, the translator should be in sober awareness of his or her role as the subject, and make every effort to transmit the subjective adaptation and translation, which is mostly done subconsciously, into an act more of a conscious one. In this way, the quality of the translation work can be considerably promoted.While giving a theoretical study, the present thesis also carries out a systematic study on the famous translator, Professor Zhang Peiji's translation work in the framework of Professor Hu's theory. Zhang is a most representative one among the few translators in China who are engaged in the translation of famous Chinese books into English and the author considers his translation of Selected Modern Chinese Prose Writings a book which manifests the translator's subjective adaptation and selection vividly and incisively. Hence the author selects some of the translated prose and analyzes the subjective role that Professor Zhang has played during the translation of them to support the argumentation of the present thesis.