On The Relationship Between The Source Text And The Target Text From The Perspective Of Deconstruction

The relationship between the source text and the target text is one of the topics unavoidable in translation research. The source-oriented translation theories, both Western and Chinese, be it the thoughts of the philological school or the ideas of the linguistic school, all propose that the source text and the author are the authority; the target text is subordinated to the original and the translator, who should be "invisible" in translation, and is just the "servant" of the author. On the contrary, the school of translation studies, guided by target-oriented approach, sees translation as the "manipulation", the "rewriting" of the source text, elevating greatly the status of the target text and the subjectivity of the translator.Some postmodern philosophers, such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault, interrogated the authority of the author and the source text. Deconstructionists, represented by Jacques Derrida, deconstruct Western logocentrism that has dominated the West for centuries. Enlightened by the translation thoughts of Walter Benjamin demonstrated in his essay "The Task of the Translator", Derrida breaks down the binary opposition of the source text and the target text, seeing that the translation is the "afterlife" of the original, the two are of "symbiotic relationship", mutually supplementing each other. This thesis conducts an in-depth research on this idea of deconstruction, explores the philosophical roots for the shifts of the relationship between the source text and the target text, and based on that, makes a reasonable, objective evaluation of the deconstructive approach to translation studies.The first two chapters make a brief review of the opinions held by different schools of translation research on the relationship between the source text and the target text. Chapter Three expounds this issue from the perspective of deconstruction. Chapter Four investigates the philosophical roots and concepts of language for the shifts of the relationship between the source text and the target text. Chapter Five, through case studies of three Chinese versions of Shakespeare's Hamlet, strives to prove the plausibility of Derrida's theory of meaning uncertainty and his ideas on the relationship between the source text and the target text. The last chapter analyzes both the implications and the possible negative impacts that deconstruction will bring to translation. More importantly, it argues the necessity and urgency of the establishment of translation ethics and offers some suggestions for that.