On Translator's Subjectivity From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Translation is one of the basic communicative activities of human beings,in the process of which the translator plays an indispensable role.However,due to the marginalized status of translators in traditional translation theories,the translator's role hasn't been given due attention.The cultural turn in translation study has brought out the translator's subjectivity to surface and the research of this issue has developed from being ignored to being confirmed,until it has become a hot issue in translation study at present.Based on Reception Aesthetics,this paper intends to do a research of the translator's role in the process of translation by comparing two versions of Fu Sheng Liu Ji.The Reception Aesthetics is a theory of literary criticism,established in the late 1960's,based on hermeneutics and phenomenology,with the focus on the readers' reception.The main representatives of this theory are Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser who made the glorious contribution to the development of Reception Aesthetics. In the West,it became a very important orientation in the present translation studies in the late 1970's.Then it was introduced into field of Chinese translation in the late 1980's.It is mainly utilized to the discussion of the issues such as the translator's subjectivity,the target-language text reader's reception,the process of translation,and so on.All these researches are necessary to the construction of Chinese translation theories.This paper probes the translator's subjectivity from the perspective of Reception Aesthetics,and then come to a conclusion:on the one hand,we should show respect to the translator's creativity and subjectivity.His own horizon of expectation,the creative expectations of target-language text readers,and the appealing structure of the text can help him exert his subjectivity;on the other hand,the exertion of subjectivity is not limitless,so it will be influenced by various objectivity factors to different extent and will be intervened by translator's own ability,attitude,way of thinking,feeling and willpower,the directed expectation of target-language text readers and the determinacy of the text during translation process.Therefore,translator's subjectivity is a restrained act of recreation.Fu Sheng Liu ji,an autobiography written by Shen Fu in the Qing Dynasty, contains rich Chinese culture.This paper compares two English versions of Fu Sheng Liu ji:Six Chapters Of A Floating Life,translated by Lin Yutang and published in 1930's,Chapters From A Floating Life,translated by Shirley.M.Black and published in 1960's.By comparing them in general and then in detail,it is noticeable that both the two translators have played their subjectivity in the process of translation,but the extent of exertion is different.