On The Subjectivity Of Collaborative Translators

Since the appearance of "cultural turn" in translation studies in the 1970s,people have been paying more and more attention to the translator,the actual performer of translation activity,and those factors closely related to him/her such as the subjectivity of the translator and the manipulation of ideology and power on translation,etc.Of all these,the subjectivity of the translator has become a heated topic in focus in recent years.The past decade,in particular,has witnessed a surge of researches on the translator's subjectivity both at home and abroad.But the present researches have idealized the translator when they discuss the subjectivity of him or her.In other words,the object of their researches is an ideal individual instead of real-life translation practitioners.As a matter of fact,translation is often done by two or more translators due to such reasons as language competence,time limitation and financial support,etc.These people constitute a team in which they cooperate with each other in fulfilling the task.The team has to take into consideration many factors like the original text,the author,the client,the reader and other social elements as the individual translator does.In the meanwhile,they must pay much attention to the relationship between themselves if they want to accomplish the task smoothly.Obviously translators in a group are different from an individual translator in many respects,especially in their subjectivities.But to the present time studies on the subjectivity of collaborative translators can be found nowhere in the translation circle though it is long overdue.Few systematic researches and analyses have been made on collaborative translation and the subjectivity displayed through the practice.Based on a retrospect of the past researches on the subjectivity of the translator, this thesis summarizes that the translator has been freed from the fetters of being faithful to the original and his/her status has shifted from "invisible" to "visible". Then the paper gives a detailed description of the history and modes of collaborative translation before probing into the issue of the subjectivity of the collaborative translators.The author argues that the subjectivity of the collaborative translators is somewhat different from that of the translator and the exertion of the collaborative subjectivity is the result of a game between all the translators and the translation environment.Unlike the subjectivity of the translator,the subjectivity of the collaborative translators is more often than not concealed.