Heroism And Translators' Visibility

Since the beginning of the world, human beings need to employ translation to achieve information exchange between different tribes and ethnics. The birth of translation is the necessity of survival and development of human beings. To some extent, the history of human beings is one of translation development. Translators play such an important role in the spreading and developing process of human civilization.However, when we think about the development history of translation vertically, we find that the identity of translators has always been one of the topics discussed and debated in academic circles. There are mainly two entirely different, even contradictory points of view on this matter:one believes that translators should be invisible, in view of the low status of translators in the society. In most traditional translation theories, the identity of translators was framed in an orientation of attachment to the communication, such as the saying that translators are no more than a tongue, or the instrument. The other holds the view that translators should be visible as a third party in the communication, which can be seen as a response to the first kind of view, and the translators should be the "master" or the "conqueror". Although there is certain reasonability in these theories which can be appropriate for the current situation, the first view is more accepted by most scholars nowadays. However, in actual implementation of translation, there are numerous examples of translators'visibility. Why could that happen? Are the translators intentional or subconscious? What is exactly the psychological p(?)ocess of translators in translation?There are altogether six chapters in this thesis:after a brief introduction of Chapter 1, Chapter 2 focuses on the changing roles of translators in translation history:from the instrument at first to the manipulative power over the whole communication later. The main problem of this thesis is raised here:the psychological process under the phenomenon of visibility of translators.Chapter 3 introduces the concept of heroism, from the origin of this concept, its status in psychology to the inevitability of this phenomenon, providing the theoretical prop for this thesis.In Chapter 4, by applying the theory and method in psychology, especially the TAP studies which concerns itself with the mental reality of translation process, and its progress in modeling translation process and examining factors that influence the process, The paper presents the viewpoint of the author on a selection of her experiences as a translator during her lifetime and the analysis of the results of questionnaire and experiments.Chapter 5, after the analysis of the questionnaires and experiment results, aims to bring to the attention of translating professionals a framework and a few ideas for recognizing a typical translator's psychological activities based on one's own experience and ways to respond out of a subjective inner quality called heroism. She integrates these findings with her understanding of personal construct psychology, the psychology of change and the concept deriving from Sigmund Freud:heroism. Chapter 6 is the conclusion of the thesis:the visibility phenomenon of translators is closely connected with the complex of heroism. Moderate heroism can fill the cultural and psychological gaps between the two parties in this communication and thus help to fulfill this communication smoothly and fluently, however, translators should be able to keep it under control so as not to interfere with the communication.This paper is significant in that it draws on authentic experiences of translators that are conceptualized into a coherent framework and linked to a well-accepted theory within the science of psychology. Further it offers a way, through the philosophical concept of "heroism" to understand the deep psychological reason of the visibility of the translators and may affect positively the establishment of a new discipline-translation psychology.