Translation From The Translator Subjectivity Perspective David Copperfield Four

The cultural turn in translation studies has provided us with a brand new vision, in which the translators have walked out of the shadow of the original author and begin to gain much attention. To discuss the work of translation and to pay attention to the translator's subjectivity can help us go beyond the traditional bondage which we call the absolute faithfulness to the source text. In this way, many researchers are able to explain certain translation phenomena which they could not explain or have been misunderstood by the traditional approach.Charles Dickens is one of the greatest novelists after Shakespeare, and is among the first western writers introduced into China in the early times. There are Chinese versions for almost all his novels which are still loved so much by readers. David Copperfield is the author's favorite work, and is also the most important one. As we can see, the more excellent a literary work is, the more difficult the translation will be. Therefore, translators in different times took great efforts to reinterpret this great work to make the translation perfect, or more acceptable. Four translations are selected in this research, in order to examine the translator's role in literary translation.Contributions of this thesis lie in the combination of translator's subjectivity study and comparative studies of translated text. First, the author researches into the theoretical basis of translator's subjectivity study and the meaning and features of it. Then, the author briefs on the life and background of Dickens and his writing style, as well as the introduction and acceptance of his works. In the third part, the author gives detailed description to four translations, from the perspectives such as the translator's life experience, his view on literary and translation, his language skill, translation aims and strategies, in an attempt to get a clear idea of the differences between these versions. This part is followed by a detailed comparison, between three of them, to see how they vary in the treatment of cultural images. Lastly, the author gives comments on the four translations from a micro perspective and point out some possibilities for future studies.