An Analysis Of Zhang Guruo’s Chinese Translation Jude The Obscure From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

The focus of translation study has undergone some changes, from the writer to the text and later to the reader. Reception Aesthetics, born in the1960s’holds that text can only come to life with the participation of the reader and the translated work has to gain the acceptability and recognition of the reader. Besides, before reading a literary text, a reader’s mind is not blank but has certain world value, social experience, and aesthetic demands, etc which is called the reader’s horizon of expectation. Thus, reader’s acceptance level and requirements have to be taken into account when translation is conducted. The horizon of expectation of the translator has not only to conform with that of the writer but also with that of the readers, which is known as the "fusion of expectations", so that he or she can faithfully convey the spirits of the original text in an acceptable way. What is more, it is also held that the meaning of the text is indeterminate. So In order to achieve the goal described above, the translator also has to try his best to excavate the implied meaning by constantly filling the gaps resided in the text. In order to testify the ideas of the theory, the famous Chinese translator Zhang Guruo’s translation of Jude the Obscure is chosen. In order to ensure correct and convincing analysis, only chapter three is selected. In the translation, domestication plays the dominant role while foreignization plays the supplementary role, making it of high readability by fully taking consideration of the target reader’s acceptance ability. The domestic-oriented strategy includes the abundant use of four-lettered expressions characteristic of Chinese, amplification to fully excavate the implied meaning of the original text; repetition to clearly present the original meaning; application of Shandong dialect to substitute Wessex dialect so as to shorten the aesthetic distance between the translated text and Chinese readers; and sentence restructuring in an effort to employ the idiomatic Chinese to convey the original ideas. His foreignization refers to literal translation and annotation. When there exists a great resemblance between the two languages to express the same idea, the former is applied. And due to the original text’s relevance to religion, architecture and allusions, Thomas Hardy, the writer of Jude the Obscure, noted at the last pages of the book. Zhang Guruo dealt with the footnotes in a different way. He noted at the bottom of the pages where necessary, without translating the notes in a word-for-word manner, but selecting the important information to explain. Generally, domestication is beneficial for the stabilization and development of the target language and culture; while foreignization is useful for the expansion of foreign cultures to enrich the target language and culture. By no means will the two kinds of translating strategies get separated, but they should co-exist with each other. Zhang Guruo’s translation shows his concern on the reader, and he applies different strategies under different circumstances where reader’s horizon of expectation changes. So Zhang Guruo has flexibly dealt with the relationship between domestication and foreignization, faithfully conveyed the intrinsic meaning on the basis of filling the gaps resided in the original text, and has successfully achieved "fusion of horizon"...