On Translator’s Subjectivity In Chinese Translation Of Sister Carrie-from The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

From the perspective of relevance theory, this thesis attempts to compare two Chinese versions of Sister Carrie, translated by Qiu Zhuchang&Shi Ling in1962and Wang Kefei&Zhang Shaoning in1999respectively, and explores translator’s subjectivity manifested in them, so as to show that translator’s subjectivity plays an important role in the whole process of translation including choosing, understanding and expressing the text while affected by some factors, especially the original text, the translator and the target reader’s cognitive environment.In the traditional translation theories, translator’s role has been neglected. However, with the emergence of "cultural turn", people began to realize the translator’s role in translation, and thus the translator’s subjectivity became a hot topic. Meanwhile, more and more translators and scholars began to pay more attention to the translator and studied this aspect from different angles. Among them, relevance theory is a new one. Besides, different Chinese versions of Sister Carrie in different periods are good materials to study the translator’s subjectivity.The theoretical foundation is relevance theory, which is cognitive and pragmatic theory put forward by Sperber&Wilson. Under the framework of relevance theory, the process of translation involves three participants, that is, the writer, the translator, the target reader. And because they have different cognitive environments, it leaves much more room for the translator to exert his subjectivity in translating.This thesis includes five parts. In Chapter one of introduction, the author explains the literature review, the objective and significance of the thesis. Chapter two is the theoretical foundation. This thesis involves two theories:the translator’s subjectivity and relevance theory. The author studies the translator’s subjectivity and introduces some key terms of relevance theory, such as cognitive environment, mutual manifestness, principle of relevance, etc. According to relevance theory, translation is a dynamic process involving three participants—the author of the source text, the translator, and the reader of the target text. Among them, the translator acts as a bridge between the author of the source text and the reader of the target text, and has his own initiative in the translation process. Finally, the author shows her understanding of translator’s subjectivity under the framework of relevance theory. In Chapter three, the author will introduce some related information about Sister Carrie, especially its two Chinese versions. Chapter four is the core of the whole thesis. From the perspective of relevance theory, the author studies how translator’s subjectivity is manifested in two Chinese versions of Sister Carrie, and analyzes it from three stages including choosing the source language text, understanding the source language text, and expressing the source language text. And in the last chapter, the author makes a summary of the research findings.