Translator’s Subjectivity From The Perspective Of Reception Theory

Translation is an important means of communication and negotiation between two cultures, in the process of which the translator plays an indispensable role. Nevertheless, due to the marginalized status of translation in traditional translation theories, the translator’s role has long been neglected. With the development of translation studies, the role of the translator is drawing more and more attention. This process enables translation researchers to attach more and more importance to the role of the translator who acts as a dynamic and irreplaceable factor in the process of translation. The study of the translator has a profound influence on translation studies. It has been generally recognized that the translator plays an irreplaceable role by acting not only as a simple translator, but also as the reader, the writer, the creator, and other roles. This thesis introduces Reception Theory which guides the translator in translation activities, analyzes different roles of the translator and tries to justify translator’s subjectivity from the new perspective of Reception Theory.Based on phenomenology and hermeneutics, some scholars have developed Reception Theory, and Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser are of the best representatives. As a matter of fact, Reception Theory marks a shift in focus from the author and his work to the text-reader relationship in literary theories. This theory lays an unprecedented emphasis on the long-neglected, but actually active role of the reader and provides a new approach for translation studies. Therefore, this thesis starts with the analysis of the process of translation and has an elaboration on the development of translator’s role. Then, some important concepts and the main ideas of Reception Theory are introduced. Next, the thesis applies some important terms in Reception Theory to translation study and explains three important terms in Reception Theory-"indeterminacy","concretization" and "horizon of expectation" and discusses their significance toward translation study. Moreover, based on the previous elaboration, the author illustrates the manifestation of the subjective role of the reader and ways of function in three stages:in the process of source text selection, interpretation and reproduction. While contemporary Reception Theory holds that there is no absolute interpretation of the meaning of a text and the reader (the translator) interprets the meaning of a text through the process of concretization and plays a subjective role in such a process, the status of the translator cannot be overemphasized. Instead, his scope of creativity is limited, depending on the source text.