On The Dialogical Ethics Of Translation

Dialogical ethics of translation was originally put forward by Douglas Robinson in his first translation theory work, The Translator’s Turn in1991, who has been an active and influential translation theorist of western translation studies. It is not a specific translation principle, but an ethical interpretation based on the idiosomatics of translation, dialogism of translation and master tropes, and an attempt to shift the translation study paradigm. While it has not been properly and effectively understood and applied due to its overdeconstructed expressions, exclusive examples and context-vacuum study content.This thesis begins with the introduction of the theoretical background of dialogical ethics with a review of Mikahil Bakhtin’s dialogical aesthetics and Douglas Robinson’s ethics of translation, followed by the analysis of their norm-based traditional definitions, and exploration of the new connotations considering all the subjects and objects involved in the translation activities, which are the embodiment of the translation regulation and methodology. Then it analyzes the English translation of a series of four-character phrases in David Hawkes’The Story of the Stone from the following three levels:the dialogue between subjects, the dialogue between subjects and objects, and the dialogue between the objects, including expressions, personal relations, virtues and intelligence, emotion and will, etc.The conclusions drawn from this thesis are as follows. (1) Dialogical ethics of translation, as a unity of regulation and methodology, on the one hand describes how the subjects and objects interact, and on the other hand regulates and guides the interaction pattern;(2) New connotations of dialogical ethics of translation include the dialogue between subjects, the dialogue between subjects and objects, and the dialogue between the objects as well;(3) Practical dialogical methodology consists of rhetoric-based way, empathy-based way, balance-based way and boundary-based way, etc., which are essential to the extensive study of translation ethics.