A Study Of Translator’s Subjectivity In Translation Of Jane Eyre From George Steiner’s Hermeneutic Perspective

Translation is a basic communicative activity for human beings, and it is also an important means of communication to cross the barriers of language and culture. As a mediator, translator plays a unique role in the process of translation. With the improvement of the translator’s status, the translator’s subjectivity becomes focus of the translation studies.Hermeneutics is a branch of the western philosophy, and it is also regarded as a theory of understanding and interpretation of meaning. Actually, it has close relationship with translation. Combing the theories of hermeneutics and translation, Steiner puts forward an idea that translation is a kind of interpretation, and divides the translation process into four steps:initiative trust, aggression, incorporation and compensation. According to the four translation steps, the translator’s subjectivity is emphasized and stressed. As a matter of fact, the display of translator’s subjectivity is influenced and restricted by the translator’s subjective consciousness, such as the translator’s historical background, cultural background, language competence, cultural consciousness, etc.Jane Eyre is a classical work in the history of English literature, which attracts both translators and readers. Li Jiye finished his translation of Jane Eyre in1935. In this thesis, offering Steiner’s Fourfold Hermeneutic Translation Motion Theory as the framework, the writer aims to make a concrete analysis of Li Jiye’s subjectivity manifested in his Chinese version of Jane Eyre. The translator’s subjectivity embodied in the process of translation, in the first step of initiative trust, the translator chooses the original text based on his own linguistic and cultural consciousness; in the second step of aggression, the translator overcomes and conquers the barriers and difficulties between language and culture; in the third step of incorporation, the translator uses domestication and foreignization to incorporate and assimilate the meaning and form of source text and target text; the last step of compensation, the translator uses the means of annotation from the level of history and culture. According to those researches, the writer attempts to prove that the translator’s subjectivity impenetrates the whole process of translation activity and provides new perspective and reference for studying Chinese version of Jane Eyre.