On The Translator’s Subjectivity In Yang Bi’s Translation Of Vanity Fair

For a very long time in the past, translation studies have been characterized as prescriptive and source-text oriented. Also, discussions on translation nature, translation criteria and translation techniques have been the focus of academic concern, which is both true in Eastern and Western countries. As a result, studies on the translator are traditionally ignored and the translator’s subjectivity is regarded as something that the translator should constrain himself from showing. As translation studies continue to develop and the "Cultural Turn" has expanded the fields of translation studies, the significant role of the translator is increasingly recognized and valued. Therefore, the studies on the translator’s subjectivity have become a topic of considerable attention in recent years with an increasing number of scholars and theorists in this field engaging themselves in this arena.Hermeneutics is one of the most significant perspectives employed to explore the translator’s subjectivity within the Chinese community of translation studies. Here the author studies the translator’s subjectivity with the famed Fourfold Translation Motion Theory put forward by George Steiner who is the representative of hermeneutic translation studies. He holds that the following four movements:initiative trust, aggression, incorporation and compensation are at work during the translation process. Although it is not peculiarly elaborated by George Steiner himself, we can still find that his fourfold translation motion shares, in some sense, some common ground and concern with the subjectivity of the translator and, what’s more, stresses the manifestation of the translator’s subjectivity. Based on the analysis of this theory, the subjectivity of Yang Bi in her translation of Vanity Fair is discussed in this thesis.The author of this thesis intends to analyze how Yang Bi’s subjectivity displays during the course of translating Vanity Fair in a qualitative way. What the author endeavors to prove is that the translator’s subjectivity is at work throughout the translation process and exerts a significant influence on the translation effect. From the analysis, the author acquires the following three enlightenments on the translator’s subjectivity:Firstly, the translator’s subjectivity exists almost everywhere during the course of a literary translation activity. Secondly, the translator’s subjectivity plays a central part in the translation effect. Thirdly, the translator’s subjectivity is characterized by a generative nature whereby it is undergone a continuous development process and remains to be unfinished. It is hoped that this study could expand the perspectives of the research on the translation of Vanity Fair, and offer some enlightenment for further investigation of the translator’s subjectivity.