Research On Translators’ Subjectivity In Children’s Literature Translation From The Reception Aesthetics

Literary translation has always been a controversial topic in the field of translation and there are numerous corresponding theories and researches. However, to our disappointment, though children’s literature translation is a branch of literary translation, Chinese children’s literature translation research hasn’t got due attention as a result of long-term neglect of children’s literature in literary research. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is an immortal children’s novel by American humor master Mark Twain. The novel fully shows special characteristics of joy, fear and pursuit of stimulation, etc. However, in contrast to other masterpieces, scholars’researches of the book are relatively less, and most of them stay on literary level, while translation researches on this novel is scarce, thus it is of great significance to choose the Adventures of Tom Sawyer to study children’s literature translation.As an independent and self-sufficient literary criticism, the reception aesthetics is based on phenomenology, hermeneutics and readers’reception practice. The German Constance School was the first to raise the banner of the reception aesthetics, whose representatives are Hans Robbert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser. Jauss was mainly affected by Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics. Jauss’main viewpoints are as follows:(1) Literature research should be put into practice as the research of literary work which should be carried out as the research on existing mode of literary work;(2) Readers’"horizon of expectation."(Jauss,1987:61-65) Yet Iser was mainly influenced by Roman Ingarden’s phenomenology literature theory. His main viewpoints are as follows:(1) How do literary works mobilize the readers’active role to process incidents in the text personally;(2) To apply "appealing structure of the text","potential readers of the text","indeterminacy","concretization", etc. to explain reading behavior research.(Iser,1978:56-59) The author will choose "readers’horizon of expectations","indeterminacy", and "concretization" to make a contrastive analysis between Mr. Zhang Yousong’s (1960, People’s Publishing Press) and Mr. Diao Keli’s (2007, Chinese Children’s Publishing Press) Chinese versions of the Adventures of Tom Sawyer in order to explore what are their focus on children readers’"horizon of expectations" at different times and how the two Chinese versions concretize indeterminacies. Since the "cultural turn" of translation study in1970s, translators’ subjectivity became one of the hot topics in translation study, which mainly focuses on translators’ subjective initiative, including the intentionality, independence and creativity. The establishment of the position of translators’ subjectivity provided a new perspective for many important propositions in the field of translation study and reminded us translation process is for translators to make choices from language constantly, and they play the most active and central role in translation process. From the perspective of the reception aesthetics, translators in the whole translation process act as the first reader of the text and the linking bridge between the source text and the target readers, and their subjectivity can be exerted to the greatest extent.The Following are the major findings of this research:(1) Children’s literature translation should focus on the role of children’s participation and excellent translations in different periods of time should take children’s "horizon of expectations" into consideration. What consists of the two translators’ different focus on children readers’"horizon of expectations" is that words, idioms, proverbs, etc. applied by them have shown Chinese children’s likeness and acceptability at different times.(2) Two translators have their own ways of concretizing indeterminacies and the concretization can achieve different effects for children readers. Some of them may leave greater space for children readers to imagine.(3) Translators tend to analyze and understand the original text according to their own reading experience, value orientation, background knowledge and many other factors and then express their reproduced idea when taking target readers’"horizon of expectations" into consideration. In the process of translating, translators should keep a balance between the horizon fusions and the exertion of translators’ subjectivity.(4) The contrastive analysis has exerted the instructive significance to children’s literature translation and it’s clear that children readers should be placed in the first place, liberal translation should be employed as the primary method and literal translation and other means can be supplementary methods. The thesis consists of six parts in total as follows:In the introduction of the thesis, the author will clarify the necessity, significance, and questions of the research.The second part gives a specific literature review on relevant theories of the reception aesthetics and translators’subjectivity concisely and literature review about children’s literature translation and the Adventures of Tom Sawyer abroad and at home.The third part introduces data collection and research methodology. This part will introduce Mark Twain, the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, two translators and their Chinese versions, etc.The fourth part covers data analysis:first of all, the author attempts to make a contrastive analysis between the different emphases on "horizon of expectation" of two Chinese versions translated in different times from linguistic level, rhetorical level and cultural level respectively. Then the author will make a contrastive analysis on how the two translators concretize indeterminacies from the perspective of lexical level, syntactical level and textual level. Finally the summary covers how the two translators exert their subjectivity in the process of translating.The fifth part servers as a discussion about strategies adopted by two translators respectively and the author will analyze their instructive significance to children’s literature translation.The sixth part aims to conclude the whole text and the author will point out the major findings, limitations of the thesis and suggestions for the further study on this topic.