On Translator’s Subjectivity From Steiner’s Hermeneutic Perspective

The translators have been in the marginal position in the long history of the development of translation studies until the emergence of "cultural turn" of translation research. The translator’s role in the translation practice has been given enough attention and the subjectivity of the translator gradually becomes the focus of the translation study.Based on George Steiner’s fourfold hermeneutic motion theory, this paper makes a tentative endeavor to analyze the abstract issue of the translator’s subjectivity through the four moves, trust, aggression, incorporation and restitution in the case study of the Chinese translation of the The Kite Runner by Li Jihong. This thesis is to obtain the scientific awareness on how the translator’s subjectivity exerts influence on the translation activity, affirming the subjective role of the translators in translation practice.The author presents a literature review about the previous study of the translator’s subjectivity and the translation of the original work, and then the theoretical foundation of this thesis, including the classical hermeneutic theories related to translation studies and particularly Steiner’s fourfold hermeneutic motion theory is comprehensively introduced.Then the thesis explores how the translator’s subjectivity is exerted in details and also concludes that these major factors, including the translator’s linguistic competence, cultural accumulation, the reader-positioning, and the ideology will influence the translator’s subjectivity.