A Study Of Translator’s Subjectivity Under The Manipulation School

Translation activity is everywhere in human life. For a long time, translator’ssubjectivity was ignored by people. Translators were regarded as the servant of author,the translation machine, and the tongue person. Since the culture turn in translationstudies, scholars have paid their attention to the translator and the translated text.Translation studies moved from prescriptive studies into descriptive studies. Instead ofmaking rules for translation, scholars tend to study why the text is translated in this way.It is admitted that translator is the subject of translation activity and has subjectivity inthe translation process.The Manipulation School, as one of the most important school in culture turn, paysits attention to translator’s subjectivity. They believe that from the point of view of thetarget literature, all translation implies a degree of manipulation of the source text for acertain purpose. The Manipulation School indicates that translator’s translation activity isconstrained by three factors: patronage, poetics and ideology. Influenced by these factors,translators manipulate the original text with a certain purpose.May4thMovement period was a special period of China. During this period, atranslator was not only the one who did the simple transition work between twolanguages, but also the one who could influence the development of the society.Translation works at that time had their era characteristics. Literature was entrusted withpolitical and historical meaning. The translation of Oscar Wilde’s children literatureexperienced a blossom during that period. The choice of Oscar Wilde’s children literatureand the selection of translation strategies were definitely influenced by the culturalbackground of China. Based on the point of views of the Manipulation School, this thesisanalyzes the influences of the target culture on translators in the translation of OscarWilde’s children literature during that period form the aspects of patronage, poetics andideology. The influence on translators and their translation purposes are the exactly theembodiment of translator’s subjectivity. From the analysis, this thesis finds that the selection and translation of OscarWilde’s children literature was not random. The translation activities and translatedworks were the result of the May4thMovement and the New Culture Movement. Tracesof the social situation and the New Culture Movement could be found in the translatedworks. Meanwhile, the translated works also promoted the development of the NewCulture Movement. Under the constraint of patronage, poetics and ideology, translatorsselected the translation text, translation skills and translation strategies with certainpurposes. What constrain the translator are the patronage, poetics and ideology fromtarget culture, rather than the author and the original text. Translators are no longsubordinate to the author. Translator’s subjectivity is shown in the constraints.