Chapter Title Translation From The Perspective Of Chapter Title Translation From The Perspective Of Hermeneutics Theory

Xi You Ji, one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels, enjoys enormous popularity both at home and abroad for its witty plots, variegated writing techniques, complex ideological contents, and seriocomic critics and satires; since the advent of this Zhanghui novel, it is widely spread around the world, while being translated in various languages into multiple versions, among which Anthony C. Yu’s full-length English version The Journey to the West is a remarkable representative. Chapter titles, summarizing the storylines and offering guidance for readers in the beginning of each chapter, is a unique form of artistic expression and an indispensable part in Zhanghui novels. However, the chapter title translation of Xi You Ji has rarely received the attention it deserves in previous studies.Hermeneutics is a philosophy of textual understanding and interpretation, which has a natural internal relation with translation. George Steiner, one of the representatives of hermeneutics, has proposed his fourfold hermeneutic motion as "trust", "aggression", "incorporation" and "restitution", which creatively refines the whole process of translation from the perspective of the translator, enriches the theoretical research system of translation, and provides a brand-new angle for guiding translation practice.Since the research on chapter title translation of Xi You Ji is still a blank field, this thesis selects the translations of chapter titles in The Journey to the West by Anthony C. Yu as the object of study, summarizing their characteristics while exploring in depth the feasibility of Steiner’s hermeneutic motion theory in guiding chapter title translation, with the aim of broadening the research horizon.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one gives a brief introduction, including research background, objective and significance of the research, research methodology and thesis structure. Chapter two is literature review, in retrospect of the research achievements of chapter title translation and hermeneutics theory at home and abroad. Chapter three is the theoretical framework of this thesis, discussing the definition, origin and development, and primary principles of hermeneutics, as well as its enlightenments to translation, while elaborating on George Steiner’s hermeneutic motion theory. Chapter four, the crucial part of this thesis, systematically demonstrates the guiding significance of the hermeneutic motion theory towards chapter title translation, combined with the examples of chapter title translation in Anthony C. Yu’s English version of Xi You Ji-The Journey to the West. Chapter five draws a conclusion of the major findings, limitation of this thesis, and offers some suggestions for further studies.According to the research of the thesis, it is found that the hermeneutic motion can provide effective guidance for chapter title translation. The translator, being active in the translation process as an interpreter, gives play to his/her subjectivity to select the source text, comprehends its connotations adequately, chooses translation strategies to reproduce the connotations of the original chapter title in target language, and takes proper measures to restore the balance of translation, through which the style and features of the original chapter title can be retained in the translation to facilitate the propagation of Zhanghui novels and even the Chinese culture.