Translator’s Note In Literary Translation

Translator’s note, a subject ignored by both Chinese and Occidental researchers for a long time, has been attracting since the end of last century more and more attention of the academia, largely owning to the proposal of the concept of’paratext’ by French literary theorist Gerard Genette. This thesis attempts to make further study on translator’s note.In Introduction, we take a brief look at some representative works discussing translator’s note, through which we can discover an important difference between the methods used by Chinese and Occidental researchers when studying translator’s note:Chinese researchers prefer to use inductive method, while Occidental researchers have a partial to deductive method. Then, we carry out an analysis of the advantages and drawbacks of these two methods, from which we can understand profoundly the necessity of the combinaison of the two methods, tendance already reflected in some recent works on translator’s note.In Chapter One, we try to redefine and recategorize translator’s note. The existing definitions and categorizations of translator’s note, although reflecting each some properties of the latter, contain all some evident defects, necessitating the formulation of a new definition and a new categorization of translator’s note, of which the methodology can be provided by some logic works. At last, translator’s note is defined as a kind of’paratext’who assumes the task of connecting original and translated text as well as translator and reader, and the categorization of translator’s note is carried out on the basis of the contradiction between form and content.Chapter Two is an analysis of the multiple functions of translator’s note. Firstly, by distinguishing’function’from three of its synonyms, be’role’,’effect’and’use’, we succeed in prescribing a limit to the field of discussion; then, inspired by an idea of Yang Wuneng, a Chinese translator famous for introducing German classical literature to Chinese readers, we divide the process of literary translation into’phase of production’and’phase of consumption’, in which translator’s note exerts different functions deserving to be studied respectively.In Chapter Three, we discuss how to handle properly translator’s note. About this question, the former discussions focused only on the role of the translator, while the present thesis not only pays atttention to the translator, who is the producer of translator’s note, but also underlines the importance of the reader, who exerts influence on translator’s note as well by consuming it.In order to enhance the persuasiveness of the demonstration, a number of exemples taken from two Chinese versions of Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris, one achieved by Guan Zhenhu and published in2011, another accomphished by Chen Jingrong and published in1982, are introduced in our discussion.In Conclusion, we emphasize again the importance of the cooperation between the translator and the reader, and point out some difficulties the researchers have to confront when studying translator’s note.