Reception Vs. Resistance: A Study Of The Relationship Between Ideology And The Translator’s Subjectivity In Literary Translation

With the "cultural turn" in translation studies, researchers have paid more and more attention to both ideology and the translator’s subjectivity, however, few researches have been made to explore the relationship between them. Though many Chinese and foreign scholars have realized the influences of ideology on literary translation and have done quite a few relevant researches, and yet people ignore the fact that the influences of ideology on literary translation are mainly through influencing the translator’s subjectivity, quite a few scholars have overemphasized, even absolutized ideology’s influences on literary translation. This thesis tries to explore the relationship between ideology and the translator’s subjectivity by means of many translation examples, we can find out that, admittedly, ideology can exert its influences on translation to a great degree through influencing the translator’s subjectivity, however, the translator’s subjectivity is complex and does not always receive or succumb to the influences of ideology. The translator is the subject of translation after all, the translator’s subjectivity will choose to do resistance to ideology under some circumstances. This thesis divides translation purpose into translation’s non-textual purpose and translation’s textual-purpose, the translator’s subjectivity’s reception of ideology’s influences is mainly for the sake of achieving translation’s non-textual purpose, while the translator subjectivity’s resistance to ideology is mainly for the sake of achieving translation’s textual-purpose, many scholars overemphasize ideology’s influences on literary translation so that people tend to pay more attention to translation’s non-textual purpose and ignore translation’s textual purpose in translation theories and translation practice, thus the pursuit of translation is upside down, the translator’s foremost task is to exert his subjectivity well in order to achieve translation’s textual-purpose, on the basis of achieving translation’s textual purpose, the translator can also watch out for the fulfillment of translation’s non-textual purpose, this has realistic significance to the qualities of the works and the spreading of the works as well as to the qualities of the translator.This thesis is composed of six chapters, the first chapter gives a introduction of the background, the significance, the methodology and the structure of the thesis. The second chapter gives a review of the definitions of the concepts of ideology and the translator’s subjectivity by previous researchers as well as a review of previous studies on ideology and the translator’s subjectivity, and points out the reason and the necessity to combine both ideology and the translator’s subjectivity together in this thesis. The third chapter explores how ideology influences the translator’s subjectivity in terms of the selection of the source text, the translation strategies and the translation methods and so on. The fourth chapter explores the reasons why the translator’s subjectivity resists ideology’s influences and how the translator’s subjectivity specifically resists ideology’s influences in terms of the selection of the source text and translation strategies. The fifth chapter explores the purpose of translation and puts forward translation’s textual purpose and translation’s non-textual purpose by professor Cao Minglun, this thesis thinks that the translator’s subjectivity’s reception to ideology’s influences is mainly for the sake of achieving different various translation’s non-textual purpose, the translator’s subjectivity’s resistance to ideology’s influences is mainly for the sake of achieving translation’s textual purpose, and points out that the translator is supposed to exert his subjectivity well to achieve translation’s textual purpose, on the basis of which, the translator can choose to watch out for achieving translation’s non-textual purpose. The sixth chapter is the conclusion, giving a brief summary of the major findings of this research and pointing out its limitations and suggestions for further studies.