On Literary Translation Strategies From The Perspective Of Intersubjectivity Theory

In recent years, with the deepening of cultural exchanges with foreign countries, more and more foreign literary works are introduced to China and translated into Chinese. Literature includes such literary forms as poetry, essay, drama, and fiction. Compared with other writings, excellent literary works have their own characteristics. According to Liu Shicong, the first characteristic is that any literary work has a kind of artistic prospect and atmosphere, which are created through its author’s spiritual temperament, moral sentiment, aesthetic inclination and the particular images he or she coins, and make up the core of a work’s aesthetic value; the second one is that the sound and rhythm in a language is an indispensable sign of a work’s aesthetic value; and the third one is that every writer employs a unique language style to express himself or herself.As a result, the translation of literary texts accordingly has a very high demand for translators. It requires translators to have wide knowledge on language, culture and aesthetics. When translating a literary work, a translator has to study and analyze the original text carefully—appreciating the author’s spiritual temperament, moral sentiment, aesthetic inclination, comprehending his or her language style and sharing the similar aesthetic feeling with the author, reproduce them in another different language and then transmit them to target readers, who will keep on the recreation while reading. An excellent literary translation is created and recreated jointly by the author and the translator, while target readers will continue this creation during the process of their reading. All of these above are consistent with intersubjectivity theory, which emphasizes the relationship between a translator and readers, the author, other social subjects. Therefore, intersubjectivity theory can provide beneficial theoretical guidance for literary translation studies.This thesis intends to sort out some useful literary translation strategies, under the guidance of intersubjectivity theory, through the analysis of my translation of Code Name: Johnny Walker and Fang Ping’s translation of Wuthering Heights. Strategies such as supplement, word formation, the change of voices, reconstitution, materialization and communicative translation can be used to deal with the relationship between the translator and readers. Strategies such as mimetic word, annotation, the choices of meaning and repetition are practical enough to deal with the relationship between the translator and the author. Strategies such as foreignizing translation and domesticating translation are useful in dealing with the relationship between the translator and other social subjects.