On Translator’s Subjectivity From The Perspective Of Hermeneutics

As a mediator between authors and readers, a bridge connecting different cultures, translators’ position is unquestionable. However the existence of translators is ignored for a long time by scholars at home and aboard in the process of translation which is not conducted just on the plane of words. Translators are passive extremely in translation for traditional translation advocates “loyalty” and pays more attention to translation skills and strategies. As a result, translators are not put on a reasonable position. In 1970 s, with the appearance of “Cultural Turn” in west, the studies on translation gradually shifted to those social and cultural factors which influence the process of translation. The majority of scholars had also begun to recognize the important role in the play. Translator’s subjectivity gained much attention and recognition meanwhile researches on it emerged in large numbers.Modern hermeneutics holds the idea that translation is a process of explanation and interpretation. The procedure that the subject explains text resembles that translators translate source texts. In the process of translation translators are not only take the initiative but also refrained by various factors. The thesis attempts to discuss how the translator’s subjectivity affect the formation of a new text(target text) from the three aspects of modern hermeneutics, namely, prejudice, historicity of understanding and fusion of horizon, by analyzing the English version of To Alive. Through the analysis, it is concluded: translation is not just for achieving literal equivalence mechanically, but an activity need to be creative. In the whole process of translation, as the most active body translators display their subjective consciousness inevitably. The translator on the one hand plays their own initiative actively, and strive to achieve the fusion of horizon of source and target text as much as possible and form a new horizon, in order to create an acceptable translation version; on the other hand, the translator should avoid wrong prejudices, and not produce misreading and mistranslation. The nature that a text exists indeterminacy provides translator with a great deal of autonomy, and historicity of understanding also makes translation impossible meet all needs but exist other possibilities. The paper is expected to deepen people’s understanding to the nature of the translation, and make people view the role played by the translator correctly and reasonably in translation. The translator should make best use of their initiative to create more extraordinary works so as to drive Chinese literary works to spread out around the world.The thesis tries to explain the necessity of translator’s subjectivity by introducing the importance and connotation of translator’s subjectivity. Meanwhile the thesis introduces the theoretical support from the aspect of hermeneutics for the translator’s subjectivity and the close relationship among translator’s subjectivity, hermeneutics, and literary translation. At last the study shows how the translator’s subjectivity affects translation from the aspects of prejudice, historicity of understanding and fusion of horizon by discussing a lot of detailed examples extracted from the English version of To Alive.