Analysis Of Chinese Translation Of The Bible From The Perspective Of Deconstruction Translation Theory

Deconstruction emerged in the 1960 s and began to be applied in translation field in the late 1980 s. It challenges the traditional translation criterion—“faithfulness”, the authority of the author and it denies the eternal meaning of a text. In deconstructionists’ opinion, the translator is the subject of translation and the source text depends on the target text to survive. They think that the textual meanings of works could not be decided and confined within the text, but the comprehension of target readers.The aim of this thesis is to take Derrida’s deconstruction theory as a perspective, analyzes the Chinese Union Version(CUV) and the Today’s Chinese Version(TCV) in hope of sorting out the different translation strategies of the translators of these two versions and also proving the feasibility and practicability of Deconstruction Translation Theory in translation activities. This thesis, from three main components of translation activity—text, translator and reader, attempts to compare the differences between the CUV and the TCV, stating the various translation strategies of translators when facing the same translation problem which in turn reflect the translators’ subjectivity, diachronism and différance of language and the diachronic interpretation of the readers of the text. The TCV version itself carries out a deconstructive translating approach. It overturns “faithfulness” through translation strategies like domestication, addition, ellipsis and so on. Through these translation strategies, the original is endowed a new life and the subjective position of translator is enhanced. It is hoped that this thesis could provide some help and broaden the viewpoint for the following study of the Bible and offer some references for the relative study in this field.