On Translator’s Subjectivity In Two English Versions Of The Classic Of Mountains And Seas From Perspective Of George Steiner’s Hermeneutic Motion Theory

The Classic of Mountains and Seas is a Chinese ancient book with a very long history. It covers all the aspects of society, so it is called the “encyclopedia of ancient China”. Owing to its great research value, The Classic of Mountains and Seas is popular with foreign scholars. And its translations emerge one after another. Although there are several English versions of The Classic of Mountains and Seas, the studies on these versions are very few. Up to now, the studies on The Classic of Mountains and Seas’ English versions are still at the level of translation methods summarization,linguistic level or macro-culture level. Therefore, this thesis puts an eye on a microscopic angle — the translator to have a comparative analysis between two English versions of The Classic of Mountains and Seas, namely, Anne Birrell’s and Wang Hong’s versions.Since the “culture turn” of the western translation studies in the 1970 s, the status of the translator has gradually become prominent. People realized that translation is a human activity centered by human understanding and making. And as a human, the translator plays an indispensible role in the translation. Hermeneutics studies the human comprehension and interpretation of the meaning. Therefore, in this sense,there is a strong relationship between translation and Hermeneutics. In 1975, George Steiner directly applied Hermeneutics to translation studies, and put forward his Hermeneutic Motion Theory(trust, aggression, incorporation and compensation). In his opinion, the translation process is a human interpretation process and different persons have different comprehensions and interpretations to the same original text,then they will employ different translation strategies and compensation methods, and finally the translation products are different. In view of this, the Hermeneutic Motion Theory is a very good theoretical framework applicable to text comparative studies.Therefore, this thesis takes Birrell’s and Wang’s versions as research objects to make a comparative study. With the help of the four steps — trust, aggression,incorporation and compensation, this thesis specially analyzes the different reasons why the two translators invest their trust into this book, the aggression of theirdifferent cultural and personal consciousnesses, the different degrees of incorporation methods and different compensation methods. Based on the above analysis, the author finds that the translator’s subjectivity runs through the whole translation process and penetrates in each special step of translation activities. On the other hand, though the translator’s subjectivity plays a critical role in the translation, there are many constraints to its exertion. It is restricted by the original text, the cultures of the source and target languages, the translator’s knowledge and competence and his thinking mode. Meanwhile, the author hopes to offer some useful suggestions to the translation of the Classic of Mountains and Seas.