A Study Of Tanslator's Subjectivity In The English Version Of Chinese Contract Law Under Gadamer's Hermeneutics

The status of a translator has always been put in a marginal position in the well-established tradition of translation theories, as in accordance with these classical translation theories, translator should be faithful to the source text. With the 1970's cultural turn, the status of translator has been recognized and elevated gradually. Hermeneutics is a discipline involving the interpretations and explanations of the text, which holds that the translator is not a passive receiver of the source text, but the active creator of the target text. This view affirms the role of translator's subjectivity, which has also widened the field of translation study, and has provided a theoretical basis for the study of translator's subjectivity.Gadamer's three philosophical hermeneutic principles, namely, historicity of understanding, prejudice and fusion of horizons, are the core of modern hermeneutics and have enlightened the study of translation. In the present thesis, the author discusses translator's subjectivity in the English version of Chinese Contract Law under Gadamer's hermeneutics. Based on the analysis of Gadamer's three principles and the English version of Contract Law of PRC, the author has pointed out the roles of translator in legal translation. Even in such rigorous and precise text as legal text, a translator can still exert his or her subjectivity during the translation. Enlightened with Gadamer's three principles, the author gleams her own opinion as to how to exploit the translator's subjectivity in legal translation.