On Chinese Science Fiction Translation From The Perspective Of Reception Theory

Science fiction originated from the Western world and had a group of loyal readers in the West.But due to Chinese readers' prejudice against science fiction,it developed slowly in China.As a result,there are not many scholars in China studying on science fiction translation,let alone its translation.As Liu Cixin and Hao Jingfang have won the Hugo Award in succession,the Chinese science fiction has received extensive attention at home and abroad.Therefore,the number of the studies related to Chinese science fiction translation has also increased rapidly.Santi is seen as a milestone in the history of Chinese science fiction.Santi and its English version are very typical.Thus,under the guidance of reception theory,this thesis takes the English version of Santi as an example to analyze Chinese science fiction translation from the aspects of “reader-centered principle”,“horizon of expectation” and “appealing structure”.Different from traditional translation theories,reception theory emphasizes readers' center position in literary studies.For this reason,readers should be in the center position of translation studies.And in the translation process,the translator should take readers' reception ability and horizon of expectation into consideration,fill in the vacancy,analyze the indeterminacy and appropriately retain appealing structure in the original text.Based on the case analysis in the thesis,the author thinks that the guiding role of reception theory mainly reflected in three aspects.First,readers' reception of the text should be concerned by the translator.In other words,target language readersshould be in the center position of translation practice and theoretical studies.Second,the translator should take readers' horizon and expectation into account and help them to rebuild their horizon by using the foreignizing translation strategy appropriately.Finally,considering readers' reception ability,the translator should selectively concretize the indeterminacies in the text and fill in the vacancies.It's helpful for readers to have a full understanding and reception of Chinese science fiction without too much damage of the features of original text.