A Study On Translator's Subjectivity In The Translation Of The Analects From George Steiner's Hermeneutic Perspective

With the occurrence of "Cultural Turn" of translation research in the 1970s,translator gradually gains its attention in the process of translation,translator's subjectivity also becomes a hot topic.Many scholars carry out their studies of translator's subjectivity in classic literary works from different theoretical perspectives.As a representative classics of the Confucianism,The Analects has been translated into various versions and is always a heated topic in translation research.So far,few researchers have made a research about translator's subjectivity on the theoretical basis of George Steiner's Hermeneutic motion by comparing English versions of The Analects translated by Ku Hungming and Roger T.Ames.The thesis chooses two English versions translated by Chinese literati,Ku Hungming and Roger T.Ames,an American sinologist and philosopher.Under the theoretical basis of George Steiner's Hermeneutic motion,this thesis tries to analyze the embodiment of translator's subjectivity in the fourfold translation motion of"Trust","Aggression","Incorporation","Compensation".Through the analysis,the author finds that the two translators have some similarites and differences of the embodiment of subjectivity in whole process of translation:Firstly,in the process of "Trust",Ku chooses the source text out of the dissatisfaction about the missionary's version translated by Legge.Moreover,he wants to introduce Chinese culture into the Western world.Ames's translation of the Chinese classics is out of his sincere love for Chinese culture and he also hopes to introduce authentic Chinese philosophy to the West.Both of them are proficient in using Chinese and English.Secondly,due to different understandings of Chinese culture,Ku has a tendency to interpret Chinese culture by using some words with a strong color of western culture.While Ames tries his best to keep original information in the source text.Thirdly,in the process of "Incorporation",Ku adopts domestication translation strategy in lexical and syntax level,while Ames tends to use foreignization translation strategy.Finally,in direct compensation,Ku and Ames both add annotations for some information in the source text.In indirect compensation,Ku makes information in the source text more understandable by making an appropriate arrangement of the sentence.Ames uses the same rhetorical device as the source text to keep the same information with the original text.Translator's subjectivity exists in the whole process of translation.On the one hand,translators make a selection of the source text according to their own linguistic and cultural competence and use different translation strategies,which is the embodiment of translator's subjectivity.On the other hand,taking target readers'expectation into consideration,translators should guarantee a reasonable balance between the source text and the target text.That is,the exertion of translator's subjectivity is not without limit and has discretionary reorganization about the source text,translators should exert subjectivity in translation activities on the basis of respecting the source text.