Study On Translator’s Subjectivity From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

As an important literary and aesthetic school in contemporary academic world,Reception Aesthetics is a theoretical paradigm characterized by reader-center,emphasizing and focusing on the subjective initiative of readers.The translator,acting as a reader of the source text and also a writer of the target text,plays a vital role in concatenating the original and target readers.The author takes translator’s subjectivity into account that the translator should exert its subjectivity in the translation process under the guidance of Reception Aesthetics to mobilize their own emotions and aesthetic ability,and allow for acceptable level and aesthetic taste of the target language readers,so as to reach the goal of “fusion of horizon” between readers and versions and achieve complete construction of meaning of the text.The translator is the subject of translation activities,serving as a bridge for the introduction of foreign literary works.It is not only the center and focal point of the translation process,but also the starting point and the destination of translation theory.However,in the traditional translation studies,the translator has always been regarded as a subordinate role for the text and the original author,restrained by the ideology such as “equivalent”,“loyalty” and other concepts,focusing on the static analysis from the perspective of language conversion.The translator’s essential role in translation activities is almost completely ignored,which results in marginalization of translators for a long time in the history until the “cultural turn” in the 1990 s,which expands the field of translation studies with the promotion of modern theories such as philosophy,aesthetics,linguistics,semiotics and literature.Translation activities recover the status of translators in the history from the edge to the core and gradually occupy their own location.Literature is an important cultural treasure of a nation,of which poetry is the essence of culture.In today’s society,with the international horizon more and more highly integrated,re-interpretation of a nation’s cultural classics—poetry,for new literary construction in China is inevitable.Therefore,this thesis selects Rabindranath Tagore’s Stray Birds as the research object,not only because the original work in the history of poetry has made remarkable achievements,but also the versions translated by Zheng Zhenduo and Fengtang actively play the translator’s subjectivity.The rendering of Zheng Zhenduo had a profound impact on the Chinese literary at that time,and played a very important role in the exchange of Chinese new literature and foreign literature.Feng Tang’s translation of the Stray Birds was controversial for excessive personal style since the date of publication,while his translation made a breakthrough since the May Fourth Movement as he injected his own understanding and remodeling when translating,making the version become unique in style.The two translators played a positive role in the translation of the works,and they had different strengths and styles.They met the aesthetic needs and expectations of our readers in different degrees.At the same time,because of the different ideology in translation,we can contrast and think about how literary translation can reproduce form and charm on the premise of meeting reader’s aesthetic expectations.It is necessary to reinterpret the translation and translators from the perspective of Reception Aesthetics,which not only makes people realize the translator plays a central role in the dissemination of foreign literature,but also enriches the connotation of translation studies and translation practice under the guidance of Reception Aesthetics.