On Translators' Subjectivity From The Perspective Of Hermeneutics

Due to the influence of traditional translation theories,translators have been taken as “invisible man” for quite a long time.However,with the emergence of hermeneutics,roles of translators changed little by little.As a philosophical discipline,hermeneutics not only demonstrated the creativity of translators in translation activity,but also laid a solid foundation for the study on translators' subjectivity.On the basis of three key principles of Gadamer,namely the historicity of understanding,fusion of horizons and effective history,this thesis endeavors to probe into Liang's subjectivity both from his translation thoughts and translation practice of The Four Tragedies,covering The Tragedy of Hamlet,Othello,King Lear and The Tragedy of Macbeth.From the perspective of the historicity of understanding,translators existed historically,their translation thoughts thus inevitably were affected by such factors as historical background and personal experience.Therefore,with an analysis of Liang's historical background and literature view,this thesis macroscopically manifests Liang's subjectivity in his translation thoughts by analyzing his selection of source texts and translation purpose.Furthermore,taking The Four Tragedies as the object of study,this thesis specifically explores Liang's subjectivity in three aspects.The first one is about Liang's adoption of vernacular and literal translation of images in his translation version due to the influence of translation belief.The second one refers to prominence of human nature and poetic form in Liang's version under the influence of literature view.The last one lies in his addition of annotation and foreignization of addresses on account of cultural consciousness.Through this research,this thesis aims to emphasize that translators should adopt appropriate translation strategies to exert their subjectivity in order to enjoy larger readerships.