On The Translator's Subjectivity In Science Fiction Translation From George Steiner's Hermeneutic Motion

In traditional translation studies,the research was focused on the original author and work.Translators were called as “the invisible man” who was long marginalized,and their creativity and subjectivity,either utterly obscured or neglected and the credit due to them,are not acknowledged.Since the “Cultural turn” in 1970 s,translator's social position has been demonstrated.“The Three-Body Problem” series and the fiction “Folding Beijing” have caused a sensation in recent years.They won the Hugo Award,one of the world's most reputable science fiction awards.This prize brought Chinese science fictions to the world's top tier.However,they can't be successful without Ken Liu's high quality translation.Further analysis of how Ken Liu's subjectivity displayed in his translations and the reason of his works' success are much necessary for promoting the “going out” of Chinese science fiction.Hermeneutics,as a theory about interpretation of understanding and meaning,has an intimate relationship with translation.George Steiner takes the Hermeneutic theory into a new height by proposing the Hermeneutic motion theory which includes four steps: trust,aggression,incorporation and compensation.Each of the steps reflects the translator's subjectivity and provides a support for the validity of the translator's subjectivity.In this thesis,some typical Ken Liu's translation works(The Three-Body Problem,Death's End and Folding Beijing)are selected as examples,and qualitative analysis and case study method will be applied to study the manifestation of translator's subjectivity in Ken Liu's translation from the perspective of George Steiner's Hermeneutic Motion Theory: the first step is translator's trust.In this part,the thesis analyzes the translator's appreciation of the original text,and the linguistic and cultural competence the translator has.These factors play important role in translators' trust in original text;the second step is the translator's aggression.In this part,translator's linguistic consciousness and cultural consciousness invade into the original text,and translator's subjective initiative is manifested;the third step is translator's incorporation.In this part,translator incorporates the original meaning and formwith his translation strategies and culture consciousness allusions.Here the translator's creativity is manifested;and the last one is translator's compensation.In this part,translator adopts annotation to make up the loss in translation.The loyalty of a translator is manifested.All above analyses indicate that translator's subjectivity exists throughout the translation activity and has a significant influence on the translation process.The thesis is composed of four parts.The first chapter is the introduction,which consists of five aspects.They are research background,research significance,research questions,research methods and the main structure of this thesis.The second chapter is literature review.This part is composed of five parts: the information about science fiction will be described in the first part;the previous studies of the concept of science fiction translations will be shown in the second part;the translator's subjectivity will be illustrated in the third part;the fourth part is a study of Steiner's hermeneutic motion;the last part is a brief introduction of Ken Liu and his translations.The third part is the body of the thesis.This part applies Steiner's Hermeneutic Motion Theory to the deep analysis of Ken Liu's translation.Many examples will be used to analyze the manifestation of translator's subjectivity in four steps: trust,aggression,incorporation and compensation.And the feedback of Ken Liu's translation also is showed.The fourth part is the conclusion.This part summarizes the major findings,suggestions and limitations for the further research.Theoretical knowledge and textual research will be combined in this thesis,and the research perspective of Chinese science fiction translation will be broadened.After the analysis of Ken Liu's translations,the conclusion will be drawn as follows.Ken Liu's successful introduction of these three fictions to the west is the result of his properly giving play to his subjectivity under the constraints of his subject and sharply aware throughout the translating process.