Study On Translators' Subjectivity From The Perspective Of Postcolonial Translation Theory

Traditional translation studies was still conducted at the linguistic level,and with the cultural turn of the translation theory studies,translation studies gradually begins to turn from the inter-textual aspects to the extra-textual aspects.The Postcolonial translation studies focuses on the influence that the political and ideological factors have on the translation activities.In the postcolonial translation theory,most of scholars think that when the texts of the weak culture are translated into the strong culture,the foreignization,or the resistant translation strategy is the only choice to resist the western cultural hegemony and cultural colonization and to construct the national identity of the original text.If the translation is studied from the perspective of the post-colonialism,the translator's subjectivity and his subjective initiative will be embodied and expanded to a great extent.Under the postcolonial context where the cultural hegemony and the power differences are emphasized,any translation strategy is endowed with the postcolonial connotation.The adoption of proper translation strategies depends on the translator's choice and his translation purpose.Different translation strategies will necessarily produce different translated versions,and thus will arouse different social consequences and repercussions.It is not difficult to see that the translator plays an important role in the process of the translation.Lun Yu,as the masterpiece of Chinese classics,has a profound influence on Chinese philosophy even the world thoughts.It has been translated into many languages,among which the English versions have the largest number and are the most influential.So far,there are more than 100 English versions of Lun Yu.James Legge was a famous English sinologist and missionary in 19th century.His version of Lun Yu has been taken as the standard translation in western countries,but has presented the obvious Christian flavor.D.C.Lau was the distinguished educator and translator at the period of the founding of New China.In order to spread Chinese traditional culture,D.C.Lau translated Lun Yu with his profound command of Chinese culture and a good knowledge of the western language.His version is regarded as a must-read for the western scholars to study Chinese philosophy.The thesis will make a contractive analysis on the two English versions of Lun Yu by James Legge(1861)and.D.C.Lau(1979)from the perspective of the postcolonial translation theory.The author tries to study the different manifestations of the two translators' subjectivity,James Legge and D.C.Lau,in the process of the translation of Lun Yu,and this thesis tries to explore the the similarities and differences between Legge's version and D.C.Lau's version in terms of their translation techniques.At last,the author wants to prove that the Domestication strategy can also play a critical role in combating the strong cultural hegemony.Through the contrastive analysis of 42 examples collected from two versions,the thesis has got the following major findings:(1)The two translators,James Legge and D.C.Lau,presented the great translator's subjectivity in the process of the translation of Lun Yu.On the macro level,the translator's subjectivity was embodied due to their different translation purposes,cultural identities and reader's awareness.On the micro level,the translator's subjectivity is reflected in the following two aspects:linguistic level and cultural level.On the linguistic level,the two translators differ from each other in handling the proper names,function words,number words and sentence structure.On the cultural level,the differences between them are embodied in their treatment of material culture,religious culture,Confucian culture and so on.(2)In the process of the translation of Lun Yu,James Legge tended to mainly adopt foreignization to make his version to accord with the source text in the form and style as possible as he can so that his target readers can learn as much as cultural information of the source text.However,Legge,as a British missionary,has filled his version with clear Christian cultural flavor inevitably.In addition,there are some misunderstandings in his version due to his cultural difference.Different from Legge,D.C.Lau tended to mainly adopt domestication.D.C.Lau can fully understand Chinese and Western cultural exchanges and conflicts so that his version can present the original cultural appearance of Lun Yu to a great extent.In addition,his simple and popular language makes his version to be understood and accepted by more readers.(3)Domestication and foreignization can't be defined arbitrarily as the effective way of colonization or anti-colonization when the weak culture is translated into strong culture.Domestication is not always adopted to cater to the western cultural hegemony,and it can be employed as the effective way to combat the western strong cultural hegemony.Similarly,foreignization is not always the only way to resist the strong culture,and it can also become the alternative tool to help realize the strong cultural hegemony.Both foreignization and domestication can be complementary translation strategies adopted by an excellent translator to serve for the special translation purpose.The thesis contains 6 chapters as follows:Chapter One is a brief introduction to the research background and motivation,the objective and significance of the research as well as the framework of the thesis.Chapter Two is about literature review.It mainly includes the review of the postcolonial translation theory studies both at home and abroad,the review of the translator's subjectivity both at home and abroad and the review of the studies of the English versions of Lun Yu.Chapter Three contains the introduction of the research materials and the research methodology.The author will give a brief introduction to the translators and their translation works and the research methodology.Chapter Four is the materials analysis,and the author chooses 42 examples from the two selected versions to explore the manifestation of the translator's subjectivity of the two translators in their process of the translation from the macro level and micro level.At the macro level,the translator's subjectivity is embodied in the translation purpose,cultural identity and reader awareness.At the micro level,the author will analyze the translator's subjectivity from the linguistic aspect and the cultural aspect.Chapter Five is about the contrastive analysis and conclusion of the two translators,translation techniques and strategies.In addition,the author will discuss about that which kind of translation strategy plays an important role in combating the strong cultural hegemony.Chapter Six draws a natural conclusion.The author summarized the major findings,significance and limitations of this research.