Fusion Of Recreations In Literary Translation From The Perspective Of Reception Theory

Ever since the emergence of theories and philosophies as phenomenology,hermeneutics and reception theory,concepts as "existentialism," "horizon of expectations" and the "implied reader" have become well-known in the international academic circles.Particularly,reception theory puts forward the term recreation because of the similarities between writing and reading.Reading,therefore,is a recreation of the aesthetic quality in the original work.Meanwhile,the translation community has been arguing about the translator's subjectivity forever.Considering that the translator needs to take cultural differences into consideration throughout the translation process,he has to represent the aesthetic quality in the translation resembling that in the original text.Literal rendering,in this case,is not permanently useful.Recreation becomes either a have-to or preferable option for the translator.Good recreation can be the icing on the cake for the original,and even largely increase its popularity.This thesis explores the two recreations,recreation in reception theory and recreation in literary translation,and finds that they have interesting intersections in terms of focus on horizon and realization of aesthetic quality of the original text,and differences in the entry level and degree and form of influence.Fusion of recreations,specified and conceptualized in this thesis,is applicable both in translation criticism and practice.On one hand,fusion of recreation can be found in every piece of completed translations.On the other hand,fusion of recreations has a guiding role for future literary translation,which can be fulfilled through integration of a thorough understanding,fusion of defamiliarization and domestication,and consideration of the target reader.Except for discussion on concepts,two of the most widely accepted Chinese translations of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four are chosen for a comparative case study,the translators' being Dong Leshan,from the Chinese mainland and Liu Shaoming,from Hong Kong.Fusion of recreations is demonstrated with examples classified into the representation of four dimensions,namely,the formal factors,the cultural factors,the literary images and the intralingual meanings,with the fusion of recreations in translating Newspeak being an independent part.With conceptualization of fusion of recreations,and a comparative case study of the two Chinese versions of Nineteen Eighty-Four,this thesis discusses the omnipresence of the two recreations in literary translation and their relationship,and demonstrates the necessity of multiple translations and re-translations of a literary work,so as to provide an integrated perspective to study the inspiration from reception theory to translation criticism and practice.