The Translator's Self-revision

The study employs qualitative and quantitative methodologies to investigate Professor Liu Zhongde's self-revision of his translation of Confessions of an English Opium-eater at lexical and syntactic levels,and then explains the factors which influence the translator's self-revision.Self-revision refers to a translator's own revision of their published translated works.Self-revision,the actual record of the translator's decision-making process,is also a common phenomenon in literary translation.The study of self-revision can uncover some common hidden traces in a translator's translation activities,which is of great significance to translation theory and practice.An empirical research conducted in this thesis shows that Liu Zhongde made 687 self-revisions,and they fall into two categories.One is modification and the other is addition.The first category amounts to519 replacements on the lexical level,27 restructurings on the syntax level,30 adjustments of word order and 23 other modifications;the second includes 88 additions of names and places,easy-to-ignore words and clauses.This study also finds that Liu Zhongde's self-revision of Confessions of an English Opium-eater is mainly influenced by the following three factors: 1)his own evolution of translation strategies from the early literal translation to the combination of literal translation and free translation;2)his responsible attitude towards the source text and the target language readers;3)the influence of the publishing context at that time.The firsttwo belong to internal factors and the last is an external factor.