A Report On The Translation Practice Of A Natural Perspective Under Three Principles Of Gadamer's Hermeneutics

The original text of this translation practice is Northrop Frye's work A Natural Perspective published in 1965.In this book,Frye explores the structural problem of Shakespeare's comedy.As an important thinker and theorist in the field of literature in the 20 th century,Frye's myth-archetypal criticism theory has made profound influence on western literary tradition.In addition,Frye's study of Shakespeare's comedy is also quite insightful.Different from other translation materials,this translation task requires the understanding of Shakespeare's literary works and Frye's literary criticism theory,therefore the focus of this translation practice is to help readers understand the translation accurately.Created in Canada in the 1960 s,A Natural Perspective tells the development of Shakespeare's comedy and romance in British in the 16 th and 17 th centuries,while the translator lives in China in the 21 st century.Differences in time and culture increase the difficulty of this translation practice.In addition,the original text is a literary theory text.It involves a lot of background knowledge on literature,which undoubtedly poses a challenge to the translator.Gadamer makes a thorough analysis of understanding,meaning and the relationship between the reader and the text.His three principles of interpretation,that is,“historicality of understanding”,“effective-history” and “fusion of horizons”,provide effective theoretical guidance for this translation practice.Understanding is carried out in history,so the understanding of a certain text is also historical.Due to differences in time and culture,mistranslation is inevitable.The theory of “prejudice” and “time span” involved in the principle of “historicality of understanding” provide a new theoretical perspective and evaluation method for the translator to solve mistranslation in translation.According to the principle of “effective-history”,the real meaning of a text and the understanding of a text exist in a dynamic process of constant formation,so the understanding of a text is effective within a certain period of time.This principle inspires the translator to modify the translation constantly,so as to get a translation version that conforms to the idea of the original text.According to Gadamer's hermeneutic theory,the ultimate goal of translation is to achieve “fusion of horizons” between the reader and the original text.The translator mainly adopts three methods to achieve “fusion of horizons”,respectively to make annotations on background knowledge of the original text,to make appendixes to Shakespeare's works and to cite authoritative translation of quotations mentioned in the original work.Under the guidance of Gadamer's three principles of hermeneutics,this translation practice report mainly discusses on how to convey the charm of the original text while helping readers better understand the translation,and it has certain guiding significance for the translation of literary theory texts.