On Pai Hsien-yung's Self-translation From A Hermeneutic Perspective

Self-translation activity has quite a long history.However,it has not attracted the attention of scholars in the field of translation studies until the last thirty years.Domestic self-translation research mainly concentrates on self-translated works of Lin Yutang and Eileen Chang,but not so much attention is given to that of other self-translators such as Pai Hsien-yung.Therefore,the thesis analyzes systematically the self-translated work Taipei People with the purpose of exploring the characteristics of self-translation and summarizing translation strategies and methods employed by the self-translator.Thereby,it can enrich self-translation research at home and abroad.The research findings are as follows.Firstly,Pai Hsien-yung believes firmly the significance of the source text.His self-translation behavior itself declares his great trust in the original,which is further strengthened by external evaluation.Besides,his proficient cultural and linguistic competence convinces himself that he can finish the translation successfully.Secondly,out of cultural awareness and self-improvement,he intentionally invades the original text to eliminate cultural barriers and rectify the source text so as to achieve better fusion of horizons.Thirdly,he adopts reader-oriented translation strategy and flexible translation methods such as literal translation,free translation,substitution,addition,transliteration and so on,to incorporate the original meaning and form with great efforts and makes an attempt to achieve equivalent effect.Finally,he employs annotations and explanations within a sentence to compensate the unbalance caused by the previous stages and transplant the source text into the target language successfully.Based on the above mentioned,it is concluded that self-translators enjoy great privilege when comprehending and interpreting the source text and they can achieve the maximum transplant of the original spirit and style.Therefore,self-translated works are the most reliable versions.