Novel Translation As Creative Treason From The Perspective Of Deconstruction Theory

Speaking of the great works in the 19~thh century,Jane Eyre is one of the best-known novels to Chinese readers,even to those who have the least knowledge of literature after European literature is introduced through translation into China.Based on the statistics on the Internet,there appeared more than 100 Chinese versions of Jane Eyre by the end of 2018(including the absolute version,episode translation and so on).The academic research of Jane Eyre,especially the study of the translation,has long remained hot.Among those complete versions,the versions of Zhu Qingying,Wu Junxie,Huang Yuanshen and Song Zhaolin have unique charm compared with other versions.Zhu Qingying's version is the first complete version published after the Reform and Opening-up;Wu Junxie's version is one of the version receiving good reputation in the translation circle;Huang Yuanshen's version has received a lot of popularity among the readers in the 1990s;while Song Zhaolin's version is the top-selling version on the Internet in the 21~stt century(Statistics from DangDang and Amazon).In the thesis,the author puts Derrida's Deconstruction Theory as the guiding theory---a postmodern philosophy theory,which challenges the faithfulness of traditional translation criterion and insists that translation can not be completely faithful to the original text.Due to the cultural difference between two languages,the translator has to do“creative treason”,which is a concept first put forward by Robert Escarpit,a French sociologist.Then it was introduced into China by Chinese scholar Xie Tianzhen.Professor Xie puts creative treason into the whole process of translation including the response and the transmission,and he also suggests that the contradiction in translation comes down to the collision between different cultures.The thesis will make an analysis of novel translation and find out the factors that influence creative treason.From the perspective of Deconstruction,the thesis attempts to take the four Chinese versions of Jane Eyre as the research objects,to analyze the creative treason in the translation consisting of the words and sentences,and to get the conclusion that novel translation is not a word-for-word translation but a combination of translator's subjectivity and creativity.Based on the comparative study,the thesis concludes three results.First,Derrida's theory has unique implications in the E-C translation of novels.Second,novel translation,based on the theory,is creative treason.The same source language text will produce different translated texts due to different creative treason.Creative treason can be seen in the whole translation,which exists in the selection of words;the adjustment of the structure of sentences and the translation of rhetorical devices.Last but not least,the four Chinese version of Jane Eyre have their merits in language expressions and stylistic conveyance.From the perspective of Deconstruction Theory,the paper finds creative treason doesn't mean translating as the translator wants.Instead,it reveals the rationality of translation diversity.