An Analysis Of Translator's Subjectivity From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Traditional translation theories neglect the translator's subjectivity.Since the 1980 s,cultural identity and translator's subjectivity have become an important translation research topic at home and abroad.As is well known,literary translation is a creative process,where the translator's subjectivity plays an important role.And Reception Aesthetics emphasizes the role of receptors.Only when the targeted text is accepted by target readers,can the translation be successful.There are three major concepts in Reception Aesthetic,the horizon of expectation,the fusion of horizon and response inviting structure.Therefore,the report analyzes the translator's subjectivity from the perspective of the horizon of expectation,the fusion of horizon and response inviting structure.“Gone to the Dogs(Madame)” and “Mr.Chin's Property” are two short stories in English,which tell the migrants' life in foreign lands and cover large proportions of exotic cultures.In literature creation,narrative perspectives,culture-specific items,figures of speech and dialogues are important factors.Therefore,this report undertakes the analysis of translator's subjectivity targeted at translating those factors.As the receptor of the source text,the translator inclines to select the source text consistent with his or her horizon of expectation;besides,to have a thorough understanding of the source text,the translator fills in places of indeterminacy positively and takes initiatives to achieve the fusion of the source text and translator by searching sufficient information.As the creator of the source text,the translator needs to satisfy and innovate readers' horizon of expectation and achieve the second fusion of horizons.In translating the narrative perspective,the translator needs to figure out the characteristics of different focalizations and voices,thus employing appropriate words to satisfy readers' horizon of expectation.In dealing with culture-specific items,the translator needs to adopt literal translation to broaden the readers' horizon and adopts extratextual-gloss,intextual gloss,equivalent Chinese cultural-specific items or transfer the hidden meaning directly to control the aesthetic distance reasonably,alleviating readers' understanding burden.In dealing with places of indeterminacy like figures of speech and dialogues,the translator adopts literal translation to retain places of indeterminacy;the translator also adopts amplification,adjustment and concretization to regulate aesthetic distance.At the end,the report summarizes the translation strategies employed in translation narrative perspective,culture-specific items,dialogues and figures of speech.Meanwhile,the report also points out the limitation of this research.The abovementioned translation strategies are concerned with how to utilize translator's subjectivity from the perspective of Reception Aesthetics.It is hoped that these strategies can provide guidance and suggestions for such translation in the future as well as inspiration for further research.