Schrodinger's Cat: Superposition In Translation

Unlike the classical natural science realm,supported and operated by classical laws of mechanics,the liberal arts world is all-encompassing and intricate.Therefore,the quantum theory,full of uncertainty,provides scholars with a new perspective to study and explain phenomena in humanities in light of its mysterious and indeterminate nature,offering insights into liberal arts,of which translation is one of the disciplines.As an art of language,the outer shell of consciousness,a biological and chemical quantum system and state,translation,being a product of consciousness,has an inseparable connection with quantum activities.This thesis analogizes the quantum superposition-Schr?dinger's cat's life and death to multi-versions of translation between Chinese and English during cultural exchanges.The complexity of translation activities inevitably entails and dictates the translator's subjective consciousness.The process of decoding,negotiating,and finally recoding in the target language could be analogized to the superposition state of quantum--there are multiple states of the same object in another language world simultaneously,and the translation selected and published by the translator eventually collapses and becomes the final state.Similar to the quantum world,the establishment of the final translation version is the participation of human subjective consciousness,which continues to intrude and negotiate with the object--the text to form a collapsed state.The observation of the quantum could produce numerous possible states before human consciousness participates in.However,once the instrument,that is,the subjective measurement of a person steps in,the particle immediately collapses to the position and measurement of the moment.In a sense,human consciousness makes the quantum a particular state,and so does the translation process to achieve the final version.In the “Schr?dinger's Cat” experiment,the particle superposition explains the problem of “life and death” in the translation phenomenon.By comparing the same original work by different translations,and the same author producing changed translations,it could be summarized that there exists “superposition of life and death” in the translation phenomenon,enhancing the notion that translation is a complex and diversified activity.A translation work is a result of combined effects of many variables.The translator's choice is to determine the “life and death” of a vocabulary or expression.The superposition state has a strong explanatory power for translation.Via applying it to the field of translation,it would explain a number of problems in translation from a new perspective,bringing new vitality to translation theory and practice.