The Effectiveness Of Translators’ Prejudice

As a masterpiece by F.Scott Fitzgerald,The Great Gatsby was published in1925.The first Chinese translation in the China’s mainland appeared in1983.Since then, The Great Gatsby has been retranslated and reprinted for many times.Due to its popularity,the text has28different translaions in the China’s mainland alone.The study on its translation in China is mainly from the perspective of culture and translation strategies,to find out the differences betwween two or several versions.However,the study for the deeper reasons of the differences is rare:Why did a translator adopt the translation strategy? Why did a transition convey a totally different taste? Why has the text been retranslated for so many times? This thesis try to seek the answers from the aspects of "prejudice"、"historical consciousness" and "effective history".Through a comparative study of three translations-——George Kao’s(1971)、Wu Ningkun’s(1983) and Fan Yue’s(1983)——it has been found that the translators’ prejudice is the crucial factor when translating.The author analyzes its importance and necessity,to inquire into the value acquired in the retranslatin process. In the end, it points out the problems of plagiarizing through some examples.Apart from the introduction and conclusion,this thesis has3parts:In chapter l,it traces the revival of Gatsby in the US and the receptive history in the China’s mainland. In chapter2,the author trys to find out how the translaion formed in the translators’ prejudice and its positive meaning,from the aspects of experiences, aesthetic thoughts,academic background and thinking habits.In chapter3,through the translators’ historical background,the author explains the causes of historical misunderstanding and evaluates its gains and loss. The loss of prejudice lies in the inevitability of mistranslation. However, the translators get close to the text through mistranslation, which can be regarded as a sort of gain. The retranslation of the text has been considered in the effective history. On the one hand,the text existed in history,so history understanding is the only effectve way to get close to it. On the other hand,literary works is characterised by blank and indetermincy,which allows the readers and translators to rediscover the meaning.Literery works extend its life through the historical misunderstanding,to be fresh all the time,and to get close to the infinite truth in the constant retranslation.The distinguishing feature of the thesis is to analyse how the translation formed based on a detailed study of the translators’ prejudice,which is the decisive factor of the differences. Besides, it points out the problems of plagiarizing through some examples.