An Analysis Of Two Chinese Versions Of Hamlet From The Perspective Of Translator's Subjectivity

The growth of translation studies has demonstrated that there are issues which could not be solved from the perspective of linguistics in the translation process. So they begin to make attempts to explore translation studies in other ways. With the cultural turn in translation studies, researchers start to broaden their horizons and push their studies into a broader field. At the same time, the study of translator and translator's subjectivity has become one of the main focuses of translation studies.For a long time, the research on translator and translator's subjectivity has been overlooked by researchers. The status of translator has been belittled and the effect of translator's subjectivity has been minimized as well. However, it is well-known that any human activity is definitely associated with human being's subjectivity in society. And there is no exception for translation which is one of the activities initiated by human beings. Translator's subjectivity affects the quality of translation and causes the formation of various styles of translated versions. Yet, it is hard to simply define the translator's subjectivity due to its complexity in connotation. On account of the complexity and influence of the translator's subjectivity, it is essential to judge and evaluate a translation in a comprehensive way.The thesis compares and analyzes two Chinese versions of the famous play Hamlet by Shakespeare to testify the existence and influence of translator's subjectivity. The two versions are from Zhu Shenghao and Liang Shiqiu separately, whose styles are quite different in translation. The analysis and comparison are first carried out from the introduction of translator's background, personal experiences and translation activities and then the paper explores the two versions from the level of translation strategies and language features respectively.This paper consists of four chapters. The first chapter introduces the status of translator in history and the study of translator's subjectivity briefly and states the basic idea of translator's subjectivity. It stresses the importance of translator's subjectivity in translation and its necessity to involve the translator's subjectivity in the process of evaluating a translation. Chapter Two briefly presents the story of Hamlet and its Chinese versions in history. In Chapter Three, the two translators'backgrounds and experiences in translation process are introduced. Chapter Four explores the two Chinese versions from the perspective of translator's subjectivity. First, it develops from the external factors, including the historical background and the patron. And next it analyzes the translations from the internal factors involving translator's beliefs in translation, translation strategies and language features.