| The three decades since the 1980s have witnessed the publication of increasingly diverse and systematic studies of Western translation theories. Of the prolific Western translation theorists, American scholar Douglas Robinson (1954-) is especially remarkable because of his insightful and prolific translation theories, which reflect his innovative views of translation and constructive theoretical thoughtway, and his incisive theoretical critique of Western translation theories, which surely can contribute constructive ideas to theoretical improvement in the field. Robinson's translation theories, with their progressive directions in the field of translation studies, are well worthy of much more attention and systematic studies.As a versatile scholar with broad interests in literary, cultural, linguistic, and translation fields. Douglas Robinson has been a very active and prolific translator, translation theorist, and also cultural theorist in the West. His research on translation, by its multidisciplinary theoretical originality, its philosophical insight into the social reality of translation, and its humanistic concern for translators, has established itself as a valuable case of the theoretical construction in the field of translation studies.His broad interests and rich translation experience have made him think deeply about the complex relationship between translation and society and gradually established his insightful translation theories. By his erudition and innovative spirit, he has made a critical intervention into the contemporary translation studies, and challenged the old dualistic, rationalist, instrumentalist, and perfectionist conceptions of the translator's absolute submission to the source author or text with his revolutionary theoretical theme of translator liberation. He has devoted himself to mapping out a middle realm between traditional absolute instrumentality, and postmodern absolute freedom, a realm in which translators'expressive freedom is highly circumscribed but never completely stifled. He has put forward "the translator's turn" in the climate of the "cultural turn" of translation studies, which to a certain extent can redress the academic deflection of culture-and power-(not translation-) oriented investigations in the field of translation studies. Furthermore, he has built a new multidisciplinary and constructivist theoretical thoughtway beyond the deconstructive paradigm and reconstructed the new images of contemporary translators with his translator-centered theories:the somatics of translation, the dialogics of translation, the performative approach to translation, the theory of postrationalist translator subjectivities, and the learner-centered holistic translation pedagogy. His research on translation, which with his innovative ideas on translation and translation theory has been offering a voice different from the mainstream theorists, will surely infuse new vitality into translation studies and inspire further thinking about translation and translation theory in the field.However, Robinson's translation theories, because of their radical viewpoints, idiosyncratic writing styles and innovational theoretical models, easily cause difficulty in their perception and stir theoretical misunderstanding. Readers always find much to challenge their preconceptions in his books. Therefore, with the expectation of making more readers benefit from Robinson's translation theories and further refreshing our way of thinking about translation and translation studies, this dissertation conducts a comprehensive research into Robinson's translation theories. The comprehensiveness of the research lies not only in its deep investigation into the philosophical bases and multidisciplinary sources of Robinson's translation theories, but in its wide exploration of his constructive thoughts reflected in his translator-centered theories, his thought-provoking theoretical thoughtway, and his incisive critique of Western translation theories. In addition, the comprehensiveness of the research also means that the investigation into the above two main aspects involves a fairly wide disciplinary spectrum, including (postmodern) philosophy, sociology, (performative) linguistics, somatics (as a new humanistic paradigm), (postmodern) critical theories, cultural studies, the history of translation (theory), and so on.In the matter of its detailed contents and steps, the dissertation, on the basis of a mass of literature research on the theoretical works of and about both Derrida and Robinson, firstly makes a theoretical analysis and interpretation of their theoretical standpoints. Then, based on a comparison between Derrida's constructive thoughts and Robinson's innovative theoretical thoughts, it clarifies the complex relationship between Derrida's deconstruction and Robinson's theoretical innovation with the method of theoretical analysis and interpretation. With reference to the argumentation of this part, it firstly offers a new explication of the constructiveness of Derrida's deconstruction at three hierarchical levels of philosophical thoughts, the ways of thinking, and the strategies of critical analysis:on philosophical thoughts, it reveals the epistemological, methodological, and axiological constructive ideas of Derrida's deconstruction; on the ways of thinking, it reveals Derrida's new ways of thinking with postmodern flavor:critical and Innovative thinking, dialectical thinking, open and pluralistic thinking, dynamic and contextualized thinking; on the strategies of critical analysis, it reveals the main strategic devices of Derrida's deconstruction, which mainly involve the following steps:analyzing the contradiction, rethinking the margin and the center, inventing a new scene against the old order. Then, the dissertation also discusses the innovative contribution of Derrida's deconstruction to translation studies and the misunderstanding of deconstruction in translation studies. The above new theoretical explications not only enrich the previous simple-minded understanding of the relationship between deconstruction and translation but also lay the groundwork for a clarification of the relationship between Robinson's theoretical construction and Derrida's deconstruction. As to the result, briefly speaking, Derrida's deconstruction constitutes an ideological impetus to Robinson's theoretical innovation, but Robinson's theoretical construction, steeped in American pragmatist/social-constructivist tradition, has gone beyond it with its pluralistic philosophical bases and multidisciplinary approach.Then, the dissertation makes a panoramic study of Robinson's theoretical construction with the purpose of providing both pluralistic philosophical thoughts and multidisciplinary theoretical resources for the advancement of translation studies, through its full investigation-into the philosophical bases and multidisciplinary theoretical sources of Robinson's theoretical construction. On the basis of a mass of literature research into many theoretical works about philosophy, linguistics, sociology, critical theory, and cultural studies and into Robinson's theoretical works on translation as well, it reveals Robinson's multicomponent epistemology (American pragmatism/social-constructivism, poststructuralism, empiricism, physicalism, the Kantian tradition, psychoanalysis, and Western Marxism) and pluralistic philosophical methodology (phenomenological, hermeneutical, and rhetorical approaches), as well as his postrationalist thoughts and somatic and performative views of language. And meanwhile it explores the epistemological and methodological sources of Robinson's pluralistic philosophical thoughts in order to offer ideological and methodological resources for furthering translation studies. The next step of the panoramic study is offering multidisciplinary resources for translation studies by its exploration of the multidisciplinary theoretical sources of Robinson's theoretical innovation. As a result, his postmodern critical theories as eye-opening theoretical and ideological support, his performative linguistics as a newly-developed linguistic methodology, and his somatics as a new humanistic paradigm all will empower us to further our theoretical construction in this field.Following the panoramic study, a close-up study of Robinson's translator-centered theoretical models is carried out, with the purpose of interpreting theoretical difficulties in Robinson's translation theories and revealing his constructive thoughts on translation and translation theory. Generally speaking, the translator-centered theories, which are aimed at translator liberation, free the translator from the traditional translation assumptions of dualism, rationalism, instrumentalism, and perfectionism and shape new images of the contemporary translator. Specifically speaking, the somatics of translation, as a humanistic and phenomenological exploration into the integration of personal meaning and social significance of translation, explains the social-psychological process of the translator; it meanwhile highlights the experiential nature of translation, which not only depicts the tension of translation between personal creativity and social regulation, but also offers a new way of perspectivizing translator subjectivity. In addition, by its conception of "somatic equivalence," it also reveals to some extent the translator's gestalt-psychological feature in translation process.The performative approach to translation, in view of the methodological "crisis" of the traditional (constative) linguistics in the study of translation, offers a much more effective linguistic explanatory framework of translation diversity and complexity. Situating translation in its broader social and cultural realities, the performative model of translation highlights the translator as an active communicator and mediator with certain communicative purposes in the dialogical/multiply-voiced translation process; it is aimed at pushing the linguistic studies of translation ahead in more dynamic, more psychologically, socially, and politically aware, more philosophically credible, and even more realistic directions. The dialogics of translation, with its rhetorical perspectivizing the translator's two-way dialogue with both the source-language text/writer and the target-language reader, offers a new (situational) translation ethics and a beneficial (intersubjective) reference for translation criticism.In addition, the theory of postrationalist translator subjectivities is aimed at freeing the translator from the rationalist focus on the depersonalized textual equivalence by highlighting the translator as a collectivized (social) individual:the translator's inner complex (conscious and unconscious) states and the outer factors that influence the translation. Besides, Robinson's learner-centered holistic translation pedagogy presents his innovative approach to translator training that balances conscious analysis with subliminal discovery and assimilation. It describes the socialized process and feature of translators' learning. It emphasizes the learner as a creative and whole person and highlights the transformative process of his/her professional development by its encouragement for his/her creativity and problem-solving ability. It is learner-(not text-) centered and market-oriented and thus is more effective than the old pedagogy that places primary emphasis on conscious textual analysis.Based on the above panoramic study of the philosophical bases and multidisciplinary sources of Robinson's theoretical construction and on the close-up study of his translator-centered theories as well, the dissertation proceeds to frame his constructive theoretical thoughtway with the purpose of inspiring our further thinking about theoretical construction in the field of translation studies. It reveals four main features of Robinson's theoretical thinking:(1) pluralistic philosophical awareness;(2) humanistic concern for the translator; (3) multidisciplinary consciousness; (4) practice-oriented theorization. Robinson's constructive thoughtway on theoretical construction will surely enlighten us as to pushing our translation studies ahead in a more philosophically-and methodologically-sensible way and a further humanism-and practice-oriented direction.Having fulfilled the task of investigating Robinson's theoretical construction, the dissertation then makes a detailed theoretical analysis of his incisive critique of the contemporary translation theories, with the purpose of uncovering Robinson's constructive ideas on the development of contemporary translation theory both ideologically and methodologically. We can greatly benefit from Robinson's insight into the origin and the contemporary traces of metaphysical translation theory and into the'centrifugal'translation theories as well; we can also learn a lot from his dialectical thinking about the integration of systemic and anecdotal approaches to translation studies and his new definition of translation theory.Lastly, the dissertation, on the basis of the comparison between Robinson's research on translation (in terms of research paradigms and theoretical themes) and the whole situation of Western translation studies (the historical development and contemporary approaches), sites Robinson's research on translation on the whole map of contemporary translation studies. In addition, on the basis of the comparison between Robinson's theoretical construction and contemporary translation studies in China, it offers reflections and suggestions on Chinese translation studies inspired by Robinson's constructive theoretical thoughtway.Generally speaking, the significance of the comprehensive research on Robinson's research on translation does not lie only in its systemic investigation into Robinson's translation theories, its clarification of the current problematic interpretation of Robinson's translation theories, and its revelation of his constructive thoughts on translation and translation studies. More importantly, through both the investigation into the philosophical bases and multidisciplinary sources of Robinson's theoretical innovation and the interpretation of his translator-centered theories and his theoretical criticism, it provides constructive ideas and multidisciplinary intellectual resources ideologically and methodologically for furthering translation studies and also offers reflections and suggestions on theoretical construction in translation studies, which will become a new start of our further research on translation. In addition, another significant contribution of this research to translation studies is its siting Robinson's research on translation on the map of contemporary translation studies, which changes the present awkward situation of being difficult to position it in the study of contemporary translation studies in the West. The siting is not just beneficial to our overall conception of Robinson's translation theories but useful to the systematization of Western translation theories.This dissertation for the first time conducts a comprehensive research into Robinson's translation theories with a broader academic horizon of advancing the discipline of translation studies. The above-mentioned research findings of the dissertation will be well beneficial not only to our further understanding of Robinson's translation theories but to our further thinking about how to advance translation studies ideologically and methodologically.
|
PDF Full Text Request