Subjectivity In Literary Translation From The Perspective Of Construal

The translator’s subjectivity is indisputably embodied in the literary translation process. None of the translations expels the demonstration of the translator’s subjectivity. Linguistics built upon objectivism holds that languages are the literal mirroring of the world, which leads to the ignorance or even rejection of the subjective role of human beings in language studies. Translation studies based on objectivism have been aiming at the intention of the source text author and the meaning of the source text. So "faithfulness" and "equivalence" have been boasting of their criterion status for the translator, which leads to the long-term ignorance and suppression of the translator’s subjectivity. Hermeneutics originating from the West in the 18th century focuses its attention on the readers, emphasizing the readers’ acceptance and reading, which brings about the rising status of the readers. The rising of deconstructionism in the 1960’s leads to the complete subversiveness of the traditional translation theory. And the translator’s subjectivity gets unprecedented demonstration. The translator is thus entitled to privileged rights, which leads to the excessive elucidation and arbitrary understanding. For two thousand years in the Chinese and western translation history, the subjectivity of the translator has failed to get the due attention. Current research on the translator’ subjectivity is rarely done in concrete and operable dimensions, which inevitably leads to a superficial study and fails to provide a further and deeper exploration.It is not until the appearance of Cognitive Linguistics based on embodied philosophy that the studies of the translator’s subjectivity are equipped with a new perspective. Cognitive Linguistics holds that the cognition of human beings bridges the languages and the world. Languages are not the literal mirroring of the objective world, but rather ones undergone the cognitive operation of human and marked so deeply by the subjectivity of human. The application of languages demonstrates subjectivity of human. The theory of construal put forward by Langacker (1987,1991,2008) boasts itself as the core concept of Cognitive Linguistics. The dimensions of construal make possible the further exploration of the translator’s subjectivity in the translation process.The titles of the first eighty chapters of Hongloumeng and its three translated versions (by Hawkes & Minford, by Yang, Hsien-yi & Gladys Yang, by Bonsall) serve as the data for the present study. The adaptation of the chapter titles as the subject of investigation lies in that not only the contents of the text are highly condensed in the titles, which serve as the plot line of the text, but also the titles themselves constitute a closed data, which will facilitate the quantitative as well as the qualitative study.The present study is based on the theory of construal put forward by Langacker (1987,1991,2008). The dimensions of construal (i.e. scope and background, specificity, perspective and prominence) are applied to the investigation of the three translated versions of the first eighty chapter titles from Hongloumeng. Through the quantitative study as well as the qualitative study, the similarities and differences of the three translated versions manifested in the dimensions of construal are investigated, which aims to reveal the subjectivity of the translators in the three translated versions. The present study attempts to probe into the underlying reasons and operational mechanism causing the differences at the theoretical level. The following two questions are explored in details:(1) What kind of similarities and differences does construal, as the representation of subjectivity demonstrate in respective dimensions in the translated versions?(2) What’s the underlying mechanism which leads to the differences of subjectivities by different translators in the translation process?In the dimension of scope and background, the present study employs the typical examples for the qualitative study. It is held that domain manifests as encyclopedic knowledge at the macro level, and at the micro level it presents at various levels in language. The representation of domain in the translation process is explored at the levels of phoneme, lexicon, phrase and discourse. As to the mistranslation caused by the deficiency of information in the source language scope, the compensatory strategy of information in the target language scope in the translation process is proposed:the matching between informative intention and communicative intention, the reconstruction and enrichment of contextual assumption, and the manifestation of contextual implication.In the dimension of specificity, the quantitative as well as the qualitative methods are adopted. In the macro demonstration of specificity, the total lexemes and the average sentence length of the three translated versions are put into statistics, which serve as the reference to the specificity of the three translated versions at the macro level. At the micro level of specificity, the problems of hypernym and hyponym as well as of modifiers and headwords are investigated. Some untraceable or inconsistent information in the source text caused by the various purposes of the source text author, is categorized as the refinement of implicit specificity.In the dimension of perspective, the quantitative method is adopted to explore the similarities and differences between the three translated versions and the source text. The theory of "theme" and "rheme" from Systemic Functional Grammar is applied in the present study, which holds that the adoption of theme manifests the author’s perspective. The themes of the three translated versions are probed into in terms of the themes of the source text constituted respectively by nominal groups, as well as adverbial groups and prepositional phrases. As there lie differences in the source texts which are adopted by different translators, the chapter titles bearing the differences are put into analysis separately. The results show that Yang’s version ranks as the top of taking participants as theme, with the percentage of 96%; Bonsall’s version is the top of taking circumstance as theme, with the percentage of 59%; Hawkes’s version is relative low in both taking participants as theme and taking circumstance as theme, with the percentage of 83% and 6% respectively, which suggests the most adjustment of the source text’s perspective has been made in Hawkes’s version during the translation process.In the dimension of prominence, the qualitative methods are adopted. From the particularity of Chinese subjects, the present study points out that correspondences between the syntactic constituents and the figure/ground put forward by Talmy (2000) are not completely applicable to the study of Chinese. The theory of figure/ground is revised. And the following characteristics of prominence are suggested:1. Unidirectionality of prominence; 2. Prominence constitutes a network at different levels in the whole language system; 3. At the sentential level, the prominence of each syntactic constituents takes on gradualness. The markedness and unmarkedness of the positions of each syntactic constituent are also put into investigation. Subjects at the initial position in sentences are regarded as the unmarked, and objects and adverbials at the same position are considered as the marked, which draw much more prominence than those in other positions. The manifestations of prominence of texts are explored at the sentential level and the phonemic level. At the sentential level, the manifestations of prominence are probed into in the subordinate clauses and simple sentences. At the phonemic level, the following respects are explored:reiterative locution, the reappearance of lexemes, alliteration and assonance.As for the differences and similarities of construal among the three translated versions in respective dimensions, the present study makes a theoretical conclusion. Firstly, the so-called "construal equivalence" and "subjectification equivalence" are put into reflection theoretically. The present study holds that the theory of "construal equivalence" and "subjectification equivalence" is the betrayal to Cognitive Linguistics which is based on the Embodiment. The two philosophical thoughts collide with each other. Secondly, considering the differences and similarities among different conceptualizers in the construal process, the present study puts forward the intersubjectification as the essence of translation, which means that the translation process is the two turns (intralingual and interlingual) of intersubjectification process jointly participated by the three conceptualizers of the source language author, the translator and the target language reader. In each turn of intersubjectification process, two conceptualizers coordinate the parameters in construal dimensions with each other by means of conceptual integration, which leads to the derivative construal parameters. In the first turn of intralingual intersubjectification. the translator construes the source text with the derivative construal parameters, which results in the conceptualization of the source text. In the second turn of interlingual intersubjectification, the translator construes the established conceptualization with the derivative construal parameters, which results in the translated version. In the translation process of intersubjectification, the purpose is to form the dynamic equilibrium of the construal parameters among the conceptualizers in the coordination process, which will facilitate the "rationality of construal" of the translated text by the target language reader in every construal dimensions. Finally, through two turns of intersubjectification of translation, the conceptualizations in the source language author, the translator and the target language reader will manifest the "concordance of conceptualization" among one another.In light of construal theory of Cognitive Linguistics, the present study makes a relatively systematic analysis of the translator’s subjectivity in the literary translation process, revealing the differences as well as the similarities of subjectivity of different translators in the translation process. The underlying causes of differences and the similarities of subjectivity are elucidated, which discerns the intersubjectification essence of the translation process.