Fictional Translation Viewed By Reception Aesthetics:

Fiction has a distant source and a long history, yet it becomes mature comparatively late, so it has extremely unique conveniences.It can absorb the strong points of various kinds of literature and different sorts of mediums are cast in it, as a result, it has always been an artistic genre which is widely used and appreciated, and the creation of fiction has always been an object to which people direct close attention. But during the past decades of years, compared with the accentuation of fictional creation, fictional translation has largely been overlooked and people attach much importance to poetry translation instead, therefore it is very essential to do some research on fictional translation.Although some researchers have studied it from some perspectives, these aren't sufficient, and more original and more ideal means are needed in researches of it, Reception Aesthetics is one of these.Reception Aesthetics was originated in the former United Germany in the 1960s, it is influenced greatly by Hermeneutics and Phenomenology. It is the Constance school in Germany that set up the flag of Reception Aesthetics, and those who have established the school are Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser. Reception Aesthetics has found the best "cutting point" in the theory of fictional translation and literary criticism etc.,it has raised the status of reader and his reading to an unprecedented height. Reception Aesthetics deems that the literary work comprises the literary text with indeterminacy and the concretization of reader during his reading process, only when the two are combined together can intact literary work be produced.And it even thinks that between the author and the reader, the reader should play the primary role; between the text and the reading, the concretization of the reader occupies the first place, while the indeterminate text takes the second one, and these have raised challenge to the traditional literary appreciation theories like "source text-centered" theories and "original author-centered" theories.Reception Aesthetics really has opened up a new world for fictional translation and literary criticism etc.,consequently it is applied in this present thesis to study fictional translation.In this thesis the authoress first gives a general introduction to this research, incorporating definition of fiction, a historical retrospect of fictional translation both at home and abroad, a brief introduction of Fortress Besieged and its original author Ch'ien Chung-shu, a brief introduction of the English version of Fortress Besieged and its two translators, previous researches on the English version of Fortress Besieged at home and abroad, and significance and purpose of the present research etc.,these will lay a fantastic foundation for the whole research of this thesis;in turn, she gives an introduction to Reception Aesthetics, consisting of its origin, concept, brief overview and major factors etc.;and then she investigates the close connection between Reception Aesthetics and literary translation, comprehending the concept of literary work, process of literary translation from the perspective of Reception Aesthetics,inspiration of Reception Aesthetics on literary translation and translation strategies viewed by Reception Aesthetics;and in order to putting these theories above into practice, she resorts to the English version of Fortress Besieged as the case study, and applies main factors of Reception Aesthetics especially "horizon of expectations" "indeterminacy of text and vacancy of meaning" and translation strategies viewed by Reception Aesthetics to analyze some examples chosen from the English version. However, different from a few authors who limit their researches only to certain particular domain of it in line with Reception Aesthetics,the authoress of this thesis studies almost every aspects of the English version, embracing the reproduction of cultural-loaded words, idioms and proverbs, rhetorical devices,theme of the fiction, descriptive techniques, and images and personalities of main characters etc.of the original text, to see if the English version has drawn closely to the full to the original work as well as has kept an eye to the full on the interests and feelings of the TL readers, to see if it has defined the indeterminate spots of the text satisfactorily and improved the implied readers'"horizon of expectations". In addition, she also investigates the problems of un-translatability viewed by Reception Aesthetics in process of the rendering of the fiction and resolutions to them.And all these above make us more thoroughly discover not only the wonderful sections in the English version but also some deficiencies in it, which demonstrates fully the originality and superiority of Reception Aesthetics as well.The last part is the conclusion,the authoress of this thesis points out the guiding significance of Reception Aesthetics in the theories of fictional translation and aesthetic criticism etc.,and she holds that by making use of it we can achieve more innovative and more ideal results; simultaneously, she also points out that the English version of Fortress Besieged viewed by Reception Aesthetics all in all is successful although some shortcomings and mistakes can be found in it.