The Translator's Subjectivity In Literaty Translation

The translation history shows that the translation studies on the translator's role and status have never ceased since the appearance of translation activities worldwide. However, the translator's initiative and creativity had been ignored for a rather long time in traditional translation researches of literary translation in the condition of taking the source text and its author as the centers of translation. With the development of translation studies, especially the cultural turn in western translation researches in the 1970s, the translation researches have begun to turn to the target-culture orientation. The translator's role and status in literary translation have gradually been recognized. Until now, many scholars have made many further researches on the translator's subjectivity in literary translation.Hu Gengshen proposed the approach to translation as adaptation and selection in 2004. This approach takes Darwin's principle of natural selection as its theoretical support, tries to build the translational eco-environment with the translator as the center, and puts forward the concept of translation as adaptation and selection. From the translator's angle, his central position and leading role can be presented in the whole course of translation: his instinctive adaptation and selection in the choice of the source text before translation, his multi-dimensional adaptive selection and transformation through various translation strategies and methods in translation, and his self-adaptation and adaptive selection in response to the self-adaptation mechanism and the restraint mechanism after translation. These adaptations, selections and transformations revealing the translator's initiative and his active response and adaptive selections to the restraints of the translational eco-environment provide a new perspective for the research on the translator's subjectivity in literary translation.Applying the approach to translation as adaptation and selection, this thesis analyzes and researches the whole course of Zeng Hu's translation of The Thorn Birds, including his instinctive adaptation and selection in the choice of the source text before translation, his multi-dimensional adaptive selection and transformation through various translation strategies and methods in translation, and his self-adaptation and adaptive selection in response to the self-adaptation mechanism and the restraint mechanism after translation. The research finds out that Zeng Hu's translation of The Thorn Birds is really a process of adaptation and selection. All these adaptations and selections show that the success of the translation draws from the translator's leading role, subjective initiative and creativity in literary translation. As the operator of all these adaptations and selections, the translator who fits the translational eco-environment takes the central position and leading role in literary translation. So it can safely say that the approach to translation as adaptation and selection has the feasibility in researching the translator's subjectivity in literary translation.In conclusion, the approach to translation as adaptation and selection provides the translation researchers with a new perspective to study the translator's subjectivity in literary translation from the point of the translator's adaptation and selection in translation activity. With this approach, Zeng Hu's subjectivity in his translation of The Thorn Birds can well be analyzed by concerning with his adaptation and selection in response to the translational eco-environment in the translation process. This thesis points out the central position and leading role of a translator, his adaptation and selection process, the mechanisms that restrain him, and his subjectivity in literary translation. Hopefully the present research may be helpful to the further researches on the translator's subjectivity in literary translation.