Veiled Subjectivity Of Readers

In the theoretical study of translation, great importance has long been attached to the author of the original text since the very beginning of the translation history and later has gradually shifted to the translator with the theorists'recognition of the translator's subjectivity in translation practice. Nonetheless, the reader, the third subjective party involved in translation besides the author and the translator, has received comparatively little attention in translation research. In spite of being studied by few scholars, in most translation theories the reader is usually placed in a secondary and inferior position without being analyzed in depth. However, the active and initiative roles played by the reader in the process of translating, though veiled by the translator's subjectivity, are not to be neglected.In order to call for the proper attention to the reader in translation study, this paper is devoted to the discussion of the functions performed by readers in the translating process. First, we will have a review over relevant theories, tracking down the shifting focuses of translation researches and proposing the major topic of this paper, namely, the subjectivity of the reader. Then, through an analysis of the parties involved in the translating process with the aid of some established models, we divide the reader in general sense into SL readers and TL readers in line with their specific roles played in translation practice, which are to be respectively elaborated on in the later discussion. As my argument of the decisive functions of the reader is based on the case study of various translations of The Analects, a detailed view over the features of The Analects is provided as a necessary preparing work. The following part of the paper, with the assistance of comparative studies on a series of examples abstracted from three translated versions of The Analects, expounds to great length the veiled subjectivity of the reader from the aspects of SL readers'and TL readers'influences on the translator in different translating stages. On one hand, the SL readers'comprehension of the original work is reflected in the conveyed content, the...