On Translator's Creativity In Literary Translation By Reception Theory

This essay attempts to further the studies of reception processes in translation studies and to prove the necessity of creation by translators.Aesthetics of Reception, presented by Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser, causes a revolution in literary criticism and consequently shifts the focus of literary criticism from text to readers. Also application of the theory into translation studies brings to our attention the reception processes by translators and target language readers respectively. Ma Xiao in China figures out two stages of reception, i.e. translators'reception and target language readers'reception, and regards them as similar.This essay starts with the discussion of differences in reception processes between translators and target language readers, and concludes that the former, required by their responsibility as intermediary in cross-cultural communications, need to fulfill much more complicated reception processes as compared with the latter. In the essay, the author detects the differences in the reception processes between translators and target language readers, then asserts to the necessity of creation by translators in translation, and centers on translators'primary responsibility—to bridge different cultures and to produce acceptable translated versions.As we know, Literal translation or liberal translation and alienation or domestication has long been the focus of disputation in both translation theory and translation practice. Since these principles concentrate either on the preservation of the originality in source texts or simply on the conveyance of meaning from source texts to target texts, none of them are discussed in this essay. Instead, this essay presents a new guideline for translation: the acceptance of target language readers, requiring the translators'efforts in seeking a balance between comprehensibility and foreignness of translated versions.