On The Roles Of Subject In Cultural Transformation

It is well known that culture is one of the distinctive characteristics that one nation distinguishes from the other. The culture of each nation has its own general and specific characteristics. One nation can keep its own feature through developing its own culture in the process of absorbing other cultures. It is the translator who has been playing a shaping role in the cultural transformation in the history of human cultures. However, throughout its history, ironically, it has been generally and widely accepted that translation is only a kind of exchange between two languages, and it has nothing more than that. Consequently, according to the traditional translation theories and studies, the translator, the subject in this kind of cultural transformation has been regarded just as a "faithful servant", a mere "conveyer" of information and an invisible medium. It is the "cultural turn" in translation history that makes people, esp. the scholars begin to pay attention to the translator, making the translators "visible" from "invisible".In this paper, it begins with the traditional translation theories, language, culture, and the close relationship between language and culture, concluding that translation is, in fact, a kind of cultural transformation. The second chapter deals with the relationship between the translator and cultural transformation, discussing the important influence that culture has been bringing to the translator. In the third chapter, it gives a simple review of the relationship between the subject and object in the cultural transformation. The main chapter of this paper, chapter four, is to discuss the different roles that the translator has been playing on the translation stage, concluding that the translator's new image acts as a subjective, creative and visible entity based on the Skopos theory, the Hermeneutics philosophy and esp. aesthetic of reception, reaching the goal that the translator, the subject in cultural transformation acts as a reader, an interpreter, a creator and a cultural intermediator during the whole translation process. The dissertation mainly analyses the important role of the translator—a special or a particular reader, from the perspective of aesthetic of reception, in getting the original literary writer's meaning and aesthetic experience through the interaction between the reader and the text. As is well-known, the literary form of the original works is no more than a schematic structure, leaving many blanks, vacancies, gaps and places of indeterminacy for the reader to fill in and enrich through his or her creation, and all the blanks in a text must be filled in through the reader's actual reading activities. For, the meaning is not contained in the text itself, but rather is generated during the reading process. Here, the gaps or the blanks refer to the indeterminacies, or the unwritten or unmentioned part, which is suggested by the mentioned part of the text. The gaps or indeterminacies bring some possibility of communication between the reader and the text, because it allows the reader to connect his or her own experiences with the texts, in this way, it could be called an invitation to connect deficiency. Therefore, as a matter of fact, gaps are not the shortcomings of the literary text but its strong points. That is why the schematic structure can activate the translator's imagery thought to make the artistic images fully synthesized in his or her mind. Despite the blanks and gaps at each level of the schematic structure, the schema perceived by reader is a complete organic whole instead of the adding of different scenes or particulars. The translator can certainly have his or her own special way to deal with all the translation elements, from translation strategies to the choice of the words or phrases. That is the main reason why different translators can have quite different versions based on the same source text and "one thousand readers finding out one thousand Hamlets". Moreover, it points out that it is the translator—the major subject in the cultural transformation, who makes the original work have a new life, making a creation based on the completed comprehension of the original works, after having dealt with all the translation elements successfully. In addition, also in this chapter, we can conclude that, to some degree, translation is also something quite like interpretation and creation, giving some examples to show that a translator is a kind of interpreter, creator, pointing out that translation is in fact a kind of cultural transformation.Translation, as a cross-cultural activity, does not only cover two languages, but more importantly, the cultures of two different nations as well. As having been pointed out, translation is in fact a kind of cultural transformation. The translator---the main important subject in the cultural transformation plays different roles as a reader, an interpreter, a creator, and a cultural intermediator in the whole translation process. With the "Cultural Turn" in translation, the important roles that the translator---the main important subject has already played in the cultural transformation should be paid enough attention to.