Benjamin Translation Purposes

This thesis, based on the previous studies, gives a deep insight into The Task of the Translator written by Walter Benjamin from the angle of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics by using descriptive research method in order to test the validity of philosophical hermeneutics in view of Benjamin's translation. Firstly, the paper tries to apply three principles of philosophical hermeneutics to the interpretation of Benjamin's definition like "translatability", "language kinship", "pure language", "transparent translation" and "faithfulness", aiming to have a better understanding of his essence of translation, the translation process and translated text. Secondly, the paper tries to illustrate non-instrumental nature of language hidden in Benjamin's pure language as translation purpose, which can help us obtain a profound understanding of the nature of language. Thirdly, based on the above analysis, Benjamin's criticism and inheritance of the traditional translation embody the commencement of deconstruction, in which Derrida and Lawrence Venuti follow. Through description and argumentation, an objective evaluation of Benjamin's ideology of translation including both its reasonability and limitation is established.This thesis consists of six major parts. The introductory part is a brief statement of Benjamin's life experience and reviews both the purpose and significance of the research and the methods used therein. The first two chapters are a literary review of Benjamin's translation and introduce the main theoretical basis of this paper and a general view of Benjamin's translation. The top priority of theoretical foundation is given to Gadamer's philosophical theory, mainly focusing on a few basic concepts of hermeneutics:historicity of understanding; fusion of horizons; effective history and so on. Gadamer maintains that translation is the process of comprehension and interpretation. Chapters Three and Four are the core of the thesis, focusing on the interpretation of some obscure words, such as pure language, transparent translation and afterlife and so on. The pure language, as translation purpose, demands certain translation process and translated text, so translation is actually a philosophical practice of the translator and the source text, to be specific, a process of the language manifestation itself. By comparison and contrast between Benjamin-Derrida and Benjamin-Lawrence Venuti in Chapter Five, a conclusion is made. Furthermore, the innovation of this paper lies in the display of non-instrumental nature of language hiidden in Benjamin's pure language as translation purpose from the perspective of philosophy, which contributes to the understanding of language nature.