A Comparative Study On Two Chinese Versions Of The Great Gatsby From The Perspective Of Hermeneutics

Translation is actually a complex activity and the bridge for the different cultures to communicate with each other as a part of human life. In the process of translation, many factors are involved, of which translator, the original text, culture, and target readers are the most critical ones.Hermeneutics is a theory of studying the understanding and interpretation of "meaning". It became familiar to the west in the1960s. The development of hermeneutics from the traditional hermeneutics to modern philosophical hermeneutics by Han-Georg Gadamer has undergone a long process. There exists intrinsic relationship between hermeneutics and literary translation studies. According to Gadamer’s hermeneutics, literary translation can be taken as an interpretation, which can be reflected in the whole process of translation. Authors of literary works and translators have their own horizons. Translators of different times understand and translate the work from their own horizons, hence the interpretation is diversified.This thesis makes a comparative study of two Chinese versions of The Great Gatsby from the perspective of hermeneutics. The two Chinese versions were translated respectively by Wu Ningkun(巫宁坤)in1982and Yao Naiqiang(姚乃强)in2004. The reasons why these two versions are chosen are:Firstly, the two versions are the most popular among Chinese versions of The Great Gatsby. Second, these two versions were translated in two different social backgrounds, namely, Wu’s version in1980s and Yao’s version in2000s, with a time interval of more than two decades. Thirdly, due to different personal experiences, different education backgrounds and different attitudes towards translation, the two translators adopted different translation strategies.Such basic concepts as historical understanding, fusion of horizon and effective history are applied to the analysis and the comparison of the two Chinese versions. Through the analysis, we have a better understanding about differences between two Chinese versions which give us some inspirations:(1) The time gap between Wu’s version and Yao’s is twenty-two years. During this period, great political, economical, and cultural changes took place in China. Because of the historicity of understanding of human beings, the subject or the object to be interpreted is necessarily characterized with historicality which has its own limitations and particularities. This will certainly lead to the differences of the two versions. Both translators have chosen some words and phrases distinctive in their own times.(2) Because of the gap between time and in different situations, the author and the interpreter cannot share the same horizon. The two translators have different personal experiences and different educational backgrounds, hence, their horizons must be different. As a result, they adopted different translation strategies. Having studied and lived in America for many years, Wu Ningkun was familiar with western culture, and his thinking pattern was influenced by American cultural environment greatly. So his method is foreignization and more exotic taste is maintained in his version. While Yao Naiqiang hasn’t lived abroad for a long time, his tendency is to take the standard of the Chinese language and the habit of Chinese readers more into consideration. His method is domestication and his version is more fluent and natural.(3) Understanding is essentially an activity under the influence of effective history. The two translators both reproduce the style of the original text, but in quite different ways. Wu’s choice of words is concise and natural, which fully reflects the fresh and beautiful style of the original. However, his translation is the result of following the original English sentence patterns and formal features which made his version tinged with some translationese. In contrast, with so much fluency, Yao conveys the original’s freely flowing style.