Explicitation And Implicitation In C-E Translation From The Perspective Of Translator’s Subjectivity:a Case Study Of Yang Xianyi’s Translation Of The Scholars

When we mention translation universals which as a relatively new research area of translation studies have intrigued many scholars throughout the world in recent years, it is inevitable to involve explicitation and implicitation. Explicitation is "the phenomenon which frequently leads to translated text stating source text information in a more explicit form than the original", while implicitation refers to the opposite; the two phenomena commonly existing in translation are easily observable. On explicitation and implicitation, for the past few years most of the scholars have been focusing on corpus-based universality studies. They are either descriptive or inductive, which objectively compare two languages and try to analyze and interpret the reasons for explicitation and implicitation from perspectives of language, information or the cultural backgrounds of the two languages involved. However, all those studies leave out a crucial subject in translation-the translator.With the development of translation theories and the reversion of humanism as well as the emergency of "cultural turn" in translation studies, the research on the translator’s subjectivity has found its booming tendencies. The important role of the translator is not obscured any more, rising from marginalized cultural status such as "matchmaker" or "servant" to the central position. Scholars at home and abroad have justified the existence of the translator’s subjectivity and explored its principles from different perspectives such as poly-system theory, manipulation theory, hermeneutics, deconstructionism, feminism and post-colonialism, etc. At the same time, translator’s aesthetics, poetics, translation purpose and translation principle have been attached with greater importance.With regard to the study of explicitation and implicitation, the author holds that it is of far-reaching significance to probe into the factor of translator’s subjectivity. Therefore, different from traditional corpus-based research on translation universals, this thesis explores the reasons for explicitation and implicitation in translation from perspective of translator other than language, trying to unveil how translator’s subjectivity influences the two universal phenomena in translation. In this thesis the author conducts a case study of Yang Xianyi’s translation The Scholars, trying to expose the potential influence which translator’s subjectivity exerts on the translator’s adoption of explicitation or implicitation.This thesis consists of six parts. Introduction presents the author’s research motivation, and research background and significance. Chapter1introduces the research objects of this thesis-explicitation and implicitation in translation, mainly including former studies in this field, and their definitions, classifications and causes. Chapter2focuses on the theoretical foundation-translator’s subjectivity, elaborating its connotations, development of its studies and the influential factors. Chapter3analyzes and studies the translator Yang Xianyi in detail from the perspective of translator’s subjectivity. Chapter4, the case study of Yang Xianyi’s translation The Scholars, demonstrates the influence of translator’s subjectivity manifested in all kinds of explicitation and implicitation. In Conclusion, the authors asserts that apart from linguistic factors studied by former researchers, the translator’s subjectivity also plays an essential role in explicitation and implicitation. The translator’s competence of source and target languages, ethics and moral values, aesthetic standard, cultural stance, translation thoughts and motivations all exert profound influence on the adoption of explicitation or implicitation in translation of linguistic and cultural elements.