On The Causes Of The Diversity Of Analects English Translations From The Perspective Of Translator’s Subjectivity

Before the cultural turn in the translation studies in the1970s, the traditional translation is required to keep the fidelity and accuracy of the original text as much as possible and the role of the translators is underestimated as the servant, matchmakers, translation machine and so on. Later, the researchers begin to change their opinion of the translation from the simple transformation of language codes to the exchange of two cultures and literatures. Thus the role of the translators has been identified and raised to the predominant position in the translation activity and their subjectivity and creativity finally get realised and manifested in the translation process.The Analects, as one of the Classics in the ancient Chinese literature, has aroused the interests of the scholars and readers both from home and abroad in recent years. Inevitably, the study of the English versions of The Analects has become popular among Chinese researchers. However, most of them tend to evaluate the translation qualities from different translators rather than exploring the underlying reasons for the diversity of their versions. Since the translators have played an important role in today’s translation studies, this dissertation aims at comparing and contrasting five English versions of The Analects from the perspective of translator’s subjectivity.The hermeneutics and the skopos theory both serve as the theoretical framework to support the analysis of translator’s subjectivity in the text-receiving and text-producing process. This dissertation not only includes the general manifestation of the translator’s subjectivity for interpreting a single chapter, but also embraces the detailed translations of specific Confucian ideas such as Ren, Li, Junzi and Xiaoren. Further, it also explores the plausible factors which influence and restrict the manifestation of translator’s subjectivity such as translation purposes, translation strategies and consideration for the target readers.By analyzing the five translators" different versions of The Analects, it shows that a single original text may produce various interpretations and translations mainly due to the translator’s creativity and initiative. They have the subjectivity to determine their versions based on their cultures, eras, individual interpretation about the original text, translation purposes, translation strategies they apply and the intended target readers. Bearing these factors in mind could enable a language researcher to regard the phenomenon of diverse translated versions from a more scientific and rational perspective.