Analysis Of Translator’s Subjectivity In Cultural Translation

The "cultural turn" in translation studies, which appeared in the1970s, supplies a new scope for translation studies, especially for the study of translator’s subjectivity. The manipulation theory and the skopos theory in the field of translation studies provide theoretical basis for the translator’s subjectivity study.Translator’s subjectivity refers to the subjective initiative of the translator revealed during the process of translation on the basis of respect for realization of the translation purpose under certain objective constraints. Its main characteristics are creativity, passivity, intention and penetrability. The factors which influence the exertion of translator’s subjectivity can be roughly classified into to two categories: the external factors and the internal factors. The external factors, referring to the factors on the outside of the translator which influence the exertion of translator’s subjectivity in an indirect way, mainly include the following two types:the manipulation factors and the skopos factors. The internal factors, referring to the factors on the inside of the translator which influence the exertion of translator’s subjectivity in a direct way, include linguistic competence, knowledge basis and cultural consciousness, etc. The external and internal factors influence and determine the exertion of translator’s subjectivity together.Cultural translation is always a hot topic in translation studies. In the field of translation studies, the author of the thesis holds that culture refers to the cultural elements in a text manifested in linguistic units or forms. According to the different levels of linguistic units, we may classify the culture in the source text or in the target text into two categories:the macro-culture which refers to the cultural elements embodied in texts or paragraphs as a whole, and the micro-culture which refers to the cultural elements embodied in sentences, phrases or words. Cultural translation, as a tool for cross-cultural communication, is sensitive to cultural as well as linguistic factors or elements.In the process of cultural translation, translator’s subjectivity influences, restricts and determines cultural translation from the preparation to the beginning and to the completion of cultural translation; the effect and result of cultural translation reflect the extent of the translator’s subjectivity exertion. The relationship between them is mainly embodied from the following aspects:the selection of source texts, the establishment of translation purposes, choices of translation strategies and methods, and dealing with cultural elements in translation, which mainly lies in the interpretation, transformation and construction of cultural elements in the process of translation. From the viewpoint of the cultural translation results, cultural facsimile and cultural loss reflects the positive and negative influences of translation’s subjectivity respectively.In order to present a further analysis of translator’s subjectivity in cultural translation, the thesis, with the English version Wolf Totem by Howard Goldblatt as an example, makes a thorough exploration and discussion about the issues like the selection of the source text Wolf Totem, the purposes of translating the novel, and especially about choices of translation strategies and methods, and influences of translator’s subjectivity on cultural translation results. For the sake of transferring and constructing cultural elements successfully and realizing the cultural facsimile in cultural translation, Howard Goldblatt flexibly, effectively and creatively employs various translation strategies and methods like deletion, amplification, transliteration, literal translation, substitution and free translation, from which we can draw some instructions and lessons for the C-E translation practice.