A Study Of Translator’s Subjectivity Based On Translation As Adaptation And Selection Theory

Throughout the history of translation, people’s cognition of it has experienced twists and turns, changing from regarding translation as a pure linguistic task of reproducing the source text to considering it as the recreation of the source text. Therefore, although translator is the only executor of translation, his subjectivity was once ignored obviously. With the appearance of pragmatic turn in western philosophy and cultural turn in translation studies in the second half of the 20th century, scholars in the field of translation studies have paid more attention to translation’s subjectivity as well as translator’s role. Because related studies start late, there is a lack of research achievements, not to speak of a complete system. Therefore, the academia needs to do much more researches in order to confirm the dominant role of translator.Under this circumstance, domestic scholar Professor Hu Gengshen decides to take a new look at translation activities in translational eco-environment and puts forward an approach to translation as adaptation and selection, which is based on the rationale of Darwin’s biological evolution theory about adaptation and selection. An approach to translation as adaptation and selection points out that translation is a translator’s selective activity to adapt to the translational eco-environment. And it’s the translator who adapts and selects in the process. Therefore, this approach provides strong theoretical foundation for the further study of translator’s subjectivity.Charlotte Bronte is a famous British writer. And Jane Eyre is her masterpiece. Jane Eyre, as a realistic literary work with a strong romantic color, has been widely recognized in literary circles and has been translated by translators around the world. In China, it was first translated in the 1930s by Li Jiye. And after that, more than one hundred Chinese versions came out in succession. But among them, only several survived, which is closely related to the translator’s subjectivity and his right adaptation and selection.This thesis is to demonstrate the subject position of the translator by making a comparative analysis between two Chinese versions of Jane Eyre, which are translated by Zhu Qingying and Huang Yuanshen respectively, and studying the translators’embodiment of dynamism and subject consciousness, from the perspective of an approach to translation as adaptation and selection.