A Comparative Study Of The Three Chinese Versions Of The Return Of The Native From The Perspective Of Reception Theory

The Return of the Native is the representative work of British realistic novelist Thomas Hardy. Since it was introduced to China in the 1930s, it had exerted widespread influence on Chinese society. The author of this thesis attempts to analyze the three Chinese versions of The Return of the Native from the reception theory.Reception theory emerged in Germany in 1960s. It emphasizes the active role of readers in the text and provides a new perspective for translation studies. The two important concepts of reception theory are "horizon of expectations" and "spot of indeterminacy". When translating literary works, translator is first the reader of the original text. His pre-understandings or horizon of expectations lead to different interpretation of the same text. At the same time the language expectation and reception level of the readers are also factors that shall be taken into consideration by translators. Appropriate language and translation strategies are chosen to achieve the fusion of horizons between the readers and the text. Besides, there are many blanks in meaning after a literary work is completed. Only through the active participation of the readers can the artistic value of the text be realized. The different knowledge structures influence translators’filling of spots of indeterminacy, giving rise to different translated versions.In this thesis, the author chooses the three Chinese versions of The Return of the Native as research objects, using the reception theory to analyze the three versions from the translators and readers’horizon of expectations and the concretization of indeterminate spots. Through the comparative study of the three Chinese versions, it can be found that the horizon of expectations of readers at different times lead to the various versions, which can be attributed to the historical and cultural backgrounds as well as language styles of three translators. Meanwhile, the author analyzes translators’ concretization of the spots of indeterminacy of the original text from lexical, rhetorical and cultural level. This thesis not only aims to verify the significance to apply reception theory into translation studies, but explains the phenomenon of existence of different translations to some degree. The author expounds that with the development of times and changes of language, the old translation can’t meet the demands of modern readers, therefore it is of necessity for new editions to appear. Thus it is of great theoretical and practical value.