A Study On The Translator’s Subjectivity From The Perspective Of Interpretive Translation Theory

With the advent of "cultural turn" of translation studies after the 1980s, translator’s subjectivity was put forward and analyzed from different perspectives, interpretive translation theory being one of them.On the basis of the literature review, this thesis attempts to analyze the presentation and limitations of the translator’s subjectivity during the translation process under the frame of Seleskovitch and Lederer’s interpretive translation theory. Then with the example of Tian Yan Lun, the famous translation work of Yan Fu, this thesis discusses in detail the presentation of Yan Fu’s translator subjectivity during the process of comprehension, deverbalisation and reformulation, and also tries to point out its imperfections. Interpretive translation theory combines cognitive science and translation practice, while the proposal of three stages of translation process brought new blood into translation study. With examples of proper application of the translator’s subjectivity and mistranslation, Tian Yan Lun is a comprehensive translation work that dialectically studies the translator’s subjectivity in three stages of translation process from the perspective of interpretive translation theory.Through the descriptive analysis of interpretive translation theory, this thesis comes to a conclusion that translators should utilize their subjectivity of linguistic knowledge and extralinguistic knowledge in the comprehension stage, bring into play their subjectivity of cognitive psychology activity in the deverbalisation stage, and stress their subjectivity of linguistic and writing ability and decision-making in the reformulation stage. However, their subjectivity also has limitations, which means translators cannot go against the sense expressed in the original text.Hopefully the thesis may provide guidance to translators by clarifying their role and offering references for the translation practice and translation appreciation.