Translator’s Subjectivity In Liu Bingshan’s Translation Of Essays Of Elia From The Perspective Of Eco-Translatology

It was not until the “cultural turn” in translation studies in the 1970 s that the translator and the translator’s subjectivity were brought to scholar’s research scope. Based on the theory of Translation as Adaptation and Selection, Eco-translatology highlights the central role played by translators and thus provides a new perspective for scholars to study translator’s subjectivity. The translator’s adaptation and selection not only reflects translator’s subjectivity but also the restraints of the translator. According to Eco-translatology, translation process can be divided into two stages: the text-choosing stage and the reconstruction stage. In the text-choosing stage, the translator adapts to the translational eco-environment by adaptation to internal needs, external needs and competence. In the reconstruction stage, the translator makes selections mainly in linguistic, cultural and communicative dimensions. The translator’s subjectivity is manifested in both stages.Essays of Elia isthemasterpiece of Charles Lamb and is considered as an important part of English literature.TheChineseversion translated by Liu Bingshan was relatively early and more comprehensively selected translation of Lamb’s essays, and Feng Yidai said that Liu Bingshan’s selected translation paved a way for translation of English essays. David Pollard from London University said that he found Liu Bingshan’s translation just right and surely a labor of love. At present, only two theses focus on Liu Bingshan’s translation and they are from the reproducing of humors and reproducing of style. Language in Liu Bingshan’s translation is living Chinese and his creativity can be seen here and there, thus his subjectivity needs a further study. This thesis will take Liu Bingshan’s translation of Essays of Elia as a case study to examine translator’s subjectivity manifested under Eco-translatology.According to the study, it is found that Liu Bingshan made adaptation to the translational eco-environment and his choice of the text is out of his adaptation to internal and external needs as well as competence. In the reconstruction stage, selections he made are in the linguistic dimension, the cultural dimension and the communicative dimension. The linguistic dimension includes lexical level, syntactical level and stylistic level. The cultural dimension involves translation of culture-loaded words and the communicative dimension covers the translation of address and names as well as transformations the translator made according to differences between English and Chinese thinking patterns. By adopting different translation strategies and methods, Liu Bingshan successfully improved the quality of his translation. Through adaptations and selections Liu Bingshan’s subjectivity as a brilliant translator is fully revealed.