| In recent years the phenomenon of retranslation has become a hotspot in the field of translation studies.Researches on retranslation have been conducted mainly with respect to its definition,motives,and necessity.Among others,the Retranslation Hypothesis(RH)named by Chesterman has attracted much attention.The hypothesis denotes that later translations tend to be closer to the original text than the first translations.Many scholars have put the hypothesis to test through case studies,but no consensus has been reached so far about its feasibility.Against this backdrop,the thesis first traces back to the origin of RH,combing its theoretical basis,namely,German Romanticism,and the elaboration of Berman and Bensimon,who played an important role in the formation of RH,and then discusses the nature and logic of it.Then this thesis examines the four English translations of Lu Xun’s Ah Q Zheng Zhuang as a case to point out the defects of RH,and on this basis proposes some rethinking on it.The main defects that the thesis finds out about RH are:1)RH presumes that all translations are produced in the target culture,but in fact translations can be produced in the source culture as well;2)RH presumes that the first translation functions as an introduction of the source text to the target culture,but in fact it can serve other purposes;3)RH presumes that retranslations are in linear progression in terms of the degree of source-orientedness,but given the complexities of translating activities,there are actually myriads of reasons that give rise to a translating practice.Whereas all these,the thesis tries to propose some rethinking on RH,which mainly includes:1)when studying the culturally introductory function of the first translation,the first translation produced in the target culture should be chosen;2)when studying retranslations’ return to the source texts,those retranslations that are produced in the target culture should be chosen;3)when studying the degree of source-orientedness of the retranslations,we should compare the degree of source-orientedness of retranslations in different time periods so as to study the holistic feature of different periods. |
