A Study Of Translator’s Subjectivity In The Narrative Framing Of Howard Goldblatt’s Translation Work Daughter Of The River

Since the "cultural turn" in Western translation studies in the 1970 s,translator’s status has gradually been concerned,and translator’s subjectivity has gradually become a hot topic in the translation studies.Plenty of researches on this aspect have been done in China.Scholars have studied translator’s subjectivity from various perspectives such as rewriting theory,postcolonial theory,and feminist theory.Mona Baker(2006),in her book Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Accounts,applies sociology and communication to translation studies from an interdisciplinary perspective.She focuses on translator’s critical role and function in narrative conflicts.From Mona Baker’s view,translation is a kind of re-narration of the original text and translator can also be defined as "re-narrator",playing a very important role in re-narration.In the process of this re-narration,translator,according to his/her narrative position and purpose,tries to frame a new narrative which strengthens or weakens some of the content they participate in,either explicitly or implicitly by various framing strategies.This process highlights translator’s subjectivity and initiative.Adopting the concept of narrative framing from Mona Baker’s narrative theory and taking the translation of Daughter of the River as the research text,this thesis explores the translator’s subjectivity in the framing process of Howard Goldblatt’s translation of Daughter of the River.Firstly,the connotation of translator’s subjectivity and the manifestation of translator’s subjectivity in framing process are discussed;Then,the manifestation of Howard Goldblatt’s subjectivity in the framing process of Daughter of the River is explored by comparing the original text with the translation;Finally,factors that influence Howard Goldblatt’s subjectivity in the framing process and the effect of the translation are analyzed.After careful comparison,it can be achieved that Howard Goldblatt’s subjectivity mainly manifests in the three framing strategies: the strategy of framing by labeling,framing by selective appropriation and reposition of participants.To be more specific,firstly,he rewrites the title and some words and phrases which identify a person,an event and a place to cater to the public narratives of the target language.Secondly,he intentionally adds and omits some narratives to strengthen or weaken some aspects of this work,improving the accessibility of the translation.Thirdly,he adds an introduction to the translation and makes some shifts in deixis to shorten the distance between the author and the target readers,which can make the translation more acceptable to the readers.In addition,the factors influencing translator’s subjectivity are analyzed.In the framing process,Howard Goldblatt’s subjectivity is influenced by the public narratives of the target language,his own translation thoughts and other participants in this process.