On The Assertion And Constraints Of The Translator’s Subjectivity

With the steady improvement of translators’ status,the translator’s subjectivity has increasingly become the focus of critical attention.Drawing from illustrations and analysis from Dong Leshan’s Chinese translated text of Stor Over China",this thesis seeks to examine how a translator’s subjectivity can be either creatively asserted or helplessly constrained in the translation process.After a brief overview of the researches of translation studies on translator’s subjectivity at home and abroad and of the evolution of translators’ status and related concepts of translator’s subjectivity,this thesis proceeds to analyze the myriad aspects of optimization and constraints of the translator’s subjectivity.It then addresses the issue of assertion of subjectivity,via examples from Dong Leshan’s translated text,from three levels:the text level,language level and translation strategies to see how translator’s creativity plays;and of the issue of constraints,again from three levels:text,culture and language to see how the translator’s subjectivity is restricted.Based on the analysis of Dong’s translation,this thesis argues that the translator is allowed much space for creative play during the process of translation,but given the limitations of original author’s writing purpose,the context of the source text and some conventional language and cultural phenomena,the play of their subjectivity is more or less constrained.Translators need to understand what factors restrict their creativity in the process of translation before they can bring out an ideal translated text.In conclusion,the study of Dong Leshan’s Chinese translated text of "Red Star Over China" testifies that an in-depth understanding of how a translator’s subjectivity works during the process of translation will hopefully shed light on future translation practice—in that it is conductive to bring a translator’s creativity into full play and to ultimately produce improved and qualified translated texts.