从接受美学视角看葛浩文《红高粱家族》英译本中的译者主体性(3)
1.1 Translator’s Subjectivity
In the process of translation, the translator mainly plays the subject role to take all the factors into consideration. Therefore, we consider the translator as the core subject of the translation act. The so-called "subjectivity" mainly refers to the essential quality of the subject in its philosophical sense. Hence the "subjectivity" should be made up of the subject's intention, initiative, creativity and so on.
The translator should take the initiative, which includes the humanism character, the cultural and aesthetic creativity and the cultural awareness in the process of translation. At the same time, the translator should regard the source text as its objective restrictions, which consist of the author, the source text and other external social and cultural factors. So both the internal and external factors are indispensable to the translator's subjectivity.
In 1970s, the “cultural turn” of translation studies has brought the translator's subjectivity into foreground. Since then, the study of translator's subjectivity has become prominent both in the west and in China. It goes beyond the pure language of the text and emphasizes the mutual penetration between translation and culture. In 1990s, there came a real breakthrough of the study on translator's subjectivity with the publication of the work: Translation, History and Culture co-edited by Susan Bassnett and Lefevere. They claimed that “translation is, of course, a rewriting of original text. All rewritings, whatever their intention, reflect a certain ideology and poetics and as such manipulate literature to function in a given society in a given way(Bassnett＆Lefevere, 2001: Preface ).” Therefore, the existence of translator's subjectivity is reasonable.