1. 2.1 Researches Abroad 1

1.2.2 Researches in China 4

2. Literary translation and translator’s subjectivity 7

2.1 The nature of literary translation 7

2.2 Translator’s subjectivity in literary translation 7

3. Influential factors on translator’s subjectivity 8

3.1 Translator’s audience awareness 8

3.2 Translator’s personal emotion 10

3.3 Translator’s aesthetic preference 12

4. Conclusion 13

4.1 Summary 13

4.2 Significance 13

References 14

1. Review on translator’s subjectivity

1.1 The Research Background 

With the "pragmatic turn" of western philosophy in the 1970s and the "cultural turn" of translation studies in the 1990s, the international translation studies has shifted its focus from the language studies to the culture studies. Translator’s subjectivity has gained more and more attention. Lawrence Venuti put forward that it was wrong to require translator’s invisibility in translation. Antoine Berman, who was especially influential in translation criticism, claimed that translation criticism must be translator-oriented, and proposed a slogan, appealing people to pay more attention to translators. Plenty of translation scholars re-established the status and identity of translator, and began to discuss translator’s subjectivity consciously and explicitly, pushing the translator to a more dominant and more authoritative position. However, what’s the translator's subjectivity on earth? Different scholars hold their different points of view. Many insightful scholars put the translator into the definition of translation. For example, Wang Kefei defined translation as a cultural activity, in which translator expressed the implied meaning of this language in another language. Hu Gengshen described translation as a translator’s adaptation and selection activity in a translational eco-environment. Such definitions reveal the nature of translation, and it’s obvious that the continuous development on translator's subjectivity will promote new understanding of translation.

1.2 Researches on the Translator’s Subjectivity in China and Abroad

 1. 2.1 Researches Abroad

Western scholars began the study of the translator's subjectivity in the 1970s. At the same time, translation research became an independent science, in which the translator’s subjectivity became the most principal research issue. It was analyzed by a number of various perspectives. Below are some representative perspectives:

1.2.1.1 Hermeneutics

In the 1960s, hermeneutics aroused people’s great interest in philosophy and culture fields. Hermeneutics is a science of understanding and interpretation of meaning, and a theory of text interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. It believes that any kind of object or phenomenon in the world must be associated with a certain meaning, and the way to find the meaning is in need of understanding. In this way, translation process is in connection with hermeneutics, because the premise of translation itself is exactly understanding of the source text. The translation process is the translator’s understanding and interpretation of the source text, that is, the translator first understands the source text as a reader, he reads, understands, analyzes, and then expresses his own understandings to the target readers. It is worth mentioning that being influenced by various factors such as cultural context and personal interest, the translators will produce different interpretations for the same text from their respective understandings, which precisely reflects the translator's subjectivity.