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2 The Translator’s Subjectivity
2.1 The Previous Study of the Translator’s Subjectivity
In Nida’s famous work The Theory and Practice of Translation (2003), he pointed out that
the former focus before the cultural turn in translating studies was the form of the message and translators were used to translate the source text from the aspect of stylistic specialties, such as rhythms, plays on words, unusual grammatical structures and so on. This former focus in translating shows that the status of translators at that time was not important and was servant of the original author to convey the meaning. But the new focus has changed and it no more pays attention to the form but the receptors’ response (Nida, 2003: 7). So the receptor’s response really determines. Then the response should be compared with the way in which the original receptors responded to the source text. The original receptors’ response to the original setting would reflect in his or her translating.
It is mentioned in Lawrence Venuti’s work The Translator’s Invisibility (1995) that translators are much aware that any sense of authorial presence in a translation is an illusion, an effect of transparent discourse. But they nonetheless assert that they participate in a “psychological” relationship with the author in which they express their own “personality” (Lawrence Venuti, 1995: 5). His theory has made contribution to visibility of the translator and highlighting of the translator’s status in translation.
Studies at home on the translator’s subjectivity have developed as well as abroad. Chinese scholars including Ge Xiaoqin, Xu Jun, Zha Mingjian, Tian Yu and so on have contributed a lot to the study of the translator’s subjectivity. They have promoted the status of the translator to a new height, discussed the objective and subjective elements that affect the translator’s behavior in translating and proved the role the subjectivity plays in the translator’s translating process.
Ge Xiaoqin believes it a historical false that the translating scholars focus on the translating practice itself instead of systematic and theoretical study on translation (Ge Xiaoqin, 2006: 23). In the translation theories, the theory of the translator’s subjectivity is also of great importance. It directly influences how the translator scientifically exerts his subjectivity and promotes the process of translating. Xu Jun holds the view that the translator’s subjectivity
exists in the whole stage of translating and greatly influences the result. The presence or absence of the translator’s subjectivity and strong or weak subjectivity directly affect the whole process and the value of the translated text (Xu Jun, 2003). Zha Mingjian and Tian Yu proposed the issue on the translator’s subjectivity in allusion to the current study at home. They analyzes the connotation and expression of the translator’s subjectivity from four aspects of the process of translating, translator’s awareness of source language and reader’s ability to take in, inter textual relationship between the translation and the source text, relationship between the target language culture with original language culture, and subjective relationship between the translator and original author and the relationship between the translator and the reader (Zha Mingjian, Tian Yu, 2003). The cultural turn in the study of translation not only opened new space for translation study but also put the study of the translator’s subjectivity on schedule as well as the translator’s cultural identity. What translation tells us more is about the translator himself or herself rather than the translated text.