2. Factors Leading to Translator’s Creative Treason
In A Textbook of Translation, English translation theorist Peter Newmark defines translation as “rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text.” (Newmark, 2011: 5) He says “Common sense tells us that this ought to be simple, as one ought to be able to say something as well in one language as in another. On the other hand, you may see it as complicated, artificial and fraudulent, since by using another language you are pretending to be someone you are not. Hence in many types of text (legal, administrative, dialect, local, cultural) the temptation is to transfer as many Source Language words to the Target Language as possible. The pity is, as Mounin wrote, that the translation couldn’t simply reproduce, or be, the original. And since this is so, the first business of the translator is to translate.” (2011: 5) So, we can obviously find various factors leading to translator’s creative treason.
2.1 Translator’s Subjectivity
Since the translator is the subject of the translation activity, no matter it is an inpidual or a group of people, translator’s subjectivity will inevitably get into and affect his translation. This affection is especially obvious and important in literary translation because of its artistic and subjective nature. For example, we know that the style of a writer is so important that there is the saying “the style is the man”, yet the style of a literary translation is always the combination of the style of the original writer and that of the translator, no matter how hard the translator tries to lessen the latter or how successful he is now doing so.文献综述
Thus, many people argue that translator’s subjectivity results in treason to the original. It is true to a large extent. Undoubtedly treason or fidelity is firstly the translator’s attitude towards translation, yet in translation practice, no matter which attitude the translator holds, he is due to get involved in treason, passively or actively, unconsciously or consciously, because the translator is a living person with his own knowledge, aesthetics, experience, emotion, etc, all of which make up his subjectivity and cannot but manifest themselves in his translation.