Creativity Inspired by the Active Processes of Reception in Translation（硕士论文） .doc

翻译中接受过程所激发的创造性creativity inspired by the active processes of reception in translationcreativity inspired by the active processes of reception in translation-from the perspective of aesthetics of receptionabstractthis dissertation attempts to further the studies of reception processes in translation studies and based on it prove the necessity of creation by translators. aesthetics of reception, presented by hans robert jauss and wolfgang iser, causes a revolution in literary criticism and consequently shifts the focus of literary criticism from text to readers. application of the theory into translation studies brings to our attention the reception processes by translators and target language readers respectively. however, researchers both at home and abroad fail to present us a clear picture of the complete course of reception in translation. ma xiao in china figures out two stages of reception, i.e. translators reception and target language readers reception, and regards them as similar. this dissertation starts with the discussion of differences in reception processes between translators and target language readers, and concludes that the former, required by their responsibility as intermediary in cross-cultural communications, need to fulfill much more complicated reception processes as compared with the latter. major contributions in this dissertation include: (1) detection of the differences in the reception processes between translators and target language readers; (2) assertion to the necessity of creation by translators in translation; (3) illustration of translators primary responsibilityto bridge different cultures and to produce acceptable translated versions. literal translation or liberal translation and alienation or domestication have long been the focus of disputation in both translation theory and translation practice. since these principles concentrate either on the preservation of the originality in source texts or simply on the conveyance of meaning from source texts to target texts, none of them are advocated in this dissertation. instead, this dissertation presents a new guideline for translation: the acceptance of target language readers, requiring the translators efforts in seeking a balance between comprehensibility and foreignness of translated versions. key words：aesthetics of reception; horizon of expectations; reception process; creativityii摘要本文旨在深入分析翻译研究中的接受过程，并基于此证明翻译中译者适当再创造的必要性。姚斯和伊索尔提出的接受美学，给文学评论界带来了一场革命，并最终使文学评论的中心实现了由作品向读者的转变。接受美学理论在翻译研究中的应用引起了研究者对译者与译文读者接受过程的关注。然而，至今国内外的研究者们并未能就翻译中的接受过程给出一个明确的描述。作为国内这一领域研究的佼佼者，马萧提出了翻译中面临的两次接受活动，并认为这两次接受活动大体相似。在认同马萧提出的两次接受活动的基础上，本文首先主要关注这两次接受活动中的不同之处，并得出结论：由于其作为跨文化交际中“中间人”的责任所在，译者须实现的接受过程要远比译文读者复杂。本文主要贡献在于：（1）描述了译者接受过程与译文读者接受过程中的异同; (2) 证实了翻译过程中译者适当再创造的必要性; (3)明确了译者的基本责任传播文明且创造可读性译文。直译或意译和异化或归化一直是翻译研究与翻译实践中学者们争论的焦点之一。 由于这些指导原则或只强调原文特征保存或只强调原文意义传达，在实际翻译过程中都很难达到令人满意的效果，因而本文均未予支持；本文提出了一个新的原则，即译文读者的接受，要求译者在译文的可读性与文化传递性之间求得平衡。关键词: 接受美学；期待视野；接受过程；创造性iiicontentsacknowledgements.iabstractenglish version.iichinese version. .iiichapter one introduction.1chapter two aesthetics of reception and its application in translation studies.62.1 the formation of aesthetics of reception and its main theorists 62.2 reception theory in china and its application.10chapter three processes of reception in translation. .153.1 identification of two stages of reception in translation and its limitations.153.2. translators process of reception.193.2.1 process of source text selection.193.2.2 process of interpretation193.2.3 process of reproduction.223.3 reception process of tl readers.243.3.1 tl reader: individual vs community.243.3.2 reception process of tl readers.27chapter four creativity in translation.314.1 purposes in translation.324.2 differences in cultures.364.3 translators personal factors. .434.4 accumulative process of text realization .464.5 role of translators.51chapter five conclusion .57bibliography.60ivchapter one introductionchapter one introductionthis paper originates from professor zhou fangzhus lecture, in which he assigned students the task to explore the process of reception in translation. to fulfill the assignment, the author surveyed all relevant articles and works available yet without satisfactory findings. at the same time, much reading conducted by the author on creativity in translation evoked another question: was it necessary for translators to be creative in their work? support for the necessity of creation in translation from formal studies, as it mostly stems from cultural discrepancy between the two language communities concerned, is exclusive and seems not convincing enough. then enlightenment from the discussion with professor tian debei (the supervisor) and the book medio-translatology by professor xie tianzhen on the notion of “creative treason” prompt the author to introduce reception theory into the discussion of creativity in translation. therefore, the author intends this paper to be a new attempt at proving the necessity and inevitability of creation in translation from the perspective of reception theory; and focuses on two main issues, namely, the elaboration of processes of reception in translation and the exploration on valid evidences for the existence of creation by translators. aesthetics of reception, as an approach to literary criticism first presented by hans robert jauss in the 1960s, concerns itself with the initiative and creativity of readersfor the first time in literary history readers role in the literary realization is taken into consideration. jauss, in his literary history as a challenge of literary theory which was later considered as the declaration of emergence for aesthetics of reception, attempts to develop a new approach into the literary history by converting history of literature into that of aesthetic experience. jausss work was later echoed by his colleague wolfgang iser who, in 1970, published indeterminacy and the readers response in prose fiction”. though differed in quite a few ways, both jausss and isers theory shifts the focus of literary criticism from text, the major concern of earlier literary studies, to readers. readers, in their statements, would play an indispensable role in the final realization of a work, and without whom, a text would be nothing but a useless collection of words. since the day of its emergence, aesthetics of reception itself, which was later called reception theory collectively, inevitably got “received” from various perspectives by different scholars as whose horizon of expectations diverged a lot from one to another. even though, several points could still be agreed upon as the basic arguments of the theory. firstly, the process of reading by readers is taken as an indispensable stage along the whole process of text realization (or concretization). secondly, the value of certain text and the position a writer deserves in history should be, and can only be, figured out when readers active process of reception is taken into account. thirdly, a text itself is not at all self-sufficient. on the contrary, it contains many “fuzziness” or “empty point” which demand the readers efforts to clarify and concretize. fourthly, writers do not write for themselves, but instead, they should always have their future readers horizon of expectations in mind. finally, as to a certain text, the reception of it can be roughly divided into horizontal reception, reception among different readers at a given period of time, and vertical reception, reception across times.at the emerging stage of reception theory, scholars had no intention of applying the theory to the reception of a foreign text, in place of which they focused on the reception of a text within its own cultural community. it took quite a long time for scholars to include the theory in the study of texts belonging to other cultures. in the shift, scholars of both translation studies and comparative literature (or literature in translation) made their contribution. before the application of reception theory, be it literal translation or liberal translation, faithfulness, at least in meaning, was always regarded as the utmost standard by translators, as well as translation researchers. similarly, in the field of comparative literature, researchers concentrated on the influence of a text on cultures other than its own, in which attention to the text itself and its writer formed the core of study. then the introduction to reception theory carried studies in both fields into a new stage from the angle of readers. in translation studies, how to make a translated version accepted by target language readers (“tl readers” for short) drew much attention, and in comparative literature, how and why a foreign text was accepted, partly accepted or even rejected was focused on. later on, as the application of reception theory in translation studies was put forward, besides the reception process by tl readers, translators own reception process was recognized. process of translation, therefore, consisted of two processes of reception, i.e. the reception process of translators and that of the tl readers. few people in western countries set foot in the study of reception processes in translation studies. similarly, in china, since 1983 when the theory was first formally introduced, only 15 articles have been written in the field. whats more, studies on translation with the application of reception theory stopped at the discussion of the existence of the two processes of reception. the only difference between these two processes of reception detected in former studies lay in that the translators reception was followed by the process of reorganization of the text in another language while the tl readers reception was the final step. but, do the two processes really follow the same way in operation? to answer the question, all relevant materials available in the fields of both reception theory and creativity in translation have been surveyed. since there is no present answer, the author turns back to jausss and isers works. with a thorough reading and comparison of them with those chinese introductory articles, the author perceives the deficiency in studies by contemporary chinese scholars: lack of discussion in the differences between the reception processes of translators and tl readers. having made clear the differences, the author presents a detailed narrative on the complete reception processes in translation and, based on it, re-studies the necessity of creation in translation from the perspective of reception theory. in this paper, after a brief introduction to aesthetics of reception and a review of its spread in china, the paper presents an elaborate discussion on the reception processes in translation, and then, based on it, discusses the creativity inspired in these active processes of reception. and as the title suggests, creativity in translation is the focus. both translators and translation researchers never cease to argue over the differences between literal translation and liberal translation, and are always ready to hold to one of them while depreciating the other. after a long disputation lasting for several centuries, there still lacks an agreement. as literal translation pays too much attention to the equivalence of style while liberal translation focuses on the conveyance of original meaning, neither of them are convincing enough. also in china, the principles of “alienation” and “domestication” have long been the focuses of controversy. “alienation” refers to the orientation of keeping the source text characteristics in target language while “domestication” means the adaptation of the source text in hopes of avoiding barriers in tl readers understanding. as will be discussed in chapter four, neither is satisfactory in its real application. therefore, none of the four principles above are advocated in this paper. instead, a new oneseeking “acceptance” of tl readersis advanced, which emphasizes, on the one hand, the comprehensibility of the translated version to tl readers, on the other hand, the necessity of providing appropriate foreignness to them. with the advancing of this new principle, the author sets the guideline for translation and defines that the utmost goal for translation is to facilitate cross-cultural communication with acceptable translated versions. chapter one serves as an introduction, in which the reason of writing this paper is revealed. in chapter two, we first have an introduction to aesthetics of reception, together with a brief comparison between its two main theorists: jauss and iser. then focus of attention is placed on its application in translation studies, within which the insufficiency is the center of study. chapter three is devoted to the elaborate study of reception processes in translation. generally speaking, reception processes are divided into the reception processes of translators and that of tl readers. the author spends more pages on the discussion of the former because besides the course of interpretation, which is the only task tl readers undertake, translators are also responsible for the reproduction of source texts in target language. three sub-processes are detected within the translators reception, namely the process of source text selection, the process of interpretation, and that of information selection and reproduction. so far as tl readers reception process is concerned, only the process of interpretation is defined. and tl readers, in this dissertation, are taken collectively as the target language community.chapter four is the core of this paper, in which, based on the two reception processes discussed in chapter three, translators creativity is taken as inevitable and essential. as cultural factors arouse more attention in translation studies, translation is no longer regarded as the process of duplication, but as a major means for cross-cultural communication. the utmost goal for translation ceases to be the seeking for faithfulness, but the assistance it might provide in communications among different cultural communities. whats more, as translators subjective nature is acknowledged and their efforts in translation appreciated, translation is recognized as a highly demanding activity instead of a matching game which can be performed by anyone who has acquired the basic sentence structures of a foreign language and is armed with a corresponding bilingual dictionary. also in this chapter, the accumulative process in the evolution of horizon of expectations and text realization is studied. all the above factors demand creation in qualified translation. finally in this chapter, we perceive it necessary to have a word on the role translators play in translation, centering on translators efforts in facilitating cross-cultural communication and target language readers reception. finally, a conclusion is given in chapter five. 59chapter two aesthetics of reception and its application in translation studieschapter two aesthetics of reception and its application in translation studies2.1 formation of aesthetics of reception and its main theorists presenting the essay entitled the change in the paradigm of literary scholarship in 1969, hans robert jauss sketched the historiography of literature and predicted the incoming “revolution” in contemporary literary studies. jauss argues that literary history is not the gradual accumulation of facts and evidences but rather a course characterized by “qualitative jumps, discontinuities, and original points of departure” robert c. holub “reception theory”: a critical introduction, new york: methuen, 1984 : 1. to prove his argument, jauss put forward a scheme in which four paradigms in literary studies are discussed, three of them are outdated and one, in his mind, is just emerging and deserves attention. the first paradigm discussed is a “classical-humanist” paradigm. within this paradigm, great works in the times of ancient greek and ancient rome are taken as yardstick for works at present. those works that successfully imitate the classics and strictly follow the pre-established rules are judged good and satisfying, while those that deviate from the fixed norms are regarded as unacceptable. the second paradigm is called “historicism-positivist”. it begins with the romanticist literary revolution and becomes prosperous along with the increasing sense of nationalism. as literature can be taken as an idealized moment of national legitimation, in literary studies critics focus their attention on source studies, attempting to “reconstruct the prehistory of standard medieval texts, and the editing of critical editions in the national tradition.” robert c. holub “reception theory”: a critical introduction, new york: methuen, 1984 : 2 such a literary approach is characterized by its mechanicalness and narrowness. it may be beneficial to the historical studies within an individual nation, but it neglects the relationship of literary development among nations in the same age. from the perspectives of rhetoric and aesthetics, jauss sees the third paradigm, aesthetic-formalist, which is named by jauss himself. the stylistic studies of leo spitzer, russian formalism an