On the Subjectivity of the Translator

2  Connotations of the translator’s subjectivity
As the above analysis, the translational subjectivity refers to the subjectivity of the translator, author and readers, as well as their inter-subjectivity. The translator, author and readers are participants in the process of translation, while the translator’s subjectivity runs through the whole process of translating, the others’ subjectivity is just represented in some related parts [7] . The translational process should be complicated as 
Author----Source text----Translator----Target Text----Reader
Hence, all the elements interact with each other, even they practice dialogues in translating process.
The translator is the focal element in translation, he reads and interprets the source text aesthetically and sends messages to target language readers by creativity. Especially in literary translation, it fuses with the translator’s creative treason affected by the readers and reception contexts. The translated works will be distorted unavoidably to cater for readers and reception context in a certain historical period. Connotations of the translator’s subjectivity will be analyzed in the following three aspects.
2. 1 Translator’s subjectivity in the process of translation
From the choice of original works and translating strategies to the produce of translated texts, all need the translator’s subjective agency. The translator is not passive to copy the message of source text, but active to do his task to achieve translation purpose. The translator’s life philosophy decides on his choice among source language texts. Usually a person will choose a job according to his own interest and the degree of familiar with it, the translator is not an exception. Lin Yutang chose to translate Six Chapters of a Floating Life, which is because the aesthetic context in the text is just what Lin Yutang hopes to be in the real life [9]. Generally speaking, the translator will choose to translate the same or similar type of original texts, in light of his fore-understanding or for-construction.
The concrete translating process is an important segment of translation activities. The translator will breathe his own emotion, aesthetics and cultural awareness etc. into translation to a largest extent. And he will take readers, reception contexts and all the related elements into consideration. Jacque Derrida celebrated translation as transformation from one language to another and from a text to another. The text is an open and uncompleted system, whose meaning is indeterminate. Translation is to different and delay the original meaning [4]. Just because of the indeterminate open meaning, there are various translation versions of The Bible in modern times, such as English Version of 1885, American Standard Version of 1901, Revised Standard Bible of 1952, New American Bible and New English Bible of 1970 an so on. Different translators in different historical periods produce various versions to cater for different readers’ tastes. The translators have to distort the source text in linguistic and cultural level.
And in literary translation, the translator’s subjectivity is more apparent and important. Literary translation is an original subjective activity on the center of a complex network of social and cultural practices. This requires the translator to use his imagination and intellectuality to produce an aesthetically pleasing and creative text. The translator needs to render sense to sense, but not render word to word. Firstly, the translator is to read and interpret the source text with his literary competence like emotion, aesthetic tendency and imagination etc. He will call up the “indeterminacy” and fill in the “gaps”, then make dialogues with the source text. To achieve fusion of horizons, the translator adjusts his own structure of for-understanding and constructs the text’s meaning as a whole [7]. Also the potentiality, a force hidden in certain texts and the intention underlying languages will be disgusted and reflected by the translator in translating process. According to Walter Benjamin’s theory that the translated works are “after-life” of the original works, the task of the translator is to distort the order of the text and realize the notions underlying in source text [4].