2.2  The Impact of Reception Aesthetics on Translator’s Subjectivity    7
2.2.1  Horizon of Expectations and Translator’s Subjectivity    7
2.2.2  Indeterminacy and Translator’s Subjectivity    8
2.2.3  Fusion of Horizons and Translator’s Subjectivity    8
3  The Applications of Reception Aesthetics to Study Translator's Subjectivity in Red Sorghum     9
3.1  The Translator's "Dual Roles" in Literary Translation    9
3.2  Target Readers Consideration    9
3.3  The Translator's Subjectivity in Language Processing    10
3.3.1  Lexical    10
3.3.2  Syntax    12
3.4  The Translator's Subjectivity in Cultural Information Processing    13
3.4.1  Social Culture    13
3.4.2  Religious Culture    14
3.4.3  Political Culture    15
Conclusion    17
Acknowledgments    19
Bibliography    20
1 Introduction
The translator’s subjectivity has been neglected in the field of translation both at home and abroad for a long time due to the conventional translation theories. Fortunately, the cultural turn in the late 1970s has stricken the conventional translation theory. From then on, the translator’s subjectivity has been given due attention. The translator's subjectivity plays a considerably significant role in literature translation as literature translation itself is a kind of creative activity.

This thesis will use Hongaoliang Jiazu and its English version to study the translator's subjectivity. Hongaoliang Jiazu is one of the most famous works of Mo Yan. Its plot depicts three generations of the Shandong family between 1923 and 1976. The narrator tells the story of his family's struggles, as distillery owners making sorghum wine and as resistance fighters during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The novel also details civil disputes between warring Chinese groups, including rival gangs and political powers.

This novel was so beautifully translated by Goldblatt that even the author Mo Yan
himself spoke highly of the English version. Moreover, there are many influential book reviews for Red Sorghum . San Francisco Chronicle commented it as “brilliant, lyrical and intoxicating”. What’s more, New York News-day praised it as “one of the most unusual and powerful fictional works of modern times”. There is no doubt that Goldblatt’s English version of Honggaoliang Jiazu is really a great success in America.

As is known to all, Honggaoliang Jiazu has enormous influence. In particular, Howard Goldblatt’s English version of it has drawn much attention overseas. However, domestic research on this English version is relatively small.

Based on the modern hermeneutics and the reception theory, Hu Yuan discussed about
cultural misreading in Red Sorghum and finally drew a conclusion that cultural misreading should be minimized as few as possible(Hu Yuan, 2008: 2). Zuo Miaomiao delivered an article about the variations of narrative plots and mode in Red Sorghum(Zuo Miaomiao, 2011: 114-116). Li Chaofei discussed the whole process of Goldblatt’s translation of Honggaoliang Jiazu by analyzing the main factors involved in his translation eco-environment based on the approach to translation as adaptation and selection(Li Chaofei, 2012: 45).

By employing different theories, some of the previous studies discussed certain translation phenomena such as cultural misreading, stylistic reproduction and so on. While some focused on the translation process and its acceptability in target language. However, so far, no one has studied the translator’s subjectivity of this English version from the perspective of Reception Aesthetics. Therefore, based on Reception Aesthetics, this thesis intends to do a research of the translator’s subjectivity during the process of translation by analyzing Howard Goldblatt’s version of Honggaoliang Jiazu. 从接受美学视角看葛浩文《红高粱家族》英译本中的译者主体性(2):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_11511.html