Translator Subjectivity and the Process of Translation: The View of a Working Translator

Translator Subjectivity and the Process of Translation: The View of a Working Translator

A step-by-step, detailed examination of the actual process of translating a short literary text revealed that the translator's subjective thoughts and feelings only entered the process at the beginning-the choice of text. For this experiment, the translator chose the most odious text he could find, by an author he detested. Yet these feelings did not enter the translation process, as far as he could tell. He concludes that literary translators concentrate on language (and thus the culture that produced it), denotative and connotative meanings, and their subjectivity enters into the process less than one might think. Above all, the translator strives to produce an effect on the reader of the target language as close as possible to the effect produced by the text on the reader of the source language.