Semantic Shifts in C-E Translation of You Sentences: Translators' Subjectivity and the Reconstruction of Semantic Subjectification Construal

This study, by integrating translators' subjectivity into views of Critical Discourse Studies on the (re)contextualization in translation, hypothesizes that semantic shifts in the C-E translation of you sentences will occur since the translators choose different ways to convey their subjectification construals in the process.To testify the point, Chinese you sentences and their English "equivalents" in the parallel corpus of Lu Xun's novel collection Pacing Back and Forth have been collected and their degrees of subjectification contrual have been compared.Among the major findings are:Chinese you in the data conveys such different implications as existence, estimation, occurrence, subordination, existence/possession+existence/possession manners, possession, forming a continuum of subjectification construal.In the translation, the degree of subjectification construal, due to the translators' active subjective roles, is either intensified or reduced and hence the semantic shifts.