Analysis of the Translator’s Strategy in the Translator-Initiator Game from the Perspective of Game Theory

Interdisciplinary translation studies have yielded rich results in China since the 1990s, but the majority of such research has been confined within a small section of the discipline of liberal arts including mainly literature, art and culture, with few approaches observed beyond that boundary. A compositional part of the attempt to go beyond that boundary is to introduce the concept of the well-developed game theory into translation studies. This paper, on the basis of defining the interaction between the translator and the initiator of the translation task as a game, first analyzes the three categories of personality which constitute the initiator of the translation task, and examines how a different constituent of the role of initiator in this game changes the interaction pattern between the translator and the initiator, including the procedure of the game, the power relation between the two players of this game, and the strategy of each player. Then it looks into the relationship between the translator’s strategy and his/her payoff in the translator-initiator game, or more specifically, whether the translator adopts a certain strategy, consciously or subconsciously, out of the purpose to maximize his/her payoff in this game. Finally, this paper analyzes how the difference in location (Canada and China) causes the translator to change his/her strategy in the translator-initiator game with a case study. The findings of this paper show that the translator’s strategy in the translator-initiator game is not an independent decision made solely out of the translator’s own preference, but a rational choice made to achieve the translator’s own maximum utility in this game.