Deconstructive Translation: A Critical Review

Deconstructive translation is a translation theory guided by deconstruction, the two most important terms of which are"différance"and"dissemination"proposed by Derrida, one of the key figures of deconstruction. And from the two terms two features of deconstruction:"dispelling"and"commentating"are derived. Developed from deconstruction, deconstructive translation also features"dispelling"and"commentating". The former means to give explanations on the original while the latter means to destruct the original. Whether a deconstructive translation is commentating or dispelling is determined by three factors: linguistic and cultural context, acceptability and personal point of view.There are five arguments to prove the possibility and inevitability of deconstructive translation: fuzziness of the original, unintentional misdecipherment, translator's personal factors, intentional misdecipherment and historical factors. Deconstructive translation challenges loyalty-characterized traditional translation, the focus of which is literal translation and free translation, translatability and untranslatability, and loyalty or equivalence principle that is always emphasized in traditional translation.There are three merits of deconstructive translation. They are: the merit of opening up a new perspective to translation studies and providing a theoretical basis for some effective translations that are against the loyalty principle, the merit of offering the discursive power to non-English languages, and that of promoting the translator's social and economic status.Deconstructive translation also has its limitations. For one thing, it has paid more attention to theoretical study than to practical contribution. For the other, there are the consequences of abusing deconstructive translation.Deconstructive translation, either commentating or dispelling, has its limitations as well as merits. Deconstructive translation alone can not work as the criterion of translation, and there must be a limit for deconstructive translation. Thus, the thesis puts forward a compromising translation criterion that contrives to combine the best of different translation criteria. Compromising translation criterion is"the loyalty principle"plus"making a concrete analysis of concrete conditions".