Ideology, Poetics, Patronage And Their Manipulation In Translation

In recent decades translation studies in the West have undertaken a drastic shift, from linguistic- and source-oriented to cultural- and target-oriented, with an aim to explore and expose the influencing political, socio-economical and cultural factors behind translation. Building on the polysystem theory of Descriptive Translation Studies, Andre Lefevere, an American translation theorist, proposed his triad theory of ideology, poetics and patronage as the controlling factors in translation. Since its inception, although without weaknesses, it has lent a fresh paradigm to translation studies and has been proved to be highly applicable by some translation theorists.Based on Lefevere's theory, this thesis attempts to analyze the translation of the works by Howard Fast, a contemporary American novelist, in China in the 1950s.Howard Fast was a prolific writer known for his leftist ideas, historical novels, science-fiction and best-sellers. Though he can only be ranked as a second-class writer in America, he enjoyed a literary reputation beyond the reach of many world famous writers, such as William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and many others, in China in the 1950s, when he was a Communist Party member, and almost all of his major works before that time were translated into Chinese. In early 1957, Howard Fast publicly declared his departure from the American Communist Party, which ruined his literary fame in China almost over night. Not only did severe criticisms by Chinese writers follow it, but his works were also ruled out of the translation agenda. This lasted more than two decades until the early 1980s.The thesis hypothesizes that the Chinese translation of the works by Howard Fast in the 1950s was manipulated by ideology, poetics and patronage, as specified by Lefevere.Departing from Lefevere's theory, the thesis briefly investigates China's literary translation history, revealing that it is a long tradition in China that ideology, poetics and patronage manipulate literary translation, with the translation of the works by Howard Fast only a specific case in this tradition.