Power And Translation: Western Modernism And Post Modernism In China (1979-1988)

Translation is closely related to power. Foucault is the most notable philosopher on power, whose ideas are adopted in many ways. On regarding of translation, a focused examination of questions pertaining to power and translation dates from 1990, when Bassnett and Lefevere published their works related. Later, Chinese scholars also wrote papers on power in the light of exploring the impacts that power or ideology exerts on literature in China.This paper tries to explore the power interference in translation on the basis of comparison between power's manipulation in the Cultural Revolution period and in 1980s. The author attempts to exemplify the manipulation by translations of (post) modernism. Chinese translation is always mingled with and serves for power, especially political power. Politics is one of the most important factors in ideology. The Cultural Revolution period is the extreme example of manipulation. At this period, literature serves to nothing but politics, let alone translation. The difference is the manipulation less or worse. Even to these days, the power manipulation still remains. However, they are showed in explicit ways. And to make a foreign work of literature acceptable to the receiving culture, translators will often adapt it to patron's ideology and sometimes make it reach the readers in a circulous way. In 1980s, the politics loosens its control on literature, thus the translation works begin to show prosperity. To be simplier, when politics' control over translation is strict, the translation is declining even stopping and the translators have rare options.