Ideological Manipulation And Translation Rewriting In Literary Trauslation

The "cultural turn" in translation studies emphasizes that the nature of translation is intercultural communication in the form of language switching. This cultural perspective has shifted the focus of translation research, viewing it not only as a dynamic process manipulated by socio-political factors but also as that of purposeful and conscious rewriting. Thanks to this paradigm shift, the dimension of translation research has been broadened. Many seemingly controversial translation activities become understandable when manipulative factors are taken into consideration. Furthermore, a translated text starts to function as a medium through which we can better understand the translator's intended translation purpose and how he maneuvers the function of the translated text in the target culture through rewriting of the original text. To this point, Ku Hungming's translation activities become a suitable case due to his unique C-E translation trend at that time and the controversial reputation of his rendtion has gained.Taking his translation of Zhong Yong as a case study, this paper is a tentative investigation into how Ku's personal ideology affected his translation decisions, why Ku rewrote the original text and how Ku rewrote it. Theories of manipulation and rewriting will be borrowed as the theoretical framework for this paper. This study demonstrates that Ku's personal ideology has manipulated his various translation decisions, including his choices of source texts, target readers and translation strategies; furthermore, Ku was a conscious rewriter. To him, translation was only a means to satisfy his intended purpose of ideological export. Ku rewrote the original to glorify the image of Chinese people, to demonstrate the superiority of Confucianism, and to help preserve Chinese civilization against cultural assimilation and genocide. Thus, this paper argues that Ku's translation is of profound cultural significance and that objective critics should pay special attention to the macro socio-political factors that determined the production of this rendition.