Ideological Manipulation In Literary Translation

Since cultural turn emerged in the translation research in the1980s, translation study has paid more attention to the research about social and cultural background of translation activities.British translation theorist Hermans, who promotes applying manipulation theory to the translation study, is the pioneer of the Manipulation School in the translation theory. Then Lefevere systematically discussed and developed the Manipulation School in the translation study. His "Rewriting Theory" exerted great influence on the translation study under the cultural context, which symbolized the formal formation of the Manipulation School. Lefevere also believes that translation is a kind of rewriting, which is also can be called manipulation. Meanwhile, he put forward three factors that restrict the process of translation: ideology, poetics and patronage, in which ideology takes a more important position. Generally speaking, ideology includes personal ideology and social ideology, while translator’s personal ideology may be related to the power of patronage and both personal ideology and patronage are influenced by social ideology. The manipulation of ideology upon literary translation is mainly manifested on the selection of source text and the choice of translation strategy. Moreover, manipulated by the ideology, the translator may conduct some rewritings in the process of translation to cater for the dominant social ideology in the target language.This thesis selects two English versions of Luoluo Xiangzi as research subject to analyze how ideology manipulates literary translation and how socio-cultural factors influence the process of literary translation. Two English versions of Luotuo Xiangzi the author choose are Rickshaw Boy translated by American translator Evan King in1945and Camel Xiangzi translated by Chinese translator Shi Xiaojing in1981.Based on the relationship between ideology and translation, this thesis relates researches about ideology and translation at home and abroad, and classifies existed domestic researches about translation of Luotuo Xiangzi. The theoretical part concerns about the origination and development of the Manipulation School in detail, and then introduces three restricted factors in the process of translation which was put forward by Lefevere, raising the manipulation of ideology in the literary translation. With Luotuo Xiangzi as the case study, the body of th thesis firstly introduces the social background in the1930s, Lao She’s personal experience; well as the influence of social ideology and personal ideology on the work Luotuo Xiang: Then this thesis analyses ideological manipulation on the selection of source text and t1choice of translation strategy through the analysis of two English versions of Luotuo Xiang respectively. Finally, a conclusion is drawn naturally that social and cultural factors a indispensable in the process of translation, especially the influence of ideology. In the proce of translation, translators are inevitably manipulated by social ideology as well as his/h personal ideology.