A Comparative Study On Manipulation School’s And Traditional Views On "Faithfulness"

Translation is an old human activity. Translation researches also have a longhistory and experienced a series of changes. Traditional translation researches layemphasis on language research in translation. Manipulation school‘s translation research isone of the most influential schools in translation researches which are put into broadcultural scope. Manipulation school‘s translation theories do not aim at training translators,but precisely studying cultural interaction."Faithfulness" is regarded as one of the basic criteria in translation from the timethat translation appeared. Discussing on "faithfulness" never stops in translationresearches. In traditional translation researches, there are Chinese theories such as"faithfulness, expressiveness, elegance","spiritually alike" and western theories such as"textual equivalence" and "three principles" and so on. From the late20thcentury on,translation researches started entering the era of "cultural turn" and manipulation schoolraised new understandings on the concept of "faithfulness". In their views, it isimpracticable to regard "faithfulness" as the only way in translation. The author makes acomparative study on manipulation school‘s and traditional views on "faithfulness"aiming at analysing their features and substance and clarifying relationships anddifferences between them.Manipulation school‘s and traditional views on "faithfulness" come into beingunder different backgrounds. Manipulation school‘s views on "faithfulness" come intobeing under the background that postmodernism is very popular and. At the mean time,translation studies have made headway compared with traditional translation studies.Traditional views on "faithfulness" are influenced by essentialism.The reason why manipulation school‘s views on "faithfulness" are different fromtraditional views on it is partly that they have different theoretical bases. Manipulationschool‘s views on "faithfulness" are based on formalism, power discourse theory anddeconstructionism, while traditional views on "faithfulness" which are based on philology and linguistics theories concern more about translation problems on language.The comparasive study on backgrouds and theoretical bases lays the foundationof the study on substance. Although manipulation school‘s views on "faithfulness" aredifferent from traditional views, manipulation school does not deny the existence of"faithfulness". They see "faithfulness" from different angles. Traditional researches see"faithfulness" prescriptively, microscopicly and prospectively, and manipulation schoolrenews views of "faithfulness" by seeing "faithfulness" from descriptive, macroscopic andretrospective angles.Through comparative study, a conclusion that manipulation school‘s views on"faithfulness" do not aim at abandoning traditional views on "faithfulness" is drawn. Theysee translation from different angles. As translation studies develop, analyzing translationproblems from multiple angles and broad angles is necessary.