A Study Of Foreignization And Domestication From The Politics Of Translation Perspective

The paper seeks to testify the inevitable tendency of foreignization strategy in translation from the politics of translation perspective. After the study of the debates between domestication strategy and foreignization strategy in the translation history for a very long time, the paper examines the problems in traditional translation studies and proceeds to study politics of translation. Domestication refers to target-language-culture-oriented translation in which expressions acceptable in target language culture are exploited so as to make the translated texts intelligible and suitable for the target text readers. Foreignization is source-language-culture-oriented translation that strives to retain as much as possible the original flavor so as to preserve the foreignness of the source language culture. In fact, there are many arguments about domestication and foreignization, some promotes domestication or foreignization, the other compromises the two strategies. And most of the papers just refer to the words and culture, but politics few.In the end of 20th century, the study about politics of translation begins. However, until 1960's, politics is considered more and more in the translation studies, including nation, race and so on. The paper mainly studies the two embodiment ranges of the translation politics, namely: Construction of the national culture and post-colonialism. In fact, translation is regarded as a way to build national culture and makes it much more powerful and united. National culture is sometimes flourished and enhanced by the import of foreign-quintessential culture. In this case, foreignization strategy can meet this and is widely used in the translation history in China. So from this perspective, the studies of foreignization strategy and domestication strategy will carry on many new ideas.This paper seeks to testify the inevitable tendency of foreignization strategy in translation from the politics of translation. Foreignization strategy is an act of resisting the cultural hegemony and respecting the national culture of colony. However, domestication strategy reflects the cultural hegemony and inequality. In this sense, the translators from all the developing countries propose the foreignization strategy but avoid domestication strategy. And then, the paper further analyzes how the politics of translation affects the choice of translation strategy; manifests a respect for diversity and difference among all cultures. Power imbalance between the suzerain and ex-colonized countries may result in cultural hegemony. In postcolonial theorist's opinions, translation is the just the tool applied by imperial power of politics and ideology to make hegemonic invasion and to manage the colonized intellectual. As the economic, culture and politics develop, more and more translaters apply foreignization to protect their own national culture.First of all, the paper makes an introduction about the definition and debates of domestication strategy and foreignization strategy. Finally, the author argues that foreignization strategy can convey the special linguistic forms of the original text, keep the exotic cultural-specific characters of the source language, promote cultural communication by introducing foreign culture elements and ultimately enrich the target language, and the like. And adoption of foreignization strategy in current situation can surely promote cultural diversity and resist cultural hegemony. As a result, foreignization strategy is the inevitable trend in the translation process.