Ideological Manipulation Of Literary Translation

The "Cultural Turn" in 1980s widened the horizon of translation studies. Since then, translation studies was no longer restricted to linguistic equivalence, but paid much attention to the relationship between text and outside world. This thesis, after overviewing some relevant studies on the relationship between ideology and translation, makes a comparative study of two English versions of Na Han on the ideological manipulation of translation process based on manipulation theory put forward by Belgium scholar AndréLefevere.As a pioneer of manipulation school, Lefevere thought"translation is rewriting","rewriting is manipulation". He treated translation as an ideological tension surrounding the original text. Translation is not made in vacuum of two languages, it is a product of a certain society, history and culture. Translation, as a kind of"manipulated" rewriting, is greatly influenced by ideology, poetics and patronage, among which, ideology is the most influential one. The thesis, by a comparative and descriptive study, found translation strategies of two versions are different in title level, diction level, rhetoric level etc., the reason is that they are manipulated by different political and individual ideologies and poetics.The thesis consists of five parts. The first one introduces research background, significance and structure, research questions and methodology; chapter two is literature review, mainly about manipulation school and some researches concerned both abroad and at home; chapter three is theoretical framework, making a brief introduction to ideology, manipulation factors and Lefevere and his theory as well; chapter four serves as the main part and explains different strategies and reasons with abundant examples and also analyzes how ideology manipulates in translation process; chapter five is conclusion.Comparatively speaking, Yang Hisen-yi's version is literally translated and faithful to the original text, aiming at introducing Chinese classical culture into foreign world; Lyell, however, employed more free translation, the footnotes, deletions and supplements in the version are of great help for target readers to understand the text and Chinese culture better.The thesis finally shows that different ideologies, including those of translators, readers and patrons and even other current ideologies of target culture, to a large extent, influence the whole translation process, including the selection of text to be translated, the employment of translation strategies and the acceptance of translation in the target culture. Due to different ideologies, it is of great necessity to retranslate classical literary works.