The Influence Of Ideology On Translation

Despite the long history of ideological influence on translation, ideological approach to translation is a rather new one in the study of translation. Traditional study on translation has focused on the comparison between the source text and the target text and translation criteria. With the rise of the Cultural School, researchers began to study such broader issues as history, culture, convention and power. The relation between text production and the external world has engaged more and more attention.The thesis will study the influence of ideology on translation. The research question is: How does ideology influence translation? The thesis consists of six chapters.Chapter One is the introductory part, in which the research question and the background and significance of the study are stated.Chapter Two is Literature Review. In this chapter, the author reviews the source-oriented theory paradigm, the "cultural turn" in translation studies and the previous research on the question raised in the present thesis. Andre Lefevere's theory of translation as a rewriting and his concepts of ideology, patronage and poetics are introduced as part of the theoretical frame for the present thesis.Chapter Three points out the significance and limitations of Lefevere's theory, and defines ideology-the key term in the present thesis with a discussion of the way ideology works on individuals.Chapter Four analyzes the influence of ideology on translation strategies, including selection of texts to be translated and translating strategies adopted by translators.Chapter Five focuses on the influence of ideology on translation in its operational stage. In this stage, the translator first acts as a reader, trying to understand the original, and then conveys the information he/she gets. Due to some ideologicalinfluence, translators may misread the original or mistranslate the original purposefully.Last comes Conclusion and Recommendation.Introducing ideological approach to translation studies is of great significance both to theoretical research and translation practices. Due to the present author's poor academic competence, there must be many problems in the thesis and thus it is open to criticism.