The Role Of Ideology In Literary Translation

For years translation was considered as a derivative, a copy, and translators as mechanical devices replacing linguistic codes (equivalents) of one language with those of another, and the translator's autonomy was always questioned (and is still being questioned) by those who thought of him/her 'as a monkey, with no choice save to make the same grimaces as his master' (Leppihalme, 1997: 19). Until 1970s when, with the 'cultural turn' of translation studies, the focus of attention has been shifted to the issue of translator's agency and subjectivity, the notions of originality and (absolute) equivalence have been challenged and the author's superiority over translator have been severely questioned. Awareness of complexity of translation process and avoidance of the simplistic view of regarding translation as mere process of transferring words from one text to another, Alvarez & Vidal (1996) claims that will result in realizing the importance of the ideology underlying a translation. They argue that behind each of the translator's selections, as what to add, what to leave out, which words to choose and how to place them, 'there is a voluntary act that reveals his history and the socio-political milieu that surrounds him; in other words, his own culture [and ideology]' (Alvarez & Vidal, 1996: 5).The role of ideology in translation is as old as the history of translation itself. According to Fawcett, throughout the centuries, individuals and institutions applied their particular beliefs to the production of certain effect in translation. So he claims that 'an ideological approach to translation can be found in some of the earliest examples of translation known to us' (Fawcett, 1998: 106-107). Nevertheless, the linguistics-oriented approaches to translation studies have failed to address the concept of ideology through years of their prevalence, because such approaches arelimited to their scientific models for research and the empirical data they collect, so that 'they remain reluctant to take into account the social values [and ideologies] that enter into translating as well as the study of it'(Venuti, 1998:1).Calzada-Perez advocates, that all language use, including translation, is ideological and this means that translation is always a site for ideological encounters (2003: 2). Similarly, Schaffner claims that all translations are ideological since 'the choice of a source text and the use to which the subsequent target text is put are determined by the interests, aims, and objectives of social agents' (2003: 23). She evidently opts for van Dijk's definition for ideology as 'basic systems of shared social representations that; may control more specific group beliefs' (van Dijk, 1996: 7).On the basis of a survey of definitions of ideology and its relation to translation, this research firstly summarizes systematically the related academic findings in (1) Foucauit's power discourse theory, from which translation studies now concern power relations in textual production and reveal the manipulation of the translator herein; (2) Even-Zohar's polysystem theory, which regards culture as a dynamic polysystem, and literature as a subsystem of culture interacts with other systems including the ideological one; and (3) Gideon Toury's target-oriented approach, which claims that most literary translations are selected for ideological reasons, to suit the target culture.To have reviewed the history of translation of Jane Eyre in China, the thesis then makes a detailed comparative analysis of three Chinese versions of Jane Eyre, i.e. the ones translated by Li Jiye in 1935, by Zhu Qingying in 1980 and by Huang Yuanshen in 1993, in non-linguistic and linguistic aspects to testify the role of ideology in literary translation practice on micro level.Lefevere says, "Perhaps the link between ideology on the one hand and strategies used for solving Universe-of-Discourse and linguistic problems on the other is nowhere as obvious as in the justifications used by translators to maintain in their translations some of the linguistic and cultural differentiations" (2004:48). From thiscase study, the thesis points out that the translations are the products of translators' manipulation according to the source text under the effects of target cultural ideology. In other words, the idea of translation as equivalence and transparency is not tenable at all, even though it has struck deep roots in our thinking and speaking about translation, and the translator is no longer invisible, whose discursive presence, as a distinct voice and therefore a subject position, is always present in the text. The purpose of this paper is to reveal the similar or different strategies and methods of translation respectively adopted by translators of different times due to their unique cultural background, dissimilar ideology and tries to find a better way both in theory and practice to explain a translation phenomenon, i.e. why and how the target texts get their own characteristics under the influence of ideology.