Ideological Manipulation Over Translators' Diction

This dissertation compares two Chinese translations of Jane Eyre, which is a very famous English novel in 19th Century. One version was translated in the 1930s. It is the first translation of Jane Eyre in China. The other was translated in the 1990s, which is the rather latest version. There must be many differences between two versions since they were born in two totally different eras. The thesis aims at making a comment on two versions from the ideological point of view.Firstly the dissertation elaborates on the purpose of translation. Translation is not just the transfer between two languages, but the exchange and communication between two cultures. Experts of the school of translation cultural studies hold that a translator will definitely be influenced by the ideological factor of his time. As a result, his translation will inevitably demonstrate the characteristics of that specific era. This argument is very significant to translation criticism. That means the task of translation critique is not simply making a black-or-white judgment but identifying the reasons for unsatisfied versions by putting it into the broad picture of the translator's time. Only in this way can the critique be objective and science-based.To this end, it is very important to identify the positions of writers and translators. Based on the theory of Berman, a famous translation theorist in contemporary France, the dissertation elaborates on the definition and analysis approaches of the translator's standpoint. Building on this, I have made a brief analysis of the original and its author, two translators' settings and their separate ideas about translation.Secondly I begin to compare two Chinese versions of Jane Eyre. According to Nida's theory about translation standard, the translation critique goes forward from two aspects: content and style.As far as content is concerned, I don't think there is any significant misunderstanding towards the original works because two translators are excellent language masters. However the different ideological factors of the times will haveimpacts upon their choice of words and expressions. In other words, the translators picked up the words out of their specific purposes. In this part, I approach the comparison from the perspectives of politics and social ethnics. Obviously Li's version is more aggressive than Huang's.As far as style is concerned, Mr. Liu Zhongde's definition of style has been cited. On the one hand, I want to judge whether the translation can have the same impact upon the target language readers as that the original novel has upon the source language readers. On the other hand, I want to see whether the translator can make the best use of the target language to reflect the underlying meaning of the novel. These two versions are different in the language characteristics because Chinese varies from 1930s to 1990s. So what is the implication of this difference on style? This comparison is very interesting. By analyzing the style of the novel, I find the novel is unique in the scene description, people's inner world monologues and long speeches. So I approach the comparison in these three directions.In a nutshell, translation critique doesn't necessarily draw a conclusion about what is right and what is wrong, but identify the implications of ideology upon translation. Each translation work is of great value so long as it is put into a certain social and cultural framework. If the work can help people get an access to the foreign literature, it is a success. It is inevitable to find something unsatisfactory in those older translation works. However translation is just a process, which moves from bad to good, from good to better.