Shakespeare In Post-colonial Translation Studies A Comparative Study Of Cultural Transmission In The Two Translated Texts Of The Tempest

Translation is essentially cultural. Viewed from the perspective of postcolonial translation studies, it is no more a purely aesthetic or linguistic act. At a time each nation is striving to preserve its unique cultural features, translation, especially that from the Third World, carries with it the mission of reacting against the cultural hegemony practiced by the western world.Translation studies have made great strides in recent years, and postcolonial translation studies, under the influence of cultural studies, call for cultural criticism and ideological criticism in translation. These assertions have been strongly helpful in directing general translation studies and practice. However, systematic research on the practice of them still does not appear.The present thesis finds its central concern on the power relationship revealed from Shakespeare's The Tempest. It conducted a comparison of the transmission of the two translated texts of the play by two famous Chinese translators, and has made the following discoveries: firstly, the foreignizing method as advocated at present is not the only way to resist against cultural hegemony, because the domesticating method is even better in translating texts from the west to enrich national cultures which had been considered as disadvantageous. This is the conclusion drawn after a careful examination of the history of translation and colonization. Secondly, postcolonial theories provided translation a new perspective in that they can assist in the translator's interpreting of the original texts and making right decisions in the process of translation.