The Exploration Of Cultural Imperialism In Literary Translation

First of all, this graduation thesis is within the category of translation theory studies rather than the research on translation practice. From the times when in China Zhi Qian, the Chinese translator put forward the principles of translation and in Roman Empire Cicero for the first time proposed two basic ways of translating: as interpreters ("ut interpres") and as orators ("ut orator"), countless scholars in the field of translation studies have been setting foot on the way to seek for the essence of translation. In general, the study on translation revolves on such basic arguments as literal translation or free translation, faithfulness or unfaithfulness and translatability or untranslatability. Although it seems easy to answer, they are in fact much more complicated than imagined since different schools of translation analyze them from different perspectives, much less the different historical theoretical methods translation is based on. Therefore, translation theory studies are far easier to explore.Secondly, this theoretical exploration of cultural imperialism in translation is within postcolonial translation theory. If we take a panoramic view of the translation theory, it can be divided into three periods and the postcolonial theory belongs to the third - culturally oriented translation theory in which postcolonial perspective is one of the most influential approaches. Among the three periods, the first period lasts for thousands of years - the longest and a lot of distinguished experts spring up such as Dante Alighieri, St. Jerome, Alexander Fraser Tytler, Friedrich Schleimacher and Yanfu who have put forward many golden rules and precious percepts. But there is no denying that all these classics are more or less empirical and therefore not systematic and scientific. Not until the end of the forties in the 20th century when modern linguistics was rapidly developed did the scholars begin to analyze the translation theory by virtue of this newly born science on language and then came the brand new era of scientific translation study. This is the second period of study. But as is known to all, translation is not simply a code switching, especially literary translation owing to the fact that...