The Ideological Manipulation Of The Translation Activities In Chinese Context

Both Chinese and Western translation traditions view translation only as a pure linguistic transfer from one language into another. Translation critics of those traditions also employ so-called"faithfulness"or"fidelity"to the original as the only yardstick to judge whether a translation is good or not. Obviously both traditions are source-oriented with the original as the ultimate point of reference and approach translation only in a pure linguistic way without realizing the strong influence of the wider social-cultural context and the translator's subjectivity; therefore, they fail to provide a reasonable explanation to why certain texts are selected for the translation, why the translator rewrites the source text in the translating process, and why certain translated texts might be promoted while others discouraged even after the translation.The Manipulation School holds a conviction from the target perspective that all translation implies a degree of manipulation of the source text for a certain purpose, whose theory provides some insight into the problems which Chinese and Western translation traditions have failed to address. In such a case, as an important member of this school, Lefevere summarizes that translation is in the final analysis manipulated by poetics and ideology. In light of this theory, mainly from the perspective of ideology, a systematic examination of the ideological manipulation of the translation activities in Chinese context has been conducted in a descriptive manner from three aspects: the selection of the texts to be translated, the translating process and the popularity of the translated texts. All this indicates that translation is never an"innocent"pure linguistic transfer happening in a"vacuum"as it seems on the surface, and that the ideological manipulation penetrates every aspect of the translation activities: before the translation, in the translation and even after the translation. At the same time, the relativity of the ideological manipulation of the translation activities in Chinese context is also reminded to avoid an exaggeration of such manipulation.In the end we conclude that ideology does manipulate every aspect of the translation...