Influences Of Ideology On Feminist Translation Theory

Traditional translation studies are concerned mainly with simple contextual comparison of different versions and the monotonous assessment standard of "fidelity" or "loyalty" to the source text. With the Cultural Turn in Translation Studies, "translation has now established the strong primary relationships to essentially non-linguistic disciplines". And The Cultural Turn is thought to be "some of the most exciting developments in translation studies since the 1980s", providing scholars with an opportunity to study translation and its development in a new perspective with a new research method. It also propels them to put translation study within some given historical, cultural environment or related disciplines like philosophy, psychology, sociology, ideology and feminism, and to find out the influence and the limitation of a specific society, history and culture over the translation policy, translation strategy and translation method.Consequently ideology, as one of the most important elements of the social culture, has therefore attracted more and more attention. The skopos theory mainly represented by Vermeer focuses on the purpose of translation as the most decisive factor in translation action and mis purpose is governed by ideology. The polysystem theory represented by Toury goes even further that translation, as a set of decision-making in the translating process, is governed by norms. Ideology has functioned as an "invisible hand" manipulating every level of the decision-making. The Manipulation School represented by Lefevere considers translation as a rewriting. Translation is not just the transfer between two languages, but the exchange and communication between two cultures. A translator will definitely be influenced by the ideological factor of his time, no matter how hard he tries to restrain it, he will consciously or unconsciously impropriate or rewrite the original text. The famous American scholar, Andre Lefevere, pointed out that ideology and patronage affected not only the translation process, but also the translation product. Likewise, the feminist translation reflects in what way the ideology of feminist translators affects the practice and the product of the translating act.The combination of translation studies with feminism leads to the emergence of the western feminist translation theory. Feminist translation theory aims to identify and critique the tangle of concepts which relegates both women and translation to the bottom of the social and literary ladder. To do so, it must investigate the processes through which translation has come to be "feminized" and attempt to trouble the structures of authority which have maintained this association. The feminist translators acknowledge that translation is not absolutely only a transformation between texts and intercommunion between two kinds of culture, but a political act that aimed to resist the patriarchal power and the discrimination against women in the original text makes language speak for women. In translation practice, feminist translators employ three radical feminist translation strategies, namely, supplementing, prefacing and footnoting, hijacking, even bluntly allege that translation is rewriting, and aim to give prominence to the female status among the texts, which makes the feminine "visible" in language so that women are "seen" and "heard" in the real world. Feminist translation theory composes one side of the impact of ideology over translation.The ideology of feminist translators involves the strong purpose to overthrow patriarchy power and the mission of building a friendly connection between two peoples with two different cultures and social background. No matter how hard she tries to restrain it, her strong sense of feminism is ready to execute its influence on the practice and the products of translation. There is no denial that every translator has his particular thoughts which makes different alteration to the translation in accordance with his aesthetic opinion.Because of different economic, cultural and historical backgrounds, western feminism has exerted different influence on China since its introduction in the 1980s. Some radical translation strategies, used by western feminist translators, are not popular with Chinese women translators. As for women translators with gender awareness in China, their translation strategies are more moderate and mild. However, it cannot be denied that gender awareness is shown in their process of translation.This thesis makes historical retrospection to the influence of ideology and feminism on the translation study and systematically discusses that it is feminine ideology against patriarchal power that causes the forming of the feminist translation theory with unique style. Translation is one of the presentations of the ideology of the translators. It should not be ignored that Chinese and western translators do not have the same ideology due to their different history background and course of the feminism movement, their difference translation standards and their different traditional culture, especially Confucian ethic code that have fettered Chinese women for more than two thousand years, which will propose to the translators different policy, strategy and method in the process of translation.