The Ideology Analysis On Translation Activity

As Translation Studies has gone deeper and more comprehensive, translation theorists began to realize that traditional translation theories were increasingly incompetent.By proposal of the cultural turn in translation in 1990s, Translation Studies greatly expands the vision and domain of this discipline. From this new perspective, translating is considered as a cultural shaping force, and the socio-cultural factors came into view of the scholars. Andre Lefevere is a leading figure of Translation Studies, whose theory has a significant and enduring impact in the field of translation.As one of the most important and influential translators and translation theorists in modern China, Yan Fu and his translations have been studied extensively for more than a century. Many valuable achievements have been reached. However, in most of these studies, the researchers confine their investigations to the faithfulness by comparing the original texts and the translations, leading to biased and unfair judgments on Yan Fu's translation.Based on Andre Lefevere's theory, the present thesis aims at exploring the manipulation of ideology in Yan Fu's Shehui tongquan (《社会通诠》).The thesis consists of 5 chapters including both theoretical discussions and a case study.Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to the research background. The reason and purpose of the study and also the range and significance of the research will be introduced.And Chapter 2 is the theoretical foundation of this thesis. Our discussions focus on two presumptions and three key terms, which are essential to Translation Studies and reveal the basic features of Andre Lefevere's theory. These two presumptions are translation as rewriting and translation as manipulation; and three key terms include ideology, patronage and poetics.Since ideology play such an important part in the process of translation, in Chapter 3, a detailed analysis of the impact of ideology on Yan Fu's translation activities will be given. Because politics and culture are two main factors that influence Yan Fu's translation in the late Qing Dynasty, ideology in this thesis is divided into political ideology and cultural ideology. Its political aspect is concerned with the ideas and beliefs that a group or an individual holds in dealing with the public affairs. And cultural ideology refers to the aesthetic or academic views of a group or an individual related to what literature is, or should be in the social system as a whole.Chapter 4 is the focus of our case study. The case study includes Yan Fu's choice of the work, the translation strategies employed in his translation practice and the rewritings of the original contents. Through a comparative study of the different aims, language features, and contents conducted between the original text and Yan Fu's translation, the author tries to give more convincing proofs for translation as a form of rewriting under the manipulations of various ideologies.The last chapter is the conclusion. After the above analysis, the author draws the conclusions that ideology casts a great influence on Yan Fu's translation activities and his translation are the outputs of the joint forces of various ideologies. What's more, the case study of the thesis has proved the validity of Lefevere's theory.