A Study On Translation Manipulation: A Communicative Perspective

This thesis is a study of translation manipulation from the communicative perspective. As an interlingual and intercultural communication, translation is by nature kind of information transmission. Thus, communication theories can be applied to translation studies to provide a broader mode of thinking and yield fresh insights.Translation is manipulation, undertaken in the service of power. The manipulation theory considerably widens the horizon of translation study by shifting the study from linguistic phenomena to its political and cultural core. Inspired by this theory, many scholars have conducted their research on translation manipulation. With various pioneering efforts in view, the present thesis aims to get down on the same issue in the light of communication science, much of the significance of which comes from system theory, information theory and cybernetics theory.This thesis contains five chapters besides an introduction and a conclusion.Starting with a concise introduction of translation studies including translation manipulation study, the introduction states the purpose of this thesis, which is to study translation manipulation from the communicative perspective.In the first chapter, some relevant concepts of translation and communication are made clear before our getting down to the topic. A communicative interpretation of translation is then given briefly. It is hold that translation is an interlingual and intercultural information transmission, which is a special kind of communication. Though it is applicable to explore translation manipulation from a communicative approach, I will still adopt a linguistic and a cultural approach as supplementary approaches.Chapter two starts with a general review of the communication science and its influence on translation study, which covers both western and Chinese research on it. Several typical communication models are then illustrated to reveal some very important elements in common communication processes. These models bring in the most essential variables, which may also be found as other versions in translation models as well. And this chapter also covers previous research on translation manipulation represented by the manipulation theory, which is proposed by scholars like Andre Lefevere and Susan Bassnett. It is mentioned that all the previous researches will be incorporated to deepen our exploration of translation manipulation.Chapter three first explains basic concepts of systems including their characteristics and elements. From a system theory perspective, translation is considered as an information transmission system. As a subsystem of the whole social system, translation system is manipulated by other subsystems such as politics, culture and economy. Some constraining political, cultural and economic factors are taken into consideration macroscopically. And the constitutive elements of translation system are mentioned, as subsystems within translation system, their influence on translation will be examined in the following chapters microscopically.Taking an information theory perspective, chapter four views translation as an information transmission process. Based on the basic concepts of information theory, this chapter focuses on such important elements of information transmission as information, noise, redundancy, channel and channel capacity, and explains how these elements influencing translation.Chapter five examines translation from a cybernetic perspective. Feedbacks, especially receptors' feedback, mean much to translation that is taken as a goal-oriented activity.In conclusion, from the communicative perspective, translation is an intercultural information transmission, which is manipulated by other subsystems of the whole social system and its constitutive elements as well to make it achieve its goal of effective information transmission.