Communicative Action And Translation Ethics

At present, too much emphasis is put on the external aspects of translation studies. Deconstruction and the 'cultural turn' are prevailing in contemporary translation studies. In deconstructionism, the reader is endowed with absolute power of interpretation. Translation is regarded as a process of modifying the original text, deferring and replacing anything that the original text desired to name. Cross-cultural communication is no longer possible for the uncertainty of the original text's meaning and language is weak to fully describe and explain the translation process. Meanwhile, Postcolonialism approaches translation in political and ideological perspective, arguing that translation has played an active role in colonization and in spreading an ideologically motivated image of colonized peoples. Therefore, foreignization rather than domestication is more preferred in their eyes in order to liberate and transform Others. Influenced by the trends, the present translation studies take the risk of neglecting ontological research and being affiliated to political and literary criticism in which too much emphasis is put on the external research.Meanwhile, in modern lifeworld, with the acceleration of economic globalization, there are increasing cooperation and clashes between diverse cultures. To explore a possible solution to the world distress and crisis, Hans Kung, a German scholar of theology drafted The Declaration Toward a Global Ethic, seeking to establish Global Ethic. But one the other hand, at present, there still exist a lot of imbalance and inequality in translation exchanges. The unbalanced power relations are the refrain of translation, and language is used as an instrument of coercion and constraint, and a tool of intimidation and abuse. There is the sole voice from hegemony in translation in the postcolonial context, and in turn, the colonized is regarded as a silent object, the 'Other', being deprived of self-representation.All the issues concerning the turmoil and chaos aroused by deconstructionism, the one-fold 'cultural turn' in translation studies as well as the long-existing unbalanced translation exchanges, highlight the necessity to conduct the study of translation ethics. This thesis seeks to approach translation ethics in light of "Communicative Action" put forth by Habermas. With the help of translation ethics, translators will, enlightened by communicative rationality, develop the equal dialogue and argumentation with the author and the reader in translation so as to ensure translation activities on the rational and normalized level. When confronted with the cultural diversity and incompatibility posed by cultural obstacles, the translator who is guided by the principle of the "coexistence of civilization" should adopt the communicative stance; acknowledge the differentiations in culture and moral standards between countries and between nations, preserve and translate the original features in ST, so as to facilitate the different nations and cultures to reach some kind of "consensus" through translation exchanges. The 'cultural turn' can hereby be adopted as one research angle under the guidelines of translation ethics, following which the translator is facilitated to conduct normative translation activities and translation studies will be guaranteed to develop on rationality and validity.