Influences Of Power-Discourse On Translators: A Case Study Of Two English Versions Of Ah Q Zheng Zhuan

Power-discourse theory put forward by French philosopher Michel Foucault advocates that discourse is power. Here, "power" is not the traditional press power working on people but things manipulating and controlling people's ideas and actions. Power can be classified into two categories:visible power and invisible power. Government institutions, legal rules, and others can be subjected to visible power. Ideology, ethics, culture, custom, religion, aesthetic ideas and values are grouped to the latter. And "discourse" refers to a kind of common human activities. In its narrow sense, it refers to the form of language; in its broad sense, it covers all the forms and categories of cultural life. There exists a kind of dialogical and isostructural relationship between power and discourse. The operation of discourse is controlled and affected by power. Meanwhile, discourse is the embodiment of power; that is, power is realized through discourse. Discourse is not only the product of power but also a component of it. Without discourse, power will not be itself. It can be said that this power-discourse exists everywhere in human life and manipulates and exerts great influences on people's ideas and actions no matter whether people like it or not, consciously or unconsciously.Translators, the principal part in translation activities, become the direct action objects of power-discourse in translation actions. Power-discourse affects the translators in their mind, forming a kind of inner manipulation to translation practice, in which, invisible power-discourse will form certain "rules" in the translators'mind. These rules will shed certain influences on the translators'choice of translation material, translation purposes and application of translation methods and strategies. For this, a good example is Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang(杨宪益&戴乃迭)and William A. Lyell, translators of Lu Xun's(鲁迅)Ah Q Zheng Zhuan(《阿Q正传》).Under different power-discourse circumstances, the Yangs, as translators of the source language, holding the good hope of introducing Chinese culture to the world, kept close to the source text; they emphasized the fidelity of their translation, applied elegant and standard British English and used formal and big words. And Lyell, a translator of the target language, paid more attention to the acceptance of the readers; he mainly adopted popular modern American oral English on the basis of fidelity to the content of the source text. The application of the domestication strategy make his translation more colloquial.Through the studies, the thesis indicates that translation is a kind of cross-cultural activity. Translators are not absolutely neutral under different power-discourse circumstances. When conducting translation practice, he will consciously or unconsciously keep the power-discourse imprint in his translation.