The Travel Of Postcolonial Translation Theory In China: A Traveling Theory Perspective

Within the context of globalization, academic communication-characterized by exchange of ideas and theories-between China and the West is becoming more and more frequent. Ideas and theories are always traveling from one context to another and from one period to another. In the 1990s, postcolonial translation theory started its travel to China.Postcolonial translation theory, having emerged in the middle and late 1980s, was popularized in the 1990s. This theory originated from postcolonialism and brought a postcolonial perspective to translation studies. The representatives of postcolonial translation studies include Edward Said, Spivak, Homi Bhabha, Te-jaswini Niranjana, Lawrence Venuti, Douglas Robinson, Sherry Simon, Maria Tymoczko and Haraldo de Campos and so on. Being mainly concerned about "power relations", "domestication and foreignization" and "the politics of translation", they study translation and cultural politics in different contexts from various perspectives.Traveling theory, which was proposed by the postcolonial theorist Edward Said, describes the borrowing, reception and transformation of theories in the movement from one place to another. Theory traveling usually experiences four stages:(1) a point of origin; (2) a distance transferred; (3) a set of conditions of acceptance and resistances; (4) transformation in a new context. Therefore, traveling theory has laid a solid theoretical foundation for the investigation and analysis of the travel of postcolonial translation theory in China. It provides a new perspective to explore the development of Chinese translation studies. The present paper aims at offering a road map of the travel of postcolonial translation theory from the West to China. It elaborates on the following points. Firstly, the paper introduces Said's traveling theory, illustrating the travel of postcolonial theory in China, analyzing the application of traveling theory in the present study, and posing the question of how theory traveling affects the receiving culture, which Said has not fully elaborated on. Secondly, a descriptive approach is adopted. The paper describes diachronically the four stages that postcolonial translation theory has experienced from its departure to China, and synchronically analyzes its positive and negative impact upon Chinese translation studies. Lastly, the paper discusses the prospects of Chinese translation studies in relation to postcolonial translation theory, and concludes that Chinese translation studies can obtain great inspirations from postcolonial translation theory both in theory and in practice. It is hoped that Chinese translation studies can absorb the essence of postcolonial translation theory to develop its own translation theory and strategy that can be exported to the West for the purpose of helping Chinese translation studies reconstruct its identity and move from the periphery to the center of global translation studies.