Ideological Manipulation In The Translations Of The Wealth Of Nations A Contrastive Study Of Yuan Fu And Guo Fu Lun

Both Chinese and Western translation traditions regard translation as purelanguage conversion. Translation critics judge the quality of translation based on thesole criterion of “faithfulness” to the original text. Since the “cultural turn” oftranslation studies in the1980s, the Western translation scholars have began to bringsocial and cultural context into the research subject, broadening the horizon oftranslation studies. Considering from the culture of the target language, theManipulation School proposes that all translations are to some extent the manipulationresult of the source text. Andre Lefevere, a representative figure of manipulationschool summaries that translation is fundamentally manipulated by poetics andideology and poetics is subordinated and manipulated by ideology.In the framework of Lefevere’s Manipulation Theory, this thesis probes into howideology manipulate the whole translation process, including the selection oftranslation materials, the translation methods and the reception of the translated texts.This thesis makes a contrastive study of two different Chinese versions of The Wealthof Nations written by Adam Smith in their respective historical periods from amacroscopic perspective and reveals the differences of Yuan Fu and Guo Fu Lun due tothe respective different ideologies.Manipulated by the ethos of national salvation in the late Qing Dynasty, Yan Fuchose to translate Adam Smith’s bourgeois economics works. Moreover, Yan Fuadopted the free translation method so as to make it easier for the governing class andintellectuals accept the translated text and ultimately achieve national prosperity.Finally, free economics theory elucidated in Yuan Fu met the requirement of the ethosof national salvation in late Qing Dynasty, hence exerted great impacts over the societyat that time.Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, as a bourgeois economics works, didn’tconform to Marxism, the guiding thought of May Forth New Literature Era. However,as early Marxism translators, Guo Dali and Wang Yanan chose to translate The Wealthof Nations in order to provide critical sources and preparing materials for Marxism.Furthermore, Guo Dali and Wang Yanan applied literal translation method so as toaccord with the expectations of dominant ideology and better serve as the criticalsource of Marxism. Finally, though Guo Fu Lun was a faithful translation, it exertedlittle reception and limited impacts, since the viewpoints elaborated in it go against the dominant ideology.In conclusion, it’s further revealed through this research that translation is neverpure linguistic transformation occurring in the vacuum but restrained by someextra-textual factors, such as politics and ideology of the target culture, etc. Ideologymanipulates the whole process of translation, including the selection of source texts,the adoption of translation method and the reception of the translated texts.