The Influence Of Interactive Manipulation On Pseudotranslation

Not confined to the transfer operation between texts, translation studies after thedescriptive turn takes a macro perspective to survey various translation phenomenaand factors beyond the texts including cultural and social ones. For instance,pseudotranslation, which was not included in traditional translation, has now becomepart of the object in translation studies, significantly enlarging the researching scopeof the field. André Lefevere (2010b:9) maintained that translation is the mostrecognizable and effective type of rewriting. On the basis of his contribution to theManipulation Theory, ideology, poetics and patronage have been the three factorsmost frequently quoted as the manipulation factors. However, further analysis revealsthat they do overlap; the proposal of two factors (ideology, poetics) failed to cover theeconomic component in patronage; while the proposal of one factor (ideology) is arevelation of pan ideologization to a certain degree. Besides, the issue of howmanipulation mechanism works is also in dispute.This thesis intends to bring the manipulation factors into a more reasonablecategorization and propose a corresponding manipulation mechanism throughtheoretical analysis and actual case study. Furthermore, the proposed mechanism willalso be examined in pseudotranslations during different waves of translation inChinese history. And in turn, the interaction among different participants andmanipulation factors will be explored under the framework of the mechanism.After a close study on the manipulation factors, we find it is more reasonable toinclude ideology, poetics and economic factor as the three manipulation factors. Inpseudotranslation, a type of translation largely influenced by manipulation, patronsexert influence by means of the above three factors; while translators react andmanipulate with their subjectivity; meanwhile, the target readers also influence theway pseudotranslation is presented. Patrons, translators and target readers thusinteract on the three levels. Patrons can be further divided into direct (or explicit)patrons and indirect (or hidden) patrons. The manipulation is not a “one-way street”,but the interaction of action and reaction, in which translation tends to be presented infavor of the ideology, poetics or economic benefit of certain participants that take an upper hand. Of course, the situation continuously varies in different periods. And it isnot our intention to claim that translators, patrons and readers always conflict witheach others, as two or all of them share common stances in many cases. The same istrue for the manipulation factors. With the translators’ subjectivity considered, the“interactive manipulation” mechanism can better account for pseudotranslationphenomena in different periods.