Influence Of Ideology On Literary Translation

According to André Lefevere’s rewriting theory, ideology functions as a governing component in translating practice. Living China: Modern Chinese Short Stories, translated and edited by Edgar Snow with the assistance of Chinese writers and translators including Yao Ke, Xiao Qian and Yang Gang, is one of the first modern Chinese short story books introduced to the west that made an impact on the English and American readers. Obsessed with the upheavals of China, the changing minds of ordinary Chinese people and Chinese left-wing literature in the early decades of the twentieth century, Snow selected and translated several works of representative left-wing writers such as Lu Xun, Mao Dun and Ding Ling, based on his impression of Chinese society to the western expectation on Chinese literature in that particular historical period.Through background research and text analysis, this thesis holds that social and individual ideological factors to some degree influence the translation of Edgar Snow’s Living China: Modern Chinese Short Stories in consideration of material selecting, structural arrangements, translation principles and strategies. A number of alterations, omissions and deletions were made during the translation, in many cases reinforcing the revolutionary spirits of characters or moderating the collision between Chinese citizens and the western interference described in the original works. The motivation for such a rewriting could be interpreted by the ideological factor that governs translation according to the rewriting theory proposed by AndréLefevere. This thesis examines translator’s choices of literary works, translation strategies and material handling under the influence of personal and social ideology,revealing ideology as a crucial factor during the translation of Snow’s Living China,so that Snow rewrites the text in multiple ways to cater to the mainstream of American literature as well as the aesthetic needs of target readers under the manipulation of both social and personal ideology.