The Role Of Ideology In US Official Political Translation

Since the "culture turn" in translation studies initiated in the 1970s, particularly after the 1980s, translation scholars have tended to focus more on the broader socio-cultural context that influences translation practice, including ideology. However, the majority of the existing studies on the relation between ideology and translation have centered on literary translation, and there has been a relative lack of research on the role of ideology in the translation of political texts. As texts that serve to express political views and achieve specific political aims, political texts usually contain more prominent ideological imprints than literary texts, and the translation of political texts often more directly involves the echoing of or resistance against ideology. Therefore, more attention should be paid to the issue of ideology in political translation.This thesis aims to further advance the research on ideology and political translation by examining the role of ideology in the political translation practice within a specific political body, i.e. the United States government, chiefly through a detailed case study of the US official Chinese translated versions of President Barack Obama’s 2013 and 2014 State of the Union addresses. In the research, the three-dimensional (text, discourse practice and social practice) critical discourse analysis model proposed by Norman Fairclough is employed as the overall theoretical framework to help uncover the intervention of ideology in the US government’s translation of political discourse.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One is an introduction, which states the background, objectives and significance of this research as well as the organization of the whole thesis. Chapter Two reviews previous studies on ideology and translation, particularly those studies concerning ideology and political translation. Chapter Three explains the theoretical and analytical framework for this research, i.e. Fairclough’s three-dimensional CDA model. Chapter Four serves as the main body part of the thesis:it carries out a specific investigation on the issue of ideology in the US government’s translation of political discourse with the application of Fairclough’s CDA approach, chiefly through a detailed case study of the US official Chinese versions of President Obama’s State of the Union addresses, and intends to reveal how ideological thinking influences the US official political translation practice. Chapter 5 makes a conclusion of the research findings and also points out the limitations of the research.Through the research, the researcher hopes to further disclose the influence of ideology on political translation and raise people’s awareness of the issue of ideology behind translated political discourse.