The Politics Of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's Translation From The Perspective Of Cultural Communication

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is a notable India-born literary critic and educator in America. In 2012, she was awarded the Kyoto Prize in arts and philosophy, which has been widely honored as "Nobel Prize in art". Then she was praised to have exemplified what intellectuals today should be with her rational critique of intellectual colonialism and her devotion to multifaceted social activities in this heavily globalized modern world. And this thesis is an exploration of Spivak's translating practice from a new perspective, namely cultural communication. From this perspective, translation is a process of cultural construction and a process of ideological reproduction which contains complex power relations and cultural politics. Only when those relations are clarified can translation be truly understood.Firstly, the thesis expounds the reason for its study on Spivak's translation and the current study situation both abroad and at home, and then accordingly points out the originality of this study, in which it states the background of the proposition — the politics of translation, and Spivak's achievements and influence. Secondly, the thesis makes a survey of cultural communication and cultural imperialism, a new problem existing in cultural exchanges in this era of globalization. And this part centers on the analysis of the Other images in literature, an important field of art reproduction, and global imbalance in translation, based on which it points out that the translation of English into the third world languages and the translation in reverse are two different political activities undertaken in the service of power. Then, the thesis probes the socio-cultural factors that influence Spivak's selection of original texts and strategies adopted in her translation and analyses the global cultural impact of her translating practices, from which Spivak's translation purposes and her translation ethics are clarified. For this sake, the thesis first elaborates Spivak's successful translation of Derrida's Of Grammatology into the English-speaking world and her best understanding of deconstruction theory, and then introduces her translation of Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi's novels, in which the thesis focuses on her diversified interpretation of the original texts and her literal translating strategy used to convey the singularity of the Other. This not only uncovers the miserable life of the subaltern women who are obscured by both western colonial discourse and the local Indian patriarchal discourse but also reflects Spivak's aim to resist the dominant discourse and make marginalized culture known to the world. Finally, the thesis states her challenging to the traditional art theory.The conclusion is thus drawn that Spivak's translation has been beyond the traditional word transformation of two languages. Spivak's translation is a political, ethical and social activity endowed with cultural connotation, which is the coordination and re-location of different cultures, and shows her great dedication to promote equal cultural exchanges. The devotion to literature translation is her way to be involved in political activities. Therefore, her translating practices have great significance for us. With rapid development of China's economy and ever-increasing popularity of Chinese, much emphasis should be laid on the preservation of China's traditional cultural characteristics in the translation of Chinese literature and on the input of Chinese culture in foreign language teaching in China. Thus better diffusion of China's traditional culture will be achieved and so as to promote equal cultural exchanges in the world.