Translation As Manipulated By Power Relations

Translation is closely related to power. A focused examination of questions pertaining to power and translation dates from 1990, when Bassnett and Lefevere wrote in the introduction to Translation, History and Culture that translation scholars must go into the vicissitudes of the exercise of power in a society, and what the exercise of power means in terms of cultural production. Since the cultural turn in the 1990s, significant works have been produced foregrounding issues of power. In a sense the "cultural turn" has become the "power turn", with questions of power brought to the fore in discussions of translation history and strategies.Scholars in the Manipulation School were convinced that "from the point of view of the target literature, all translation implies a degree of manipulation of the source text for a certain purpose". But manipulation is not restricted to that of the source texts. To manipulate the target society, patrons manipulate translators, who in turn manipulate the source texts. Translation is also manipulated by the originals and readers. On occasions, translators manipulate the patrons. Hence translators are manipulated and manipulative.This dissertation falls into seven parts. Chapter 1 reviews the "power turn" in translation studies, and discusses the concept of power in and its significance to translation research. Chapter 2 begins with a comparison of source text power between the Chinese and Western traditions. It is pointed out that the power of source texts has fallen in descriptive translation studies, but will remain important in applied translation theories. Chapter 3 offers a diachronic investigation of the source- or target- oriented discussions in China and the West and concludes that domestication/ foreignization and guihua/yihua have different sources and referents, and are used in different contexts for differentpurposes. A case study of an English rendition of Three Kingdoms shows that, in interpreting the cultural motivations, a distinction must be made between translators as a collectivity and as individuals. The significance of code power to the translation direction, the authenticity of parallel texts, and the translator's cultural and temporal orientations is also explored. Chapter 4 discusses the classification and functions of norms, reviews the major norms theories, and investigates how translation is manipulated by ideological norms and the patronage. The author argues that patronage may also interfere with poetic choices, and Lefevere's theory needs revision. Chapter 5 is an application of the studies in the previous chapters to a case study of Yan Fu's translation. Chapter 6 offers suggestions for future power relations research: the role of the source text power, non-cultural elements and the translator's agency must not be neglected in translation. Chapter 7 is the conclusion. Our study covers the major aspects of the power relations in translation, but is not and cannot be exhaustive.The author advocates a dialectical view of the power relations. The existence of power imbalance does not mean translators should bow to the cultural hegemony; neither do description and exposal of ideological manipulation justify such manipulation. Over-emphasis on social constraints will result in the fall of translator's status; negligence of them might lead to random translation.The power relations theory enables us to see the historical and cultural causes for some translation phenomena, and in particular, the power relations behind them. It complements the other approaches and makes translation research more objective and comprehensive.