Institutional Translation And Translation Policy ——A Study On The Book Translation Of The China Foreign Languages Bureau From 1949 To 2000

The China Foreign Languages Bureau("FLB")is China's state agency of international communication and the largest translating institution that produces foreign-language materials for export.By making use of González Nú?ez's model of translation policy and Scott's conception of institution,this thesis investigates FLB's book translation policy and its chronological change from its inception in 1949 to 2000,with a view to exploring the institutional forces that shape the production of translation.This thesis first uses González Nunez's model for a macroscopic study of FLB's book translation policy as found in its translation management,translation beliefs and translation practice.The survey of FLB's official documents revealed that the book translation policy underwent eminent changes from 1949 to 2000,depending not only on the institution's general policy of publication in foreign languages but also on the political,economic,and cultural planning of the nation.In the first phase 1949-1959,book translation was used as a political tool for underlining new China's political affiliation with the Soviet camp and modelling it as a prototypic socialist nation.Specifically,translation of political texts,literary and artistic texts,and introductory texts on China's history and geography were stipulated.In terms of target readership,there was the differentiation of reading communities between"the Soviet Union and new democratic countries","colonized and semi-colonized countries"and "capitalist countries".In the second phase 1960-1977,as the Sino-Soviet split intensified FLB's effort in the ideological tug of war between the two countries,translation was assumed an important role in unmasking the Soviet modern revisionism and disseminating Maoism around the world,especially in the colonized or semi-colonized AfroAsian-Latin American regions.In this phase,especially during the Cultural Revolution,Mao's works dominated FLB's book production.In the third phase 1978-2000,as China entered the era of economic reform,the institution evolved from a machine of political and ideological publicity to more of a cultural diplomacy outfit and its translation practice assumed the new role of increasing China's soft power through its cultural insertion in the world.Non-political texts on the topics of Chinese literature,art,history and geography were given priority.As the vigor of market economy began to be felt in the institution in the early 1990s,book translation as a political and cultural activity was also used to meet with the challenges brought about by the curtailment of financial support from the government.As a complement to the macroscopic examination,the thesis takes a closer look at FLB's translation practice by referring to Scott's conception of institution.Through bibliometric,paratextual and textual analyses,the institutional translation norms that govern FLB's translation of Lu Xun is investigated.The paratextual interrogation of the five English version of the Lu Xun xiaoshuo xuan reveals that the FLB made not only explicit effort to display or downplay its identity through material presentation of the publications such as the cover,but also implicit effort to promote certain images of Lu Xun in and out of China through visual and verbal elements such as the author's portraits,the publisher's notes,and the orientation articles for the uninitiated readers.From the textual analysis of the five English versions of "Kuangren riji",at least two translation norms are found to be in operation in the textual formation of the story.First,there is an increasing tendency that the translated texts be enhanced in respect of xin in terms of both meaning and style and da in terms of fluency,thus confirming the effectiveness of the translation standard in actual practice.Second,the instances of mistranslation and annotation show that in the institutional context of the FLB,translation was not merely a linguistic transfer,it also served to facilitate the pursuit of international communication of the government for political,ideological,or cultural purposes.This thesis constitutes an in-depth case of institutional translation in a Chinese governmental setting.It not only sheds light on the social,political and ideological orientations inherent in FLB's institutionalized practices of book translation,it is also significant in offering guidelines for future policy making and implementation in the domain of international communication.