On Roots Of Domestication In Euro-American Context

In 1980s, Susan Bassnett and Andre Lefevere put forward the idea of cultural turn in translation studies which claims that translation studies should be closely related to cultural elements, such as history, power, politics, religion and ideology, etc. Since then, translation studies are no more confined to intrinsic research, but focus on extrinsic study, that is, to involve translation in a broader cultural context. In this background, the thesis makes a tentative study on the roots of domestication in Euro-American context from the perspectives of philosophy, religion, education and military power.The universality, always advocated by Europe and America, is the philosophical foundation of domestication in translation. The Platonic realism recognizes universalism. Different from Plato, Aristotle denies the separation of idea from particular or the universal and the individual which lead to the conflict of realism and nominalism in the Middle Ages. Influenced by Aristotlism, Kant claims that the absolute universalism stems from the prior frame of spirituality, instead of a causal link. The universalism advocated by Hegel is illustrated in his eurocentrism. He puts forward two theoretical foundations. First, the world history is a process of the development and realization of the world spirit. History has its order and it chooses West Europe. Therefore, history is always on its side. Second, he advocates the existence of purposive rationality and believes that the history is a process of realization of the absolute concept. Western culture, which is superior to other cultures, represents the realization of the universal purposive rationality.Religion plays a decisive role in the adoption of domestication in Euro-American context. The exclusiveness of religion held by the West leads to the exclusiveness of the western culture. As a nation of immigration, the religious conflict in America is extremely fierce. Three waves of immigration bring America a lot of immigrants with different religious beliefs and values which lead to the complex national relations in the United States. To ensure the unification of national beliefs and cultural integrity, domestication, becomes one of the "best" translation approaches. Educational policies are the reflection of philosophy, politics and religion. America advocates the assimilative and nativist education to protect the core status of Anglo-Saxon culture. Thus the translation of foreign texts into America is majorly of a domesticating nature. Similarly, France launches the French purity movement which aims to uphold its national dignity and status. Translation, as a part of education, is undoubtedly affected and restricted by national educational policies.Military power, as one of the roots of domestication, cannot be ignored. It is well reflected in the translations from ancient Rome to the present Europe and America. Due to military superiority, ancient Rome's attitude toward the Greek culture changes from the previous worship to the subsequent occupation. In the colonial period, the contempt for colonial culture and domestication in translation adopted by Britain and France, as well as American centrism, are actually a cultural hegemony stemming from the superiority of their military powers.These four factors, namely philosophy, religion, education and military power, interact with each other and turn out to be the roots of domestication in Euro-American context. Eurocentrism emphasizes the inequality between languages and power differences between cultures through the promotion of the superiority of the European culture. In other words, countries with strong power are in favor of domesticating translation to strengthen their cultural achievements and improve their world power. The nature of the world history is culture and civilization. However, the development of the world is a process of expansion, conquest and recognition of culture. This process, as a matter of fact, involves the conflict and clash of civilizations. Likewise, translation is understandably a process of pursuing cultural identity. In fact, all the factors, philosophy, religion, education and military power as well as power relations and eurocentrism originate from the clash of civilizations. Only under the circumstance of mutual communication and mutual understanding of all nations will clash of civilizations vanish and domestication disappear in the world. This is the ultimate goal of cross-cultural communication. To realize this goal, we still have a long way to go.