| Michel Foucault, a French poststructuralist, was the first person who combined "power" with "discourse" and put forward power discourse theory. In this theory, "Power" means all of the control forces and dominating forces, which can be divided into two categories:the visible power such as political institution, law, prison and so on, and the invisible power like ideology, morality, culture, convention, religion, value and so on. Foucault's concept of "discourse" is different from that in linguistics and literature. It is the embodiment of power, as well as the tool for power control. All the powers are realized through discourses which are the key to the hold of power. Power is everywhere and all the discourses are restricted by power. Foucault considered humanities as productions of the combination of power and knowledge in a certain time controlled by power and discourse. All kinds of humanities submit to the power radically. As a field in humanities, translation activities are certainly submissive to power and influenced by power discourse. Therefore, we should not only focus on the author, text and translator in translation study, but also consider the influence of power discourse on the translation. Power discourse theory brings a deep revolution to translation by transforming the traditional translation perspectives. It has enlarged the view of translation studies and provided a new perspective and new ideas to translation studies.Luotuo Xiangzi is a famous work by Laoshe. It describes a miserable life of a young rickshaw puller named Xiangzi in Peking. As a young man from the countryside, Xiangzi was strong-willed and hard working. He had a dream of owning a rickshaw in order to be an independent laborer. However, his dream broke in the end. This novel expresses author's deep sympathy to the poor and exposes the darkness of the old society. It made a great success. There have been almost 38 kinds of translations of Luotuo Xiangzi.This thesis analyzes the influence of power discourse on translation based on the two English versions of Luotuo Xiangzi. One is the translation made by the American translator Evan King published in 1945, and the other was made by the Chinese translator Shi Xiaojing published in 1981. Produced in different backgrounds and influenced by different ideology, history and culture in different countries and times, the two translations differ much in the material choice of source texts and in the translation strategies. By analyzing and studying rewritings of certain plots in two English versions, this thesis makes an explanation of the influence of power discourse like history and ideology upon the translation.Translation never takes place in vacuum but restricted by all kinds of power such as ideology, culture and convention. Translation is more a kind of dialogue and communication between two kinds of power discourses (the source discourse and target discourse) than a simple lingual communication. Fidelity is no longer the only or highest standard to judge a translation. All the adjustments become legal, which are made by the translators to meet the demand of target society and even to serve for specific purposes. We can conclude that power discourse theory is permanently influencing the translation strategies as well as providing for the translators a new visual angle in the translation. |
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