The Influence Of Interpreters’ Power Discourse On The Interpretation Quality And Possible Coping Strategies

Power-discourse theory put forward by French philosopher Michel Foucault advocatesthat discourse is power. Foucault’s power is not the traditional press power working on peoplebut things manipulating and controlling people’s ideas and actions. Discourse is not only aform of language, but also includes all kinds of forms and categories of cultural life. There isa relation of interdependency and interaction between power and discourse. The operations ofdiscourse are influenced and controlled by power. At same time, discourse is theimplementation form of power; so it can be said that the power is implemented throughdiscourse. Discourse is not only the tool of implementing power, but also the key of masteringpower. All levels of society have particular discourses, mastering discourse means graspingthe right of speech. Foucault’s discourse-power causes great repercussion in the Westernthoughts and academia. Just like someone comments in the west "because his works isinterdisciplinary, every academic discipline can get some inspiration from him"(吕俊,2001:63), in which the translation is not excepted. According to the theory of power-discourse, translation activities are controlled by of ideology, cultural traditions and otherkinds of power. These powers constantly affect the choices of translators in the process oftranslation.The environments would affect and constrain translators in translation. The way thattranslator take is controlled by the power. Translator owns discourse, which is a kind of powerconstraint. Translator is the applied and policy-maker of power, who is the knowledge fighterand discourse gatekeeper. Power is well used in the literature translations, which makestranslator take different translation strategies in rewriting foreign texts under the impact ofcountries’ politics, culture and social ideology; translator will falsify the original text in orderto cater the intentions of readers in the concrete translation. Literature translations mostlybelong to written translations; written translations and interpretation are subordinate to thecategory of translation. And so, interpreter is affected and controlled by the politics, culture,ideology, religious belief and other social factors in the process of interpretation. Interpreter isrestricted by power, meanwhile, he can use power to promote the progress of interpretationand improve the quality of interpretation. The usages of power have positive impact: empowering party to make decision whetherto exercise power, encouraging party to exercise power, guiding party to exercise power anddirect power empowered party. The negative impacts have excessive and inadequate usages.Therefore, interpreter has to be controlled by some strategies just like ethics norms,psychological adjustment and role adjustment. Interpreter is regarded as the gatekeeper of theprocess of interpretation, co-talker and coordinator of the conversation; whose effect isconsiderable on the quality of interpretation. Interpreter can bring out his full subjectiveinitiative, which is crucial for the result and process of interpretation.