Ideology In Translation Essay

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Translation has become an indispensible tool for the teachers of comparative literature as it is the gateway to enter the arena of the texts of the ‘other’. However, with this shift of the discipline of translation studies from a purely linguistics-oriented approach to a more culture-oriented approach, the scholars have increasingly begun to trace the exercise of ideology in translation that had been hitherto a largely neglected area in linguistics-oriented approaches. The teachers and researchers of comparative literature should use the tool of translation with sensitivity to the ideology it embodies. Since one of major achievements of comparative studies has been enlarging the canvass of cross-cultural communication and understanding, ideology …show more content…

The exercise of ideology in translation, they claim, is as old as the history of translation itself. According to Fawcett, "throughout the centuries, individuals and institutions applied their particular beliefs to the production of certain effects in translation" (qtd. in Parez 2). He further claims that "an ideological approach to translation can be found in some of the earliest examples of translation known to us" (Fawcett 106). Critics have thus begun to study translation not only as a "Cross-cultural transfer '" (Vermeer), but as a "Cross-ideological transfer" (Nissen). As Schaffner claims that all translations are ideological since "the choice of a source text and the use of which the subsequent target text is put are determined by the interests, aims and objectives of social agents" (23). She further explains, "Ideological aspect can be determined within a text itself, both at the lexical level, and the grammatical level… Ideological aspects can be more or less obvious in texts, depending on the topic of a text, its genre and communicative purposes"

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