Chang, Nam Fung (1997) Yes prime manipulator : a descriptive study of a Chinese translation of British political humour. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This is a descriptive study of Chang Nam Fung's Chinese translation of Jonathan Lynn
and Antony Jay's Yes Prime Minister, a text characterized by British political humour.
Adopting a target-oriented approach, it aims primarily to uncover the regularities which
mark the relationships between function, process and product of the translated text, thus
adding to the limited inventory of case studies in the field.
Targeted mainly towards readers in mainland China, the translation was done at a
time (1987-1992) when the political scene in the People's Republic went through cycles
of repression and relaxation in the face of a democratic movement, while the translation
tradition remained one that upheld the primacy of the original -- a poetics that is
determined by the ideological concept of loyalty.
Working under the constraints of the ideological and poetological norms dominant in
China, the translator nevertheless wished to produce a text with artistic value and a
potential to function as a political satire in the Chinese context, posing a challenge to
those norms. This skopos has determined the use of manipulative strategies in the
translation process,
The translation product is thus found to have been overdetermined by the interplay of
a large number of factors besides the source text: socio-political conditions, literary and
translation traditions, and the translator's poetics and ideology.
Finally, the findings are brought to bear on a number of translation theories,
especially Polysystem theory and other cultural theories of translation in whose
frameworks the study has been carried out. An augmented version of the polysystem
hypothesis is proposed, the gist of which is that the political and the ideological
polysystems, each consisting of competing systems, normally assume central positions in
the macro-polysystem of culture, issuing norms that influence norms originating from
other polysystems, and that translation activities are governed by norms originating from
various polysystems. It is hoped that this tentative 'macro-polysystem hypothesis, after
refinement by theorists and test by researchers, can better accommodate investigations
into the role of the translator together with other socio-cultural factors involved in
translation, especially the power relations.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1990 Broadcasting
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Yes, Prime Minister (Television program). Chinese, English drama (Comedy) -- Translations into Chinese, Political satire, English, Translating and interpreting -- China
Official Date:	1997
Dates:	Date Event 1997 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Bassnett, Susan ; Kuhiwczak, Piotr
Extent:	vii, 293 leaves
Language:	eng
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/4219

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