A Critical Study on Translation of the Analects: An Ideological Perspective

Understanding Of Ideology And Its Interrelations With Translation

Ideology is a complex and controversial concept. It can be understood in many ways according to the specific context, which can reflect diverse epochs and different lines of thought.

The philosophical term “ideology” was coined by the French rationalist philosopher Destutt De Tracy, who intended to mean the systematic study of knowledge, beliefs, and ideas (Williams, 1976, p.126). According to Van Dijk, the nature of ideology is “a specific type of basic mental representations shared by the members of groups, and hence firmly located in the minds of people” (Van Dijk, 1998, p.48). It is therefore supposed that these group members belong to a given society, and these ideologies are (re)produced through discourse. The discourse dimension of ideologies explains how ideologies influence our daily texts, and how discourse is involved in the understanding and (re)production of ideology in society. Thompson defines the concept of “ideology” as follows: (1) descriptive views of ideology: positions, attitudes, beliefs, perspectives, etc. of social groups with reference to relations of power and domination between such groups; (2) the critical view of ideology: representations of aspects of the world which can be shown to contribute to establishing, maintaining and changing social relations of power, domination and exploration; (3) ideological representations can be identified in texts. They probably have a schematic structure that represents the self-image of each group, featuring membership devices, aims, activities, norms and resources of each group. Ideologies feature the basic principles that organize the attitudes shared by the members of a group(Calzada-Perez, 2003, p.5). According to Verschueren, “Ideology is related to ideas, beliefs, and opinions, as such, do not make ideology. Simplifying a bit, they are merely ‘contents of thinking’, whereas ideology is associated with underlying patterns of meaning, frames of interpretation, world views, or forms of everyday thinking and explanation” (Verschueren,2012, p.7).