I am publishing this research so that it may help you understand more about the relation between translation & ideology. I had to do it as an assignment and hand it down to my university doctor two weeks ago. Only three pages (800 words); it’s worth looking at & I hope you benefit from it.

Of course, there hadn’t and wouldn’t be a perfect translation. The process of translation can’t be regarded as a process of replacing or transferring word for word from one language to another. Awareness of the complexity of translation, Álvarez & Vidal (1996) claim, will result in realizing the importance of the ideology underlying a translation.

The translator, in addition, is not a stupid machine, nor ‘a monkey, with no choice save to make the same grimaces as his master’ (Leppihalme, 1997: 19, qtd. in Ideology and Translation). He has his own cultural background which acts like a framework from which all his beliefs and ideas, what we call ideology, come from.

E. Nida says: “Language is not used in a context less vacuum, rather, it is used in a host of discourse contexts; contexts which are impregnated with the ideology of social systems and institutions. Because language operates within this social dimension it must, of necessity reflect, and some would argue, construct ideology” (qtd. in Translation as a Transmitter of Feminist Ideology)

It is unavoidable then to think that almost every piece of translated text is in fact a result of certain ideology. It can be understood from the viewpoint that behind every one of the translator’s selections, as what to add, what to leave out, which words to choose and how to place them, ‘there is a voluntary act that reveals his history and the socio-political milieu that surrounds him; in other words, his own culture [and ideology]’ (Álvarez & Vidal, 1996: 5, qtd. in Ideology and Translation). And that’s what has been going on throughout the centuries. Schäffner (2003) supports this idea when he claims that all translations are ideological since ‘the choice of a source text and the use to which the subsequent target text is put are determined by the interests, aims, and objectives of social agents’ (qtd. in Ideology and Translation). But what is ideology per se?

The term ‘ideology’ has been always accompanied by its political connotation. According to Concise Oxford English Dictionary, ideology is ‘a system of ideas and ideals forming the basis of an economic or political theory’. Tahir-Gürçağlar (2003: 113) argues, ‘Translation is political because, both as activity and product, it displays process of negotiation among different agents. On micro-level, these agents are translators, authors, critics, publishers, editors, and readers’ (qtd. in Ideology and Translation). However, Marxists like Lenin negatively define Socialist ideology as ‘a force that encourages revolutionary consciousness and fosters progress’ (Calzada-Pérez, 2003: 4). But, scholars and linguists are not interested in ideology in its political sense; it is important to consider the definition proposed by van Dijk (1996: 7) for ideology as a framework that is ‘assumed to specifically organize and monitor one form of socially shared mental representation, in other words, the organized evaluative beliefs—traditionally called ‘attitudes’—shared by social groups’ (qtd. in Ideology and Translation).

Neither the author nor the translator as a reader of source text possesses the authorial power to definitely determine the meaning. Carbonell (1996) points out that, “since the nature of the context of signification in both the source and target cultures is heterogeneous, meaning changes unavoidably in the process of translation and there will be always possibility of contradiction between the author’s intentions and the translator’s” (qtd. in Ideology and Translation).

To illustrate what has been said till now, an ardent Catholic translator wouldn’t for instance, for the sake of profit, choose to translate a book or a novel which attacks his dogma, such as The Da Vinci Code. In this case, choosing what to translate is controlled by the ideology of the translator. But even before it reached the translators, the book had been banned by Catholic leaders in Lebanon “after complaints it was offensive to Christianity.” (qtd. Da Vinci Code banned in Lebanon)

Similarly, the cultural background, which makes up the ideology of the translator, can influence the way the translator looks at or understands various issues. An Arab & a Muslim translator, for example, wouldn’t render the actions of the resistance movements in Palestine against Israel as “terrorism”; unlike a Western translator who would never understand it as “Jihad”.

Furthermore, the translation of “الخليج العربي” -literally: Arabian Gulf- into “Persian Gulf” is another example of the effect of ideology on translation. In this case, there is a political connotation, where some people think that the Gulf region is originally Persian and should be described as the “Persian gulf”, while others think that it is Arabic since Arabs occupied it a long time ago.

Finally, according to a feminist, language is one of the tools in which the ideas of feminism can be spread or implemented. Feminists, for instance, support the use of gender-neutral language which they describe as “non-sexist language” (qtd. in Feminism). This may include replacing “chairman” by “chairperson”. The idea behind that is “to clarify the inclusion of both sexes or genders (gender-inclusive language).” (qtd. Gender-neutral language)

Bibliography
1- BBC World Service “Da Vinci Code banned in Lebanon” <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3663344.stm>
2- Hamerlain, Souad. “Translation as a Transmitter of Feminist Ideology”. University of Mostaganem: 1995 <http://annales.univ-mosta.dz/fr3/hamerlain.pdf>
3- Verbatim Solutuions “Ideology and Translation” <http://www.verbatimsolutions.com/articles/ideology.php>
4- Wikipedia.org “Feminism” <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism>
5- Wikipedia.org “Gender-neutral language” <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language>

P.S. Arab visitors, please write your comment in English.