Ideology and Translational Moves: when Culture Overtakes Politics in Translation of Journalistic Texts

Abstract

This study examines the interaction of political-cultural ideology and translation. It examines the effects of exercising ideology in Iranian newspaper translations and compares them with translations of 10 freelancers. Results manifested translators` contradictory behaviors in two aspects, first, in terms of translator affiliation i.e. government translators and freelancers; second, in terms of the contradictory behavior of each group when translating political elements on one hand, and cultural elements on the other. In the light of the salient differences and contradictions in translators` renditions, it became clear that both groups translated under the influence of some strong ideology using different strategies; yet, some preferred or had to prefer to exert their ideology on both political and cultural elements and some preferred to exert their ideology only on political elements. An interview from the participants showed that ideology cannot be ever sidelined from translation practice. As a result of this investigation, the researchers proposed two comprehensive ideological classifications for translations, namely, Universal and Patriotic translations.