Translation and power: A Hong Kong case study

Abstract

Developments in post‐structuralist theories and post‐colonial theories have led to an exploration of the issue of translation and power in Translation Studies in the last few decades. The mimetic approach towards translation, which sees translation as a mere copy of, and therefore subservient to, the original, has gone out of critical favour. Researchers are focusing their attention on the power relationships within textual practice that can be delineated in works of translation and on how these power relationships reflect power structures embedded in the wider cultural context. This article aims to examine the issue of translation and power from a sociological perspective by taking translation as an activity and analyzing how such an activity, carried out in a particular historical context, allowed the translators to gain access to power. The focus is on the Protestant missionary‐translators based in Hong Kong from 1842 until the end of the nineteenth century.