Translation and ideology: a study of Lin Zexu's translation activities

Lin Zexu (1785 -1850) was an outstanding statesman, thinker and poet in China during the Qing Dynasty. He was known as a 'national hero' during the Opium War period (1838 -1841) 1841) 1841) for his anti -opium campaign and anti -invasion endeavours in China. He was referred to as the first person in modern China to 'open his eyes observe the world' as he advocated Western learning and organised Western translation. As a patron of translation, Lin organised a series of translation activities from 1838 to 1840 in his role as High Imperial Commissioner of the Qing Court under Emperor Daoguang. This included newspaper translation, book translation, and diplomatic correspondence covering the opium trade, Western geography and laws, etc. These activities had a fargeography and laws, etc. These activities had a fargeography and laws, etc. These activities had a far geography and laws, etc. These activities had a farreaching impact on the late Qing society. This research aims to study Lin Zexu's translation activities from the perspective of ideology, in particular, patron's ideology. It addresses the holistic issue of how Lin exerted his ideological influence upon various links in the translational chain: selection of source texts, translation quality control, translation strategies, and target text examination. It attempts to conduct a parallel comparative study on both available source texts and target pertinent to Lin's translation activities with a view to uncovering the ideological issues reflected in the translation texts.