Power relations in translation activities: a case study of sites of Macau Historic Centre

Abstract

The Macau Historic Centre, which includes both Western and Chinese sites built during the Portuguese settlement, was successfully inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2005. Even though some of the translations of these sites show a concept or term diverse from the source text, all versions of the site names have been recognised by the world and being used in tourist leaflets and brochures, making these translations an important source to investigate the influence of historical events and the variation of ideologies of every role involved in translation activities. By solving out the ideological transformation in different periods, Critical Discourse Analysis, which aims to examine ideologies and power relations involved in the discourse, has been applied in this paper to unfold the decision-making process in translation activities at a social layer, a production layer, and a textual layer. CDA studied the relationship between languages and the context as texts and social practices were indispensable to each other.