The Semiotic-Cultural Analysis and the Ideological Changes in Translation

This paper makes an effort to explain the significance of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in translation to show how CDA can be used to indicate the ideological deviation during a translation process. Based on some possible reasons behind translation distortion that occurs when language is transferred from source text (ST) to target text (TT), it attempts to elucidate the relation of discourse and social structures. In this regard, after defining the key concepts, it goes forward to explain some of the privileges of CDA over the other discourse analyses (structuralism & functionalism). Since power and ideology can be regarded as common concepts in translation and CDA, they have been elaborated. Having introduced some prominent Critical Discourse Analysts, it draws upon Van Dijk and Huckin Theory to show the cultural and ideological transmission in the process of the literary translationof The Old Man and the Sea. Finally based on the above-mentioned framework, it concludes that CDA can help both analysts and translators understand social and cultural problems during the process of translation, so it is indispensable for interpreting, describing, and analyzing, social and cultural changes in a text. This analysis in the process of the mentioned translation allows writers to conclude that the translator has tried to convey the dominant ideology, by adopting domestication, ideological naturalization, and idiomatic translation.