Chapter 2 Literature Review

2。1 The Origin and Development of Deconstruction Theory

At the end of the 19th century, Nietzsche declared the death of God’s spirit, and urged the revaluation of everything。 As the untraditional ideological trend, Nietzsche’s philosophy has deeply impressed the western culture and became the original thought of deconstruction theory。 In 1960s, the philosopher Derrida absorbed the thoughts of previous scholars, and proposed the deconstructionist theory systematically in the books of De La Grammatologie, Lecriture et la difference and La Voix et le Phenomene。

The word “deconstruction” originates from Martin Heidegger’s philosophical concept “destruction”, which means disseminating, dispelling and revealing。 Heidegger uses this word to criticize the traditional metaphysics theory。 Based on Heidegger’s philosophical concept “destruction”, Derrida inherits and develop the concept “destruction”, and proposes the policy of “deconstruction”。 He adds elimination, dissemination, anti-accumulation, pision and problematization to the concept “destruction”。 Consequently, we consider that the “deconstruction” proposed by Derrida originates but differs from the concept of Martin Heidegger。来自优Y尔L论W文Q网wWw.YouERw.com 加QQ7520~18766

What Derrida’s philosophy wants to deconstruct is the presence of logocentrism。 Logocentrism is a term coined by the German philosopher Ludwig Klages。 It refers to the tradition of western and philosophy that situates the logos, the word or the act of speech, as epistemologically superior in a system or structure。 According to the logocentrism, there is always a center throughout the western philosophical world。 A series of dualistic hierarchical relationships are derived from it such as the opposition of truth and false, signified and signifier, civilization and nature, langue and parole, and rationality and insanity。 Furthermore, there is always one item in dominance determining the existence and trend of the other one。 In this case, only the present item is important, and the non-presence is meaningless。 Therefore, deconstruction is a policy to subvert the dualistic hierarchical concept, aiming at advocating the dissemination, difference and freedom of signifier。

Derrida’s ideas of difference and “intertextuality” exerted great influence upon Lefevere’s concept of “translation is rewriting”。 According to Derrida, all material things are symbols。 Linguistics symbols are closely related to all realistic worlds。 The material world cannot be represented without linguistic signs at all。 In this sense, all things are signs and all texts are composed of signs。 Therefore, one text is interdependent upon other texts through rewriting and recopying which form the concept of “intertextuality”。 As far as Derrida is considered, translation is a regulated transformation from one language to another; from one text to another。 For him, “regulated transformation” is a term that could reflect the translation property in a better way because there is no absolute signifier between one language and the other。 There is no absolute difference at all, neither does translation。 In this case, the translator’s task is to reconstruct the linguistic and textual forms。 Through translation, the difference between languages in words, sentence structures, and pronunciation can be presented in a clearer and deeper way。 That is to say, instead of hiding linguistic difference, translators should show this difference。 Therefore, the extent of value of a translation 

version could be measured by its extent to reflect the linguistic difference。 Derrida’s idea of seeking difference laid a solid foundation for Venuti’s “foreignization” which will be expounded upon later。