Translation and translation studies used to be regarded as a trifling skill and as nothing but a tool for comparative literature.It is the reception aesthetics and deconstruction theory that have helped to break the conventional hierarchies in relation to the source language and target language.Thus translation is reckoned not just as a linguistic transfer but as a creative rewriting,and translation research is likewise no longer considered just a study of the transformation techniques between different languages,but the interchange of cultural elements involved in the process of translation.Therefore,the academic standing of both translation and translation studies has been greatly enhanced.The cultural studies in the late 20th century represented a marked shift towards the study and criticism of the unequal relations between mainstream and marginal cultures,between elite and popular cultures,and between occidental and oriental cultures,and promoted a cultural turn in comparative literature and translation studies,both of which,being heavily influenced by cultural studies,focused more on the cultural connotations and interrelations between different texts and language systems.
As the research scope of the fundamentally changed translation studies is tremendously broadened and deepened,to scrutinize and dissect the translation process and purpose is deemed an important field in and the best approach to exploring the complicated relations between different cultures,and so the place and the function of comparative literature have been,to a certain degree,superseded by translation studies.They have both taken turns to be the centrality or the marginality in the academic field.The 21st century has witnessed the new development of cultural studies,comparative literature,and translation studies in terms of their features and correlation.They are developing in a structure of being independently overlapping,intricately intertwined,and unavoidably cooperative.The preponderance of translation studies over comparative literature,presumed by some scholars,is a question still up in the air and awaiting a further debate.