ABSTRACT
The issue of patronage has drawn the interests of scholars both in translation studies (e.g., Lefevere 1987, 1992a; Wang 2006; Lai 2007; Bai 2009; Lu 2015) and in other fields of humanities and social sciences (e.g., Kent et al. 1987; Chow 1992; Freedman 1994; Schmidt-Beste 2012; McCulloch 2014). It has different definitions in different fields of studies. For example, in the medieval church, patronage refers to the person who had the right to nominate a parish clergyman; in the field of political science, it may refer to ‘the power and the acknowledged right of a political authority to appoint people to positions of responsibility following its own opinion, preference or interest’ (Bogdanor 1991: 423).
