Tentative Probing Into Cultural Mistranslation From The Perspective Of Philosophical Hermeneutics And Reception Aesthetics

Under the tremendous influence of the source text-oriented theory, equivalence and faithfulness were hailed as dominant principles in translation studies in the West and China respectively. Any treason, mutation or deviation from the original text was constantly condemned and the translator was reduced to a secondary figure, who's supposed to remain invisible in the translated work. Mistranslation, accordingly, has served as a key weapon to attack translators. This tendency put translation studies into a predicament: discussions about translatability and translation criticism became the mainstream. It is high time for translation studies, especially in China, to make a shift from prescriptive approach to descriptive approach.In this thesis, distinctions between cultural mistranslation and mistakes in translation are made and the scope of culture and cultural mistranslation has been discussed. By drawing upon Philosophical Hermeneutics and Reception Aesthetics, this thesis mainly explores cultural mistranslation. It traces the evolution of hermeneutics and then examines the central concepts that can be employed in this thesis. Conceptions like Heidegger's fore-structure, Gadamer's prejudice and three properties of interpretation (universality, creativity and historicity) and Reception Aestheticians' insightful statements on "reader" shed new lights on the study of cultural mistranslation. What this thesis mainly concentrates on are the following three points: a) the inevitability of cultural mistranslation; b) the aesthetic creativity in cultural mistranslation; c) cultural mistranslation as the result of translator's culturalfiltering.In light of the concept of inter-subjectivity from Philosophical Hermeneutics, in the fourth chapter, this thesis ventures to make a tentative exploration to the subjects in literary translation and view cultural mistranslations as inter-subjective dialogues among those subjects. Inter-subjectivity is a fundamental nature of translation and translation, by nature, is an art of compromise.Owing to some academic necessity and personal interest, examples selected in this thesis are mainly from the novel Turbulence and its translated version.