On Intentional Mistranslaton Under The Theory Of Translator’s Subjectivity

As economic development accelerates the exchanges and cooperation of different countries in more extensive areas, translation also plays an increasing important role in those communications. While, as an important phenomenon, mistranslation exists in translation activities all time. Generally, mistranslation means a sort of mistake caused by translator’s carelessness, language incompetence or the lack of cultural awareness. This mistake always has a negative impact on the quality of translation, and it should be avoided through the translators’efforts. However, there is another kind of mistranslation in the practical translation, which is made intentionally by translators and actually plays an active role in improving the target text. It is intentional mistranslation. This thesis focuses on the study of intentional mistranslation from the perspective of translator’s subjectivity and further explores how translators conduct intentional mistranslation under the influences of a variety of interior and exterior factors. In this study, exemplification and comparison are applied to demonstrate the ideas, including the comparison of source text and target text, as well as the comparison of different target texts translated from the same source text.According to the present status of intentional mistranslation studies at home and abroad, the thesis aims to study this phenomenon from the perspective of translator’s subjectivity. Firstly, the thesis introduces the concept of translator’s subjectivity and how it functions, including the source text choosing, source text understanding and interpreting, translation strategies and target text expression. Secondly, the definition and the inevitability of intentional mistranslation are demonstrated exactly. Thirdly and most importantly, the author attempts to illustrate how one’s subjectivity influences the formation of intentional mistranslation through the aspects of ideology, poetics, patronage, reader’s acceptance, cultural context and aesthetics etc. Through the comprehensive analysis, the thesis concludes that it is because of a variety of interior and exterior factors that intentional mistranslation is inevitable and worth exploring. Thus the translator’s efforts should be recognized, their subjectivity be highlighted and their status undoubtedly be improved.