A Tentative Study On Cultural Misreading In Literary Translation

Cultural misreading mainly originates from cultural diversity. Due to cultural diversity, the translator cannot produce absolutely faithful translations. What's more, restricted by features of literary text, the translator cannot interpret the literary text without any mistake. Meanwhile, the patron manipulates the process of translation and exerts influence on the translator, and consequently the translator revises the original text so that the true picture of original text is hidden from the target language readers. In addition to the above, subjectively, the translator influenced by his own culture tends to make judgments and interpretation of the foreign culture on the familiar knowledge background of his own, therefore, distortion occurs. All this mentioned above causes cultural misreading to a certain degree.Literary translation is an important medium of cultural interaction, but it has long been considered by traditional translation concepts, as a negative phenomenon for it is an impediment to some extent to true and comprehensive understanding of another culture. However, nowadays, the traditional translation concepts are suspected and criticized, for they have long held original text and original culture as the touchstone of target text and target culture, "faithfulness" as the standard for evaluating the translation and depreciated the role of the translator in the process of translation. As an inevitable phenomenon in translation, cultural misreading should be treated positively. Besides, it is so significant to translation studies and translation critics that it should be paid more attention by the translation circle. Therefore, this thesis adopts cultural misreading as the object of study, analyzing and discussing cultural misreading in the scope of literary translation, in hope that it will give a tentative study of this phenomenon and draw more attention from thetranslation circle.This thesis consists of three parts, i.e. the introduction, five chapters, and the conclusion.Introduction begins with a general idea of cultural misreading, situation of its present study, its causes and significance. The object and study scope of this thesis is also presented.Chapter One begins with the definition of culture and its categories, providing a basis for the comprehension of the complexity of culture and classification of the objective factors on cultural part that induce cultural misreading. The later part of it introduces what is cultural misreading and its classification.Chapter Two provides the theoretical foundation of this thesis. By employing the core concepts of hermeneutics, reception aesthetics, and ideas of manipulation school, this chapter analyzes the possibility of cultural misreading in literary translation.Chapter Three expounds the features of literary text is an objective factor that causes cultural misreading. Literary text is a dialectical unity of self-sufficiency and openness, indeterminacy and determinacy. However, these features of literary text are confined by schematic structure of it. Hence any deviation of this characteristic of the literary text by the translator—a special reader, would triggers cultural misreading.Chapter Four is a case study. The former part of this chapter analyzes the objective factors, i. e., the diversity of culture and influence from thepatron------excluding the factor of features of literary text analyzed inChapter Three------that induce cultural misreading with detailed cases.The later part of this chapter analyzes the subjective factor that induces cultural misreading, pointing out that the unconscious and conscious deviation of the translator are the two main categories of objective factor. Chapter Five indicates the inevitability of cultural misreading. Itexpounds the consequences that cultural misreading has brought to the original text, the target text, the translation studies and translation critics, as well as the translator.Conclusion points out the disadvantage of traditional translation concepts. Translation as an activity deeply embedded in culture should be evaluated in a wide cultural background. Besides, the author calls on further progress to be made in translation studies so as to bring a more clear understanding of cultural misreading.