Understanding Cultural Mistranslation

As a precious gem in Chinese classics, Sun Tzu's Art of War, whose influence has transcended military world and become a guiding star in many fields such as politics, economy and diplomacy etc. It is commented that Sun Tzu's wisdom is as profound and eternal as Confucius', which should belong to the whole world rather than any single country. Due to the strenuous efforts exerted in the translating of this great book by scholars all over the world, it has obtained an international reputation. Remarkably, it has been translated into about 30 languages hitherto. However, it is noticeable that there are many mistranslations in these versions for various reasons, especially reasons concerning cultural factors. In many cases, mistranslations are caused by the translators'incompetence in language and lack of cultural background knowledge; but there are also some extreme cases, in which we are surprised to find that the mistranslations are rendered on purpose. To explain these mistakes, we often have to shift our focus from the linguistic factors to cultural ones for the reason that most mistakes are closely related to the complexity of cross-cultural communication. In this sense, the study of mistranslation is of great value. This thesis aims to achieve a better understanding of cultural mistranslation through the analysis of mistranslations found in different English versions of Sun Tzu's Art of War.Undoubtedly, hermeneutics has a positive influence on translation studies. Many terms of hermeneutics such as the formation of pre-understanding, fusion of horizons are intrinsically associated with translation studies. Modern hermeneutics holds that fore-having, fore-sight, fore-conception constitute preunderstanding in the human brain, which substantially affect the way they interpret the facts and events in the text. Accordingly, the translators'own time in history, his native culture, and even his experience and personality will result in their unique preunderstanding, which may easily influence their interpretation of the source text and induce mistranslation. In addition, horizon of the original text and the horizon of the interpreter are fusing each other and finally going to the fusion of two horizons during which there must be some discrepancies and conflicts. Under the guidance of hermeneutics, this thesis lays emphasis on the research of mistranslation which is further divided into two types: unintentional mistranslation and deliberate mistranslation. Meanwhile, factors contributing to such mistranslations are also carefully analyzed.Through the research of cultural mistranslation, the fact that cultural elements will influence and determine translation becomes self-evident. The significance of this research also lies in the realization that it is necessary for Chinese translation scholars to take the"cultural turn", and translators and researchers should explore the uniqueness and significance of translation activities in cross-culture communication; in addition, new light is cast on the importance of breaking the long existing bondage of"equivalence"and"fidelity", and smoothing out the negative influences of"source-text oriented"theory. Last but not the least, more attention to cultural differences may contribute to the promotion of cultural communication and progress.