Cultural Presuppositions And Cultural Mistranslation

Languages express meanings and therefore convey culture. In the inter-cultural communication one can never neglect the influence of cultural presuppositions. Cultural presuppositions refer to the default of relevant cultural factors shared by the author and his/her intended readers that are fixed in the mind of its community and are the presuppositions for inference. Presuppositions are complex linguistic phenomena. Among factors that affect translation, presuppositions, especially cultural presuppositions deserve more attention. Cultural mistranslation is one of the complicated problems in translation. When probing into the main reason cultural presuppositions play an important role.Translation is an essential medium in inter-cultural communication. Cultural mistranslation to some extent hinders true understanding of cultures. The understanding of cultural presuppositions is helpful to thoroughly understand the original articles. Flexibly dealing with cultural presuppositions of the original language can shorten the distance between the two languages and cultures and remove the barrier caused by insufficient understanding and mistranslation.This thesis analyzes from several perspectives the relationship between cultural presuppositions and translation, focuses on relationship of cultural presuppositions to cultural mistranslation so as to have a further understanding of cultural mistranslation and cultural presuppositions.This thesis consists of six parts:The first part explains the research background, the research objective, the research methodology, and the general organization of the study.The first chapter gives a general literature review concerning presuppositions both at home and aboard.The second chapter explains the relation between culture and translation. Culture and language are interwoven. The same relationship exists in translation and culture. The generality of cultures makes translation possible but the characteristics of cultures obstacles translation.The third chapter states the relation between cultural presuppositions and translation. It states from three aspects: the inevitability of cultural presuppositions, the complexity of cultural presuppositions and historicalness of cultural presuppositions. It is impossible to win the aim of cultural communication unless one has a clear picture of cultural presuppositions.The fourth chapter explains the reasons of producing cultural mistranslation from the perspective of cultural presuppositions and its types. They are cultural difference, cultural understanding and cultural diachronism. The author of this thesis intends to give further explanation of the influence cultural presuppositions on cultural mistranslation from the types.The last part, conclusion, summarizes the importance of cultural presuppositional knowledge so as to cut cultural mistranslation to its minimum.