On Cultural "Mistranslation" From The Perspective Of Translation Ethics

Being an unique phenomenon in transcultural exchange, cultural mistranslation is unavoidable in literary translation. According to Xie Tianzhen, mistranslation embodies the collision, conflict and distortion between various cultures; intentional mistranslation, generally, is intended for importing or introducing the foreign culture and also for meeting the cultural needs and acceptance of the target readers. This is the linkage between translation studies and cultural research. However, the full understanding of translation has changed substantially since "cultural turn" came on the scene in the field of translation studies in1980s. As a matter of fact, translation activity concerns not only simple transference of different languages, but some key external factors including political, economic and cultural factors etc. For this reason, translation, being a sort of cross-cultural communicative activity, can to some extent be treated as an ethical activity, which implies the basic conventions of interpersonal relationship in a certain society as well as their corresponding moral principles, so it calls for ethics as its guidance.As for the development of translation studies, it has undergone three stages, namely, philology, morden linguistics and culturology.(潘文国,2002:257-265). After the upsurge of culturology, some Western scholars such as Antoine Berman, Anthony Pym and Lawrence Venuti etc., pointed out that translation studies has returned to the question of ethics, which stirred a hot debate in the circle of translation at that time. They, meanwhile, offered their own thoughts on translation ethics, among which Andrew Chesterman’s could be considered as the most representative one. Previous studies have manifested that Chesterman sets forth his idea by elaborating on his five models of translation ethics: ethics of representation-to completely represent the original, or the original author’s intention and culture; ethics of service-to fulfill the aim of translation as set by the client and accepted or negotiated by the translator; ethics of communication-to focus on communication with the ’Other’in the cross-cultural communication and even emphasize the translator’s responsibility in’intercultural space’; Norm-based ethics-to behave ethically as one is expected to behave, in accordance with the norms, not surprising the reader or client. Besides, Chesterman adds another translation ethics based on the above four models, that is, ethics of commitment-a virtue, advocating the striving for excellence and a brillant translator. Andrew Chesterman, in terms of his five models, dwells on the current ideas about translation ethics, providing scholars with a multi-demensional perspective to make a study of translation thoughts and practice as well as to take the cultural mistranlation in literary translation seriously.The thesis, in the light of translation ethics, attempts to analyze the cultural mistranslation in Red Sorghum translated by American famous translator Howard Goldblatt. By the comparision of some concrete examples between the source text and the target text, the thesis clarifies the manifestation and inevitablility of cultural mistranslation owing to different subjective and objective factors. Based on his political viewpoints, the translation purpose of the English version and the readership of the English version in those days, Goldblatt translated this novella from the standpoints of foreign readers and foreign cultures. In other words, the translator held that the ethics of service and the ethics of communication should coordinate the conflicts between the ethics of representation and the norm-based ethics. In fact, the cultural mistranslation in Red Sorghum is in some sense a kind of translation strategy in order to abide by one or more models of translation ethics.Apart from introduction and conclusion, the thesis mainly is composed of four chapters as follows:Chapter one is literature review which gives a general survery over translation ethics, involving its definition, its relevant researches at home and abroad, commentaries on the existing research.Chapter two gives a brief introduction to the cultural mistranslation in West and China, its classification and manifestation illustrated by some instances in Red Sorghum.Chapter three expounds on cultural mistranslation in Red Sorghum from the perspective of translation ethics with focus on Chesterman’s five models of ethics and also elaborates on the factors affecting the cultural mistranslation which lead to the unavoidability and rationality of cultural mistranslation in literary translation. Meanwhile, the intrinsic conflicts between ethical models spare the room for cultural mistranslation but the ethical coordination devices are so of great significance in translation practice that perhaps offer a solution to this problem.Chapter four copes with the effects caused by cultural mistranslation in Red Sorghum, including the positive effects and negative effects. The former is mainly concernd with enrichment of culture and literature between different countries and even with enhancing the sense of translator’s ethics while the later concentrates on the following parts, namely, cultural hegemony, distortion and loss of cultural images as well as less validity of transferring the original text. In this chapter the author also gets down to the instruction of cultural mistranslation to translation ethicsThe conclusion is the summary of the whole thesis. The author believes that cultural mistranslation, whether intentional or unintentional, should not be regarded as the main trend of translation activity. When confronting contraditions in translation, the translators should try their best to harmonize the contradictions by applying some ethical models. Generally, they will comply with the norm-based ethics and the ethics of commitment to meet the target readers’requirements or strive for excellent translation.