A Study On Intentional Mistranslation From The Perspective Of Cultural Filtration

Mistranslation means incorrect translation,which disobeys the standard of faithfulness of translation,but is unavoidable in the practice.Mistranslation is classified into unintentional mistranslation and intentional mistranslation.The former is caused by the translator's carelessness,or deficient language knowledge or lack of cultural knowledge.The common mistranslation appears owing to a word-for-word translation,because the words of source language do not correspond to those of target language in meaning.Intentional mistranslation,also called strategic mistranslation or creative mistranslation,means great change of original expression such as literary imagery or artistic conception to meet the target language readers' expectation horizons or usages of inequivalent words without consideration of the acceptability of target language aesthetics to introduce foreign cultural mode.With the cultural filtration as the theoretical frame,this thesis adopts analytical induction method,inter-discipline research method and case study method to do research into intentional mistranslation.First the literature review is given.Then the causes for intentional mistranslation are illustrated.At last a case study on the version of A Dream of Red Mansions is conducted to demonstrate the embodiments of mistranslation.Through case analysis,this thesis has reached the following conclusions:1)that translation occurs in the social context and is marked by social culture;2)that cultural filtration is an effective approach by which the source culture is accepted by the target culture;3)that intentional cultural mistranslation is the outcome of cultural filtration as well as the translating strategy,which is adopted to meet target language readers' expectation horizon.The intentional cultural mistranslation includes replacement of cultural imagery,loss of cultural imagery,omission,deletion,etc.