Application Of Hermeneutics To The Analysis Of Cultural Mistranslation

Cultural mistranslation, as a very complex cultural phenomenon, is completely different from those translation errors or mistakes in general sense which are incurred by careless or irresponsible translating at the linguistic level in the most cases. It can be defined in this thesis as a kind of translation defect which we can not see from the superficial meaning but is particularly imperfect only when cultural elements or cultural background have to be considered. This thesis aims to account for this complicated phenomenon from various layers with the theories of hermeneutics and tries to explore the underlying reasons behind it. Due to the obtrusion of translators cultural mistranslation can be further divided into two kinds, which are intentional and unintentional mistranslation, so translator, as the subject of the interpretation process, plays the most important role in the translation. Because of influences of various subjective or objective elements on the translator, he or she is forced to do some mistranslation consciously or unconsciously. Thus the discussion leads to the conclusion that culture plays a crucial role in the process of translations, so the practice of translation has to turn to the culture which is called " cultural turn". Furthermore, the brand new criteria are put forward to reconsider the translation problem, so we should put translation in the concrete cultural environment to consider and have correct attitude towards it in order to achieve the purpose of cultural communication.