| Cultural misreadings mainly stem from cultural discrepancy. People, when they confront foreign cultures, consciously and/or unconsciously tend to make judgments and interpretations based on what they are familiar with or on the needs of their own culture. Such happens because they cannot escape the influence of their own cultural traditions. The consequence is the betrayal of the other culture.Literary translation is an important medium of cultural interaction. The activity of translating by its very nature is a dialogue and mediating process between two cultures. Once the translator begins to read and interpret the source text (ST), he actually goes into a complex network of cultural relationships. He, as an individual representing the target culture (TC), is involved in the process of experiencing the other culture, comparing it with his own, finding where the two cultures collide, repel and fuse. Therefore, the phenomenon of cultural misreading of the ST and source culture (SC) possibly exists in the translated work. If the ST and SC are the factors determining the very make-up of the translated version, then the target culture also plays the same important role in this process. " The target culture is by no means passive or serves no function. Instead, it influences, constrains or even dominates the appearance of the translated work." (Kong Huiyi, 1999: 88)However, the traditional translation theory holds that the ST and SC are endowed with a sort of touchstone position, while the TC is laid aside as a subsidiary force. Since the principle of "faithfulness" is always upheld as the yardstick of a qualified translated work in the translation circle, cultural misreadings in literary translation either suffer from acrimonious criticisms or receive no attention. In fact, except for the mistranslation due to inadequate linguistic competence or irresponsibility on the part of the translator, cultural misreading truly reflects where the blockade in cultural communication is and highlights the deformation and even distortion between cultures. Perhaps the most interesting fact isthat sometimes there is an unexpected but tremendously successful stimulation achieved by virtue of misreading. Therefore, "study on this topic in translation is of unusual significance with a view to cultural communication." (Xie Tianzhen: 1998; 195)By adopting a relatively special perspective of "cultural misreading", this paper intends to explore the relationship between translated text and TC. The writer describes and analyzes the reasons, exhibitions and effects of cultural misreading. The purpose is to reveal how the cultural factors and norms of TC constitute a powerful force, automatically and subtly interfere with the translator's understanding and expression of the ST, thus leading to conscious or unconscious cultural misreading in literary translation. And accordingly, the evaluation of translated works should be more comprehensive and objective.The selection and completion of this paper are influenced by modern literary theories, together with the movement of transformation of paradigm that has been going on within scholarly circles since 1970, that is, an orientation towards the cultural rather than linguistic transfer, and towards the function of description and explanation of translated work.The Introduction begins with a general idea of cultural misreading, together with its causes. The significance of studying this topic and the basic structure of this thesis are also presented.Chapter One provides the theoretical foundation of this thesis. In the light of modern literary theory like hermeneutics and reception aesthetic, this chapter employs the core working concepts such as "gaps in literary work", "horizon of expectation", discussing respectively the objective and subjective possibility of cultural misreading.Chapter Two expounds the cultural misreading resulting from the translator's horizon of expectation. Starting from the concept of horizon of expectation, the writer analyzes this from the psyc...
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