Misreading In Literary Translation: A Gadamer's Prejudice-Theoretic Perspective

Misreading has always been a controversial concept in culture. Under the influence of the traditional logocentrism, translation was thought as the faithful imitation of the original work, and the translator was only considered as the "speaker" of the original author. The subjectivity of the translator was greatly ignored. Misreading, as the "wrong" understanding and interpretation of the original work, was completely negated. All these led to the lacking of creativity in translation activities. At the same time, translation studies attached itself to linguistics, which prevented its own development. In the 1970s, the "cultural turn" in the western translation studies appeared. It was not until then that the problems concerned with culture were recognized gradually. From then, theories like modern hermeneutics joined translation studies, which brought some fresh air to the circle. The author aims to analyze the phenomenon of misreading in literary translation from Gadamer's prejudice theory, a representative theory of modern hermeneutics. The discussion will be based on the three causes of the interpreter's prejudices.The author first gives a brief introduction to the history of hermeneutics, as well as the most important notions in it. Then a detailed introduction to Gadamer's prejudice theory is provided. Based on the pre-structure of understanding developed by Heidegger, the prejudice theory holds that prejudices are the indispensable precondition of understanding and interpretation. No understanding or interpretation would be carried out without the interpreter's prejudices. The author then discusses the definitions and classifications of misreading. Through the analysis of the characteristics of literary works and literary translations, the author points out that literary translation bears many blanks for the translators to fill in, since the literary works are more open than non-literary works. Thus misreading in literary translation is of greater research value compared with that in non-literary translation. Then the author analyses the phenomenon of misreading in literary translation with the prejudice theory, pointing out that prejudices in literary translation are unavoidable, since every understanding and interpretation includes prejudices, and literary translation is an interpreting process. And the prejudices of the translator would lead to his/her misreading of the original literary work. Here the author analyzes misreading in literary translation according to the three aspects which cause the translator's prejudices, namely, social environment of literary translation, features of literary works to be translated and personal temperament of the translator of literary works. Then a general conclusion is drawn: misreading is sure to exist in literary translation. Finally, the author provides a study on the impacts of misreading in literary translation, noting that, on the one hand, since misreading is the necessary premise of literary creativity in translation, the complete exclusion of misreading by the traditional translation theories should be denied; however, on the other hand, the limits of interpretation deserve further study.