Translator's Conscious Mistranslation Under Hermeneutic Translation Theory

The combination of hermeneutics and translation makes hermeneutic translational theory, which overcomes the faults of traditional translation theory– the source-text-centered theory. Through the careful re-examination of the role of translator and of hermeneutics, many new translational trends appear. We know that whether it is intralingual or interlingual, translation is not only the linguistic transformation, but the recreation on the basis of complete and full understanding of the two different cultures; translation does not take place in a vacuum, but in the statement of inter-penetration of different cultures. Moreover, translation involves many other elements, such as culture and history, linguistic forms, ideology, social status, and poetic argument, etc. As a result, in the argumentation, we rediscover the dynamic and historical process of translation and translational studies, and unity of definite and indefinite, and then multiple understanding and interpretation of source text are acceptable. Based on the hermeneutic theory, the present thesis introduces the representatives of hermeneutics and their theories, such as Friedrich Schleiermacher theory, Martin Heidegger's"pre-structure and ontological turn", in the 20th century, Hans-Georg Gadamer's"pre-understanding, hermeneutic circle, effective history and horizontal fusion", and George Steiner's hermeneutic translational theory like"four steps of hermeneutic motion". This thesis takes a try to point out the mistranslation (esp. conscious mistranslation) rooted in these theories. As is known to all that Schleiermacher's theory just psychologically recognizes the object or text, excluding the participation of translator and believing that translator should stand in the shoes of source-text writer so as to fully understand the true meaning of the original text. As a matter of fact, it is imaginary and impossible for everything has changed so much compared with the situation of source-text-writer doing the creative work. In contrast to Schleiermacher, the father of modern hermeneutics, Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer ontologically pay special attention to the role of translator, especially translator's participation in the recreation of the original text, but this can not solve the dilemma of proper understanding of the source text; George Steiner's hermeneutic translational theory"four steps of hermeneutic motion"is without exception. He considers his"four steps"can solve the complex problem of translation, but factually this mode just paves the way for mistranslation. Consequently, this paper takes Zhu Sheng-hao's Chinese translation of Romeo and Juliet as an example, finding some conscious mistranslation in the translated text and analyzing the reasons of Mr. Zhu's translation strategies. The author points out that the traditionally criticized mistranslation is usually burdened with translator's subjectivity and those seemingly unsuccessful 1anguage transformations turn out to be the reconstructed afterlife of the texts encoded with the special mission of the translator,a rewriting effect in specific historical periods.