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IV. Mistranslation and Cultural Mistranslation
Translators at home and abroad are all aware that the version should be faithful to the original one. To be more detail, the translation should have the ease of the original composition: the translation should present a complete transcript of the original ideas, and the style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of the original. In respond to this, every translator has made no effort spared out to make a single mistake in the process of translating. But this is extremely hard and nearly impossible. Incompetent translators may commit errors now and then, even the outstanding masters of translation will do once in a while.
According to the traditional translation criterion of “faithfulness”, any treason or mutation in translation could be taken as mistranslation. It usually takes forms like amplification, omission and distortion of the original image or meaning. In the contemporary translation studies, translation tends to be viewed more as all act of communication than as a process of transcoding. As a means of interlingual and cross-cultural communication, translation is not only the process of conversion from one language to another, but also a process of cultural transplantation, so the difference between culture causes great difficulty in translating activity, and in this sense, cultural mistranslation is in unavoidable existence in the translation. Then what does cultural mistranslation refer to? We should make clear the definition of “cultural translation” first. Koller defines “cultural translation” as follows:
“A term used informally to refer to types of translation which function as a tool for cross-cultural or anthropological research, or indeed to any translation which is sensitive to cultural as well as linguistic factors.[…] Thus a translator who uses a cultural approach is simply recognizing that each language contains elements which are derived from its culture, that every text is anchored in a specific culture, and that conventions of text production and reception vary from culture to culture.” (Shuttleworth & Cowie 35)
In Koller’s definition, cultural translation refers to any translation with certain relatedness with cultural and linguistic factors. Because every text is embedded in its specific network of cultural environment, any translation can’t be porced its cultural environment, therefore, from the perspective of cultural approach to translation, any translation could be approached as cultural translation, and we can conclude that cultural mistranslation is a more accurate name for mistranslation in contemporary translation studies. Cultural mistranslation indicates mistranslation that carries cultural significance, or mistranslation in cultural areas such as value, customary behavior, religion, idiom, convention, etc.
4.1 Sources of Cultural Mistranslation
It’s universally acknowledged that mankind was by nature destined to speak many different languages and this fact could find no remedies either by international convention of languages or coercive language policy measures. This multilingual character is responsible for inevitability of mistranslation. Nevertheless, scholars hold different opinions on the sources of mistranslation, for language has hierarchies that are hard to interpret by a single statement. Just as Ernst-August Gutt claims: “The causes of failure in translation are varied, ranging from misunderstanding of the original to insufficient mastery of the receptor language.” we all know that translation process consists of understanding source language and expressing in the target thereby, cultural mistranslation could result from the incorrect understanding of the source text and inappropriate expressing in the target language. In this sense, cultural mistranslation is distinguished from translation error which is generated out of carelessness or irresponsibility on the part of the translator.