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4.2 Unintentional Cultural Mistranslation and Intentional Cultural Mistranslation
Cultural mistranslation, greatly different from technological mistranslation in characteristics, can be defined as a kind of translation defect which we can not see from the superficial meaning but is particularly imperfect only when cultural background or broader context issue has to be highlighted. It is apparently seen from these that cultural mistranslation is not the mistake in its real sense, but strictly speaking, it should be counted as a kind of cultural regrets or defects, that is to say, it refers to the imperfection of the translated works. Cultural mistranslation can further fall into two kinds in accordance with the subjective purposes of the translator, namely unintentional and intentional cultural mistranslation.
4.2.1 Unintentional Cultural Mistranslation
The origin of mistranslation can be viewed from different perspectives. First, from the perspective of linguistic study, unlike the ordinary reader the translator decodes the source text in order to re-encode the new one. A correct interpretation of the source message may rest upon a due understanding of the relevant facts or features of the source culture. Only when the translators have a correct and proper understanding of the source text can translators avoid cultural mistranslation. However, most of the translation errors come not from the patterns of the complex grammar but from misunderstanding of the source culture. The source text may not be as easy to read as we expect even if we learn the vocabulary and grammar of that language, especially when we read a literary text which is always embedded with unfamiliar cultural messages. Accordingly, although the linguistic approach to mistranslation cart be of value to language research and teaching, it could hardly account for mistranslation caused by cross-cultural gaps.
Second, in hermeneutic viewpoint, various pre-understanding knowledge of human’s mind determines that each inpidual has a unique interpretation toward a certain text. That is especially true of translators, whose pre-understanding perges widely because of being nourished by cultural difference from the original one. Modem literary hermeneutics holds that fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception constitute pre-understanding in human’s mind, which substantially affect their interpretation of facts and events in the text. Study from this perspective may give us a detailed knowledge of living period, personal experience and personality of the translator. However, it is not the aim of translation and it is impossible to set up a database for all the translators around the world.
By contrast, cultural approach to unintentional cultural mistranslation is more convincing than that of linguistic approach and hermeneutic approach, for the notion that culture is much like an encyclopedia that covers a wide range of information. First, it is obvious that understanding the cultural differentiation and cultural similarities is of vital importance. It is cultural similarities that provide a basis for mutual understanding, which, in turn, makes translation and cultural exchange possible. Without knowing the differences between the two cultures it would be impossible to have a correct understanding of texts from another culture, let alone achieve an efficient equivalence through the medium of translation. These differences result in many difficulties in translation and discussions on the methods used to translate texts in different cultural backgrounds. Therefore the original text, as a result of the SL culture, is inevitably labeled as the mark of the culture, making it hard to be rendered from SL to TL. Besides, the translator always finds it difficult to exactly translate the text at the same time and fully convey the cultural meaning within it just as in the original. Second, it is the cultural presuppositions held by translators, sharply different from the original writers, which negatively affects their correct decoding of the original cultural message. Cultural presuppositions, in the present study, refer to those underlying assumptions, beliefs and ideas that are culturally rooted, widespread but rarely if ever described, because they seem as basic and obvious as not to require verbal formulation. It stands to reason that original writers and readers share cultural presupposition in common, so original reader can, as the writer expected, not only understand the original meaning, but also appreciate the special flavor through the writer’s verbal expression. However, the translator, first as the target reader, could not necessarily understand all the presuppositions of the source culture.