How Is a Pseudo-Translation Manipulated? A Critical Look at the Production of Carl Weter’s Educational Law

Translation studies as an independent discipline is only a matter of not more than 50 years. It is interesting that the so-called "cultural turn" has pointed our attention towards the multitude of factors that govern the production of translation as both product and process. One of the pioneers in opening up the new path is Toury, whose concept of assumed translation provides a theoretical basis, on which pseudo-translations can be investigated. Therefore, contextualising certain translational phenomena can make us see the interdependencies of function, process and product of pseudo-translation production. The pseudo-translation Carl Weter's Educational Law is examined within such a framework. And the result shows that the reading and reception of such a pseudo-translation reveals the model of Chinese readers' reception and production of translation, that is, its emergence is a result of the pseudo-translator manipulating the cultural mechanism to make the biggest economic profit.