PROBLEMS OF TRANSLATING

CULTURAL TERMINOLOGY
Dr. Vijayakumaran.C.P.V.
Dept. of Hindi
Central University of Kerala
Kasaragod 671123.
Moblile +91 9946678552, Email> hindi.vijay@gmail.com
Cultural Issues in Translation
Translation is recognised as an act of culture-specific
communication. A translator is the first
reader of the other culture as is shown in the foreign
language text and, consequently, has to present the other
in a primary process. For him learning to translate means
learning to read, i.e. to produce meanings which are
acceptable for the cultural community the reader belongs
to. Each translated text for a target public that has no
access to the original, is the source for a different and new
way of reading, which implies a major responsibility
for the translator.
Cultural Issues in Translation
The translator will have to bridge the gap, small or
large, between two cultures. Culture is to be
understood not only in the narrower sense of mans
advanced intellectual development as reflected in the
arts, but also in the broader anthropological sense of
all socially conditioned aspects of human life, as a
totality of knowledge, proficiency and perception.
Culture has thus to do with common factual
knowledge, usually including political institutions,
education, history and current affairs as well as
religion and customs.
Cultural Issues in Translation
Since translation is recognised as an act of culture-specific
communication, a translator is the first reader of the other
culture as is shown in the foreign language text and he is
expected to present the other in a primary process. It
should be also mentioned that for the translator learning to
translate means learning to read, i.e. to produce meanings
which are acceptable for the cultural community the reader
belongs to.
.........................................................
Wolf, M. (1997). Translation as a process of power: Aspects of cultural
anthropology in translation, in: Snell-Hornby, M.Jettmarova, Z. Kaindl, K.
(ed.), Translation as Intercultural Communication, John Benjamins
Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 128.
Cultural Issues Translators
compilation
Translator is to comply with cultural issues, i.e. to
decide which issues take priority: the cultural aspects
of the source language community, the cultural aspects
of the target language community, or perhaps a
combination of the two, a compromise between two
or more cultures?
The choice of cultural strategy may result in source-
culture bound translation (the translation stays within
the source language culture so called foreignisation),
target-culture bound translation (the translation stays
within the target language culture so called
domestication) or in a hybrid, where the translation is
a product of a compromise between two or more
cultures
Cultural Issues Translators
compilation
Even though the concept of hybrid texts
applies mainly to political texts or legal
documents, some of its aspects refer also to
the majority of literary texts which come to
existence as a compromise between various
cultures and are arrived at as an outcome of
negotiations between different languages and
cultures and may involve features which are
contradictory to target language and target
culture norms
Cultural Issues Translators
compilation
TEXT



HYBRID

TRANSLATORS
CHOICE
SOURCE
BOUND
TARGET
BOUND
Translating Names

In non-Roman scripts (Arabic, Russian, etc.) transliteration may be used
either as a creative transliteration (often seen in people's names) or as a
standard transliteration, each usually bringing the name into line with TL
patterns of pronunciation and spelling; such as MOCKABU, becoming
Moscow (Russian > English), our cultural equivalent. Other examples of
cultural equivalents include:
Spanish Zaragoza but English Saragossa;
Luik, Lige, Liegi, and Lttich in Flemish, French, Italian, and German;
Aachen, Aix-la-Chapelle, Aquisgrn in German, French, and Spanish;
The Channel, la Manche, el Canal de la Mancha, der [rmel]kanal in
English, French, Spanish, and German
Saint Jean, St Johannes, San Juan, S. Giovanni in French, German, Spanish,
and Italian;
the UN, UNO or ONU in English, French, and Spanish; and
the French homophones Dupont et Dupond become English Thomson &
Thompson (French to English homophones).

Translating Names
Transliteration

The translator may find that a cultural
transliteration rather than a cultural equivalent
provides an optimal translation. For example, in a
spy novel, a translator from Polish into English
may have a handsome Russian people-smuggler
use 'Varsovia' in speech thereby emphasizing his
exoticism in both source and target culture,
whilst the Polish heroine might use 'Warsaw' to
signal her familiarity with the place in which the
novel is set.
Translating Names
Personal names.
The same considerations apply to personal
names. Consider culturally TL-biased solutions
for the translation of the name 'Joe Bloggs' in
one of your second languages. Given your
choice of names, what are the implications if
Joe is a supporter of Arsenal, and likes pie,
mash, and mushy peas? Names may be
translated with SL or TL bias. The decision
depends on the degree to which the translator
wishes to signal the exoticism of characters.
Translating Names
Personal names.
In fact, when a TT is viewed as a product, its
SL-TL bias can be assessed on the following
scale:

Exoticism

Exoticism is an extreme form of SL bias. It imports linguistic and
cultural features into the TL from the SL, with minimal adaptation
so the TT signals the source culture and its strangeness (for
example, the literal TT of the stock Chinese conversation considered
in Tool Box 1 put in link to relevant section): this in itself may be an
attraction. This technique is often favoured in the translation of
Chinese and Arabic poetry, or Icelandic sagas; some terms may
need to be explained to the reader either exegetically, in a glossary
or footnotes:
I went from Irak to Damascus with its green water-courses, in the
day when I had troops of fine-bred horses and was the owner of
coveted wealth and resources, free to divert myself, as I
chose, and flown with the pride of him whose fullness overflows.

(ST: Arabic verse maqamat)
Cultural Transportation

Cultural transportation is the wholesale transplantation of the plot into a
different setting, and extreme forms are more like adaptations. For
example, Oscar Hammerstein's 1943 musical Carmen Jones (with a 1954
film adaptation by Oscar Preminger; for a review,
see http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviews2/carmenjones.html) is an
American transplantation of Georges Bizet's 1875
opera Carmen (seehttp://www.essentialsofmusic.com/composer/bizet.ht
ml), which is a reworking of Prosper Mrime's novel (1845-46), which
Carlos Saura has also adapted as a flamenco dance film (1983). Another
example is Edmond Rostand's play 1897 Cyrano de Bergerac, which was
remade as the film Roxanne (1987) with Steve Martin and Darryl Hannah
(http://www.fast-rewind.com; search for Roxanne), or the intralingual
adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet as the musical West Side
Story (1961) by Leonard Berstein and Stephen Sondheim
(see http://www.westsidestory.com). There are many other examples,
whose success and relationship to their source culture you might like to
consider.
Cultural Borrowing

Cultural Borrowing is the transferral of a culturally-alien ST
expression into TT or its introduction in a minimally modified form.
It is often used when it proves impossible to find suitable
expression, such as an established borrowing, in the TL. Where a
cultural borrowing is used, the term is usually taken over from the
ST, adapted to TL spelling norms, and often italicized; importantly,
its meaning must be clear from the context in which it is used or an
exegetical explanation may be supplied. Note that successful
cultural borrowings often become established:
guerrilla, bourgeois, raison d'tre, joie de vivre, savoir-faire,
matador, schnapps, totem, rodeo, bonanza, chiaroscuro, andante
sostenuto, pizza, kindergartenA recent example is Japanese manga,
and as of 2004 (for the first time) even main stream book and
record stores have manga sections: check it out using a search
engine.

Communicative Translation

Communicative translation is often mandatory
for culturally conventional formulae. This is
particularly true where a literal ST expression is
inappropriate; and it is the usual method for
proverbs, idioms, and clichs. Where a
communicative cultural equivalent exists, it is
probably the optimal solution:
One swallow doesn't make a summerFrench:Une
hirondelle ne fait pas le printempsSpanish:Una
golondrina no hace verano.
Communicative Translation

The approach taken by a translator depends in part on
the ST which he or she is translating, and his or her
overall strategy, with regards to the sliding scale of SL-
TL bias. In this ST, the children wake up on the first day
of the school holidays to discover that is raining. To
console them, their mother observes:
ST: Nem baj! Reggeli vendg nem maradand.
TT1:No problem! The morning guest never stays long.
TT2:Never mind. Sun before seven, rain before eleven.
TT3:Never mind! It'll soon stop raining.
Communicative Translation

TT1 is a literal translation. It has the advantage of
conveying some exoticism but it is obscure and lacks
conceptual precision. A translator might prefer TT1
because some idea in the proverb ties in with an
important theme within the whole work; such as the
length of stay of guests (literal or otherwise) or
because it reinforces the characterization of the
mother as a somewhat folksy individual, given to using
proverbs. To make the literal rendering more
acceptable the translator may preface the literal TT of
the proverb with a phrase like, 'As the saying goes...' or
'You know what they say...'. None the less, the literal
rendering is an example of calque.
Calque

Calque respects SL syntax, but has the disadvantage of
often being unidiomatic in TL. Like successful cultural
borrowing, calque can become widely accepted in the
TL as fossilized calque. For example:
Flyweight peso mosca E > Sp/It
Weltanschauung world-view G > E
Kindergarten jardin d'enfants
jardn de infancia
giardino d'infanzia G> F, Sp, I
Angst in den Hosen Ants in the pants G > E
White House la Casa Bianca E > I
Calque

Where calque is unsuccessful it is extremely unidiomatic,
and can cause unwanted humour (think about all those
menus you may have seen in restaurants or instruction
manuals). It is often interpreted as indicating the lack of TL
expertise of the translator. The following example comes
for an Avianca airlines brochure (the spelling was also in
the TT):
Very sure you have read One Hundred Years of Solitude,
that famus novel by the Colombian Garca Mrquez, where
girls fly and the deads keep up tied to the trees or stroll
throgh the old mansions.
Well then, you already have an aproximate idea about this
misterious country.
http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/call/translation/toolkit/4/