BECOMING A

TRANSLATOR
Chapter 10: CULTURES

Michael Bishop Juan Bravo Andrs Guineo Natalia Orellana

Cultural knowledge
Problems
regarding
cultural
knowledge and cultural differences
Realia
The more aware the translator can
become of these complexities, the
better a translator will be.

Realia
Culture-specific
words and
phrases which
are often difficult,
if not impossible
to translate into
another target
language.
They have no
exact equivalents
in other
languages.

Some bad translations in

marketing
Scandinavian
company
Electrolux tried to
sell vacuum
cleaners in the U.S.

Olympia office products attempted to sell

its ROTO photocopiers in Chile.
*ROTO = Broken / Chilean lower class

Some bad translations in

marketing
An American T-shirt maker in
Miami printed shirts for the
Spanish market promoting the
Popes visit.
I
saw theintroduced
Pope = I
saw the
Colgate
a toothpaste
in
potato
France called Cue, the name of a
porno magazine.

What is culture?
Where does one culture stops
and another begins?
If a text can adequately be transferred
without translation, there is cultural
continuity.
If a text has been translated, it represents
distance between at least two cultures.

 Texts move in space or in time.

Cultural difference is a function of the
distance they move, the distance from
the place or time in which they are
written to the place or time in which
they are read.

Self-projection into de
foreign language
(abduction)

We often think we understand a text from

a quite different culture, simply because it
is written in a language we understand.
We should be very careful about trusting
our intuitions or "abductions" about
cultural knowledge and cultural difference.

Self-projection into de
foreign language
(abduction)
The happy universalism of liberal humanist
thought, according to which so that
anything that can be said in one language
can be said in another, has come under
heavy attack.
That universalism is increasingly seen as
an illusion to force subjected cultures to
conform to centralized norms.

Self-projection into de
foreign language
(abduction)

The effect of this consciousness-raising

has been to build suspicion into cultural
intution into "abductive" leaps about
what this or that word or phrase or text
means.
"A first-world translator should never
assume his or her intuitions are right
about the meaning of a third-world text."

Self-projection into de
foreign language
(abduction)

Professional translators must be willing to

proceed without clear signposts, working
as ethically and as responsibly as they
know how, but never quite knowing where
the boundaries of ethical and responsible
action lie.

Discussion
A first-world translator should never
assume his or her intuitions are right
about the meaning of a third-world
text" or a male translator about a
text written by a women, etc.
What is your "take" on this
statement? Do you agree or disagree?

Immersion in cultures
(induction)
What is it?
How is the process?
Why is it so
difficult?
Examples

Discussion
Have you ever lived in another
country?
How has it been your experience?

Intercultural Awareness
ICC studies of communication across cultural
boundaries and Bennett model of ethnocentric
and ethnorelative stages:

Translation included in the Bennet model:

Intercultural Awareness

ICC worries about being successfully adapted

or acculturated into a foreign culture,
translations deals further by acting as
mediator between cultures from a fully
integrated position.
ICC problems portray the focus of translation
studies: how translations are influenced by
different factors.

Intercutural Awareness
Descriptive theory: target language always
shapes translation.
Studies have turn from descriptive to
culture-orientated approaches.
Feminist and post-colonial approaches and
their
methodological
differences
and
criticism of descriptive theory:
1

feminist writing style

criticism at the descriptive theory

Intercultural Awareness
Post-colonial
approach:
Jacquemond
comparison
on
hegemonic
cultures
controlling dominated cultures translations:
1
2

dominated culture translate far more of a hegemonic culture

translations of works produced by the dominated culture will be perceived
and presented as difficult: criticsm towards Obama for reading Fareed
Zakarias book
3
hegemonic culture will only translate works by authors in a
dominated culture that fit hegemonic culture's preconceived notions of it
4
authors in a dominated culture will conform to stereotypes of hegemonic
cultures in order to reach a larger audience

Feminist approach resists power structures; postcolonial, analyses them.

Intercultural Awareness
Scenarios depicting the two approaches of translation:
1
God creating translation: descriptive apporach as fixed, based, and
standarized work = hegemony dressed up as universality.
2
Translation as a merchantil product: cultural turn on translation as
processes meeting clients needs, not universal norms.