Cultural Translation

By Samira Mizani,
MA Translation Studies,
Fars Sience and Research Azad University of Iran

Culture and intercultural competence and awareness that rise out of experience of culture, are far more complex phenomena than it may seem to the translator. The more a translator is aware of complexities of differences between cultures, the better a translator s/he will be. It is probably right to say that there has never been a time when the community of translators was unaware of cultural differences and their significance for translation. Translation theorists have been cognizant of the problems attendant upon cultural knowledge and cultural differences at least since ancient Rome. Cultural knowledge and cultural differences have been a major focus of translator training and translation theory for as long as either has been in existence. The main concern has traditionally been with words and phrases that are so heavily and exclusively grounded in one culture that they are almost impossible to translate into the terms – verbal or otherwise – of another. Long debate have been held over when to paraphrase, when to use the nearest local equivalent, when to coin a new word by translating literally, and when to transcribe. All these “untranslatable” cultural-bound words and phrases continued to fascinate translators and translation theorists.

The first theory developed in this field was introduced by Mounin in 1963 who underlined the importance of the signification of a lexical item claiming that only if this notion is considered will the translated item fulfill its function correctly. The problem with this theory is that all the cultural elements do not involve just the items, what a translator should do in the case of cultural implications which are implied in the background knowledge of SL readers?

The notion of culture is essential to considering the implications for translation and, despite the differences in opinion as to whether language is part of culture or not, the two notions of culture and language appear to be inseparable. In 1964, Nida discussed the problems of correspondence in translation, conferred equal importance to both linguistic and cultural differences between the SL and the TL and concluded that differences between cultures may cause more severe complications for the translator than do differences in language structure. It is further explained that parallels in culture often provide a common understanding despite significant formal shifts in the translation. According to him cultural implications for translation are thus of significant importance as well as lexical concerns.

Nida's definitions of formal and dynamic equivalence in 1964 considers cultural implications for translation. According to him, a "gloss translation" mostly typifies formal equivalence where form and content are reproduced as faithfully as possible and the TL reader is able to "understand as much as he can of the customs, manner of thought, and means of expression" of the SL context. Contrasting with this idea, dynamic equivalence "tries to relate the receptor to modes of behavior relevant within the context of his own culture" without insisting that he "understand the cultural patterns of the source-language context". According to him problems may vary in scope depending on the cultural and linguistic gap between the two (or more) languages concerned.

It can be said that the first concept in cultural translation studies was cultural turn that in 1978 was presaged by the work on Polysystems and translation norms by Even-Zohar and in 1980 by Toury. They dismiss the linguistic kinds of theories of translation and refer to them as having moved from word to text as a unit but not beyond. They themselves go beyond language and focus on the interaction between translation and culture, on the way culture impacts and constraints translation and on the larger issues of context, history and convention. Therefore, the move from translation as a text to translation as culture and politics is what they call it a Cultural Turn in translation studies and became the ground for a metaphor adopted by Bassnett and Lefevere in 1990. In fact Cultural Turn is the metaphor adopted by Cultural Studies oriented translation theories to refer to the analysis of translation in its cultural, political, and ideological context.

Since 1990, the turn has extended to incorporate a whole range of approaches from cultural studies and is a true indicator of the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary translation studies. As the result of this so called Cultural Turn, cultural studies has taken an increasingly keen interest in translation. One consequence of this has been bringing together scholars from different disciplines. It is here important to mention that these cultural theorists have kept their own ideology and agendas that drive their own criticism. These cultural approaches have widened the horizons of translation studies with new insights but at the same there has been a strong element of conflict among them. It is good to mention that the existence of such differences of perspectives is inevitable.

In the mid 1980s Vermeer introduced skopos theory which is a Greek word for ‘aim’ or ‘purpose’. It is entered into translation theory in as a technical term for the purpose of translation and of action of translating. Skopos theory focuses above all on the purpose of translation, which determines the translation method and strategies that are to be employed in order to produce a functionally adequate result. The result is TT, which Vermeer calls translatum. Therefore, knowing why SL is to be translated and what function of TT will be are crucial for the translator.

In 1984, Reiss and Vermeer in their book with the title of ‘Groundwork for a General Theory of Translation’ concentrated on the basic underlying ‘rules’ of this theory which involve: 1- A translatum (or TT) is determined by its skopos, 2- A TT is an offer of information in a target culture and TL considering an offer of information in a source culture and SL. This relates the ST and TT to their function in their respective linguistic and cultural context. The translator is once again the key player in the process of intercultural communication and production of the translatum because of the purpose of the translation.

In 1988 Newmark defined culture as "the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression", thus acknowledging that each language group has its own culturally specific features. He also introduced ‘ Cultural word ’ which the readership is unlikely to understand and the translation strategies for this kind of concept depend on the particular text-type, requirements of the readership and client and importance of the cultural word in the text.

Peter Newmark also categorized the cultural words as follows:

1) Ecology: flora, fauna, hills, winds, plains
2) Material Culture: food, clothes, houses and towns, transport
3) Social Culture: work and leisure
4) Organizations Customs, Activities, Procedures,

Concepts:

• Political and administrative
• Religious
• artistic

5) Gestures and Habits

He introduced contextual factors for translation process which include:

1- Purpose of text
2- Motivation and cultural, technical and linguistic level of readership
3- Importance of referent in SL text
4- Setting (does recognized translation exist?)
5- Recency of word/referent
6- Future or refrent.

He further clearly stated that operationally he does not regard language as a component or feature of culture in direct opposition to the view taken by Vermeer who stated that "language is part of a culture" (1989:222). According to Newmark, Vermeer's stance would imply the impossibility to translate whereas for the latter, translating the source language (SL) into a suitable form of TL is part of the translator's role in transcultural communication.

Language and culture may thus be seen as being closely related and both aspects must be considered for translation. When considering the translation of cultural words and notions, Newmark proposed two opposing methods: transference and componential analysis. According to him transference gives "local colour," keeping cultural names and concepts. Although placing the emphasis on culture, meaningful to initiated readers, he claimed this method may cause problems for the general readership and limit the comprehension of certain aspects. The importance of the translation process in communication led Newmark to propose componential analysis which he described as being "the most accurate translation procedure, which excludes the culture and highlights the message".

Newmark also stated the relevance of componential analysis in translation as a flexible but orderly method of bridging the numerous lexical gaps, both linguistic and cultural, between one language and another:

· Some strategies introduced by Newmark for dealing with cultural gap:

1) Naturalization:
A strategy when a SL word is transferred into TL text in its original form.

2) Couplet or triplet and quadruplet:
Is another technique the translator adopts at the time of transferring, naturalizing or calques to avoid any misunderstanding: according to him it is a number of strategies combine together to handle one problem.

3) Neutralization:
Neutralization is a kind of paraphrase at the level of word. If it is at higher level it would be a paraphrase. When the SL item is generalized (neutralized) it is paraphrased with some culture free words.

4) Descriptive and functional equivalent:
In explanation of source language cultural item there is two elements: one is descriptive and another one would be functional. Descriptive equivalent talks about size, color and composition. The functional equivalent talks about the purpose of the SL cultural-specific word.

5) Explanation as footnote:
The translator may wish to give extra information to the TL reader. He would explain this extra information in a footnote. It may come at the bottom of the page, at the end of chapter or at the end of the book.

6) Cultural equivalent:
The SL cultural word is translated by TL cultural word

7) Compensation:
A technique which is used when confronting a loss of meaning, sound effect, pragmatic effect or metaphor in one part of a text. The word or concept is compensated in other part of the text.

In 1992, Lawrence Venuti mentioned the effective powers controlling translation. He believed that in addition to governments and other politically motivated institutions which may decide to censor or promote certain works, there are groups and social institutions which would include various players in the publication as a whole. These are the publishers and editors who choose the works and commission the translations, pay the translators and often dictate the translation method. They also include the literary agents, marketing and sales teams and reviewers. Each of theses players has a particular position and role within the dominant cultural and political agenda of their time and place. Power play is an important theme for cultural commentators and translation scholars. In both theory and practice of translation, power resides in the deployment of language as an ideological weapon for excluding or including a reader, a value system, a set of beliefs, or even an entire culture.

In 1992, Mona Baker stated that S.L word may express a concept which is totally unknown in the target culture. It can be abstract or concrete. It maybe a religious belief, a social custom or even a type of food. In her book, In Other Words, she argued about the common non-equivalents to which a translator come across while translating from SL into TL, while both languages have their distinguished specific culture. She put them in the following order:

a) Culture specific concepts
b) The SL concept which is not lexicalized in TL
c) The SL word which is semantically complex
d) The source and target languages make different distinction in meaning
e) The TL lacks a super ordinate
f) The TL lacks a specific term (hyponym)
g) Differences in physical or interpersonal perspective
h) Differences in expressive meaning
i) Differences in form
j) Differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms
k) The use of loan words in the source text

Mona Baker also believed that it is necessary for translator to have knowledge about semantics and lexical sets. Because in this case:
S/he would appreciate the “value” of the word in a given system knowledge and the difference of structures in SL and TL. This allows him to assess the value of a given item in a lexical set.
S/he can develop strategies for dealing with non-equivalence semantic field. These techniques are arranged hierarchically from general (superordinate) to specific (hyponym).

In 1992, Coulthard highlightd the importance of defining the ideal reader for whom the author attributes knowledge of certain facts, memory of certain experiences... plus certain opinions, preferences and prejudices and a certain level of linguistic competence. When considering such aspects, the extent to which the author may be influenced by such notions which depend on his own sense of belonging to a specific socio-cultural group should not be forgotten.

Coulthard stated that once the ideal ST readership has been determined, considerations must be made concerning the TT. He said that the translator's first and major difficulty is the construction of a new ideal reader who, even if he has the same academic, professional and intellectual level as the original reader, will have significantly different textual expectations and cultural knowledge.

In the case of the extract translated here, it is debatable whether the ideal TT reader has "significantly different textual expectations," however his cultural knowledge will almost certainly vary considerably.

Applied to the criteria used to determine the ideal ST reader it may be noted that few conditions are successfully met by the potential ideal TT reader. Indeed, the historical and cultural facts are unlikely to be known in detail along with the specific cultural situations described. Furthermore, despite considering the level of linguistic competence to be roughly equal for the ST and TT reader, certain differences may possibly be noted in response to the use of culturally specific lexis which must be considered when translating.
Although certain opinions, preferences and prejudices may be instinctively transposed by the TT reader who may liken them to his own experience, it must be remembered that these do not match the social situation experience of the ST reader. Therefore, Coulthard mainly stated that the core social and cultural aspects remain problematic when considering the cultural implications for translation.