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Cultural references in translation: A framework for quantitative translation analysis
Abstract
Research into the translation of cultural references (CRs) often focuses on the analysis of selected CR translations or particular lexical sub-fields such as proper names or geographical terms. In most cases the procedures the translator has used are described and labeled, then critically evaluated and/or used to identify ‘foreignization’ or ‘domestication’ tendencies in the translator's approach to handling the cultural load of a text. This article argues that selective analysis of this kind may give undue weight to the selected examples or lexical sub-fields while ignoring other items. The article will therefore put forward that the validity of studies, especially those featuring a comparative element, could be enhanced by complementing selective and focused approaches with more comprehensive quantitative data. An empirical study which explored CR translation from a quantitative perspective will be described as an example to suggest a framework of quantitative analysis in CR translation and issues arising from the study will be discussed.
... Besides, this boundary crossing was also found from the combination of different taxonomies in some studies, which could also enlarged the applicability for different genres. For instance, Marco's (2004/2019), Aixelá's (1996 and Liang's (2007Liang's ( /2016) taxonomies were initially applied in literary texts while Olk's (2013) taxonomy was in newspaper. The combination of taxonomies among Aixelá (1996), Davies (2003), Liang (2007/2016), Marco (2004/2019), Newmark (1988 and Olk (2013) was applied into tourism text (Lin, 2021). ...
... For instance, Marco's (2004/2019), Aixelá's (1996 and Liang's (2007Liang's ( /2016) taxonomies were initially applied in literary texts while Olk's (2013) taxonomy was in newspaper. The combination of taxonomies among Aixelá (1996), Davies (2003), Liang (2007/2016), Marco (2004/2019), Newmark (1988 and Olk (2013) was applied into tourism text (Lin, 2021). The combined taxonomy adopted the required strategies and was applied in tourism text. ...
... This reflected that the existing taxonomy cannot fully solve the translation of CRs in one study. This is accord to what Olk (2013) discussed that no one-size-fits-all taxonomy in CRs translation is found and there is a necessary for each study to adjust previous taxonomies to make sure the fit adequately for the certain translation. ...
Cultural references refer to the lexical items that are absent in the target culture or deviate from equivalents in
denotative or connotative meaning. Translating cultural references poses challenges for translators since these
references are gaps in specific target culture. This systematic review aims to examine what strategies are adopted
on translating cultural references in different genres. Web of Science and Scopus databases were selected. Source
(articles) published up to the 31 October 2021 were included. The genres were categorized into literary texts,
audiovisual translation and Others, such as newspapers and tourism texts translation. 72 studies were identified
with the help of Page et al.’s (2021) PRISMA flow diagram. The review revealed that: (1) More studies focused
on literary texts while non-literary translation is relatively less; (2) The application of taxonomies of translation
strategies on cultural references had crossed the boundaries of genres but confined into two genres; (3) There
was no one-size-fits-all classification for translating cultural reference; (4) The taxonomies mostly followed the
trend from foreignization to domestication. In conclusion, more studies of translation strategies on cultural
references are required from non-literary genres and the consolidated strategy taxonomy is needed to solve the
specific problem. This review study could help the translators and scholars to have a better understanding of the
translation strategies on cultural references.
... These challenges arise from the different cultural landscapes of the source language (SL) and the target language (TL), as well as the bicultural competence of translator trainees. Scholars have explored the issue of culture from different perspectives, such as cultural studies, discourse analysis, contrastive analysis, and translation studies [1][2][3][4] Given the extent and complexity of culture, this study focuses specifically on a singular aspect of translation-cultural references. These references encompass words and phrases in the source culture that do not have equivalents in the target culture, thereby having different denotations or connotations in the two contexts. ...
... These references have distinct denotations (literal meanings) or connotations (emotional responses) that may lack equivalents in the target culture. Scholars have used terms such as 'cultural terms' [1], 'culture-specific idioms' [2], 'cultural references' [4], and recently, 'cultural elements' [38]. ...
... Authors [39], Author [35] and Olk [4] investigated the cultural issue in terms of translators' behaviors in translation production. These studies focused on a translation product, and they ascribed the obstacles that the student translators experienced to the behaviors of the latter during the translation process. ...
Cultural translations of L1 and L2, in both directions, can indicate different behaviors of translators, influenced by the unique characteristics of each culture and the proficiency of the translator trainees' bicultural competence. This study compares translator trainees' behaviors when engaged in direct translation (L2 to L1) and inverse translation (L1 to L2) of cultural references to reveal the extent to which directionality influences trainees' actual and perceived behaviors. Following a hypothesis-based observational design, the authors examine a single group's behaviors under two conditions (direct translation and inverse translation), using Translog-II and a questionnaire. The data are analyzed quantitatively using the Wilcoxon test and descriptive statistics. The key findings indicate that inverse translation demands more cognitive effort than direct translation, particularly in online revision (n = 16, z =-3.206, p < .05) and production speed (n = 16, z =-3.068, p < .05). Conversely , direct translation requires more cognitive effort, especially in orientation time (n = 16, z =-2.482, p < .05) and performance (n = 16, z =-3.346, p < .05). Additionally, the stu-dents' responses to the questionnaire reveal a tendency to rely more on online resources than on internal translation strategies. The authors suggest that translation students should receive training in both translation directions, effective management of the translation process , appropriate utilization of translation strategies, and cultural competence. These components should be integrated into translation training courses and instructional methods.
... Термин је сковао Франко Ајшала да означи елементе у тексту који због своје функције или конотације могу да представљају преводилачки проблем, зато што појава на коју упућују или не постоји у циљној култури или има другачији интертекстуални статус у културном систему читалаца из циљне културе (Aixelá 1996: 58). Поред овог термина, у науци о превођењу у оптицају су бројни други термини којима се означава овај феномен као што су: реалије -realia (Grit 2010), културолошке речи -cultural words (Nemark 1988), културолошке референце -cultural references (Olk 2013), елементи културе који се не поклапају (Ivir, 1978), културеме -cultureme (Katan 2009). Поред тога, постоје и различите дефиниције и класификације како самих елемената, тако и преводилачких стратегија и поступака које преводиоцима стоје на располагању. ...
... Упоредном анализом дефиниција (Olk 2013, Grit 2010, Хлебец 2009, Aixelá 1996, Newmark 1988, Ivir 1978 издвојиле су се следеће одлике КСЕ: у питању су елементи у језику односно тексту којима се упућује на појаве, објекте, појмове или концепте који су специфични за одређену језичку и културолошку заједницу, док су у другој заједници страни, односно имају другачији статус или функцију. Као последица тога, друга језичка заједница нема развијена језичка средства за изражавање ових елемената културе (Ivir 1978:64), односно лексички еквиваленти које има на располагању значајно се разликују у денотативном или конотативном значењу (Olk 2013: 30). ...
... То нас доводи до кључне одлике ових елемената: КСЕ представљају преводилачки проблем односно њихово преношење у тексту на циљном језику је отежано. Друга значајна одлика ових елемената је њихова динамичност (Olk 2013, Aixelá 1996 што значи да могу да представљају преводилачки проблем у одређеној текстуалној ситуацији или у одређеном временском периоду. Тако се нпр. ...
Tourist discourse is drawing the interest of researchers lately who consider it to be a specialized genre with its unique syntactic, lexical, and textual features. One of the main characteristics of this particular type of text is the abundant presence of cultural specific items (CSI). The function of CSI’s in tourist texts is to introduce geographical, historical, or social aspects of a foreign culture to the readers. Since those items are unfamiliar to the target audience and the target language lacks lexical means to express particular objects or concepts, transference of those items into a foreign language may cause problems.
This paper presents the results of the quantitative and qualitative analysis carried out on the descriptions of the Low Countries as tourist destinations collected from the websites of Serbian tourist agencies. The aim of the study is to examine how CSI’s from the two cultures are transferred in the aforementioned texts. The main focus of the study will be on the correlation between the dominant communicative functions in the tourist texts on the one hand and the CSI transference methods adopted by the authors of the texts on the other. Among others, the following questions shall be explored: To which semantic domains are the CSI’s identified in the texts related to? How are the CSI’s transferred? Is there are a correlation between the semantic domain of the CSI and the adopted transference method? To what extent is the referential function of CSI’s preserved?
Considering the fact that the contacts between Serbia and the Low Countries have long been mediated by German and French in the past and English in the present, the analysis has revealed inconsistencies in the transference of CSI’s. Therefore we are hoping that this study will give some guidelines for transferring CSI’s from the Dutch and Flemish cultures in the future.
... Nevertheless, most taxonomies follow a similar trend of either preserving ST's features or adapting them to the target languages (Davies, 2003, p. 70 cited in Brewster, 2014. In other words, the classification of strategies is ordered along the domestication/foreignization continuum (Venuti, 1995(Venuti, , 2008, the exoticizing/naturalizing/adaptation scale (Olk, 2013), or follows a source/target text orientation (Ramière, 2016, p. 3). ...
... As earlier mentioned, the concepts of foreignization and domestication refer to Lawrence Venuti's (1995Venuti's ( , 2008 theoretical model by which translated texts are thought to convey an inclination to either the target/source culture or assume a neutralized position (Olk, 2013;Marco, 2019) in translation. These orientations of translation strategies serve to accentuate, neutralize, or substitute the cultural referent, as exemplified by the various functions of CSIs projected to the (prospective) tourists. ...
This study investigated how culture-specific items in Chinese-English food menus were translated. The Chinese menu corpus was examined using a descriptive case study method for qualitative analysis and a corpus-based method for relevant data extraction and quantitative analysis. The study aimed to identify the categories of culture-specific items (CSIs) in the corpus and also examine whether, and if so, how CSI categories condition the choice of translation procedures and its influence exerted at the macro macro-level on the image of China, projected as a tourist destination. The results indicated that CSIs categories existent in the corpus include the linguistics, historical, and social categories. These categories were also a conditioning factor modulating the selection and use of a particular translation procedure. The linguistic CSI category influenced the employment of description procedures; retention was largely used for the social category, whereas retention and description procedures were utilized for the historical category. Employing Lawrence Venuti’s domestication and foreignization strategies and the neutralization strategy of some scholars (e.g. Josep Marco) as a conceptual framework, the results also revealed a strong preference for the use of neutralization strategy in translating CSIs where the strangeness of the source text is demystified, their connotative meanings explicitly rendered, thereby projecting China as a friendly, welcoming, and accommodating destination for tourists. The quantitative methodology employed to analyze the translation of CSIs in the menu text is a crucial contribution that counterbalances the predominant qualitative methods employed in the field.
... Similarly, Olk (2013), based on the exoticizing/naturalizing scale, presented a seven-category classification: "transference, transference + explicitation, transference + explanation, target language expression," alluding to source language culture (SLC). In contrast, "neutral explanation, omission, and substitution" by an equivalent cultural equivalent allude to a target language culture (TLC). ...
... Neutralization, in any case, requires the removal of the culture-related item in its entirety (Olk, 2013). ...
This study investigated how culture-specific items (CSIs) are translated in the Chinese-English food menu corpus. This overarching aim was divided into two specific objectives: identifying which procedures prevail in translating cultural items and determining what factors impinge on the selection of specific procedures. The analysis of the corpus was done descriptively and by utilizing “Sketch Engine.” The theoretical issues addressed in the study included the scope and definition of CSI, the categorization of procedures presented in the data for CSI translation, and the place of food items within the category of CSI. Results of the study indicated that neutralizing strategy is employed more than foreignizing and domesticating strategies, with the latter being last in descending order. The major factors identified were metonymical/metaphorical use of the CSI, brand, polysemous nature of source CSI, degree of cultural markedness, and false relationship of the ST item with the TT item. Correlations between some factors and procedures were moderately strong as their values were above 50 out of the ideal value (100). However, other correlations were weak and therefore requires further investigation.
... Frank provided not a full-fledged classification like the above, but a sort of minimalist threefold distinction (2009, p. 9): 'Faced with cultural markers, the translator has the choice to leave them intact, to give equivalents, or to provide neutral terms. ' Olk (2013) provided a classification including seven categories: transference, transference + explicitation, transference + explanation, target-language expression referring to the source culture, neutral explanation, omission, and substitution of a cultural reference by a cultural equivalent. These categories were ranked on an exoticising/naturalising scale. ...
... replacement with a more general or more particular item, even though the latter option is not frequent). At any rate, neutralisation entails deletion of the culture-related item as such (as remarked by Olk, 2013); (d) amplification/compression: a certain amount of information is added or omitted in the TT when compared to the source (even though compression will probably be rare); (e) intracultural adaptation, in which the ST culture-related item is replaced by another item also belonging to the source culture but more familiar to TT readers. It could be argued that this technique should be placed closer to the foreignising end of the scale, as it implies using a source CSI. ...
This article aims to analyse the translation of food-related culture-specific items (CSI) in the English–Catalan subcorpus of the Valencian Corpus of Translated Literature (COVALT). This general aim can be broken down into two specific aims: to find out what techniques prevail in the translation of these cultural items, and to determine what factors influence the choice of specific techniques. Corpus analysis is carried out by means of the Corpus Query Processor. The theoretical framework deals with the definition and scope of the concept of CSI, the classifications of techniques put forward in the literature for the translation of CSI, and the position of food- and drink-related elements within the broader category of CSI. Analysis of the results yielded by the corpus shows that neutralising techniques prevail over foreignising and domesticating ones, with the latter coming last in descending order. The most prominent factors identified are non-existence of the source text (ST) item in the target culture, different degrees of institutionalisation, the ST item having been imported into the target culture, and different degrees of granularity. Correlations between techniques and factors are never very strong, but some are strong enough to deserve further attention.
... A number of translation scholars have addressed the problems and challenges of translating CRs; among those are: Ivir (1987), Newmark (1988), Baker (1992), Mailhac (1996) and Koller (2004). However, particular studies have confirmed that there is a prevailing inconsistency among translation scholars in the way they have treated CRs within a particular text (Davies, 2003;Desmet, 1999;Olk, 2013). In the case of translating CRs, it is claimed that the task of the translator is not to explain, uncover or clarify the intended meaning of the CRs, but rather to offer a certain detail that would enable the target reader to realize and recognize the function of the CRs concerned, even if he/she does not comprehend the semantic sense thereof (Saldanha, 2008). ...
The present paper explores all the cultural references (CRs) and sensitive elements (SEs) found in the English and Arabic subtitles of the two films available on Netflix, entitled: “عسل أسود” (Bittersweet) and “Holidate,” examining the subtitling strategies adopted for translating them and analyzing the translation issues associated with their translations. The paper uses a mixed method, conducting both quantitative and qualitative analyses. The paper claims that different CRs and SEs found in the two films under study have been translated, using diverse subtitling strategies. Their translations in both the two films have caused translation loss, particularly in the cultural references attached thereto. Such loss is mainly due to the inappropriate use of the subtitling strategies adopted for the translation of CRs and SEs. Certain translations of CRs and SEs are justifiable due to different factors, such as multimodality, time and space restrictions, cultural religious sensitivity, translator ethics, and so on.
... Bowker's (2023) research emphasizes the importance of translators having comprehensive linguistic and cultural expertise. Social culture, comprising people's traditions, customs, and habits, is considered a major component of most cultural classifications (Ghazala, 2020;Ivir, 1987;Newmark, 1988;Olk, 2013). However, the task of translating social CRs can be challenging if there are no equivalent expressions in the TL, leading to "social voids" in the rendering. ...
Culture, a multifaceted concept, embodies the diverse aspects of human life, differing markedly across communities. Each community is distinguished by unique characteristics that collectively define its cultural identity. This diversity presents translators with considerable challenges, particularly when it comes to translating cultural references (CRs). An adequate translation requires an in-depth comprehension of the source culture’s nuances to accurately represent them within the target culture. It also necessitates not only a linguistic translation but also a cultural transposition, where the essence of one culture is thoughtfully conveyed to another, preserving its original meaning and context. The current research therefore aimed to investigate the various factors that present cultural barriers in terms of the translation of CRs from English to Arabic and vice versa. To achieve this, it employed an integrated approach made up of hermeneutics, translation equivalence, textual analysis, and functionality, allowing analysis of all aspects of the text. The findings demonstrate the importance of thorough text analysis that encompasses both intratextual and extratextual elements, alongside interpretation of the text within its primary context. It was also noted that CRs in English and Arabic pose challenges for translators in terms of both comprehension and production: such challenges include the existence of forms that may not readily enable translators to deduce meanings and difficulties in conveying English concepts accurately into Arabic. To overcome these hurdles, the study thus recommends the adoption of an integrated approach to culture-based texts to ensure that the internal and external features of the source text are captured in the target text.
... At the syntactic level, the analysis reveals that the translation typically follows the structure of the source text in sentences with simpler constructs, while complex sentences . ; Carrasco Piecychna, 2023Robert, Schrijver, & Ureel, 2024Bartscht, 1987Lee, 2013Olk, 2013 Next Generation EU through the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Slovakia -03-V01-00148. , ...
The aim of the article is to develop a methodology for translation analysis of specialized texts for application in the training of future translators. To achieve this objective, the author addresses several key tasks: establishes parameters for analyzing both source and target texts; defines the scope of the study; selects a representative English-language source text in the field of patents; analyzes it according to the established parameters; formulates a hypothesis about the translation strategies most likely to be used for this source text; analyzes the Ukrainian translation text to determine the translation methods used; and concludes whether the initial assumption based on the source text analysis is validated. The study employs linguistic analysis for the source text and translatological analysis for the target text. The material used is a 526-word fragment from a U.S. patent, specifically a brief description of an invention, within the specialized (technical) field that forms part of the training content for future translators. Following the study, the author draws conclusions that support the hypothesis made during the pre-translation analysis and provide additional refinements. At the syntactic level, the analysis reveals that the translation typically follows the structure of the source text in sentences with simpler constructs, while complex sentences main, subordinate, or coordinate clauses can maintain their structure, other segments necessitate transformations. The dealing with very long sentences, they often need toтранслатологічний сфери, яка входить до змісту навчання майбутніх перекладачів. За результатами дослідження, сформульовано його висновки, відповідно до яких проведений аналіз тексту перекладу загалом підтвердивm ost common transformation is the replacement of passive voice clauses with active voice. When be divided into shorter, more manageable units, leading to further structural changes. The article concludes that the proposed methodology for translation analysis of specialized source and target texts shows promise for use in training future translators. It can help develop the theoretical component of students' translation competence, as well as provide insights into many significant concepts in translation studies and mastery of translation analysis methodologies. However, the author notes that this assumption requires further verification, suggesting that additional research is needed to confirm the proposed methodology's effectiveness.
... Authors incorporate cultural references into their literary works to mirror the socio-cultural backgrounds of their respective cultures. However, translators face significant challenges in handling these expressions, as they frequently lack direct equivalents in the target culture due to their complex connections to various social and cultural contexts (Olk, 2013). This underscores the intricacies involved in translating cultural references across different languages and cultures. ...
Cultural references are phrases and words embedded within a source text that refer to entities, persons, or even ideas that are not present in the target language and culture or are significantly different in terms of sociocultural equivalents. Translating cultural references into a language where translated texts are interpreted through the prism of cultural norms presents a substantial challenge. The objective of this study is to investigate the translatability of cultural references in Arabic literary texts; it describes the presence of textual and matricial operational norms portrayed in the translator’s translation procedures and shifts. The analysis focuses on one Arabic novel, Basma Abdel Aziz’s The Queue, and follows Toury’s (2012) theory on translation norms. After a comprehensive examination of "The Queue," data were methodically underscored, classified, and analysed. The findings emphasize the translator's key role in addressing cultural disparities between Arabic and English societies through selected translation methods, ensuring adherence to the target language's norms despite significant linguistic and cultural gaps. According to this study, the acceptability of the target text is enhanced not only because of cultural requirements but also because of language norms, which prevail over translation choices that can be applied by the translator.
... Perhaps they had plagued humans simply to taunt the deities, and lost interest when only the feckless humans remained. (Alai, 2013, p. 3) Cultural substitution refers to a translation procedure of using special-existing epithets in target cultural system but containing the same annotations and language functions to replace the items exclusively used in source culture (Olk, 2013). Demon refers to evil being/spirit in Christianism (Du, 1994). ...
The Ge Sa-er (also known as Gesar) saga has been handed down for above 1000 years by Tibetan Chinese, Mongolian Chinese, the Tu and the Naxi, describing a heroic story in present-day Kangba Tibetan area. This article analyse the English translation of social discourse in the Ge Sa-er version retold by Alai (2009). Due to different knowledge shared by source and target readers, it is difficult to represent the source social meaning in the English translation. Aiming to resolve the translation problems revealed by social cognition, this article uses statistical methods together with corpus to conduct stylistic analyses on Ge Sa-er Wang (Alai, 2009). An unexpected finding of this research is that the data from statistical methods can better predict the translation difficulties of Ge Sa-er Wang than the data from corpus. Based on the stylistic features of Ge Sa-er Wang, we propose a social discourse translation model for Chinese ethnic minority literature.
... Cultural references are expressions found in the source text that relate to things, people, or even thoughts that don't exist in the receiving culture or that considerably diverge from the available equivalents in the target culture (Olk, 2013). This suggests that it is difficult for translators to handle cultural references in translation, therefore translators should have a good knowledge of both the SL and TL as well as their cultures. ...
Translating literary works is a challenging task, especially when attempting to integrate numerous linguistically, artistically, and culturally varied languages. The main objective of this research is to describe the initial norms that regulate the translation of Arabic cultural references translated in Basma Abdelaziz's Arabic novel, The Queue. This novel by Basma Abdelaziz was chosen for examination because it contains a lot of cultural references that reflect cultural values. To detect translation shifts and techniques used by the Queue’s translator, the major principles and components of Toury's theory of norms, Newmark’s classification of cultural items, and translation techniques proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet (1995) will be used. The techniques for translating Arabic cultural references reflect the translators' individual attitudes toward ST norms as well as their adherence to linguistic and cultural standards prevalent in the TL setting. Overall, there is some heterogeneity in the degree of leaning toward SL or TL norms. According to Toury's norms model, the general trend of translational norms appears to lean more towards the acceptability pole than the adequacy pole, implying that a TL-oriented strategy is preferred. The study reveals that when translating cultural references into English, the Queue's translator used four primary strategies: modulation, transposition, adaption, and deletion. These translation strategies utilized by the Queue’s translator may provide the target reader with altered meaning of the cultural references will have an impact on the portrayal of the Queue and provide the target readers with a significantly altered version of the text These translation strategies utilized by the Queue’s translator may provide the target reader with altered meaning of the cultural references text.
... Notwithstanding, cultural identity can be exclusively identified in the translation domain by investigating the existence of cultural references in the source text. They refer to objects or concepts that do not exist in a specific target culture (Mailhac, 1996;Olk, 2013). Newmark (1988) proposed cultural references under six main headings: ecology, material cultures, social cultures, religions, political and administrative, gestures, and habits; whereas Espindola and Vasconcellos (2006) added anthroponyms for addressing someone. ...
Cultural identity negotiations occur not only in cross-cultural communication but also translation acts. The justification that the translation process involved not only two languages but also two different cultural traditions raises awareness of the importance of translation as a means of cross-cultural communication. This study aims to reveal the negotiation of French’s cultural identity in Javanese translation by positioning the Javanese language and culture as ‘self’ and French as ‘others.’ Under descriptive-qualitative research, 433 pairs of French-Javanese narratives from Albert Camus’s 1943 novel L’Étranger and its Javanese translation Wong Njaba’ (2010) translated by Revo Arka Giri Soekatno were used as the objects in this study. Through careful examination, four possibilities emerge as the impact of French cultural identity’s negotiation into Javanese: the target language’s meaning becomes completely equivalent, narrower, broader, or inequivalent to the source culture’s meaning. These possibilities arise from the translator’s consciousness to reduce the level of strangeness that may interfere with the target reader’s concentration and reception. This present study concludes that the translator tends to negotiate semantically two languages within similar semantic vocabularies. Nonetheless, the form is borrowed or negotiated if there is no cultural activity in Javanese similar to French cultural activity. This study contributes to the study of cultural identity by incorporating linguistic and cultural perspectives into translation studies.
... Although TS scholars have not agreed on a specific label, definition, or taxonomy to approach CSIs (Ramière, 2016), Venuti's taxonomy of domestication and foreignization has been the basis for multiple methodologies that position CSIs between the poles of source and target cultures. Various scholars in TS have revisited Venuti's dichotomy: for instance, Aixelà (1996) measures the degree of cultural manipulation by introducing conservation and substitution, Katan (1999) suggests generalization, deletion, and distortion, whereas Olk (2012) argues for a taxonomy between transference of cultural terms and substitution. More recently, Marco (2019) combines the two criteria of foreignization and domestication with translator intervention. ...
Part of the recent Saudi National Transformation program Vision 2030 is the significant growth of the tourism sector. Opening up the country to international tourists means facilitating access to Saudi culture through translation, where the role of translators as cultural mediators is salient. In the Saudi context, cultural mediation in tourism translation is an under-researched topic. This paper addresses the following question: What is interventionst role of translators as cultural mediators and where do they position the tourist against Arabic-English translated Culture-Specific Items (CSIs) in Saudi-related tourism articles? Drawing on Kwieciński’s (2001) adaption of Venuti’s domestication and foreignization (1995), this study adopts a descriptive approach to analyze the translation strategies in a parallel corpus of Arabic and English articles published on the official website of Saudi tourism Visit Saudi. The findings reveal the active role of translators in providing access to the Saudi culture by extensively adopting the exoticization and explanation strategies in tourism texts to foreignize CSIs, especially in the contexts of traditions and food. This paper, thus, bridges the scholarly gap in Translation Studies by examining cultural mediation in translating tourism texts about Saudi Arabia, focusing on translators’ strategies and how they position Saudi CSIs in the international tourism industry.
... The broader literature review could provide useful insights to formulate hypotheses, design experiments, and interpret results. Examples of relevant translation studies publications that would bring another layer of understanding to the discussion would be Kruger (2016), Davies (2014), and Olk (2013). ...
When faced with culturally anchored terms, subtitlers can render the translation closer to the foreign language and culture, adopting a strategy of foreignization, or closer to the domestic audience, thus adhering to a strategy of domestication (Venuti, 1995). The goal of this systematic review, based on the PRISMA framework (Moher et al., 2009) is to identify, via structured and extensive selection of studies, assess and summarize the academic literature on domestication and foreignization in interlingual subtitling. The thematic analysis of comprehensive contemporary literature aimed at understanding concepts, discussions, findings and research gaps, to inform future relevant and constructive contributions to the current body of research. The analysis of 33 studies published in English and Portuguese between 2004 and 2020 examined five themes: overview of studies, orientation towards foreignization or domestication, translation strategies continuums, linguistic features covered in the studies, and reception of subtitles. Limitations of previous studies and under-researched matters are then presented to support future research. Further empirical studies on the reception of interlingual subtitling are recommended to advance the understanding of subtitles as a product, using dedicated methods and technologies to develop objective metrics about their perception and processing by viewers and move the audiovisual translation field forward. >>Open access - available for full-text download at: https://www.trans-int.org/index.php/transint/article/view/1344
... The literature contains myriad taxonomies of procedures for the translation of CSIs, mostly in the context of textual translation (e.g. Franco Aixelà, 1996;Ivir, 1987;Kwieciński, 2001;Leppihalme, 2001;Marco, 2019;Olk, 2012), but also in relation to film (e.g. Nedergaard-Larsen, 1993;Pedersen, 2007). ...
This study investigates translation procedures employed for culture-specific items (CSIs) in Japanese tourism texts. Quantitative corpus-based methods were used to examine a unidirectional parallel corpus of texts gathered from websites promoting tourism to regional destinations. The aim of the analysis was to determine whether, and if so how, translation procedures for CSIs are conditioned by CSI category, and the impact exerted at the macro level on the image of Japan as a tourist destination. The analysis reveals that CSI category is a conditioning factor modulating the choice of translation procedure. Drawing on Lawrence Venuti’s (1995/2008) conceptual framework of domestication and foreignisation, the findings suggest a predominant tendency towards domestication in the translation of CSIs in Japanese tourism literature, airbrushing the strangeness of the source text. A key contribution is the incorporation of quantitative methods to analyse the translation of CSIs in tourism texts, notably in culturally remote source and target language communities.
... Se vor urmări, de asemenea, și modalitățile de abordare a culturemelor, a procedurilor de traducere aplicate pentru a rezolva preocuparea culturală a textului tradus. În capitolul I au fost sintetizate șapte metode tehnice (Olk, 2013) de a aborda perspectiva culturală în actul traducerii: transfer; transfer și clarificare; transfer și explicație; expresie din limba țintă care se referă la cultura sursă; explicație neutră; omisiune; substituție culturală. Urmând aceste metode, vom observa care sunt cele preferate de traducătorii români, și dacă există o tradiție a traducerilor culturemelor între aceștia, completând informațiile obținute în cadrul interviurilor și chestionarelor atribuite traducătorilor. ...
Culturemes are the markers of the source culture, which can reach the reader in the target language only through
the ability of the translator, who must, in fact, be a great connoisseur of the most hidden cultural details. For the
transposition of a foreign culture into a new culture, for a communication between them, a loan is needed, retrieval
and processing of information so that it is accepted. In order to achieve this goal, a corpus of culturemes from 31
contemporary Chinese novels translated in Romanian between 2000 and 2018 through direct translation were
analysed.
Keynotes: cultureme, literatură chineză, traducere literară, receptare literară, transfer cultural
... Previous studies also mention that different strategies should be used in the rendition of cultural references and allusions of various nature, certainly due to their complex nature and lack of definite equivalence for them (e.g. Aixela, 1996;Olk, 2013). ...
Allusions can pose a challenge in intercultural communication especially in distant cultures such as Anglophone and Iranian. Their rendition is not easier in the context of audiovisual translation. This study investigated the variety and the frequency of the translators' strategies for the rendition of verbal allusions in Persian dubbing of Tarantino's films. The results indicated that Direct Transfer and Literal Translation were the most frequent strategies for the rendition of proper name and key-phrase allusions, respectively. In addition, Borrowing had a low frequency in the rendition of proper name and key-phrase allusions. The results are discussed in relation to the related literature.
... The intention of a translator will lead to do either 'foreignization' or 'domestication (Olk, 2013). The intention to preserve distinctive qualities of the source text is leading the translator to 'foreignization'. ...
The objective of this research was to analyze how English address terms in “The Princess Diaries” were translated into Indonesian in “Buku Harian Sang Putri”, which published eight times that might indicate its popularity among Indonesian enthusiasts. This research applied content analysis method, particularly the theory of address terms postulated by Braun and Kridalaksana also the theory of translation strategies proposed by Baker, Newmark, and Vinay and Darbelnet. The data were both target and source address terms in dialogs. The address terms were grouped into subsets of the unit for analysis. The result shows English address terms are translated into 11 Indonesian address terms and ’konstruksi kepemilikan’ by using ten translation strategies. The research also shows that loan-address terms (full-loan and scattered-address terms) are chosen as a strategy to enhance the novel’s source atmosphere though they distort the target culture to some extent. To conclude, address terms aren’t always translated into address terms and pragmatic meaning’s distortion happens though various translation strategies are applied. It is necessary to conduct research on how to minimize loan address terms to maintain the source novel’s atmosphere without distorting the pragmatic meaning of Indonesian culture.
... Moreover, Arabic and English are genetically unrelated especially when it comes to the translation of formulaic language i.e idioms, collocations and fixed expressions that have cultural reference as Abu-Ssaydeh (2004) and Al Daqs (2011) clarify. Furthermore, the validity of investigating cultural references (CRs) as they have been studied by many researches Ranzato (2016) and Olk (2013) reflect their importance of CRs in translation. ...
In order to optimise a translator decision making, he/s needs to be aware of the fullest possible list of options available: in terms of translation strategies and parameters which need to be taken into account when selecting appropriate options. Many studies focus only on the strategies of translating cultural references Ivir (1987), Mailhac (1996), Dickins et al (2002), Fernández (2012). Thus, this paper attempts to shed light on both strategies and parameters which would be relevant to the translation of individual cultural reference. Ivirs and Mailhac suggestions are utilised in this paper as a theoretical framework. It is found that there are too many strategies and parameters to formulate usable strategies; broad one possible. However, before translating CRs, a translator has to set parameters especially; text type and readership as parameters will lead the translator to select the accurate strategies.
The relentless growth of the tourism sector is fostering an increasingly pronounced demand for the translation of tourism websites. Nevertheless, the translation quality of tourism websites has garnered criticism attributed to inaccuracies in translating cultural references, leading to potential cultural losses in conveying cultural references. Despite the growing demand for accurate translation, a lack of research exists to address cultural losses and in the translation of Chinese cultural references into English. This study investigates the categories of cultural losses in the cultural references’ translation on tourism websites; specifically, Trip.com was selected as the case. Moreover, this study examines how the overall translation method, at a macro-level, is influenced by the specific translation strategies identified at a micro-level and how this, in turn, impacts cultural nuances and potential losses. The current study adopted a qualitative approach and unveiled five distinct categories of cultural losses encompassing historical background, rhetorical devices, local customs, religion, and aesthetic images. The findings revealed that foreignization emerged as the prevailing macro-level translation method, significantly influencing the incurred cultural losses within the context of cultural references. This study’s findings emphasized the necessity of addressing cultural losses in cultural references’ translation on tourism websites. The identified cultural losses and the dominance of foreignization highlight the imperative for nuanced translation strategies. This study shed light on the equilibrium between cultural preservation and effective communication. By striking this equilibrium, the tourism industry can effectively accomplish its objective of nurturing profound cross-cultural interactions that resonate with a diverse global audience.
The steady growth of tourism is increasing the demand for tourism translation. Cultural words (CWs) translation is challenging since they are absent from target cultures. This systematic review examines studies on CWs translation in tourism texts to comprehend the literature and explore future research tendencies. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses, researchers did a comprehensive literature review. Twenty-one articles met the inclusion criteria after the protocol-required data selection and screening. The findings reveal that scholars are increasingly concerned with CWs translation in tourism texts. Moreover, all the included articles used varied theories. Most of them focused on applying various taxonomies of translation strategies to compensate for the losses of cultural connotations in cultural words' rendition. Besides, other researchers focused on CWs translation from different perspectives, such as translation quality assessment, Eco-translatology, meaning equivalence, cultural manipulation, and relevance theory.
Starting from the reality that, in today’s globalized world, people have easy access to a wide range of cuisines from different cultures, the present paper discusses the multicultural nature of the menus offered by the Romanian restaurants, and especially by those specific to the Banat region, with the ultimate purpose of analysing the way in which food names of various origins are rendered in the English variants of these menus. The results of this analysis are relevant for the manner in which the various culture-specific features of restaurant menus are handled in the process of translation into a foreign language.
In very broad terms, translatability means that the translator is able to establish a relation of equivalence between a certain source text and its target variant. The notion of equivalence has a very complicated status in translation studies, because, on the one hand, this discipline does not provide a generally accepted definition of the concept, and, on the other, because it has a very complex nature, involving a variety of levels. The present article is based on the assumption that, even if there are situations when the source-language lexico-semantic items, grammatical structures or whole texts are so problematic that they seem almost impossible to be transferred into another language. The term “untranslatability” is not appropriately used with reference to such situations, because a certain type of equivalence can be always achieved. The article will approach the notions of equivalence and (un)translatability in both theoretical and practical terms, offering relevant examples specific to the transfer between Romanian and English.
The translation of references specific to a given source culture has long been a prominent, and often problematic aspect of translation practice and research. In indirect translation, or the translation of already translated material, linguistic and cultural differences accumulate, meaning that the omission of cultural references (CRs) or culture-specific items (CSIs) might be a generally expected outcome. Yet before such hypotheses can be tested, research methods are needed that can account for broad patterns across whole texts, and preferably, across semantic categories, genres, time periods, and languages. A 'textual' approach, focused on the linguistic context in which CRs are likely to occur, should complement the currently dominant 'cultural' approach, which mainly relies on predefined categories and intuition for the selection of objects of study. This article illustrates that corpus research, and particularly keyness analysis, can aid in uncovering recurrent structural patterns and textual functions in which CRs are expected to pose translation difficulties. In this regard, it focuses on expressions of enumeration, or lists, and indicators of identification, or voice. Based on a trilingual (English, French, and Italian) corpus-assisted study of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) and John Cary's An Essay on the State of England (1695), the article accentuates the productive complementarity of numerical operations and context-sensitive readings.
Culturemes are the markers of the source culture, which can reach the reader in the target language only through the ability of the translator, who must, in fact, be a great connoisseur of the most hidden cultural details. For the transposition of a foreign culture into a new culture, for a proper communication between them, a loan is needed, retrieval and processing of information so that it is accepted. The motivation behind this study is to provide an overview of how to approach culturemes in the translation of works of contemporary Chinese literature in Romanian, works characterized by great linguistic and extra-linguistic generosity. In order to achieve this goal, we followed the stages of identifying the culturemes from thirty-one Chinese contemporary novels translated in Romanian; followed by creating a corpus based on fourteen categories and five equivalence methods to ensure the cultural equivalence, coherence and homogeneity of Chinese works recreated for the Romanian reader. Finally, we performed an in-depth study of a selection of culturemes from each category, with the aim of showing their distribution in the Romanian translation of Chinese fiction. The study intends to provoke but also to help raise the awareness that translations are not only transpositions (by this we mean moving from one linguistic register to another without operating the text as part of a cultural whole, approaching it externally to all of its sources of influence from the culture in which it has been created) of a work in another language, but they have the primary role of enriching knowledge about one's culture, civilization, literature – i.e. China’s cultural heritage for the present study. Culturally-aware literary translations are the most effective and most stable manner of intercultural exchange, of international prosperity of a culture, of understanding and acknowledging the cultural specifics of one nation. The intertextual references – the culturemes – studied, are part, as will be presented, of all cultural spheres, from those denoting the daily life of the Chinese, the food and basic needs, to those denoting holidays, toponymy, units of measurement, history, but also those that are politically motivated, while also spiritual, subtle, erudite, which only close study, extensive knowledge and diligent work can drive the translator to find and transfer them to the target reader.
Translating collocations is one of the problematic areas in translation studies, which becomes even more complicated when translating Qur’anic text is involved. The uniqueness of linguistic features, special context of the Qur’anic text, and stylistic differences between English and Arabic are barriers to accurate and natural rendition. Along these veins, this study attempts to investigate seven translations of the Qur’anic noun-noun collocations (Sarwar 1981; Al-Hilali and Khan 1996; Arberry 1996; Pickthall 1997; Sahih International 1997; Shakir 1999; Ali 2001) to unfold the degree of accuracy and naturalness of their translations. The present article follows the approach of corpus-based research to study seven prominent translations of the Noble Qur’an taken from The Qur’anic Arabic Corpus , using lexical, exegetical, and frequency-based analyses, which reveal that integrated lexical and exegetical analyses are perquisites for adequate rendition and prevent deviation in meaning and translation loss. Frequency-based approach in translation of collocations could assist in maintaining naturalness of rendition to some extent.
Translation scholars have investigated culture as a problematic issue for both novice and professional translators. Within this line of research, the present study focuses on students’ use of translation strategies and procedures when rendering English cultural references into Arabic. A questionnaire and a translation task were used to track the students’ behaviors during the translation process. The sample of the study was composed of forty undergraduates in English as a foreign language aged 22–24 in their final year of studies. The findings revealed low percentages of students using translation strategies and inadequate use of translation procedures, which may lie behind students’ failure to meet the standards of accepted translation set by the study. Their translation could not reflect a full understanding of the writer’s intention and recognize the boundary of the ST meanings. The study puts forth a model for translation strategy and procedure analysis that can be applied to a translation course to tackle the students’ deficiencies in strategic and cultural competences.
Purpose-This paper aims to investigate seven prominent translations of the Qur'anic verb-noun collocations into English to unfold their renditions of the style and meaning of such Qur'anic verb-noun collocation into English. Design/methodology/approach-The study follows a corpus-based research in a sense that the study is conducted on seven translations of the Noble Qur'an that have been taken from The Qur'anic Arabic Corpus, using linguistic and exegetical analyses. Based on Reiss' model of text analysis (2000), the author analyses the intralinguistic and extralinguistic features of the Qur'anic verb-noun collocations. Findings-Findings reveal that linguistic and exegetical analyses are perquisites for adequate rendition, which prevent deviation in meaning and translation loss. It is also found that Qur'anic collocations use unique literary techniques and devices, which hinder their natural and adequate renditions into English. Originality/value-The novelty of this study lies in studying the architectural design of the Qur'anic verb-noun collocations in terms of the unique selection of words and style. Such unique architectural design of such collocations creates monumental hindrances in their rendition into other languages, which have not been given due attention in translation studies.
This chapter looks at the cultural mediator role of translation trainees dealing with culture-specific lexis. Translators need to be able to make connections between and across the cultures they are dealing with, and to negotiate and overcome any differences, conveying the message of the source text to the target readers with optimum effect. Five translation classes which placed emphasis on optimal relevance in translation were provided to 10 undergraduate students learning translation in Seoul, South Korea. The chapter highlights the significant role translation of culture-specific lexis can play in forming and developing learners' identities as mediators between source and target text cultures, no doubt an important role in light of cultural change in an era of globalization which calls for culture or cultures to be viewed from a multifaceted and diverse perspective.
This research aims to study segmentation (i.e., translation unit (TU)) in students’ translations of cultural references and assess the translation quality, using Translog software and a translation task. This product and process-oriented research examines the same independent variable, that is, segmentation, from two angles, namely, student production and translation output. Ten female postgraduate students aged between 28 and 30 performed a computer-based translation task on cultural references. Their translations of English cultural references into Arabic revealed process and production problems (i.e., unsystematic management of translation stages, high mean TUs and time, low mean scores, and deviant translations). The study recommended student training in translation process and product management by employing innovation technological tools (e.g., Translog software and eye-tracking device). Moreover, presenting the cultural dimension should go beyond written translation materials and include audio and visual materials. Sound methodology of training should be adopted, one that draws upon the computational model of human translation, linguistic and cultural models, and models of translation quality assessment.
El objetivo de este estudio es analizar cómo se han traducido al español los elementos de la cultura y la sociedad irlandesa transmitidos por Edna O’Brien en su primera novela, The Country Girls (1960). En primer lugar, aportamos una contextualización de la traducción de la novela. A continuación incluimos un apartado sobre traducción literaria y referencias culturales, así como estrategias de traducción en este campo. En tercer lugar, llevamos a cabo un estudio descriptivo para comparar extractos del texto original y del texto meta. En cuarto lugar, evaluamos las estrategias utilizadas y su adecuación para la transposición cultural del TO en el TM. En el apartado final reflexionamos sobre si el grado de transposición cultural resultante de la traducción al español permite que el carácter transgresor de la novela tenga un impacto similar en la cultura receptora al tratarse esta de una edición contemporánea del texto original en inglés.
The aim of this study is to analyze how the elements of Irish culture and society transmitted by Edna O’Brien in her debut novel, The Country Girls (1960), have been translated to the readers in Spanish. First of all, a contextualization of the translation of the novel will be provided. Next, a section on literary translation and cultural references, as well as translation strategies in this field will be included. Thirdly, a descriptive study will be applied comparing extracts from the source text and the target text. Fourthly, the strategies used and their adequacy for the cultural transposition of the ST into the TT will be assessed. In the concluding section we will reflect on whether the degree of cultural transposition resulting from the translation into Spanish allows the transgressive nature of the novel to have a similar impact on the recipient culture as a contemporary edition of the original text in English.
The five novels by award-winning Japanese writer Fuminori Nakamura that were translated into English and published in quick succession through 2016 offer an interesting case study in current literary translation practices and challenges. The manner in which Japan-related cultural references are being handled in translations of Nakamura’s work demonstrates that the linguistic demands on readers of fiction translated from Japanese – and expectations about the cross-cultural knowledge that they possess – are markedly intensifying. It also underscores the continuing challenge of communicating to readers of translated literary texts the significance of cultural references that may create what Lawrence Venuti has called “an illusory effect of transparency”. Exemplified by the Japanese terms for guns and orphanages in Nakamura’s novels, such references appear to have straightforward English language equivalents, with no explanation required. However, within a Japanese sociocultural context, they conceptually diverge from how they are understood in the United States (just to point to the largest market for English language translations of Nakamura’s novels). They are part of the knowledge base that readers of translations who seek full entry into the writer’s imagined world, as it relates to Japan, need to build either prior to, or at least while, engaging with a text.
This paper looks at the considerations of target reader in Korean into English translation tasks involving culture-specific lexis (CSL) in relation to the notion of relevance in translation. It draws on findings from a pilot study which was conducted on five students learning Korean into English translation. A teaching session which placed emphasis on optimal relevance in translation and the translation of implicit information was held, and pre and post tasks and interviews were conducted. Recorded data was transcribed and coded using NVivo software. When translators translate a text, they have an imagined or implied target reader for whom they are translating the text. The translation of CSL requires communicative interaction between the translator and intended target reader. Translators need to consider how to convey CSL in an optimally relevant way. This is particularly important for those dealing with language pairs which are significantly different from each other, such as Korean and English. Results show a significant difference in consideration of the target reader in Sessions 1 and 3 (pre and post tasks), which indicates that it is highly likely that such considerations were reinforced during Session 2 (teaching session). Presenting qualitative excerpts from the data, the current paper highlights the important role CSL can play in developing learners’ considerations of target readership.
This article focuses specifically on two examples of fantasy stories and their translations into Russian: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Lewis 1950), a classic English fantasy story, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Rowling 1997), a modern blending of fantasy with the traditional English school story. The analysis shows that the approach to translation is largely random. In the translations of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, there is some evidence of simplification as a strategy, and some confusion over the appropriate translation of cultural items in the translations of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Generally, however, the translators are shown not to have attempted to situate the stories in a Russian context, and have retained intact both the cultural backdrop and the moral values put forward in the works. A study of the reception of such works by young readers would provide valuable information about the success or failure of the translations discussed in this article.
This paper investigates the transfer of proper names and references to food in the Arabic translation of the first three Harry Potter volumes. The focus of the study is twofold: (1) What is the relation between the different transfer procedures employed in the translation process and the formal, semantic and cultural properties of the source text material? And (2) what is the effect of the applied procedures on the textual and stylistic features of the target text? The major finding that emerges from the investigation is that the main translation strategy is that of simplification. Occasionally, foreignisation is involved as well, but domestication is virtually absent. The findings broadly concur with converging evidence from the translation of other cultural-specific items in the corpus such as references to school and education, kinship and family ties, and the use of dialect and slang, which additionally demonstrate the role of attenuation and normalisation.
This paper presents a critical approach to the translation of cultural items in the Spanish dubbed version of the American sitcom Will & Grace. The paper starts with a presentation of domestication and foreignization (Venuti 1995). The former is discussed in connection with the choices made in the target texts. I, then, introduce the term "alienation" as another strategy used to render culture specificities. In the second section I examine the key comical elements present in the scripts, in which cultural allusions also play a significant role. Section three explores how these culturally anchored lexical items are rendered in the Spanish version, establishing a taxonomy that includes preservation of international items, preservation of culture-specific items, substitution with a different source-culture item, substitution with an international item, substitution with a target-culture item, substitution with corrupted forms of target-culture items and substitution with a superordinate. The use and translation of expletives as elements unique to a language and culture are also covered. The final section discusses the transition from domestication to alienation.
This article deals with Nathaniel Hawthorne's use of culturally and historically marked terms in his novels/tales portraying early New England, with special reference to the author's most celebrated short-story, Young Goodman Brown (1835). A satisfactory rendering of realia in Hawthorne is a di? cult task facing the translator, especially because the connotations inherent in source text realia, which ultimately enrich the literary text on a semantic-aesthetic level (e.g. by conveying irony), are lacking in their target-speci? c counterparts. Introductory texts explaining the socio-historical background related to early colonial America as well as the translator's metadiscourse in the form of notes or within the text itself help the readerto bridge the cultural-historical gap (in some cases making the `simple' importation of realia possible in favour of local colouring), but translators seem to have reservations especially as regards the use of footnotes. I have looked into six modern translations of Young Goodman Brown (German, Italian and French) to see how the di? erent translators have handled realia in their texts. I have then attempted to illustrate what kind of associations a speci? c rendering is likely to trigger and to what extent it does justice to the extra-literary and literary functions the realia was meant to ful? ll by the author. Of special interest is the ontological status of anthroponyms, since it is not clear how much "culture-specific" information is conveyed through them: we thus find the translator caught up between leaving proper names as they are (and by doing so possibly preserving some of the tale's local colour) and replacing them with a target-specific form/name (thus carrying over some `meanings' crucial to the full appreciation of the tale's literary dimension). On that score, Young Goodman Brown, being partly allegorical, is a rewarding object of study, since the name Faith and the title of civility Goodman (the latter functioning as a substitute for a name) contain both cultural and literary information. Résumé Cet article traite de l'usage que fait N. Hawthorne de termes culturellement et historiquement manifestes dans ses romans/contes décrivant la Nouvelle-Angleterre puritaine, avec une référence spéciale à la nouvelle la plus célèbre de l'auteur, Young Goodman Brown (1835). Un résultat efficace des "realia" chez Hawthorne s'avère une tâche difficile pour le traducteur, notamment parce que les connotations inhérentes aux "realia" du texte source, qui, finalement enrichissent le texte littéraire au plan sémantico-esthétique (par exemple, par l'ironie), font défaut dans leurs propres contreparties cibles. Des textes introductifs expliquant le contexte socio historique relatif à la jeune Amérique coloniale et respectivement à des commentaires métatextuels sous la forme de notes ou dans le texte même aident le lecteur à combler 1'écart culturo-historique (dans certains cas en favorisant la `simple' importation de "realia" en faveur de la couleur locale), mais les traducteurs semblent avoir certaines réserves notamment à propos des notes en bas de pages. J'ai examiné six traductions modernes de Young Goodman Brown (allemande, italienne et française) pour comprendre la manière dont les différents traducteurs ont traité les "realia" dans leurs textes.
This paper deals with the interchangeability of culture, and seeks to answer the question of whether there are situations in which culture is interchangeable, whether one item of culture could be substituted for another. On a pretheoretic level, the answer would probably be ‘no’. If you have your mind set on watching the Royal Shakespeare Company perform The Merchant of Venice, you are not likely to find it interchangeable with Britney Spears performing ‘Oops (I did it Again)’. However, when it comes to subtitling, where cultural substitution is a valid, though somewhat rare, translation strategy, a certain amount of cultural interchangeability seems to be presupposed. I call this strategy ‘cultural substitution’, and it means that a source culture reference is removed and, more often than not, replaced by one from the target culture.
Culture-bound elements, such as proper names and food items, not only place the story of a book in a specific culture and period of time, but also imply certain values and create an ambience. These elements also have an effect on how the reader identifies with the story and characters. Thus, it is important to find the most appropriate strategy to translate such elements. This paper considers the Finnish translation (1949) of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows (1908), a multi-layered and allusive children's book set in Edwardian England, and some other children's tales translated into Finnish around the same era. The translation of The Wind in the Willows dates back to a period of time when British culture was not yet well known in Finland. The paper argues that certain inconsistencies in the translation of culture-bound elements in the book make it difficult for target text readers to understand its layers of meaning and to identify with the characters. Similar inconsistencies in the translation of culture-bound elements are found in other Finnish translations of children's books from the same period. The findings may be explained by a limited knowledge of foreign cultures in post-war Finland.
Language and culture are closely interrelated. In subtitling, as in all forms of interlingual transfer, this may cause problems in rendering culture‐specific or language‐specific elements. The author discusses strategies available to the subtitlers confronted with such phenomena in films. The strategies range from verbatim transfer, via culturally neutral explicitation and paraphrase, to target language adaptation. Four French feature films are analysed with reference to the way extra‐lingual culture‐specific elements are rendered in Danish subtitles. The author discusses which factors to consider when deciding on an appropriate strategy. The analysis shows a tendency, possibly norm‐governed, toward retaining the local flavor of the film, yet remaining faithful to the source language expression whenever possible.
Recent sociopolitical events have profoundly changed the status and functions of German and influenced its usage. In this study (published by Cambridge in 1984) Michael Clyne revises and expands his original analysis of the German language in Language and Society in the German-speaking Countries in the light of such changes as the end of the Cold War, German unification, the redrawing of the map of Europe, increasing European integration, and the changing self-images of Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg. His discussion includes the differences in the form, function and status of the various national varieties of German; the relation between standard and non-standard varieties; gender, generational and political variation; Anglo-American influence on German; and the convergence of east and west. The result is a wide-ranging exploration of language and society in the German-speaking countries, all of which have problems or dilemmas concerning nationhood or ethnicity which are language-related and/or language-marked.
This paper reviews the criticism of J. P. Clark’s Ijo-English translation The Ozidi Saga and observes that no adequate investigation has been made of this work from a linguistic angle. It notes that culture-bound concepts constitute a problematic area in Clark’s translation as a result of the difference in the culture sub-systems between Ijo and English. Specifically, elements of Ijo culture, namely natural objects, marriage system and maternity, art and dance, kinship terms and the notion of God have been inconsistently and sometimes unfaithfully translated as a result of the adoption of free translation. This gives a confusing or inaccurate impression of certain Ijo cultural traits to the reader of the English text. The paper recommends that culture-bound concepts can hardly be represented adequately through free translation and proposes that such concepts should either be left untranslated as loan words into the target language or given literal or loan translations and then be paraphrased in glossaries or annotations.
Includes bibliographical references. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Kent, 2001.
The formulation of translation strategies for cultural references
- J.-P Mailhac
Mailhac, J.-P. (1996). The formulation of translation strategies for cultural references. In C. Hoffmann (Ed.), Language, culture and communication in contemporary Europe (pp. 132Á151). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Areas of untranslatability in audiovisual transfers Frankfurt: Peter Lang Alienation techniques in screen translation: The role of culture specifics in the reconstruction of target-culture discourse Strategies of translation
- T Tomaszkiewicz
- á
- L Venuti
Tomaszkiewicz, T. (2010). Areas of untranslatability in audiovisual transfers. In L. Bogucki & K. Kredens (Eds.), Perspectives on audiovisual translation, Lodz Studies in Language-Volume 20 (pp. 93Á106). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Valdeó n, R.A. (2008). Alienation techniques in screen translation: The role of culture specifics in the reconstruction of target-culture discourse. Languages in Contrast, 8(2), 208Á234. Venuti, L. (1998). Strategies of translation. In M. Baker (Ed.), Routledge encyclopaedia of translation studies (pp. 240Á244). London: Routledge.
A goblin or a dirty nose? The treatment of culture-specific references in translations of the Harry Potter books. The Translator
- E Davies
Davies, E. (2003). A goblin or a dirty nose? The treatment of culture-specific references in translations of the Harry Potter books. The Translator, 9(1), 65Á100.
Einfü hrung in die U ¨ bersetzungswissenschaft
- W Koller
Koller, W. (2004). Einfü hrung in die U ¨ bersetzungswissenschaft (7th ed). Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer.
Domesticated translation. The case of Nabokov's translation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
- N Vid
Vid, N. (2008). Domesticated translation. The case of Nabokov's translation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Nabokov Online Journal, Vol. II/2008. Retrieved from: http:// etc.dal.ca/noj/articles/volume2/08_Vid.pdf.
The secret diary of the translator Translation and the (re)location of meaning. Selected papers of the CETRA research seminar in translation studies
- M Desmet
Desmet, M. (1999). The secret diary of the translator. In J. Vandaele (Ed.), Translation and the (re)location of meaning. Selected papers of the CETRA research seminar in translation studies 1994Á1996 (pp. 215Á237). Leuven: CETRA. The Leuven Research Centre for Translation, Communication and Culture.
From Harry to Garri. Strategies for the transfer of culture and ideology in Russian translations of two English fantasy stories Procedures and strategies for the translation of culture The strategies for translating proper names in children's literature
- J E Inngs
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The German language in a changing Europe Shifts of cohesion and coherence in translation Interlingual and intercultural communication: discourse and cognition in translation and second language acquisition
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The curse of Blair's New Britain: The rise and rise of the Super Class. The Observer
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Translation of names in children's fantasy literature: Bringing the young reader into play. New Voices in Translation Studies The translation of culture-bound elements into Finnish in the post-war period
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Redefining translation
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