Филологические науки/6. Актуальные проблемы перевода

К.филол.н. Тимко Н. В.

Курский государственный университет, Россия

Ways of Cultural Understanding and Translation

The notion of “culture”, that is national traditions, behavior, thinking and varying world views among different peoples of the world, are a major focus of linguists in the US, Europe and Russia, who study cultural specifics of languages and communication. Translation studies of today are also culturally oriented, and many translators and scholars consider culture-bound issues to be much more problematic than lexical or syntactic difficulties.

As a system of congruent and interrelated beliefs, values, strategies and cognitive environments which guide the shared basis of behavior, culture happens to be the greatest barrier to translation success, because even if people speak one language their lack of common cultural background causes the communication to fail. This is why values, for both translators and interpreters, will change. No longer will the focus be, exclusively on language and text (whether source or target), but rather on increasing cultural awareness, which leads to effective dialogue and mutual understanding, ultimately resulting in trust.

Questions regarding whether or not translations can account for culture, or to what extent culture is relevant, are very much at the center of the debate. The two extreme prevailing views are that either everything can be translated without loss and that nothing can be translated without loss. These viewpoints are, in fact, both correct, and can be sensibly discussed by viewing the issue of linguistic-cultural barrier.

The famous quote from Edward T. Hall and Mildred Reed Hall runs as follows: “the single greatest barrier to business success is the one erected by culture”. As both national language and national culture are a manifestation of a specific national mentality, getting over the language barrier is not the only thing to focus on. Overcoming the cultural barrier is equally or even more significant. Hall’s quote as applied to translation studies, in this case may be expressed like this “greatest barrier to translation success is the one erected by both language and culture”.

Sapir (1929:214), like Malinovsky, was convinced that language could only be interpreted within a culture, suggesting that “no two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels”. David Katan (1999:74) accepts this idea stating that “the organization of experience is not “reality”, but is a simplification and distortion which changes from culture to culture. Each culture acts as a frame within which external signs of “reality” are interpreted”.

Culture is not only a set of norms, beliefs, and values of the target language but also a context in which the target language operates. The language is inevitably tied to people’s culture, i.e. to the perceptual world that people live in and the practices that they engage in. Language evokes activities and it is only in those activities that language-use possesses its sense. The speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.

The main constituents of the linguistic-cultural barrier are differences in the systems of languages (grammar structures and lexis - cultural references, cultural connotations, idioms), and differences in language usage. These two points are the manifestation of differences at a visible level. What does not manifest are the more important yet invisible elements of what actually make up a culture. As Kramsch (1993:227) says, “it is a fallacy to believe that because Russians now drink Pepsi-cola, Pepsi means the same for them as for Americans”. This is the level of underlying core values, habitual patterns of thought, and certain prevalent assumptions about human nature and society, which the cultural mediator should be prepared to encounter.

The most powerful elements of culture are those that lie beneath the surface of everyday interaction. The focus here is not on what is read, seen, heard or felt, but how a message is transmitted and how it is perceived. A translator as cultural mediator needs to account for information which is implicit in the context of culture, for example:

Sometimes a translator may decide to omit or replace whole stretches of text which violate the reader’s expectations of how a taboo subject should be handled. David Katan (1999:137) cites a great example which highlights the cultural problems involved in attempting to retain the form of the message. It’s an example of a literal translation from Italian promotional label which comes with a pair of shoes.

You chose “Blackwell” shoes made with high quality materials. The leather has been carefully selected form specialized slaughter-houses; which, after a variety of treatment, has become softer and more supple.

The point to be stressed here is the Anglo-American sensitivity to the treatment of animals. The British and the Americans don’t wish to be reminded that their shoes began their life in a slaughter house. A more culturally appropriate translation would be as follows:

Your “Blackwell” shoes have been carefully made from the finest quality materials.

Culture is a context within which all communication takes place. The success of translator’s/cultural mediator’s activity to overcome a linguistic-cultural barrier depends on the ability to understand how culture in generally operates, that is to understand the cultural and experimental logic of a foreign culture which lies behind the original act of speaking or writing; to understand the potential of the two semiotic systems in terms of their image making; to understand the invisible cultural meaning formed by values; to be able to match all of these with appropriate linguistic and cultural responses. The heart of his task is to be a mediator not between two texts but between two cultures.

Bibliography

1. Katan, David (1999) Translating Cultures. An Introduction for Translators, Interpreters and Mediators, Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

2. Kramsh, Claire (1993) Context and Culture in Language Teaching, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

3. Sapir, Edward (1929) The Status of Linguistics as a Science, Los Angeles: University of California Press