Translation means an intense form of cultural and social act of understanding a context and conveying it to another language and culture. Studying on language theories, culture and translation and the relationship between these factors are valuable issues dueto the growing importance of human communication in the world. The variety of languages with different culturesand necessity of communications in human life caused translation to be a very effective factor in communication, exchange of cultures, and knowledge. Translation studies emerged as a distinct discipline in the past few decades and it expanded in unprecedented ways. This expansion has brought with itself a multitude of different and competing approaches, translation models etc. This shows the acceptance of the new born discipline and it established a dominant paradigm. The main job of translators is to provide an effective means of communication. The translator is simultaneously a mediator, creator, manager, producer and sometimes a critic. Efficient communication means translating an original text by word to word basis and meaning-meaning transliteration. It’s delivering the genuine context of the message to the language that the target language user understands. Translators work beyond the boundaries of languages, cultures and societies. They position themselves between the poles of specificity and adaptation in accordance with the strategies of their translational behaviour. Translation is not a simple process of translating word by word and by using a dictionary, it requires a lot of cultural awareness and understanding to be able to say it just like a native language would.Change of ideas, concentration of mutualefforts in different directions, communication among...
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...g a culture universal and general. It acts as a bridge tocommunicate all kinds of languages specially those similar to each other considering their linguistic features and cultural customs in all parts of the world. So, it links all units of the world in the global network.Moreover translation presumes the existence of boundaries between different cultures and the translator mostprobably is aware of these boundaries and the inevitability of crossing them. Without cultural similarities and universalities, there is no way for people of different cultures to communicate with each other and translationwill be impossible. When speaking of two languages which are to be translated equivalently, translators mustconvey the same referential, pragmatic and interlinked meanings. However
Works Cited
Ray, K. Mohit. Studies in Translation. Delhi: Nice Printing Press,2008.Print.
The author’s diction heightens the confusion and difficulties the English language evokes, as her simple method of communication progressively becomes more complicated. Words are “sifting” around solely as “vocabulary words” it becomes difficult for her to connect and understand this “closed” language. The author learned Spanish during her childhood through past memories and experiences which helped her form a closer knit bond to the language as a whole; however, English does not root any deep connections for her causing her to doubt the importance of words. The negative connotation when she refers to vocabulary words and closed is due to the fact that she is frustrated with her inability to communicate exactly what she perceives as they are not connected to experiences. Similarly, the language seems “frail” and essentially “bottled up” as she is unable to express her thoughts in a manner other than exclusive “translations”. Unlike Spanish, English seems to have a complicated and confusing aspect tied to it where the author is feels trapped because she cannot convey her emotions or relate to it culturally. The repetitions of these words that have a negative connotation draw out the significance behind communication and the true value of connecting to a culture. Overall, the dictio...
As anthropologists seek to understand the culture that they are studying they must overcome the language barrier. Similar to the concept of culture, “people use language to encode their experiences, to structure their understanding of the world and themselves, and engage with on...
Language and culture are problematic issues when it comes to international marketing. When a company enters the global markets it has to deal with many issues, which do not exist when it comes to the local market. Language is one of the problems and is always a challenge. Even though English is spoken around the world in most cases it cannot be used as a language for international campaign. Therefore the translation of the campaign into the foreign language is very important.
Frequently in "Feminist Political and Social Thought" taught at SUNY Albany, by Dr. J. Hobson, I found myself simultaneously inspired and frustrated by the theory we were assigned to read. Authors such as bell hooks, Uma Narayan, Ann Russo, Kimberly Crenshaw, Andy Smith, John Stoltenberg, and Judy Baca did such wonderful jobs of pointing out the problems of perspective that stymie the feminist movement from achieving its goal to facilitate the bonding of the oppressed across differences, in order to overcome all oppressions. Unfortunately when combing through these authors intricately written, often jargon-ridden words, it was difficult to make practical sense of their insights. I understood what many of them were saying and in many cases I couldn't agree more, only I could barley imagine how these theories might be applied to real life scenarios. Furthermore, it was difficult for me to see how much of this would come to any use-say the next time someone made a racist, homophobic, Western-centric, sexist comment at work, or at the Thanksgiving dinner table for that matter. How could I possibly communicate the things that had been discussed in the classroom, laced with words like paradigm, praxis, pedagogy, and a completely deconstructed concept of the word "culture"? All these things would need an introduction of their own-and that may work in a classroom-but rarely in a conversation!
In conclusion we can agree that the use of both foreignization and domestication should be used when translating a text and/or movie. We can see that the successful use of mashing both techniques can lead to an accurate translation.
Encounters between people of different cultural backgrounds have existed forever.People have always thought bout things that were unusual in other cultures. But, those encounters were relatively slim in early days today, they are almost part of everyday life, At the same time, the interchange between cultures has jeopardized their very existence, and the emergence of a diverse culture, a fixation often referred to as globalization..
There has been a heated discussion in the field of Translation Studies with respect to where the emphasis should be put. Should it be on the source text and the sender, on the target text and the receiver or the process itself? This boils down to how one defines translation. This essay offers a critical view on the Skopos theory, which focuses on the translation process. A discussion is included to illustrate the importance of translation brief in both pedagogical and professional settings. Other related theories are presented as well. Finally, the essay concludes with a few remarks and suggestions.
Culture: Vermeer’s definition of culture focuses on norms and conventions as the main features of a culture. For him, a culture is the entire setting of norms and conventions as individual as a member of his society must know in order to be „like everybody‟-or to be able to be different from everybody (Vermeer, 1987a, p.28, cited in Nord 2001). Translating means comparing cultures. Translators interpret source-culture phenomena in the light of their own culture-specific knowledge of that culture, from either the inside or the outside, depending on whether the translation is from or into the translator‟s native language-and-culture (Nord, 2001). v. Adequacy and Equivalence In the case of a translation, the translator is a real receiver of the source text who then proceeds to inform another audience, located in a situation under target-culture conditions, about the offer of information made by the source text. The translator offers this new audience a target text whose composition is guided by the translator‟s assumptions about their need, expectations, previous knowledge, and so on. These assumptions will be different from those made by the original author, because source-text addressees and target-text addressees belong to different cultures and language communities. This means the translator can not offer the same amount and kind of information as the source-text producer. What the translator does is to offer another kind of information in another form. Within the
What is a word? How the translator deals with this gap? What influences his choices? These are few of the question we will try to explain in this paper. We will pay a particular attention to the cultural differences and the translational gaps raised from it. In my opinion the non-equivalence in translation is due above all by the cultural barriers that influence our lifes.
Translators are professional writers. For this, you need to know your own language perfectly: grammar, vocabulary, style. Reading voraciously helps, and so will writing practice such as blogging, student journalism, creative writing. Even the little things like spelling are important. Spelling is really important for translators; bad spelling can give a really bad impression to clients.”
According to Hofstede’s (1980), ‘culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another… culture in the sense, includes systems of values: and values are among the building blocks of culture.’ It is necessary to determine how culture impacts our communication behavior as culture directly influences our perception and understanding of the message that is transmitted from one party to another. People from different cultures encode and decode messages differently; this therefore increases the chances of misunderstanding. Intercultural communication refers to interactions between people whose cultural assumptions are so different that the communication between them is altered. Verderber, Verderber, & Sellnow, (2010).
The importance of translation lies in its role of connecting all cultures. Documentary translation (DT), as Cao (2007) claims, plays “an important role in our increasingly globalised world” (p. 2). She assumes that such role is clear in associations and organizations, like United Nations and European Unions, where multilingualism among their Member States is what distinguishes them. Without being able to translate their documents, it would have been possible to institute any unions. Moreover, Cao noted that the need for translation in increasing due to globalization and the different contacts and exchanges among all states in all levels and fields. Thus, in order to understand the other states, institute official unions and maintain order,
Humans have been communicating since four million years. On the other hand, the birth of culture is estimated to have taken place about 35,000 years ago. Today, both culture and communication have evolved considerably and have become interdependent of one another, to the point that communication is considered to be a product of culture. Thus, our own culture has a deep impact on our thoughts and behaviors. Since each culture has its distinct aspects, intercultural communication can be the cause of conflict and disorder. There are three main issues which are at the root of the problem of intercultural miscommunication : language as a barrier, cultural diversity and ethnocentrism. I will analyze these three notions in situations in which intercultural communication is frequent such as : the workplace, the classroom and vacation trips.
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language that goes to his heart.” ‒ Nelson Mandela. Since the 1960’s learning a second language has decreased by 30 percent in today’s society. People who wish to learn an additional language often do so to communicate with people who reside in different countries. With an increase in today’s globalization, it is forcing companies throughout the world to break the language barrier. However, with the advancement of technology, numerous citizens find it unnecessary to learn another language, as a translation is at the tip of their fingers. The methods of learning a foreign language can differentiate between people. Nevertheless it has been
In a textbook of translation, Peter Newmark (1988) has discussed more than twenty translation procedures. They were literal translation, naturalization, free translation, etc. On the other hand, Catford (1965, p. 21) asserted that to get the equivalent of the target language, translation divided based on extensive, level, and ranks. Extent divided into full and partial translation, level are total and restricted translation, whereas ranks are rank bound, word for word, and literal translation. Catford argued that literal translation begins with translating word by word, but the translator can change it to make the word or sentences appropriate to the target language. However, Larson (1984, p. 15) stated that the literal translation as linear translation whereby it is useful to learn the source language, but it does not help the receiver...