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.
"For the translator, who stands astride two cultures, possesses two different sensibilities, and assumes a double identity" —Husain Haddawy
Some English words do not have corresponding words in most foreign languages so there are issues with exact translation. It may take more words to present the same message in a different language.
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.
The problem with translating words and ideas doesn’t end with the differences in language. If the translator doesn’t fully understand the subject, or fails to grasp the minute distinctions that a guru will often make, then the translation will be wrong.
This book mainly focus on the relationship between translation and culture. It addresses the shift of focus from translated block of text to the binding of translations and the cultures involved in generating these translations. It also covers the significance of translation for cultural planning.
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
In human society, translation plays a significant role, which helps realize effective communication among people. Benjamin (as cited in Venuti, 2000) indicates translation is the mode, which plays a function of transmitting information; hence translatability determines whether the information could be effectively and appropriately delivered and is regarded as the “essential quality of certain works”. Throughout history, many scholars have developed translation theories, which provide various effective translation strategies and methods, to explore the translatability. Equivalence theory points out that all languages always share some similarities; hence the languages could be exchanged (Nida, as cited in Venuti, 2000). The skopos theory emphasizes
The language is the muse of the translator, but for every language the translator know, they have a different muse. For every language, they known new techniques, and buy other materials to paint. The translator must known the languages and the techniques to make an efficient translation, considering the grammar, phonetics, the culture of the language learned. By this way, the translator should be able to be the bridge between the cultures. Furthermore, being a bridge between culture, does not mean you cannot paint up your way to
Like other acts of writing, translation is also a form of communication, which belongs to a world of roles, values and ideas. This is especially true because translation is in itself an intently relational act, one which establishes connections between text and culture, between author and reader. Moreover translations, unlike the original works are always governed by ideological compulsions: “Creative art might owe its origin to purely aesthetic reason (the aesthetic principles may however be indirectly linked to social praxis), but the need of translation is more ideological than aesthetic.” (Dash, 2005: 149). And as it is the translator/translatress who codes, decodes the ST and (re)creates the TT, his/ her assumptions, world view, belief, values or in broader sense ‘ideology’ consciously or unconsciously is reflected in the translation. Ian Mason in his essay “Discourse, Ideology and Translation” (2009) says that the translation at various levels both semantic and lexical reflects the translator’s ideology whether consciously or unconsciously. His choi...
In the present era of globalization, translation plays a major role in conveying messages from one language to another. However, translation is not an easy task as we can witness many cases of wrong translations. In the process of translation, either from Indonesian to any foreign languages or from any foreign languages to Indonesian, translators cannot ignore the errors which can happen during the translation. These errors often happen and must be overcome by translators. Translation is similar with communication in a way that we transfer information from the sender to the receiver in written texts. In this process there are at least two factors involved, one is the sender or the one who wants to send the message to someone else, second is
“Translating means comparing cultures” (Nord, 2001: 34). Culture involves almost everything in the world, whether material or spiritual. “Everything we observe as being different from our own culture is, for us, specific to the other culture” (ibid). Every action takes place in the context of a specific culture. Since everybody lives in a society, culture is succinctly defined as “the totality of beliefs and practices of a society” (Nida, 2001: 78). Translation is not done in vacuum but also conducted under cultural contexts.
The translation process may seem easy to them who don't have to deal regularly with it, but after a little exercise anyone could realize the amount of problems rize even just from the translation of a single word. In fact languages are not a list of tags that simply name the categories of the world; each language organizes the world in a different way and the meaning and value of the words varies in relation to their cultural and social system.
One of the most important concepts in Translation Studies is equivalence put forward by Eugene Nida (1964). There are two types of equivalent relationship between the source and the target texts according to him, formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence. Formal equivalence focuses on reproducing the surface structure, i.e. form and content of the source message. On the other hand, dynamic equivalence emphasizes equivalent effect, which implies that translators should aim to produce a similar response in the target audience to that in the source audience. However, scholars have criticized the concept of equivalent effect for being too vague. Moreover, it is almost impossible to create equivalent effect for readers from a different culture. ()
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 general, Translation is “an operation on languages: a process of substituting a text in one language for a text in another”. Documentary translation is regarded as an act of communication which tackles legal translation. Legal translation is a special type of an act of communication which takes place “in the mechanism of the law”. Only professional translators specialize in legal translation because legal translation is the foundations of social relationship as marriage, contract, agreements and civil rights such as wills and inheritance. Moreover, when translating a text within the field of law, the translator should keep the following in mind. The legal system of the source text (ST) is structured in a way that suits that culture and this reflected in the legal language similarly to the target language (TT). The general characteristic features of English and Arabic legal translation are lexical,