Culture and Translation - Essay Example

1 Introduction 2 2 Culture and Translation 3 3 Translation Theory 6 3 The Phenomenological Approach 6 3.2 The Linguistic Approach 7 3.3 The Communicative Approach 7 3.4 The Intersemiotic Approach 8 4 Translation Types 8 4.1 Literal Translation 9 4.2 Modified Literal Translation 9 5 Making a Choice 10 6 Outcome 13 7 Conclusion 14 8 Bibliography 15 1 Introduction Translation is not simply a matter of finding alternatives and synonyms for words in one language, in another. Translation does not simply involve the translation of words but, importantly, of cultures. This is a fact which numerous linguistics and translation scholars have emphasised (Baker, 1992, pp. 4-5; Katan, 1999, pp. 69, 215-220; Faiq, 2004, pp. 14-16). Indeed, as these scholars have noted, because language and words derive their meaning from culture, culture often stands as an obstacle to translation. This is especially true in relation to cultures which are generally regarded as opposites, such as East and West. The problem of translation, therefore, is not simply limited to finding alterative words but to preserving the source culture. Referring to the translation of specific genres which represent a language's cultural heritage and historical memories, Rosslyn (1997, pp. 19-22) highlights the difficulties of translating the worlds within which these words emerge and which they define and express. Translation is a challenge because it entails far more than the rendering of a text from a source to a target language; translation requires that the translator move the culture from the source text to the target text but in such a way as would allow the target audience to understand that culture and to appreciate it on its own terms (Bassnet, 1990; Baker, 1992, pp. 1-5; Schaffner and Kelly-Holmes, 1995, pp. 19-23; Faiq, 2004, pp. 14-16). Looking at the above stated from the perspective of Arabic to English or English to Arabic translation, the difficulties and challenges which the translator confronts become a bit clearer. Not only is the Arabic to English translator, for example, required to transfer an Arabic language text into the English language but he/she is expected to also preserve the Arabic culture from which the text emerged and transfer it to the source text, the translated one. This, as the essay will argue, is an extremely difficult undertaking and, if it is to be done properly, requires that the translator align the translation theory and type that he will use with the source text's genre and culture. 2 Culture and Translation The problem of translation is compounded by the cultural factor. This is especially so in cases where the proposed source culture and the planned target one are considered antithetical, or when the difference between them function as an obstacle to the one understanding the other. This is generally assumed to be the case with Arabic and English. Indeed, historical memories, linguistic heritages and worldviews specific to the Arabic and English languages are sufficiently different and divergent to pose as a real challenge for the translator. As Edward Said (1978, pp. 49-52) argued in his famous, and highly influential, treatise on orientalism, when translating from Arabic to English, the translator faces a challenging task. He has to disconnect himself, as a subject and person, from the act of translation, to avoid making the mistake of colonizing or orientalising the text. As regards the former, the implication here is that the Western translator approach the Arabic text from the matrix of his/her own culture and, in his/her determined efforts to communicate the nuances of the oriental culture, emphasize its otherness,' ultimately portraying it as extremely foreign and exotic. As regards the latter, the translator similarly inserts him/herself, as a subjective cultural being, into the process. The outcome can be the colonization of the source text in the sense that the translator interprets it from his/her cultural perspectives and norms, effectively imposing the latter upon the target text. In this way, the translator has not allowed for an understanding of the source text as it should be understood, that is from within the framework of the culture which produced it, but colonizes it in the sense that it is interpreted, rather than translated, from a Eurocentric viewpoint. That is to say, the target text is, ultimately, a colonized version of the source text, and not a translation of it (Said, 1978, pp. 49-55). This means that translation is a problem and a challenge because it is not words which are being translated but, cultures as well. Dickens comments on the problem and challenge of translating literature texts from one language to another because of the cultural factors (2002, pp. 7-12). As he explains, the challenge lies in the very definition of translation. According to popular understandings, translation is simply the restatement of that which has been expressed in one language into another language. This definition focuses on translation as a task which centres on word and meaning as opposed to spirit, underlying meaning and context. This means that the relationship between language and culture, and the fact that language is, essentially, a way of expressing cultural meanings, is generally ignored in popular understanding of translation. These understanding tend to focus on the translation of words, ignoring the fact that it is culture which is being translated. In order to produce more effective and honest translations of a source text, the translator has to re-examine his/her understanding of translation and try to understand the culture from which he is translating and the culture he is translating into. As may have been understood from the above, there is a dynamic relationship between culture and language. The way in which culture affects, shapes and even produces language creates problems for the translator because the source culture may be remarkably different. Nevertheless, these problems can definitely be minimized, if not entirely overcome, by the translation theory and approach which the translator uses. Some translation approaches, as scholars have noted (Newmark, 1981, pp. 49-55; Newmark; 1991, pp. 11-14; Ponzi, 2003, 55-60; Petrilli, 2003, pp. 41-45) are perfectly suited for translating culture and language because they are based on an acknowledgement of the relationship between culture and language. These approaches recognize that the task of the translator is not simply to transmit the words from the source to the target text but to transfer the culture from the source text to the target one. In direct comparison, other translation theories appear to deny this relationship and accordingly, focus on words, on text and, in so doing, all but ignore the culture from which they derive their meaning. The implication here is that the identified problem can be addressed through the selection of the appropriate translation theory and approach. Bearing in mind that this discussion centres on the translation of Arabic texts into English, the next section shall examine translation theories and types in order to evaluate which is best suited for translating Arabic culture into English and vice versa. 3 Translation Theory Translation theories offer different ways and strategies for transferring meaning from the source to the target culture. The type of translation theory chosen by a translator depends on a number of factors: how close the worlds of the source and target languages are; the purpose of translation; the skill of the translator; and also the target community of the translation (Munday, 2001, pp. 9-14; Dickens, 2002, pp. 6-12; Faiq, 2004, pp. 18-21). By reviewing different translation theories, the use of each in translating from Arabic to English and vice versa will be examined. 3.1 The Phenomenological Approach As may be understood from Dickens (2002, pp. 6-10), Munday (2001, pp. 39-43) and Newmark (1981, pp. 53-55), the phenomenological approach to translation focuses on the literary nature of the SL text. The translator makes himself/herself invisible, as Venuti (1995, pp. 17, 214-216) writes, and focuses on the text's author and the text's cultural and historical setting. This translation theory argues that the translator should not interpret the text but should focus on transferring its meaning and its culture from the source to the target. The problem with this translation approach, however, is that it assumes that the target audiences knows something about the source culture and, therefore, does not attempt to explain it. The fact is that the target audience may not have any knowledge of the source culture, in which case, the target text comes across as extremely foreign and difficult to understand. In other words, by transferring culture from the source to the target text without any explanations, culture becomes a barrier to the target asudience's understanding of the text. 3.2 The Linguistic Approach As may be understood from Dickens (2002, pp. 6-12) and Munday (2001, pp. 9-14), the linguistic approach is based upon rules of correspondence, which are used in the process of translating at the surface level for both syntactic and semantic elements. Therefore, this approach tries to search for the correspondent structure of one language in the other language. The disadvantage of this approach lie in that it only considers the surface meaning of the SL and the TL, and by doing so, ignores the underlying cultural meanings. Nida (2003, pp. 164-165) criticized this approach, pointing out that it is dependant on surface, or superficial meaning, and ignores the deeper cultural meanings of the text. 3.3 The Communicative Approach As may be understood from Munday's (2001, pp. 50-62) analysis, the communicative approach consists of source, message, receptor, feedback, noise, channel, medium, impact, and redundancy. The focus in this approach is the receptor since the main concern here is on how accurately and successfully the message is transferred from the SL to the TL so that the receptor in the TL reacts to and appreciates the message the same way as those in the SL. The shortcomings of this approach lie in that it defines the message/text as a linguistic phenomenon and accordingly, ignores its cultural aspects (Munday, 2001, pp. 50-62). 3.4 The Intersemiotic Approach The intersemiotic approach concentrates on the relationship between social behaviour and language. Just like the communicative approach, the goal of the intersemiotic approach is to make the transferred message as good as the original so that the receptor in the TL appreciates it as much as the receptor in the SL would (Torop. 2003, pp. 271-272; Salthe, 2003, pp. 283-285; Yates, 2003, 297-298). This approach considers something that the communicative approach overlooks and that is the cultural differences between the TL and the SL. Regarding cross-cultural linguistic translations concerned, this approach has the advantage of considering the relationship between the social behaviour and language use in addition to the linguistic and cultural differences between both the SL and the TL. 4 Translation Types In addition to the translation theories which the translator must choose between when approaching a translation task, he or she must also select between different translation types. The two most popular ones are the literal and the modified literal, both of which will not be discussed in relation to Arabic as the source text/language. 4.1 Literal Translation This is a form-based translation. It is a word for word translation where each word or morpheme in the source language (SL) is translated into a word or morpheme in the target language (TL). Hatim (1997, pp. 30-34) emphasized that in translating legal texts literal translation is the most suitable and useful type of translation. He described legal discourse as a "close-knit texture" which helps to keep ambiguity away from the legal language; therefore a literal translation is better to reflect this quality of legal texts. He emphasizes this point furthermore by indicating that no other type of translation must be used unless there is a good reason to do it. 4.2 Modified Literal Translation This is similar to the literal in that the lexical items are translated literally; the modification which is made is that the grammar and word order are adjusted to that of the TL to the point where the sentence structure has an acceptable structure in the TL. As Hatim (1997, pp. 30-34) explains, in a modified literal translation the sentence represents the same surface structure of the SL sentence, i.e. the Arabic sentence, but applies the passive structure of the TL, i.e. English. As it is obvious from this example, neither the literal nor the modified literal translation renders a sentence that sounds natural in the TL. 5 Making a Choice Upon approaching the source text, the translator has a number of critical decisions to make. These decisions relate to the translation theory, type and approach he/she will use. If we assume that the translator wants to transfer the source culture and not just the source language to the target text, the best approach would be one which combines between the intersemiotic and the modified literal translation. As may be deduced from the foregoing discussion, the former is fundamentally founded upon consideration for the socio-cultural context of language and recognises that words do not simply represent, or signify, objects/emotions, etc. but communicate worlds. Words carry cultural baggage with them and fidelity to the source text, both as a space of language and culture, dictates the imperatives of moving the said baggage from the source to the target text. On the theoretical level, the intersemiotic approach enables the aforementioned. Within the context of the intersemiotic approach, the Arabic to English translator should opt for the modified literal as opposed to the literal type of translation. In reference to Arabic to English translation, the literal type should not be an option, insofar as it lends to the distortion of meaning in some instances and renders words untranslatable in others. This can be exemplified through reference to the Arabic word,. Literally, this word means hit or beat. However, were one to look at the multiple contexts of its use in the Arabic language, one would be confronted with the impossibility of literal translation, in which instance the translator would be directed towards the modified literal type: Sentence Literal Modified Literal Went I to the hit I went to the village Hit he the earth He harvested the earth Hit I the boy I hit the boy To use another randomly selected word, as an example, in order to establish that the above is not an exception: Sentence Literal Modified Literal A deluge of complaints I went to the village A deluge of rain He harvested the earth A deluge of protests I hit the boy In both sets of examples, albeit to differing degrees, literal translation renders the target text virtually impossible to understand; modified literal translation, on the other hand, facilitates comprehensibility. Proceeding from the above stated, the argument is that the Arabic to English translator should deploy intersemiotic translation approaches within the context of a modified literal translation type. This is the method preferred by Nida (2003, pp. 164-167) insofar as it acknowledges the dual role of the translator, that of a literal co /.mmunicator of meaning and of an interpreter of meaning. To do yu77777777"gfvb+oikOtherwise would be to either colonise a language or orientalise it, as Said (1978, pp. 49-52) contends. It is apparent that Venuti (1995, pp. 41-42) adheres to the same precept whereby he emphasises the imperatives of the translator rendering himself invisible even as he executes his dual functions so that he/she may effectively execute the tasks associate with translation while preserving the cultural integrity and meaning of the source text in the target text. With regards to the stated, Venuti (1995, pp. 41-42) aims to: force translators and their readers to reflect on the ethnocentric violence of translation and hence to write and read translated texts in ways that seek to recognize the linguistic and cultural difference of foreign texts. . . . The foreign text is privileged in a foreignizing translation only insofar as it enables a disruption of target language cultural codes, so that its value is always strategic, depending on the cultural formation into which it is translated. The point is rather to elaborate the theoretical, critical, and textual means by which translation can be studied and practiced as a locus of difference, instead of homogeneity that widely characterizes it today. The implication here is that the translator engages with the text, initiate a dialogue with it in order that he/she allows the target text to speak for itself and to express that which it wants to clarify in the target text. This means that, according to Venuti (1995, pp. 40-45) translating, as is reading, is a matter of negotiation whereby the options for interpretation are left wide open, in which case the reader interprets the target text on his own terms - the translator does not impose an interpretation upon him/her. 6 Outcome Following the identification of a particular theory and translation type as, supposedly, optimally suited to translation from Arabic to English, it remains to see the outcome of the aforementioned. The example that shall be used here is from the translations of Denys Johnson-Davies, popularly regarded as the foremost translator of Egyptian literary fiction into English. It is Johnson-Davies who has translated all of Naguib Mahfouz, Yehya Haqi and Youssef Idris' works, among others, from Arabic to English. The example which will be used here is from Haqi's Mother of the Destitute, with the reason for selection being that Haqi, more than any other Egyptian novelist, captures the essence of the Egyptian culture and mentality in his works. His novels are expressive, not only of the condition of the lower socio-economic classes whom he focuses upon, but on their worldview and their subculture. The implication here is that the translator is confronted, not just with the task of conveying a culture but a subculture, worldview and mindset, all of which are very foreign and highly exotic insofar as the target audience is concerned. Whether or not Johnson Davies (1967) succeeds in dong s through the deployment of the use theory and translation type can best be determined by looking at an extract: Praised be He whose dominion extends over all creatures and who knows no opposition to His rule. Here I have no wish but to recount the story of Ibrahim Abu Khalil as he made his way down the steps of life, like the leaves of spring, which, though lifted a little by the wind, contain, even at their height, their ineluctable descent until at last they are cushioned and trampled down into the earth (Johnson-Davies, trans., 1967, p. 97) As any Egyptian reader will detect, the above extract from the selected target text is an accurate representation, not only of the Egyptian culture, mindset and worldview but of the subculture in question and its lingo-cultural nuances. It commences with the traditional, almost spontaneous and unthinking references to God and then moves on to use colourful language, mostly intended to display the author's own linguistic prowess and the richness of the Arabic language, to clarify the focus of the short story. The translator, in this instance, does transmit and preserve the source text's meaning, language and culture but, in so doing, he ultimately renders the target text foreign to the target audience and this, in itself, could very well function as a repellent, a barrier to understanding and appreciation. 7 Conclusion In the final analysis, all that this research has confirmed is the difficulties inherent in translating Arabic to English. The difficulty emanates, above all else, from the disparity between the cultures in question, from the gulf which separates the Arabian from the Anglo-Saxon culture and from the imperatives of the translator's preserving the lingo-cultural integrity of the first when rendering it into the second. 8 Bibliography Baker, M. (1992) In Other Words. London: Routledge. Dickens, J. (2002) Thinking Arabic Translation. London: Routledge. Faiq, S. (2004) Culture Encounters in Translation from Arabic. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Haqqi, Y. (1967) . "Mother of the Destitute." Modern Arabic Short Stories. Trans. Denys Johnson-Davies. London: Oxford UP. 97-105. Hatim, B. (1997) Communication Across Culture: Translation Theory and Contrastive Text Linguistics. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Katan, D. (1999) Translating Cultures: An Introduction for Translators, Interpreters and Mediators. Manchaster: St. Jerome's Press. Munday, J. (2001). Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. London: Routledge. Nida, E. (2003) Towards A Science of Translation. Netherlands: Lieden. Newmark, P. (1981) Approaches to Translation. London: Prentice-Hall. Newmark, P. (1991) About Translation. London: Pergamon. Petrilli, S. (ed) (2003) Translation, Translation. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Ponzio, A. (2003) The same other: The text and its translations. In Petrilli, S. (ed) (2003) Translation, Translation. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Rosslyn, F. (1997) Heroic couplet translation - A unique solution. In Bassnett, S. 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