Type of lesson: Lecture 11 Topic: Translation and culture

Type of lesson: Lecture 11
Topic: Translation and culture
Plan for topic:

1. 
   General considerations
   
2. 
   Ecology
   
3. 
   Material culture
   
4. 
   Social culture
   
5. 
   Social organisation - political and
   

administrative
I define culture as the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a
community that uses a particular language as its means of expression. More specifically, I distinguish 'cultural' from 'universal1 and 'personal1 language. 'Die1, 'live1, 'star', 'swim' and even almost virtually ubiquitous artefacts like 'mirror1 and "table1 are universals - usually there is no translation problem there. 'Monsoon1, 'steppe1, 'dacha', 'tagliatelle1 are cultural words - there will be a translation problem unless there is cultural overlap between the source and the target language (and its readership). Universal words such as 'breakfast', 'embrace*, 'pile' often cover the universal function, but not the cultural description of the referent. And if 1 express myself in a personal
way - 'you're weaving (creating conversation) as usual', 'his "underlife" (personal qualities and private life) is evident in that poem', 'he's a monologger* (never finishes the sentence) -1 use personal, not immediately social, language, what is often called idiolect, and there is normally a translation problem. All these are broad and fuzzy distinctions. You can have several cultures (and sub-cultures) within one language: Jause ('Austrian* tea), Jugendweihe (GDR -'coming out* ceremony for twelve-year-olds), Beamier (Austria, Switzerland, FRG - but not GDR) are all cultural words which may need translation within German. However dialect words are not cultural words if they designate universals (e.g., 'loch', 'moors'), any more than the notorious pain, vin, Gemutlichkeii^ 'privacy1, insouciance, which are admittedly overladen with cultural connotations. And, when a speech community focuses its attention on a particular topic (this is usually called 'cultural focus1), it
spawns a plethora of words to designate its special language or terminology – the English on sport, notably the crazy cricket words (la maiden over*, 'silly mid-on\ 'howzzat'), the French on wines and cheeses, the Germans on sausages, Spaniards on bull-fighting, Arabs on camels, Eskimos, notoriously, on snow, English and French on sex in mutual recrimination; many cultures have their words for cheap liquor for the poor and desperate: 'vodka1, 'grappa1, 'slivovitz1, 'sake*, 'Schnaps' and, in the past (because too dear now), 'gin'. Frequently where there is cultural focus, there is a translation problem due to the cultural 'gap1 or 'distance' between the source and target languages.
Note that operationally I do not regard language as a component or feature of
culture. If it were so, translation would be impossible. Language does however contain all kinds of cultural deposits, in the grammar (genders of inanimate nouns), forms of address (like Sie? usted) as well as the lexis ('the sun sets1) which are not taken account of in universal either in consciousness or translation. Further, the more specific a language becomes for natural phenomena (e.g., flora and fauna) the more it becomes embedded in cultural features, and therefore creates translation problems. Which is worrying, since it is notorious that the translation of the most general words (particularly of morals and feelings, as Tytler noted in 1790)-love, temperance, temper* right, wrong -is usually harder than that of specific words. Most 'cultural' words are easy to detect, since they are associated with a particular language and cannot be literally translated, but many cultural customs are described in ordinary language ('topping out a building', 'time, gentlemen, please, 'mud in your eye'), where literal translation would distort the meaning and a translation may include an appropriate descriptive-functional equivalent. Cultural objects may be referred to by a relatively culture-free generic term or classifier (e.g., 'tea') plus the various additions in different cultures, and you have to account for these additions Cram', 'lemon', 'milk1, 'biscuits', 'cake', other courses, various times of day) which may appear in the course of the SL text.