Some strategies of translating culturally bound expressions and words

1. Some strategies of translating
culturally- bound expressions and
words
BY
Dr. Montasser Mohamed AbdelWahb
An Assistant Professor at Al Imam
Muhammad Bin Saud Islamic University

2. Translatability of Cultural Terms
•
It goes without saying that culture is one of the most difficult topics to deal
with in translation.
•
Cultural problems is an umbrella term that includes various problems in the
process of translation such as problems arising from mixing between the
denotative and connotative meanings of words, forms of address, and the
problems associated with idioms and metaphors.
•
No culture can exist without having at its centre, the structure of
language(Mc Guire,1980). Language, then, is the heart within the body of
culture.
•
Despite the fact that this last view is opposed by those who believe not
everything is determined by the relation of language to culture and that
many aspects of translation transcend cultural boundaries (Wilss 1994:
38), culture remains a central element in translation.
•
The translator who ignores this interconnection between language and
culture will commit a serious mistake.

3. Translation, Language and Culture
• If we consider language as a culture specific
activity, translation is mainly a transference of
one culture into another.
• Translation is culture bound so when we translate
we transport not only words from one container
to another, but rather one entire culture into
another, including the social, political and other
conditions that surround the translator in his/her
own environment .

4. What a Translator Needs to Translate CultureBound expressions and words?
• A Translator is required no only to be bilingual or
multilingual but also to be bicultural, or
multicultural, armed with good knowledge of as
many cultures as possible (Vemeer 1986).
• A Translator is required to assume a cultural
stance towards translation. He/She should adopt
a culture-biased approach towards translation.
• A Translator is required to make culture familiar
to readers, by means of changing the Source
Language culture into the Target Language
culture in translation (Fawcett, in Baker, 1998)

5. Categories of Culture
• According to Newmark, there are five categories
of translation:
(1) ecology: plants, animals, mountains, plains, etc.
(2) Material culture :
food, clothes, housing, transport, etc.
(3) Social culture: work and leisure
(4) organizations, customs, ideas:
(political, social, legal, religious, artistic)
(5) Gestures and Habits: (non linguistic features)

6. strategies of Translating culturalSpecific Items
The following strategies are put in order of preference:
(1) Cultural Equivalent
(2) Cultural Correspondence
(3) Accepted Standard Translation
(4) Naturalization
(5) General Sense
(6) Transcription/Transference
(7) Literal Translation of Meaning
(8) Translation Couplet
(9) Translation Triplet
(10) Classifier
(11) Neutralization
(12) Componential Analysis
(13) Paraphrase
(14) Translation Label
(15) Deletion
(16) Gloss, Notes and Footnotes

7. (1) Cultural Equivalent
• The idea of this strategy is to find an equivalent in the
target language that could be used exactly in the same
context to give an identical meaning to that of the source
language
• Examples:
(1) The British Council
(2) Romeo and Juliet
(3) as beautiful as a lark
(4) Parliament
(5) Horse’ s mouth

8. (2) Cultural Correspondence
• The Source Language cultural term has the
same correspondent term in the target
language.
Examples:
(1) Meat Pies
(2) To hit two birds with one stone
(3) Security Council
(4) House of Representatives

9. (3) Accepted Standard Translation
It refers to Source Language terms that have become standard
terms in the Target Language. It has become perfectly understood
in the target Language.
All these expressions are new in the Target Language as they are
imported from the Source Language but they have become a part
of the standard everyday Target Language expressions.
They have become contemporary Target Language terms
although they were not found in the Target Language lexicon.

10. More Examples
Examples:
(1) The end justifies the means.
(2) To throw all man’s cards.
(3) Car park /car lot
(4) To sign on the dotted line/ To sign on a carte blanche
(5) Software
(6) Hardware
(7) Spare parts
(8) Ring road

11. (4) Naturalization
• According to Ghazzala (1995), naturalization is the
attempt to adopt the English terms to the morphology
of Arabic word structure and can be seen as evolution
of the transcription method.
• It represents culture-specific terms that stand half
between the Source language and the Target Language
although their origin is found in the Source Language.
• Such terms are adapted to the Target Language
grammar, spelling and pronunciation.
• The reason behind the existence of this phenomenon
lies in the constant interaction among peoples and
cultures.

12. Drawbacks of Naturalization
• This method consists of adding new affixes to the
foreign terms leaving their roots unchanged. The
added affixes are to adjust the terms into the Arabic
morphology as is the case of
verbs, nouns, gender, adjectives and adverbs
• According to Baker (1987) transcription and
naturalization have not received acceptance from the
Arabic language theorists because they threaten the
identity of Arabic. Thus, translators are likely to come
across a situation where they need to be more creative
by following certain methods that may ensure the high
quality and smoothness of translating scientific terms.

13. Examples
• 1. Technology
→
• a. Technologist (n) →
• b. Technological (adj.) →
• 2. Oxide
• a. Oxidised (adj.)
• b. Oxidizer (n)
• 3. Biology
• a. Biologist (n)
• b. Biological (adj.)
→
→
→
→
→
→
Naturalization is considered by Ghazzala (1995) better than
transcription, although it is still not convenient. Thus it is not pure
Arabic, the basic or the roots of terms remain English even if they are
naturalized.

14. Other Examples
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1. Democracy
2. Olympics
4. Tamarind
5. Hercules
6. Alcohol
7. fellah
8. Jubbah
9. dervish
10. monsoon
(
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