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Translatability of culture
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This paper surveys the research methods and approaches used in the multidisciplinary field of applied language studies or language education over the last fourty years. Drawing on insights gained in psycho- and sociolinguistics, educational linguistics and linguistic anthropology with regard to language and culture, it is organized around five major questions that concern language educators. The first is: How is cultural meaning encoded in the linguistic sign? It discusses how the use of a symbolic system affects thought, how speakers of different languages think differently when speaking, and how speakers of different discourses (across language or in the same language) have different cultural worldviews. The second question is: How is cultural meaning expressed pragmatically through verbal action? It discusses the realization of speech acts across cultures, culturally-inflected conversation analysis, and the use of cultural frames. The third question is: How is culture co-constructed by participants in interaction? It discusses how applied linguistics has moved from a structuralist to a constructivist view of language and culture, from performance to performativity, and from a focus on culture to a focus on historicity and subjectivity. The fourth question is: How is research on language and culture affected by language technologies? The print culture of the book, the virtual culture of the Internet, the online culture of electronic exchanges all have their own ways of redrawing the boundaries of what may be said, written and done within a given discourse community. They are inextricably linked to issues of power and control. The last section explores the current methodological trends in the study of language and culture: the increased questioning and politicization of cultural reality, the increased interdisciplinary nature of research, the growing importance of reflexivity, and the noticeable convergence of intercultural communication studies and applied language studies in the study of language and culture.
francaisDans cet article, nous pretons attention a la traduction des jurons et, en particulier, aux problemes que pose le transfert des jurons anglais en espagnol et aux strategies de traduc-tion que l’on peut utiliser pour les resoudre. Les versions originale et traduite du scena-rio du film americain "Pulp Fiction" sont utilisees a titre d’illustrations. Les solutions adop-tees dans la traduction de ce texte prouvent qu’en depit de l’absence d’equivalence exacte entre les jurons anglais et espagnols, la charge emotionnelle des jurons anglais peut gene-ralement etre transmise en espagnol sans alterer le registre stylistique de l’original, de telle facon que le texte cible produit le meme effet sur le public espagnol que l’original sur son propre public. EnglishIn this paper attention is paid to the translation of swearing, more specifically to the prob-lems involved in the transference of English swearing into Spanish and the translatological strategies available in order to cope with them. Te original and translated versions of the screenplay of the American movie "Pulp Fiction" are used for illustrative purposes. Te so-lutions adopted in the translation of this text provide evidence that, despite the lack of ex-act equivalence existing between the English and Spanish swearing systems, the emotion-al charge of English expletives may be generally rendered into Spanish without altering the stylistic register of the original, thus making possible to produce on the target audience the same effect the original produces on its audience.
Considering that getting along in civil society is based on the expectation that (most) people will do what they say they will do, i.e., essentially live up to their explicit or implicit promises, it is amazing that so little scientific attention has been given to the act of promising. A great deal of research has been done on the moral development of children, for example, but not on the child’s ability to make and keep a promise, one of the highest moral achievements. What makes it possible developmentally, cognitively, and emotionally to make a promise in the first place? And on the other hand, what compels one to keep a promise (or vow or threat) when there seems to be no personal advantage in doing so, and even when harm can be predicted? How do we know when a promise is offered seriously to be taken at face value, and how do we understand that another is only a polite gesture, not to be taken seriously?
Written by a linguist and anthropologist with 40 years' experience in the field of language and religion, this work describes the major components of translating, setting the translating into the context of historical changes in principles and procedures over the last two centuries. With an emphasis on texts being understood within their cultural contexts, one of the reasons for continuing relevance of this book is the broad number of illustrative examples taken from field experience of translators in America, Africa, Europe and Asia.
This article is an account of the personal journey of one writer, from her first encounters in the 1970s with fellow scholars sharing an interest in translation and a sense of frustration at the anti-translation prejudices of many colleagues working in literature or linguistics at that time. The article traces the gradual rise of translation studies as an important field in its own right, but raises questions about the present state of the discipline, arguing that as translation studies has become more established, so it is failing to challenge orthodoxies and risks being left behind by the more innovative and exciting research now emerging from within world literature, postcolonialism, and cultural memory studies. I suggest that translation studies has reached a cross-roads and needs to reach out to other disciplines, taking advantage of what is being hailed by some as a translational turn within the humanities in general.
Taboo words are defined and sanctioned by institutions of power (e.g., religion, media), and prohibitions are reiterated in child-rearing practices. Native speakers acquire folk knowledge of taboo words, but it lacks the complexity that psychological science requires for an understanding of swearing. Misperceptions persist in psychological science and in society at large about how frequently people swear or what it means when they do. Public recordings of taboo words establish the commonplace occurrence of swearing (ubiquity), although frequency data are not always appreciated in laboratory research. A set of 10 words that has remained stable over the past 20 years accounts for 80% of public swearing. Swearing is positively correlated with extraversion and Type A hostility but negatively correlated with agreeableness, conscientiousness, religiosity, and sexual anxiety. The uniquely human facility for swearing evolved and persists because taboo words can communicate emotion information (anger, frustration) more readily than nontaboo words, allowing speakers to achieve a variety of personal and social goals with them (utility). A neuro-psycho-social framework is offered to unify taboo word research. Suggestions for future research are offered.
© 2009 Association for Psychological Science.
Literary texts display many linguistic peculiarities, as well as social and cultural aspects of our lives and, thus, we can assert that literary translation is one of the main ways of communication across cultures. Translating literary texts, however, is not an easy task, since it certainly poses many problems for the translator. One of the problems a translator can face arises from the fact that some words or phrases denoting objects, facts, phenomena, etc… are so deeply rooted in their source culture (SC) and so specific (and perhaps exclusive or unique) to the culture that produced them that they have no equivalent in the target culture (TC), be it because they are unknown, or because they are not yet codified in the target language (TL). When discussing the problems of correspondence in translation, “differences between cultures may cause more severe complications for the translator than do differences in language structure” (Nida 130). Moreover, several theorists, such as Santoyo, García Yebra and Yifeng, amongst others, support untranslatability when we face texts with terms which are so culture-bound and culture-specific as to defy translation (cf. Fernández Guerra, “The issue” 41).
Linguistic typologists (e.g. Ramat 1987, Seiler 1995) tend to assume that there is a close connection between translatability and language universals (research) but this assumption has recently been called into question by Comrie (1986, 1989, 1998), who claims that such a connection should be ignored in the practical enterprise of doing linguistics or will have a debilitating effect on the progress of linguistics as a discipline. This paper will demonstrate that translation is not only possible in principle but also has much relevance to language universals (research). First, to argue that translation is, in principle, not possible is to deny the basic relation between cognitive-conceptual content and language, mediated by translation. Moreover, the question of translatability is no longer looked upon as something either possible or impossible but translation is recognized as a process in which optimal solutions to translation are sought. Comrie’s argument for the impossibility of translation is based on formal equivalence, a concept which is highly debatable, particularly within Translation Studies. Second, translation has much relevance to language universals (research), because universal constraints (for example, on relative clause formation) are formulated or defined in terms of grammatical context, which will only come to light through translation. This does not come as a surprise because the mediation between language and cognition is also done through translation. The role of translation in language universals (research) is, pace Comrie (1986, 1989, 1998), much more than a mere heuristic. Translation is crucial to language universals (research), as recognized by Ramat (1987) and Seiler (1995).
Résumé
Les typologistes linguistiques (par exemple Ramat 1987, Seiler 1995) ont tendance à supposer qu’il y a un rapport étroit entre la traduisibilité et les universaux de la langue (recherche), mais cette supposition a été récemment remise en question par Comrie (1986, 1989, 1998). Celui-ci prétend qu’un tel rapport doit être ignoré quand on s’engage concrétement dans la pratique de la linguistique ou qu’il aura un effet débilitant sur le progrés de la linguistique en tant que discipline. Cet article démontrera que la traduction est non seulement possible en principe, mais qu’elle présente aussi beaucoup d’intérêt pour la recherche des universaux de la langue. Primo, prétendre que la traduction est en principe impossible revient à rejeter la relation fondamentale entre le contenu cognitif et conceptuel et la langue, « modérée » par la traduction. En outre, on ne considère plus la question de la traduisibilité comme quelque chose de possible ou d’impossible, mais on admet que la traduction est un processus dans lequel on cherche des solutions de traduction optimales. L’argument de Comrie en faveur de l’impossibilité de la traduction repose sur une équivalence formelle, un concept qui est hautement discutable, en particulier en traductologie. Secundo, la traduction présente beaucoup d’intérêt pour la recherche des universaux de la langue, parce que des contraintes universelles (par exemple, sur la formation des propositions relatives) sont formulées ou définies en termes de contexte grammatical, qui ne sera mis en lumière que par la traduction. Cela n’a rien de surprenant, parce que la médiation entre la langue et la connaissance se fait aussi par la traduction. Le rôle de la traduction dans la recherche des universaux de la langue est, pace Comrie (1986, 1989, 1998), bien plus qu’une simple heuristique. La traduction est cruciale pour la recherche des universaux de la langue, comme le reconnaissent Ramat (1987) et Seiler (1995).
The present study addresses itself to the issue of swearing (S), in the sense of oath taking, as a very frequent speech act in daily conversations in Jordan. A corpus of oaths exchanged by interlocutors in real-life contexts is analysed. It is shown that S exhibits an extensive amount of variation in form, usage and function, and that it serves a wide range of communicative functions. Oaths can be studied, on the one hand, as a cultural index of the community concerned, since they reflect the cultural patterns, values and themes that are dominant in this community, and, on the other hand, they may also be studied in a strictly linguistic setting, for example as moves to preface and modify speech acts.
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, June 2005. Includes bibliographical references.
Este artículo se centra en el análisis pragmático de la traducción al castellano de las referencias culturales británicas en la novela The Best a Man Can Get. Dichas referencias aparecen clasificadas y etiquetadas así como las estrategias utilizadas por el traductor español. Se han estudiado también las posibles motivaciones de este a la hora de optar por una estrategia en particular y cómo sus decisiones pueden afectar a la lectura de la novela traducida. Se incluye una entrevista con el traductor español, cuyas respuestas pueden clarificar algunas de sus opciones durante el proceso de traducción y al mismo tiempo apoyar ciertas ideas desarrolladas en el artículo. En general el traductor parece haber combinado estrategias que acercan la cultura de partida al lector meta con otras que mantienen la distancia entre la cultura de partida y la de llegada.
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https://www.quotes.net/mquote/43810
Translation between Linguistics and Culture
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