By Dolar Yuwono
Presumably, texts
with "German content" were selected to provide the students with
information about Germany
A.
Introduction
When the writer was asked to
give a presentation related to “Translation in relation to Culture”, he
immediately thought of his own past experiences learning a foreign language and
the learning process he went through in understanding the culture of the
language he studied. However, his brain quickly became flooded as
,throughout his multicultural nation, Indonesia,
he has faced a present-day phenomenon concerning several experiences learning a
variety of languages which has impact on almost all peoples worldwide as well
as on the international relations emerging from the current new world order. His
academic background in Teaching English as a Foreign Language has instilled in
him the utmost reverence for foreign language acquisition in the process of
understanding culture. Shortly after the
mental flood of language learning experiences, he was drawn to his first encounter
with teaching a foreign language in SMA. Also, he was drawn to think of the variety of
language and culture issues that his country, Indonesia
AS a teacher of foreign language(English) in SMA, he faced many
problems not only related to the preparation of the material which suited with
the national standard curriculum, but also other aspects like approach, method,
and techniques used, and cross cross-cultural understanding of the taught
language which would be given to the students. The last that he mentions ,if he
could say, is unique problem due to its important role as a part of teaching
material but most of the teachers ignore or,
maybe, just take it for granted.
English, which has been
stated in the national education bills no 20,2005 as the foreign language
taught in SMA, is as the compulsory subject for the students starting from secondary
schools up to senior high schools without any clear explanation related to the involvement
of the culture. The inclusion of the culture in teaching English in the
national curriculum either at the level of secondary, or at the level of high
school is never clearly seen and described. Therefore, by requiring the study
of English for high school, the teachers of the school should demonstrate their
belief in the importance of creating cultural awareness amongst Indonesian
youth of their multicultural friends. Of course, at that level, learning the language
is as important as learning about the culture.
While the students are introduced to numbers, colors, and differences in
the sounds of the English alphabet, they are also learning about how to greet
other people(language function), wedding party, holidays, foods, and places and other aspects
of the English speaking world. For
himself, as a teacher of English, these cultural aspects of language learning
are what really sparked his interest. Of
course, this was due to no ignorance of the teacher. In retrospect, he knows, as everyone at his
school knows, that his affinity to English was largely cultivated by the
teacher and the teacher’s knowledge of the irrevocable relationship between
language and culture.
Indeed, as teachers,
we can and should in fact USE culture to add interest to our lessons. While his
fluency in English never flowered fully, mostly because he had no exposure and
time to practice with his colleagues once he taught in high school, later on in
life, he has been able to make
English-speaking friends in different parts
of the world and he was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to travel to
some ASEAN countries and travel with a American and British, Arabian friends he
had met abroad.
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B.
Contextualization of culture to the translation
He believes, for
English language teachers in Indonesia
In contact with the his above statements ,it
has been long taken for granted that translation deals only with language.
Cultural perspective, however, has never been brought into discussion. This can
be seen in most of the following definitions.
Larson
(1989, h. 3): penerjemahan merupakan pengalihan makna dari bahasa sumber (BSu)
kedalam bahasa sasaran (BSa).
Brislin
(1976, p.. 1): penerjemahan adalah istilah umum yang mengacu pada pengalihan
pikiran atau gagasan dari suatu BSu kedalam
BSa baik tulisan maupun lisan, ("the general term referring to the transfer of thoughts and
ideas from one language (source) to another (target), whether the languages are
in written or oral form; whether the languages have established orthographies
or do not have such standardization or whether one or both languages is based
on signs, as with sign languages of the deaf.")
According to Nida and Taber in The Theory and
Practice of Translation (1969, p. 12), “Translating consists in reproducing in
the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source-language
message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style”.
Pym (1982, h. 39): terjemahan merupakan
hasil pencarian padanan yang sedekat mungkin antara teks BSu dan teks BSa
dengan mempertimbangkan pemahaman yang sama dalam isi dan gaya
Catford (1965: 20) states that translation is the replacement of textual
material in one language by equivalent textual material in another language. In
this definition, the most important thing is equivalent textual material. Yet,
it is still vague in terms of the type of equivalence. Culture is not taken
into account (penerjemahan adalah
suatu kerja yang diwujudkan dalam bahasa, yaitu, proses pergantian suatu teks
bahasa yang satu dengan teks bahasa yang lain.)
Identical with the above definition
is the one proposed by Pinhhuck (1977:38). He maintains that “Translation is a
process of finding a TL equivalent for an SL utterance”.
In
the definitions appearing in 1960s-1970s,(Haryanto Sugeng,,translanguage@telkom.net,)
some similarities have been found: (1) there is a change of expression from one
language to the other, (2) the meaning and message are rendered in the TL, and
(3) the translator has an obligation to seek for the closest equivalent in the
TL. Yet, there is no indication that culture is taken into account except in
that of Nida and Taber. Actually
Nida and Taber themselves do not mention this matter very explicitly.
Following
their explanation on "closest natural equivalent", however, we
can infer that cultural consideration is considered. They maintain that the
equivalent sought after in every effort of translating is the one that is so
close that the meaning/message can be transferred well. As stated by Haryanto
S. that the concept of closest natural equivalent is rooted in Nida's concept
of dynamic equivalent. His celebrated example is taken from the Bible, that is
the translation of "Lamb of God" into the Eskimo language. Here
"lamb" symbolizes innocence, especially in the context of sacrifice. As
a matter of fact, Eskimo culture does not know "lamb". Thus, the word
does not symbolize anything. Instead of "Lamb of God", he prefers
"Seal of God" to transfer the message. Here he considers cultural aspects.
The
inclusion of cultural perspective in the definition of translation
unfortunately does not continue. The later ones keep on not touching this
matter. See the following definition.
"Translation involves the rendering
of a source language (SL) text into the target language (TL) so as to ensure
that (1) the surface meaning of the two will be approximately similar and (2)
the structure of the SL will be preserved as closely as possible, but not so
closely that the TL structure will be seriously distorted (McGuire, 1980: 2).
In the following definition, Newmark
does not state anything about culture.
"Translation is a craft consisting
in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by
the same message and/or statement in another language" (Newmark, 1981: 7).
Finally, Wills defines translation more
or less similarly as follows.
"Translation is a transfer process
which aims at the transformation of a written SL text into an optimally
equivalent TL text, and which requires the syntactic, the semantic and the
pragmatic understanding and analytical processing of the SL" (Wills in
Noss, 1982: 3).
It
is known that out of 8 definitions above only one takes cultural aspects into
account, the one by Nida and Taber. This definition is actually a specific one,
rooted from the practice of the Bible translation. By nature, it is understood
that the translation should be done to every language. As the content addresses
all walks of life and culture plays an important role in human life, culture,
therefore, should be considered.
The
other definitions, however, are meant to explain the experts' view on translation
theory to be applied in the translation of all types of material, including
scientific or technical texts which are not deeply embedded in any culture.
Thus, it can be momentarily hypothesized that cultural consideration must be
taken if the material to translate is related to culture. For material that is
not very much embedded into a specific culture, cultural consideration may not
be necessary.
According
to Snell-Hornby (1988: 39), however, this exclusion of cultural aspect from the
discussion of translation theory is due to the view of the traditional approach
in linguistics which draws a sharp dividing-line between language and
"extralinguistic reality" (culture, situation, etc.). The
contemporary approach, according to her, sees language as an integral part of
culture. This view can be seen in Hymes (1964) and Halliday and Hasan (1985),
for example.
The term 'culture' addresses three salient categories of human
activity: the 'personal,' whereby we as individuals think and function as such;
the 'collective,' whereby we function in a social context; and the
'expressive,' whereby society expresses itself,(Alejandra Patricia Karamanian,www.baspeech.com.aralejandra@baspeech.com.ar).
Language is the only social institution without which no other social institution can function; it therefore underpins the three pillars upon which culture is built.
Translation, involving the transposition of thoughts expressed in one language by one social group into the appropriate expression of another group, entails a process of cultural de-coding, re-coding and en-coding. As cultures are increasingly brought into greater contact with one another, multicultural considerations are brought to bear to an ever-increasing degree. Now, how do all these changes influence us when we are trying to comprehend a text before finally translating it? We are not just dealing with words written in a certain time, space and sociopolitical situation; most importantly it is the "cultural" aspect of the text that we should take into account. The process of transfer, i.e., re-coding across cultures, should consequently allocate corresponding attributes vis-a-vis the target culture to ensure credibility in the eyes of the target reader(www.baspeech.com.ar
alejandra@baspeech.com.ar).
Language is the only social institution without which no other social institution can function; it therefore underpins the three pillars upon which culture is built.
Translation, involving the transposition of thoughts expressed in one language by one social group into the appropriate expression of another group, entails a process of cultural de-coding, re-coding and en-coding. As cultures are increasingly brought into greater contact with one another, multicultural considerations are brought to bear to an ever-increasing degree. Now, how do all these changes influence us when we are trying to comprehend a text before finally translating it? We are not just dealing with words written in a certain time, space and sociopolitical situation; most importantly it is the "cultural" aspect of the text that we should take into account. The process of transfer, i.e., re-coding across cultures, should consequently allocate corresponding attributes vis-a-vis the target culture to ensure credibility in the eyes of the target reader(www.baspeech.com.ar
alejandra@baspeech.com.ar).
C. Intercultural competence for translators
Byram and Risager,
who have published widely on intercultural competence in language education,
suggest that the competence learners need for successful intercultural communication
is
one
which enables them to bring the two cultures and cultural identities present
in the interaction into a relationship of communication. The foreign-speaker
must be able to perceive and understand the culture(s) of the native-speaker,
to reflect on his/her own culture(s) as seen from the foreign perspective,
and to relate one to the other, explain each in terms of the other, accepting
that conflicting perceptions are not always reconcilable. (1999: 65f.)
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For some 25 years intercultural competence has been a
fashionable, much-quoted and influential concept in language education. Thus, a
recent EU study conducted in thirteen European Countries found that
"considerable attention is given to the development of intercultural
competence in classroom practice, which appears to be aligned with the position
of intercultural competence as specified within the different curricula"
(Franklin2007:50).
According to Byram and Risager this
competence should enable the learner to become "a mediator between
cultures", which is essential from a communicative point of view since
"it is the mediation which allows for effective communication" (1999:
58). In other words, the ability to mediate between two cultures is an
essential component of intercultural competence.
Considering this aspect of
intercultural competence, one task which draws heavily on students’
intercultural competence is communicative translation. If translation is
regarded as an act of communication in which a text produced for readers in one
particular context is rendered for readers in another, students need to take on
the role of intercultural mediators. First, they need to relate source and
target culture in order to identify culture-specificity in the source text.
Subsequently, they have to try and explain one culture in terms of the other
when seeking a communicatively satisfactory mediating position for cultural
divergences.
Consequently, learners’ performance in
communicative translation tasks can yield valuable insights into their approach
to intercultural issues and the specific problems they encounter. Some of these
problems were discovered in a study which explored the translation behaviour of
British university students of German when translating culture-specific lexis.
In the following section the study will first be described. Subsequently, some
of the findings will be presented and possible implications for teaching
practice will be pointed out.
For the identification of cultural
references the researcher relied essentially on the following definition
provided by Aixelá:
Those
textually actualized items whose function and connotations in a source text
involve a translation problem in their transference to a target text,
whenever the problem is a product of the nonexistence of the referred item or
of its different intertextual status in the cultural system of the readers of
the target text. (1996: 58; italics in the original)
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Culture in this discussion should be seen in a broad sense,
as in anthropological studies. Culture is not only understood as the advanced
intellectual development of mankind as reflected in the arts, but it refers to
all socially conditioned aspects of human life (cf. Snell-Hornby, 1988: Hymes,
1964). In practical wordings, Goodenough (1964: 36) puts:
"As I see it, a society's culture consists of whatever
it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to
its members, and do so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves.
Culture, being what people have to learn as distinct from their biological
heritage, must consist of the end product of learning: knowledge, in a most
general, if relative, sense of the term. By definition, we should note that
culture is not material phenomenon; it does not consist
of things, people, behavior, or emotions. It is rather an
organization of these things. It is the forms of things that people have in
mind, their models of perceiving and dealing with their circumstances. To one
who knows their culture, these things and events are also signs signifying the
cultural forms or models of which they are material representation."
It can be summarized that this definition suggests three
things: (a) culture seen as a totality of knowledge and model for perceiving
things, (b) immediate connection between culture and behavior and events, and
(c) culture's dependence on norms. It should be noted also that some other
definitions claim that both knowledge and material things are
parts of culture. See, for example, Koentjaraningrat (1996: 80-81) and Hoijer
(1967: 106)
According to Snell-Hornby (1988: 40), the connection between
language and culture was first formally formulated by Wilhelm Von Humboldt. For
this German philosopher, language was something dynamic: it was an activity
(energia) rather than a static inventory of items as the product of activity
(ergon). At the same time language is an expression of culture and
individuality of the speakers, who perceive the world through language. Related
to Goodenough's idea on culture as the totality of knowledge, this present idea
may see language as the knowledge representation in the mind.
In 1973, Humboldt's view was echoed by Edward Sapir and
Benjamin Lee Whorf in their Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This principle states that
thought does not "precede" language, but on the contrary thought is
conditioned by it. The system of honorific style used in Javanese, for example,
affects the speakers' concepts of social status.
Halliday (in Halliday and Hasan (1985: 5) states that there
was the theory of context before the theory of text. In other words, context
precedes text. Context here means context of situation and culture (Halliday
and Hasan, 1985: 7). This context is necessary for adequate understanding of
the text, which becomes the first requirement for translating. Thus,
translating without understanding text is non-sense, and understanding text
without understanding its culture is impossible.
Humboldt's idea, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and Halliday's idea
have a far-reaching implications for translation. In its extreme, the notion
that language conditions thought and that language and thought is bound up with
the individual culture of the given community would mean that translation is
impossible. We cannot translate one's thought which is affected by and stated
in language specific for a certain community to another different language
because the system of thought in the two languages (cultures) must be
different. Each language is unique. If it influences the thought and,
therefore, the culture, it would mean that ultimate translation is impossible.
Another point of view, however, asserts the opposite.
Ironically this also goes back to Humboldt's idea bout inner and outer forms of
language. Later it is developed into the concepts of deep structure and surface
structure by Chomsky. Inner form and deep structure is what generally known as
idea. Following this concepts, all ideas are universal. What is different is
only the surface structure, the outer from. If it is so, translation is only a
change of surface structure to represent the universal deep structure.
Accordingly, translation is theoretically always possible.
All in all, we are faced with two extremes. Which one is
right? The answer, according to Snell-Hornby (1988: 41) lies not in choosing
any of the two. If the extremes are put at the ends of a cline, the answer lies
between the two. In brief, theoretically the degree of probability for perfect
translation depends on how far the source language text (SLT) is embedded in
its culture and the greater the distance between the culture between SLT and
target language text (TLT), the higher is the degree of impossibility. See the
following excerpts for
illustration in the part of duscussion of this paper. The source language (SL)
is Indonesian and the target language (TL) is English.
D.
Findings
1. Lack of
source-culture knowledge
As the text was
fraught with cultural references, source-culture knowledge, i.e. knowledge
about the British concepts in the source text, clearly played an important role
in the students’ translation process. Two different types of source-culture
knowledge problems were distinguished. The first category comprises all
instances where students had a comprehension problem of which they were aware
("overt source-culture knowledge problem"). The second group contains
all CR translations where students already had or arrived at a wrong meaning
hypothesis, but did not appear to be aware of it ("covert source-culture
knowledge problem"). The knowledge problems were identified on the basis
of the following criteria:
n
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An overt source-culture knowledge
problem was assumed to have been involved
in the translation of a CR, if at least one of the following occurred:
a
student states at any point of the process that s/he is uncertain about the
meaning of the CR or any aspect of its
meaning relevant to its translation; a student reports any such problem
during the retrospection;
a
student uses the dictionary of British culture1 in order to
establish or confirm a meaning hypothesis;
a
student states a wrong meaning hypothesis, which is later in the process
corrected;
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n
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A covert source-culture knowledge
problem was assumed to have been involved
in a CR translation, if at least one of the following occurred:
a
student forms a wrong meaning hypothesis during the thinking aloud, which is
not corrected or reveals a wrong meaning hypothesis during the retrospection;
a
student’s written translation shows a clear misunderstanding of the CR, even
though no comprehension problem was reported;
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Surprisingly,
roughly one fifth of the cultural references in the text caused overt or covert
comprehension problems for the British students, which means that on average
the translation of six CRs involved a source-culture knowledge problem. For
instance, 26% of the students were
8
uncertain about the
meaning of "Oxbridge" or misinterpreted the item. This figure rises
to 47% for the CR "Whitehall ", to 63%
in the case of "City of London Whitehall
first of all it
made me think of White House and that’s obviously
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Even though the
above are only examples and cannot be used as a basis for generalisation about
the students’ knowledge of their native culture, they suggest that insufficient
familiarity of native-culture concepts can be a significant problem in
translation. As one has to bear in mind, the CRs in the given text were not
selected for their complexity or obscurity, but occurred "naturally"
in an authentic, non-specialised article in a broadsheet paper. The degree of
miscomprehension or simple lack of understanding by graduate or near-graduate
native speakers was therefore rather unexpected.
An interesting
group of comprehension problems were those instances where students believed
they had understood a cultural reference whereas in fact their translation was
based on a wrong meaning hypothesis (covert source-culture knowledge problems).
For instance, the term "Clubland" posed problems, which were rooted
in the ambivalence of the word "club" in its traditional sense
referring to exclusive gentlemen’s clubs and its more recent meaning denoting a
night-club. Apparently misled by the latter meaning eight of the students (42%)
believed that the term "Clubland" in the source text referred to an
area bustling with nightlife. This misinterpretation occurred even though
several of the students consulted the dictionary of British culture, which
defined "Clubland" as an area with many clubs. Clearly, the students
believed they had understood the meaning of "club" and, consequently,
did not check the cross-referenced entry of "club" directly above
"Clubland", which would have clarified its intended meaning.
Significantly, the fact that students had misinterpreted the CR was not always
obvious from their written translations. In fact, only one third of the written
translations
9
made the
misunderstanding obvious (e.g. "‘Clubland’, das berühmte Disco Gebiet
Londons" [Clubland, London
What is remarkable
about these misinterpretations is the fact that the students on almost no
occasion seemed to be concerned about the fact that the assumed meaning made
little sense in the given text. Thus, none of the students seemed to notice the
obvious clash between the phrase "solid base in tradition" and the
relatively modern activity of "clubbing". Similarly, none of the
students misinterpreting "City of London "
appeared to wonder what the connection was between "tradition",
"institutions" and London
2. Target-culture
knowledge problems
Compared to the
frequent and grave problems caused by lack of source-culture knowledge,
comments indicating target-culture knowledge problems were rare: only fifteen
remarks suggested that students had an overt target-culture knowledge problem.
In these comments clarification was mainly sought in relation to legal terms
with students attempting to delineate the German concept of
"Rechtsanwalt" (lawyer) as opposed to that of "solicitor"
or "barrister". The fact that comments referring to lack of target-culture
knowledge were rare was assumed to be mainly related to the nature of the text
and the task. Since the text dealt with the students’ native culture and the
translation brief did not call for extreme shifts towards the target culture
(e.g. by requiring the substitution of British CRs with target-culture
equivalents), the students appeared to mainly operate within a source-culture
framework or the common ground occupied by both cultures.
While overt
target-culture knowledge problems seemed rare, the phrase "old
professions" seemed to cause covert target-culture knowledge problems in
13 instances (68%), because students did not appear to be aware of the
culture-specific differences between the German term "Berufe" and
"the professions". In the case of "old professions" the
translation problem has two culture-specific facets, one of which stems from
different lexical segmentation in German and English. The standard translation
for "profession" given in bilingual dictionaries is usually the term
"Beruf", which is more comprehensive than the English expression and
includes any kind of occupation which requires training, regardless of status
and type of qualification.
German, however, lacks a single word denoting occupations of a higher status. The second aspect of culture specificity are the connotations of "old professions" in the given text, which are deeply rooted in British society and therefore difficult to convey in German. Thus, the term "old professions" in English is linked closely with the well-educated middle classes and an old-established social hierarchy, which is not captured by the connotatively neutral "Beruf".
German, however, lacks a single word denoting occupations of a higher status. The second aspect of culture specificity are the connotations of "old professions" in the given text, which are deeply rooted in British society and therefore difficult to convey in German. Thus, the term "old professions" in English is linked closely with the well-educated middle classes and an old-established social hierarchy, which is not captured by the connotatively neutral "Beruf".
Most of the
students, however, put "alte Berufe" either in a form of automatic
substitution or after consulting the bilingual dictionary. In the interviews
subsequent to the think-aloud translation all but one student who had put
"alte Berufe" gave the impression that they assumed there to be full
equivalence between "Berufe" and "professions".
Unfortunately, the translation "alte Berufe" appears somewhat awkward
in the given context since the German phrase seems more likely to refer to old
trades such as cobblers, bakers or saddlers than traditional academic
professions. Thus, search of the online corpus of the German Language Institute
(IDS) in Mannheim
3. Insufficient knowledge of German
terminology for British concepts
As pointed out by
Newmark (1988), certain referent types such as well-known political
institutions, book and film titles, or geographical terms tend to have
standardised translations in other languages. Thus, normally "Kanzlerin
Angela Merkel" will be rendered in English as "the (German) Chancellor
Angela Merkel" and the German state "Nordrhein-Westfalen" as
"North Rhine-Westphalia".
In the given text a
number of CRs had translations which could be considered as standard
translations. Overall, these standard solutions seemed to be little known by
the students, as frequent use of the bilingual dictionary for these items
suggests. While it was unsurprising that none of the students appeared to know
a relatively uncommon term like "Kronanwalt" [*crown lawyer] for
"QC", the apparent lack of target-language terminology for more
frequent source-culture terms was unexpected. Thus, fourteen students (74%) had
to look up the standard translation for "Victorian" (viktorianisch),
only one of the students (5%) seemed to actively know the standard translation
for "House of Lords" (britisches Oberhaus) and none seemed to be
aware of the German translation for "county" (Grafschaft). Some of
the students also seemed to have no passive knowledge of the terms, since they
expressed uncertainty about the correctness of the
standard expressions provided by the bilingual dictionary.
For instance, student B1 looked up "House of Lords", saying she hoped the provided solution would "ring a bell", but then frankly admitted that she had never heard the term "Oberhaus" (upper house) before.
For instance, student B1 looked up "House of Lords", saying she hoped the provided solution would "ring a bell", but then frankly admitted that she had never heard the term "Oberhaus" (upper house) before.
Geographical terms
also caused problems with eight students looking up "Wales
While it is
impossible to deduce from such a small sample of CRs with standard translations
the extent to which the students were familiar with standard terminology, the
fact that many students did not seem to know relatively common terms indicates
that there may have been little awareness of German standard terminology for
British concepts.
4.
Consideration of readership’s source-culture knowledge
As expected,
students seemed to have difficulties assessing the extent to which individual
CRs would be known by German readers. As the think-aloud data suggests,
decisions as to whether a CR can be transferred into the German target text
appeared to be based on two main strategies. Less frequently, the decision
seemed to be derived from the students’ personal experience in German-speaking
countries, as in the following examples:
High life... got
to be in there [looks up "high life" in Collins]... oh,
joy... it is... oh, but it’s in English... [laughs]... I don’t know about
leaving that in English there... I’ve never heard that... I don’t think I’ve
heard that in
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[looks up
"barrister" in Collins]... I’m not gonna put
"Barrister"... although that’s down here... I haven’t actually
heard that used in German
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Much more
frequently, however, decisions as to whether a CR would be understood and
accepted by German readers appeared to be based on the solutions provided by
the bilingual dictionary. On ninety-one occasions students transferred CRs
without explanation because the procedure had been suggested in the dictionary.
Thirty-six of these instances were accompanied by
comments indicating that students assumed transferred CRs in the bilingual
dictionary would be known in Germany
retrospection,
student B1 ] the first word, it was "
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[think aloud,
student B7] [looks up "peer" in Collins]
"Peer"... for "peer" they put the same thing... so
actually that means that Germans know what it is
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Thirteen other
students seemed to agree with student B7 above and also transferred
"peer" into their German target texts as suggested in the bilingual
dictionary. The assumption that the item would probably be known in Germany
Derzeit gehören
dem House of Lords 635 "Hereditary Peers" (Erbadelige) und 505
"Life Peers" ... an
Currently,
the House of Lords comprises 635 "hereditary peers" (hereditary
titles) and 505 "life peers".
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In a similar vein,
the online archive of the German newspaper Die Zeit (available at:
http://www.zeit.de/archiv/index) reveals only a single hit for "peer"
for the period 2000 to 2007, in which the phrase "life peers" is
succeeded by the explanatory phrase "Lords auf Lebenszeit" [Lords for
their lifetime]. As this suggests, the item "Peer" on its own in a
German text may cause comprehension problems for at least some German readers.
Reliance on the
bilingual dictionary regularly seemed to lead students towards more exotic
solutions than they had originally intended. For instance, when translating the
item "Tory" student B8 first reflected: "best to
write it in English and afterwards write ‘Tory’ – ‘conservative’". Later,
she transferred "Tory" into the text without clarification and
reported during the retrospection she had done so "only because I looked
it up in the dictionary and it said "Tory" – "Tory", that
is the translation for it". Thus, dependency on the bilingual dictionary
seems likely to have contributed to instances of transference, many of which
seemed potentially problematic on two grounds. First, the bilingual dictionary
sometimes suggested the transference of CRs, which, even though they can of
course theoretically be transferred, would probably be obscure to German
readers unless unambiguously contextualised.
Second, many transferred items seemed problematic because their relatively exotic nature could give them undue communicative weight in a German text.
Second, many transferred items seemed problematic because their relatively exotic nature could give them undue communicative weight in a German text.
For example, in the
source text the item "barristers" appears in a sentence which
provides an example of the high number of top professionals working in London : "For instance, half to two thirds of all
solicitors and barristers in England
and Wales work in London
The above indicates
that the students’ reliance on the bilingual dictionary contributed to
solutions, which probably would have been marked by undue communicative weight
because of their "foreign-ness" and a degree of obscurity for a fair
number of German readers. The students showed a tendency to adopt ready-made
dictionary solutions, but rarely appeared to be critically aware that bilingual
dictionaries can only suggest possible solutions, which – especially in the
case of cultural references – may often not be appropriate.
- Discussion
The students’
difficulties related to the translation of culture-specific lexis indicate
problematic aspects of the students’ intercultural competence. Even though the
problems occurred in a translation task, it does not seem unlikely that similar
problems could equally affect other communicative scenarios involving
culture-bound lexis. The following sections will therefore make some
suggestions as to how the individual problems could be approached and hence the
students’ intercultural competence enhanced.
1. Lack of
source-culture knowledge
Perhaps most
surprisingly, the students seemed to lack familiarity with some of their native
culture concepts and, consequently, had difficulty rendering them for German
readers. As it seemed, at least some of the students did not partake in certain
discourses within their culture and hence lacked familiarity with related
concepts, which – especially from the perspective of a cultural outsider (e.g.
German) – belong to their national cultural inventory. The fact that language
graduates due to their linguistic competence may be expected to mediate in
contexts requiring substantial knowledge of discourses, which are basically
from within their native culture but nevertheless little known to them, is a problem,
which cannot be solved within a foreign language program. Indeed, as Viaggio
points out with reference to translation students, "the institution cannot
hope to ‘teach’ all the knowledge of the world" (1992: 310). Similarly,
Pisek (1997), who also observes that lack of cultural knowledge tends to
constitute a translation
problem for
tertiary-level language students, argues convincingly that there are obvious
limitations on what can be conveyed within a classroom setting.
What language
classes however can do, is raise students’ awareness that knowledge of their
own culture is always limited and that intercultural communication may require
them to get a much broader and deeper knowledge base of their own culture than
they would normally need within their "domestic" discourses. Hence,
language classes should aim to equip learners with the skills needed to
identify relevant reference sources about their own culture and to exploit them
adequately for communication in the foreign language.
2.
Insufficient knowledge of German source-culture terminology
As reported,
students often did not seem to be aware of standard source-culture terminology
in German with participants looking up terms as common as "House of
Lords", "county", "Wales ",
or even "Britain Germany
| . |
3. Consideration of readership’s
source-culture knowledge
The finding that the
British students seemed to have difficulty assessing whether specific CRs would
be known by German readers was not entirely unexpected: even German native
speakers may in many cases be unsure about what a German audience can be
expected to understand. What appears problematic about the students’ approach,
however, is the almost total reliance on the bilingual dictionary to determine
what German readers would probably know.
Instruction
therefore first of all needs to raise students’ awareness that the context-free
solutions for CRs in the bilingual dictionary cannot always readily be fitted
into any target text. Rather, students have to be encouraged to exercise extreme
caution where transference is suggested in the bilingual dictionary and to
assess carefully the necessity of introducing relatively foreign items into
their texts. Furthermore, where appropriate and available, students should also
be encouraged to make use of online corpora in the foreign language, which can
provide valuable examples as to how individual foreign items are usually dealt
with in the target culture. See the following example given by Sugeng
Hariyanto(Sugeng Hariyanto, translanguage@telkom.net)
(1.) SL: Sebuah lembaga penelitian mengadakan penelitian
tentang jumlah tabungan perbulan dari para buruh sebuah perusahaan negara di
ibukota. Penelitian tersebut menggunakan sampel yang terdiri dari 100 keluarga
dan hasilnya dinyatakan sebagai persentasi dari jumlah pendapatan per bulan.
(Anto Dajan, 1974: 18)
TL: A research institution conducted a research on the
amount of saving deposited by workers of a company located in a capital city.
The research took 100 family as a sample and the result was presented in
percentage of their monthly wages.
(2) SL: Dalam masyarakat Jawa bila seseorang wanita atau
istri sedang hamil, menurut tradisi perlu diadakan bermacam-macam selamatan dan
upacara-upacara lainnya. Hal ini perlu dilaksanakan dengan maksud agar bayi
yang dikandung akan lahir dengan mudah dan selamat sehingga si anak akan
mendapat kebahagiaan hidup dikemudian hari. (Bratawidjaja, 1996: 11).
TL: In a Javanese community, based on traditions, a pregnant
woman or wife should be celebrated with various kinds of selamatan (traditional
fiest?) and rituals. These should be done so that she can give a birth to a
child easily and safely and the newly-born will get happy life later.
(3) SL: Upacara siraman dilakukan pada pagi hari sekitar
pukul 09.00. Upacara siraman dilakukan oleh ibu dari anak yang diruwat dengan
air kembang setaman. Setelah dibersihkan anak itu mengenakan busana adat Jawa
yang secara khusus dibuat. Anak yang diruwat diajak oleh Ki Dalang serta
didampingi oleh para pisisepuh (neneknya, budenya, dan lain sebagainya) untuk
bersujud di hadapan ayah dan ibunya (Bratawidjaja, 1996: 49)
TL: Siraman (showering?) ceremony is held in
the morning around 09:00 o’clock. This ritual is led by the mother of the child
being "ruwat" (cleansed?) by showering him with "kembang
setaman" (flower??) water. After being cleansed, the child is
dresed in Javanese traditional clothes specially designed for him. The ("ruwat")
child is then guided by Ki Dalang (the puppeteer??) and
accompnied by the elders (the grandmother, aunts, etc.) to pay a homage to by
bowing down to earth in front of the father and mother.
Reading the texts,
we can imagine that translating the first text is easier than the second, and
the second is easier than the last. The difficulty is caused by the
culturally-bound words (concepts) found in each text.
Practically, however,
the depth of embededness of a text into its culture is not the first
consideration. The purpose of translating is the first determinant. If the
purpose of translating text (2) and (3), for example, is to give general
introduction of a certain type of text or culture, the TL should not carry all
the meaning possessed by the SLT. The words underlined and put in the brackets
will do. In this case there are a lot of possibilities for the TL.
However, if the
purpose is to present the Javanese culture before the English readership, the
italicized words should be used and accompanied with a lot of explanation.
Supposed the two paragraphs are parts of a novel, and the translator wants to
keep the local color, only the italicized words should be used. These different
purposes govern the choice of translation procedures. Yet, if the purpose of
translating text (2) and (3) is to present all the meaning, beauty, and
style contained in it, then, translation is impossible.
3. Translation Procedures to Translate Culturally-bound
Words or Expressions
From the previous
discussion, it is known that perfect translation of culturally-bound text is
impossible. The translation focusing on the purpose of the SL text writing is,
however, always possible. This can be proven with the translation of so many
literary works into other languages. One of them is the translation of
Mangunwijaya's Burung-burung Manyar into English by Thomas M. Hunter.
Hariyanto (1997) surveys both groups of SL and TL readers and comes up with the
result saying that the readers get the same impressions in terms of the
meaning, message and style.
Based on the
result, Hariyanto (1999) studied further the appropriate procedures used to
translate culturally-bound sentences, words, and expressions which are embedded
in Javanese culture into English using the same novel translation as a case.
The result shows that to translate culturally-bound words or expressions, the
translator used addition, componential analysis, cultural equivalent,
descriptive equivalent, literal translation, modulation, recognized
translation, reduction, synonymy, transference, deletion, and
combination. Some, however, are typically appropriate for certain
classification of cultural words. For detailed description about the
translation procedures, see Newmark (1988) or Hariyanto (1999). The brief
description on the procedures can be seen in Appendix 1.
On the
appropriateness of the procedures to translate culturally-bound words and
expressions, these conclusions are taken.
Recognized translation is best used to translate institutional terms whose
translation are already recognized, such as TNI, kabupaten, kecamatan, and
Kowilhan. The use of new translation with
whatever procedure will make the readers may misinterpret, especially if they
already have some degree of knowledge of the source language. The establishment
of this recognized translation by the Indonesian Language
Center
Professions are
appropriately translated with cultural equivalents as they exist in both
Javanese and English cultures. There are some differences between the two, but
they are so minute. The examples can be seen in the following quotations. The
SL is Indonesian and the TL is English.
SL: Dan Nah, tentu saja tak mau ketinggalan si gelatik
cantik tetapi pencuri-pencuri padi yang nakal itu, dengan pipinya putih
dan picinya biru hitam. (p. 17)
TL: And not to be left out were the Java finches. With their
white cheeks and their velvet-like caps of deep blue, they were lovely to look
at, but as rice thieves they were a troublesome bunch. (p. 27)
The other professions and the translation found in the novel
are the following.
The SL words
|
The translation
|
(4/1) babu-babu
|
nursemaids
|
(8/1) sepandri
|
privates
|
(22/4) jongos
|
bellhop
|
(24/1) sepandri atau serdadu
krocuk
|
corporals or privates
|
(36/2) abdi dalem
|
maid servants
|
(85/2) abdi
|
servant
|
(101/2) pencuri- pencuri padi
|
rice thieves
|
(103/2) penjahit
|
tailor
|
(106/1) pemburu angkatan
udara
|
air force fighter
|
(122/1) tukang kebun
|
gardener
|
(124/1) garong, perampok
|
thieves and robbers
|
(135/5) Pak Lurah
|
village chief
|
(145/2) jongos
|
servant
|
(157/1) carik
|
clerk
|
(157/2) ulu-ulu
|
the waterworks overseer
|
(178/1) Pak Bupati
|
the regent
|
(178/2) bupati penjabat
|
acting regent
|
(191/2) maling
|
thief
|
Descriptive equivalents are appropriate to translate culturally-bound words or expressions that
are not found in the English culture but considered important enough in the
text. When they are not, synonyms will do. See this example.
SL: Langsung ia berbahasa
ngoko kepadanya, seperti kepada jongos (Mangunwijaya, 1989: 106-107)
TL: He rudely
ordered Karjo about, using language that one might use with a servant.
(Mangunwijaya, 1993: 136)
The example of this
case is berbahasa ngoko which is translated into with language that
one might use with a servant. If this expression was not considered very
important, the synonym with hostile language could be used.
Literal translation can be used to translate a Javanese word that refers to a
general meaning such as sinyo Londo, which is translated into a Dutch
boy. This procedure, however, should not be used to translate proper name.
Expansion is found not very significant. It means that without it,
the translation was still acceptable. See the following quotation.
SL: Mana Si Karjo.
Dikunjungi malah lari. Mandi barangkali. Atau menggodog teh barangkali (p. 156)
TL: Where was
Karjo? A person comes to visit and he disappears. May be he was taking a bath,
or boiling water for tea?
In the above
example, instead of translating menggodog teh into boiling water for
tea, the translator actually could translates it into preparing for tea,
which is more idiomatic.
Reduction is found to be useful to translate traditional address +
proper name constructions as the terms of address are not found in the TL and
an explanation is not possible. The examples are the translation of Kang
Glati into Glati. See the following excerpt.
SL: Pelpolisi
Belanda dan resisir mantri polisi dengan cepat melacak Si Bajingan dan Kang
Glati masuk bui. (p. 111)
TL: ... the Dutch
detectives and constables had tracked him down and thrown Glati into Jail. (p.
141)
Transference is very useful to translate tradition title, terms of
address, and proper name. In the context, a reduction of the title or term of
address would naturally distort the meaning or message. Few of the examples can
be seen below:
The SL words
|
The translation
|
(37/1) Gusti Nurul
|
Gusti Nurul
|
(43/2) Den Ayu
|
Den Ayu
|
(53/3) Mbok Naya
|
Mbok Naya
|
(57/1) Mbok Ranu
|
Mbok Ranu
|
(119/1) Meener Antana
|
Meener Antana
|
(123/1) Mbok Nem
|
Mbok Nem
|
Next, modulation can be used best to handle a word that has no
exact equivalent in the TL and the context demands the translator to emphasize
the economy and smoothness of the sentence flow. This situation usually happens
in a direct quotation where cultural notes are impossible. In addition, with
this procedure the translator can still recreate the smooth flow and beauty of
the text. The example is the translation of mbak ayu into you and
kakangmu into I.
SL: Mbakayu itu macam-macam saja usulnya. (p. 15)
TL: You do come up with some strange suggestions
sometimes," Mbok Ranu commented.
SL: Maka Kakangmu pikir: ah, tidak baik membebani orang
dengan perkara-perkara yang lebih memberatkan (p. 160)
TL: So I thought to myself that it wouldn't be right to do
something that might make even more trouble. (p. 196)
In the following example the translator also employs modulation
and the combination of modulation and addition. Read it closely.
SL: Bila mereka berkomentar ayam itu gemuk dan bertanya apa
betul itu ayam Kedu sungguh, maka petang harinya seorang anak disuruh ayahnya
mempersembahkan ayam itu kepada mereka. Tetapi bagaimana bila mereka memuji Si
Tinem atau Piyah cantik? (p. 109)
TL: Or if one said that a certain hen looked plump and ready
for the pot, that same evening the owner would order his son or daughter to
offer the chicken to the soldiers. And, because it hadn't been possible to
evacuate all the young women of the village, what about when the soldiers began
to praise one of the marriage-age girls? (p. 139)
Ayam Kedu in the SLT which means a type of chicken renown for its
tasty meat is replaced with ready for the pot. One sense is replaced
with another; this is an example of modulation. In the following
sentence, the modulation is combined with addition. The reason
for the action is added in. Si Tinem or Si Piyah are general
names which are here used to refer to grown-up single women. The translator
replaces them with the referent marriage-age girls.
Some other modulations are of different types. See
the following example.
SL: Mereka meminta
Mbok Rukem, janda nakal yang biasanya mereka gerutui untuk menampung lahar
birahi tentara itu. (p. 109)
TL: They went to
Mbok Rukem, a divorcee whose rumored or real dalliances had so often been the
target of their complaints, and asked her assistance in soothing the soldiers'
passion. (p. 139)
In the example
above, the phrase mereka gerutui is an action, a cause. In the
translation the translator gives the effect, the consequence of the action,
i.e. the target of their complaints. This is also a modulation.
Finally, there are
some culturally-bound words deleted or dropped during the translation process.
The translator seems to take this strategy if the word's meaning is not found
in the TL culture and the importance is minor. Anyhow, he should try to
transfer to meaning message,
especially if it is not merely terms of address. Such words or expressions that
have been deleted are:
The SL words
(160/4) ngono ya ngono, ning aja ngono
(168/3) lamat-lamat
(179/1) kepangrehannya
(213/1) basa-basi
(213/2) jiwa raga
(223/4) akal trenggiling
(235/1) berambut ijuk
(236/2) bermata bandeng
E.
Final remarks
The
need for a systematic study of an SPL (Special Purpose Language) translation
arises directly from the problems encountered during the actual translation
process. Hence, it is essential for those working in the field to bring their
practical experience to theoretical discussions. As we have seen so far, the
translator's role is to facilitate the transfer of the message, meaning and
cultural elements from one language into another and to create an equivalent
response from the target audience. However, the study of computer terminology
and the process of interpreting and translating it into the target language is
far from having reached an end-point. With regard to the theoretical analysis
submitted above, it becomes evident that several conclusions about the
translator's main aims can be drawn:
1. The translator has to possess adequate
language competence and cultural background in both SL and TL.
2. As a
consequence, he can aim at producing an impact on the target audience as close
as possible to that produced on the readers of the original.
3. A variety
of different approaches have been examined in relation to the cultural
implications of translation. Assertions have been made in the paper that in
order to preserve specific cultural references, certain additions need to be
brought to the TT. Therefore, the translator has to, if not adopt, then adapt,
and even modernize where possible, the TL cultural background.
4. Much attention has to be paid to neologisms
and newly coined computer terms such as emoticon, because this SPL is
growing fast.
5. Unless the translator breaks the rules above,
he will meet his target readers' expectations in terms of clarity and optimal
communication, that is, understanding and truth relevance.
The study suggests
that translation can be a useful tool to uncover deficiencies in students’
intercultural competence. It can also be used to raise awareness of issues in
intercultural communication and in this way enhance their competence. In the
article some translation problems related to cultural knowledge have been
discussed, which illustrate that intercultural competence can depend just as
much on knowledge about one’s native culture and how it is linguistically
represented in the foreign language as it does on an understanding of the
foreign culture. Therefore, language teachers need to anticipate that learners
may not be sufficiently familiar with cultural items belonging to their own
wider cultural context to deal with them appropriately in tasks requiring
mediation.
Appendix
Text used in the think-aloud translation
The lives of the
new class revolve around Harrods and Kensington; the best public schools;
modern art; the Royal Opera; and the high-life in
This
concentration in
|
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Note 1.
http://www.chinese-thought.org/zwsx/005691.htm
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