Cultural transposition

Translating involves not just two languages, but a transfer from one culture to another. General cultural differences are sometimes bigger obstacles to successful translation than linguistic differences.

The various degrees of cultural transposition can be visualized as points along a scale between the extremes of exoticism and cultural transplantation.   Source-culture bias Target-culture bias • • • • Exoticism Cultural Communicative Cultural and Calque borrowing translation transplantation

1.EXOTICISM (foreignness ) A TT marked by exoticism is one which constantly uses grammatical and cultural features imported from the ST with minimal adaptation. It constantly signals the exotic source culture and its cultural strangeness.

Literal translation Standard Arabic A sample of exoticism in translation from Arabic would be a more or less literal translation of the following simple conversation: Literal translation Standard Arabic A Peace be upon you. السلام عليكم A And upon you be peace. وعليكم السلام How is the state? كيف الحال؟ Praise be to Allah; .الحمد لله

2.CALQUE Sometimes, even where the TT as a whole is not marked by exoticism, a momentary foreignness is introduced A calque is an expression that consists of TL words and respects TL syntax, but is unidiomatic in the TL. It is modelled (based)on the structure of an SL expression. This lack of idiomaticity may be purely lexical or it may be more generally grammatical.

The following calques of Arabic proverbs illustrate decreasing degrees of idiomaticity: اللي فات مات What is past has died يوم لك ويوم عليك A day for you, a day against you زاد الطين بلة It increased the clay moistness

However, it is conceivable that in some TTs the calque – and ensuing exoticism – may actually be necessary, even if its effects need to be palliated (mitigated) by some form of compensation.

For example, if the strategy is to produce a TT marked by exoticism, the proverb يوم لك ويوم عليك may well be calqued as ‘A day for you, a day against you’. To make it clear that this is actually a proverb, the translator should add an explanatory addition such as ‘ ‘You know the saying: “A day for you, a day against you”.’

Standardized calques from English into modern Arabic include إعادة تدوير ‘recycling’, لاعنف ‘non-violence’, لعب دوراً‘play a rôle’, among many others. Sometimes calques generate further quasi-calques in the TL. So, in addition to ألقى ضوءًا على for ‘to shed/throw light on’, forms are encountered such as سلّط الأضواء على. It is, however, normally impossible to say in English ‘shed lights on’.

3.CULTURAL TRANSPLANTATION At the opposite end of the scale from exoticism is cultural transplantation. The extreme forms are hardly translations at all, but more like adaptations – the wholesale transplanting of the entire setting of the ST, resulting in the entire text being rewritten in an indigenous target culture setting.

An example of cultural transplantation is the remaking of the Japanese film ‘The Seven Samurai’ as the Hollywood film ‘The Magnificent Seven’ Translating قيس وليلى as “Romeo and Juliet’

By and large, normal translation practice avoids the two extremes of wholesale exoticism and wholesale cultural transplantation. In avoiding the two extremes, the translator will consider the alternatives lying between them on the scale.  

4. CULTURAL BORROWING The first alternative is to transfer an ST expression verbatim into the TT. This is termed cultural borrowing. It introduces a foreign element into the TT.

An example of cultural borrowing would be the rendering of a culturally specific term by a transliteration, without further explanation. Thus, for example, فوطة, as traditionally used in Iraq, would be rendered by ‘futa’, rather than, say, by ‘wrap’ or ‘robe’ (a فوطة in Iraq being a sarong-like garment which was traditionally worn by women). A cultural borrowing of this kind might well be signalled by the use of italics.

The combination of cultural borrowing plus additional explanatory material can be a useful technique. For example, واعترضت قلة منهم بحجة ان الهلال والنجمة في أمريكا «بدعة» تخالف الاسلام [...] A few of them objected, on the grounds that the American use of the Crescent and Star is bid’a (‘innovation’, which Islam opposes) [...]

Sometimes, a cultural borrowing becomes an established TT expression Sometimes, a cultural borrowing becomes an established TT expression. Examples from Arabic into English are often religious in nature; e.g. ‘imam’, ‘Allah’, ‘sheikh’. A fairly recent cultural borrowing is ‘intifada’.

5.COMMUNICATIVE TRANSLATION Communicative translation is normal in the case of culturally conventional formulae where literal translation would be inappropriate. Examples of stock phrases in Arabic and English are ممنوع التدخين ‘no smoking’, ممنوع الدخول ‘no entry’

Similarly, take the phrase نعيماً, said to someone who has had their hair cut, and the reply أنعم الله عليك. Here نعيماً might be translated as ‘Your hair looks nice’ (‘Congratulations’ in this context seems over-enthusiastic in English), to which the most natural reply would be something like, ‘Thanks very much’, or ‘Oh, that’s kind of you to say so’. These are not, however, stock phrases in the same sense as the Arabic نعيماً and أنعم الله عليك, and it would be wrong to over-use them in a TT.

Problems may arise where the TL has no corresponding stock phrase to one used in the SL, e.g. because there is no cultural equivalent. Consider, in this regard, the use of religious formulae in everyday Arabic; إن شاء الله, الحمد لله, عليكم السلام ورحمة الله وبركاته. ‘Equivalents’ for these can be found in English, but they will often either seem unnatural or will involve considerable rephrasing. إن شاء الله, for example, may often be most naturally rendered by ‘I hope’, a formula in English which clearly lacks the religious aspect of the original Arabic.