A Study on the Assessment of Cultural Competence in Bilingualism: The Case of German Translation and Interpreting at Istanbul University

Abstract

Culture, which includes all the knowledge of a society, is one of the most important components of translation. When the translator is not able to perceive the cultural symbols of the text or he/she is ignoring the culture of the target language and the target text will lose its function. Thus, the starting point of this study is built on the way in which the monolingual individual perceives a foreign language through comparison and abstraction and how it is received by bilingual individuals, and how it is reflected in the translation process constitutes. This study includes a survey used to examine the cultural competence of the bilingual first-grade students of German Translation and Interpreting at the Istanbul University department of Translation Studies. Furthermore, translation from German to Turkish and vice versa and a translation assessment grid are used to gather data as regards the translation of the recipe for “simit” (Bagel) and “Brezel”. The data acquired from this study is also examined in the context of cultural competence; thus conjectures are provided as regards the cultural competence of bilingual students.