Confluences of Cultures: Lithuanian Translation of CSI in S. Jobs’ Biography

Abstract

The object of this chapter is the translation of culture-specific items (CSIs) from English into Lithuanian based on Steve Jobs’s biography by Walter Isaacson (2011). We use this example to discuss the translation strategies and difficulties of CSI s. Culture-specific references vary among cultures, as various countries have different histories and experiences of life. Therefore, there are cases when certain concepts of one culture do not exist in another culture. The translation of these concepts, encoded in words, is a challenging task for a translator. We categorized CSIs into personal names, brand and company names, place names, names of artworks, names of periodicals, ethnographic realia, public and political realia, intertextuality, situational realia and extralinguistic elements: 400 pages of the original biography and 400 pages of its Lithuanian version were analysed and 482 CSIs and their corresponding translations were collected. The statistical data showed that the most commonly employed strategies in the translation of CSIs were different types of preservation (used 341 times), addition inside the text (used 68 times) and localisation (used 54 times). The usage of preservation and addition revealed the translator’s attempt to provide an as accurate and clear translation as possible, adding all necessary information for the Lithuanian readers. The strategy of localisation was used to keep the balance between foreignisation and domestication; it was applied to minimize the strangeness of the foreign text for the target audience. The strategies of globalisation and omission were employed when the precise translation of CSIs was unnecessary. The strategies of transformation and creation were not used in transferring CSIs. The research hypothesis was verified: it was concluded that the strategy of preservation (used 341 times) and the foreignisation principle prevailed in the translation of CSIs (419 items were foreignised, 63 were domesticated). Most of the CSIs were foreignised due to the fact that they convey factual information, which should be preserved in the translation of biographies.