Constructing the image of Japan as a tourist destination: translation procedures for culture-specific items

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study investigates translation procedures employed for culture-specific items (CSIs) in Japanese tourism texts. Quantitative corpus-based methods were used to examine a unidirectional parallel corpus of texts gathered from websites promoting tourism to regional destinations. The aim of the analysis was to determine whether, and if so how, translation procedures for CSIs are conditioned by CSI category, and the impact exerted at the macro level on the image of Japan as a tourist destination. The analysis reveals that CSI category is a conditioning factor modulating the choice of translation procedure. Drawing on Lawrence Venuti’s conceptual framework of domestication and foreignisation, the findings suggest a predominant tendency towards domestication in the translation of CSIs in Japanese tourism literature, airbrushing the strangeness of the source text. A key contribution is the incorporation of quantitative methods to analyse the translation of CSIs in tourism texts, notably in culturally remote source and target language communities.