Cultural Conceptualizations, Semantics and Translation

Abstract

Cultural conceptualizations are ‘negotiated’ and ‘renegotiated’ across time and space by different generations of speakers so that the members of the group are able to think, so to speak, in one mind (Sharifian, 2008b). What helps us to go beyond the linguistic barriers and consequently incorporate cognitive and cultural conceptualizations to the study of translation is the notion of Frame Semantics Theory which itself is a nascent approach in Translation Studies. Using Rojo’s analytical model (2002b), which focuses on the frames and cultural conceptualizations activated in the humorous texts, this research investigates certain translation problems that may occur in translating cultural elements of the book; "Funny in Farsi: a Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America" by Firoozeh Dumas (2003). Furthermore, the present research considers and examines several translation challenges under six sub-frames: Visual Frames, Situational Frames, Text type frames, Social frames, Institutional frames, and Generic frames. Upon analysis of the text and its corresponding translation, 70 problematic cases were detected, analyzed and then classified according to Rojo’s model (2002).