Target Culture Research Articles

Research on CE Translation of Political Texts from the Perspective of Eco-translatology

Cultural Confidence is the cornerstone of China’s Rise. It is crucial to build a pluralistic and dialogical external discourse system on how to disseminate Chinese values to the world. Based on Eco-translatology, this study takes the CE translation of the 20th CPC National Congress Report as an example to explore how to fully tap into Cultural Confidence and achieve communicative purposes in the international publicity translation represented by political texts. It is found that translators often choose translation strategies such as literal translation, liberal translation, amplification and omission, domestication and foreignization, synthesization, annotations and so on to achieve the adaptation and selection of translation in three dimensions: language, culture and communication. It would promote full communication between source and target cultures in order to enhance the international influence and communication power of Chinese discourse.

Application of intercultural skills in foreign language acquisition

The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between intercultural strategy and the objectives of foreign language processing. This research tends to tackle the crucial methodology question of how intercultural competence elements are integrated into the process of learning a foreign language. Its importance stems from the recognition that the acquisition of a new language requires comprehension of how oneʼs language and culture relate to the target language and culture. As a result, the methodology now focuses precisely on the development of intercultural communication skills rather than on the acquisition of basic language-use skills in a chosen language. Language is a medium through which culture is expressed. Language symbols encode a nationʼs knowledge of history, philosophy, economics, medicine, and other fields. Numerous studies conducted by linguists revealed that language intellectualization is seen as a way to enhance learnersʼ efficiency by providing them with in-depth knowledge. Words with substantial intellectual load are perceived by learners as aiding in the growth of intercultural competence due to their semantic capacity and relevance in transferring knowledge and decoding cultural symbols. The internationalisms as means of “naturalˮ language intellectualization were well received by the respondents since students donʼt have to exert much effort to incorporate them into their active vocabulary. Given that participants, according to the findings, mainly did not see the value in dealing with unfamiliar foreign vocabulary units offered without explanation, they nonetheless responded extremely favorably to internationalisms. Within the presented research, one of the crucial elements of the university curriculum that gives students a clear advantage over their peers is cited as the teaching of bilingual interaction skills. This article also deals with the results of quantitative research on tolerance that used questionnaires filled out by students of non-philological faculties. First, it demonstrated the respondentsʼ comprehension and acceptance of foreignersʼ mistakes directly related to their inability to speak or write in the target language properly, and second, it indicated that there is, to some extent, a negative attitude toward faults linked to cultural ignorance or unawareness.

Is Transcreation Another Way of Translating? Subtitling Estrella Damm’s Advertising Campaigns into English

The current international advertising scenario has led to a new professional profile within advertising translation called transcreator. Transcreation has an explicit call for creativity and semiotic and cultural adaptation. Beer advertising has tried to respond to this call by undergoing significant changes when this product has been internationally marketed in English in global advertising campaigns. For example, Estrella Damm, advertised as “the beer of Barcelona”, has improved its international positioning with its Mediterráneamente campaign, which started in 2009 and has centred on the association of beer with the Mediterranean culture and enjoyment. Since 2019, the campaign has promoted sustainability as “another way of living”. In this article, we examine the English translation strategies used by Estrella Damm’s campaigns between 2009–2021, which are available on the company’s British website and YouTube channel. Specifically, we focus on the following prominent elements: slogans, cultural references, and songs. To do this, we use a descriptive case study methodology, with textual analysis and semi-structured interviews to the creative director and the translators of Estrella Damm commercials. The analysis shows that this campaign uses strategies that are common in advertising translation: internationalisation, envisaged from the start of campaign; dialogue between translators and art directors; some adaptation to the conventions of the target language and culture, and creativity and co-creation. This emphasizes the added value of transcreation in the translation industry.

Envisioning a successful professional self through a negotiation‐themed advanced Chinese course

AbstractA great deal of research has recognized the necessity of receiving proper predeparture training for being able to truly benefit from international internship experiences. However, few researchers have taken the next step by exploring how domestic programs could pedagogically and psychologically prepare students for their professional experiences abroad. This study examines the role that a language‐for‐specific‐purposes course plays in the process of preparing students for their upcoming internship experiences in the target culture, with a focus on intercultural negotiation. The findings suggest the students were able to successfully develop the cultural awareness and communicative skills necessary to engage in the negotiation of cultural boundaries. Furthermore, the study discusses how the introduction of a role model, in‐depth workplace scenarios, and creating a holistic view of one's learning experiences are the three pedagogical elements that contribute to the construction of a professional L2 self.

The significance of exploring conceptual equivalence within the process of the cross-cultural adaptation of tools: The case of the Patient's Perception of Feeling Known by their Nurses Scale.

The exploration of conceptual equivalence within the process of the cross-cultural adaptation of tools is usually neglected as it generally assumed that the theoretical construct of a tool is conceptualized in the same way in both the original and target culture. This article attempts to throw light on the contribution of the evaluation of conceptual equivalence to the process of adaptation, and for tool development. To illustrate this premise, the example of the cross-cultural adaptation of the Patients' Perception of Feeling Known by their Nurses (PPFKN) Scale is presented. An adapted version of the Sousa and Rojjanasrirat (Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 2011, 17(2), 268-274) guidelines was used to translate and culturally adapt the PPFKN Scale to Spanish language and culture. A qualitative descriptive study was added to the traditional process of translation and pilot study to explore the concept in the target culture and recognize conceptual equivalence. Experts in the tool concept, bilingual translators and the author of the tool participated in the translation of the original tool into Spanish. A pilot study of the Spanish version with a sample of 44 patients and a panel of six experts from different fields evaluated its clarity and relevance. In addition, seven patients participated in a descriptive qualitative study using semi-structured individual interviews to explore the phenomenon in the new culture. A content analysis following the Miles, Huberman & Saldaña (Qualitative data analysis, a methods sourcebook, 2014) approach was used to analyze qualitative data. The cross-cultural translation and adaptation of the PPFKN scale into Spanish required a thorough revision. More than half of the items needed discussions to reach consensus regarding the most appropriate Spanish term. In addition, the study confirmed the four attributes of the concept identified in the American context and allowed for new insights within those attributes to appear. Those aspects reflected characteristics of the phenomenon of being known in the Spanish context and were added to the tool in the format of 10 new items. A comprehensive cross-cultural adaptation of tools should incorporate, together with the study of linguistic and semantic equivalence, the analysis of the conceptual equivalence of the phenomenon in both contexts. The identification, acknowledgment and study of the conceptual differences between two cultures in relation to a phenomenon becomes an opportunity for deeper study of the phenomenon in both cultures, for understanding of their richness and depth, and for the proposal of changes that may enhance the content validity of the tool. The evaluation of conceptual equivalence of tools within the process of cross-cultural adaptation will make it possible for target cultures to rely on tools both theoretically sound and significant. Specifically, the cross-cultural adaptation of the PPFKN scale has facilitated the design of a Spanish version of the tool that is linguistically, semantically and theoretically congruent with Spanish culture. The PPFKN Scale is a powerful indicator that evidences nursing care contribution to the patient's experience.

Adaptation of Affinity for Technology Interaction Scale to Turkish Culture and Evaluation of Measurement Invariance: ATI-T

An important dimension of human-technology interaction is whether people approach actively interacting with technological systems or avoid intense interaction with them. This dimension is also important for an individual’s ability to cope with technological changes, necessitating the need to observe and comprehend individual differences. In this study, we aimed to adapt the Affinity for Technology Interaction (ATI) scale to Turkish and evaluate its psychometric properties, including measurement invariance, in the target culture. A team of English and Turkish language linguists, psychometrists, and technology education experts carried out the process. Four applications were conducted in four different respondent groups to examine intelligibility, linguistic equivalence, reliability, validity, and measurement invariance. The one-dimensional and nine-item original scale structure was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. The internal consistency and test-retest reliability coefficients were calculated as 0.90 and 0.94, respectively. We also concluded that a strict level of measurement invariance was provided in the analysis of invariance between age and gender groups. These findings demonstrated that ATI-T is a measurement tool capable of measuring affinity for technology interaction in Turkish-speaking societies.

CULTURE AND GENDER REPRESENTATION IN VISUAL AND VERBAL TEXTS: AN ANALYSIS OF NATIONALLY ENDORSED INDONESIAN EFL TEXTBOOKS FOR UPPER SECONDARY STUDENTS

This study aimed to analyze the representation of culture and gender in visual and verbal texts in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks used by upper secondary school students. A content analysis was conducted on three EFL textbooks for upper secondary school students, using Xiao's (2010) framework to guide the analysis of culture “small-c”representation, and Brugeilles and Cromer's (2009) study to examine gender character according to their roles portrayed in the textbooks. The findings revealed that the highest number of visual illustrations was predominantly presented in the lifestyle aspect, followed by customs, values, holidays, hobbies, and food. It was also observed that gender representation was equally represented in the verbal text, but not proportionally in the visuals. The findings indicate that culture and gender awareness among students could be improved if textbooks provided a more balanced representation of various cultures encompassing source culture, target culture, and international target culture, and paid more attention to the equal treatment of genders.

The Culture Gap: An Analysis of Source, Target, and Global Culture Representation in Indonesian English Teaching Textbooks

Most Indonesian educators are insufficient to address the importance of educating students about other cultures. This problem emerges as a result of foreign language teachers' lack of understanding of how to incorporate culture into language acquisition, particularly in English. This research aims to investigate culture's representation and examine the culture introduced in Indonesian textbooks for senior high school students who learn English as a foreign language. Employing a qualitative descriptive approach with an intercultural perspective, the study systematically analyzes the cultural content and themes present in three Electronic English teaching textbooks: Bahasa Inggris X, Bahasa Inggris IX, and Bahasa Inggris XI revised edition (2017) by Kemdikbud RI. The analysis of the textbooks' contents is conducted using the framework developed by Cortazzi and Jin (1999), specifically focusing on Source Culture, Target Culture, and International Culture. These textbooks were selected as they are widely used in Indonesian senior high schools and are published by the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture. The findings of the study reveal that the dominance of source culture content is significant, while the representation of target culture and international culture is considerably low. Furthermore, among the 19 cultural motifs categorized as Big Culture and Little Culture, the prevalence of Little Culture themes is most notable. The findings of this research shed light on the existing disparity and call for a more comprehensive approach to cultural education in English language learning. By acknowledging the imbalance and addressing the representation of different cultures, educators can better equip students with intercultural competence and foster a deeper understanding of diverse cultural perspectives.

Typology and Classification of Target Culture Perception in Foreign Language Learning: A Case of Japanese L2 Learners

This study discusses the knowledge about, perceptions of, and interaction with the Japanese culture of Japanese language L2 learners who are majoring in Japanese at the undergraduate level in Turkish universities. The field survey was conducted with 298 undergraduate students in a Japanese Language Programs in early 2019. The data were collected using a structured questionnaire. As a result, it was confirmed that the participants acquire a wide range of academic knowledge about Japanese culture during their undergraduate education, and their perceptions of Japanese culture are based on historical and social facts as well as popular culture. However, the students have little interaction with Japanese culture in daily life. In the light of the data obtained in the research, Japanese cultural perceptions of the Japanese L2 learners were classified into typologies and discussed in terms of knowledge, perceptions, and interaction.

Interkulturowość w wybranych podręcznikach do nauki włoskiego i angielskiego języka biznesu i ekonomii. Studium porównawcze

This article attempts to characterize three textbooks for learning the language of business and economics in terms of the presence of elements developing intercultural competences. Two textbooks for learning Italian and one for learning English were analyzed: (1) Italiano per economisti, (2) L'italiano in azienda, (3) Market Leader. Intermediate business English. The above-mentioned titles were published in the years 2002-2003, which allowed to eliminate possible differences resulting from the changing over time approach to the phenomenon of intercultural language education. The aim of the study is to identify the elements developing intercultural competences, their qualitative and quantitative characteristics, to discuss the differences in the approach in Italian and English-language texts and to indicate the possibility of using selected solutions in the new teaching materials. This is important as research shows that contacts with foreign cultures alone do not naturally lead to the development of intercultural competence (Sobkowiak, 2015: 64, Budzanowska-Drzewiecka and Motyl-Adamczyk, 2016: 56). The analysis covered non-verbal communication (gestures), stereotypes, proverbs and sayings, rules of linguistic politeness. From the glottodidactic point of view, the proposed types of exercises and the connection of (inter)cultural competences with other communicative competences will be analyzed. The main hypothesis verified during the analyzes assumes that the concept of intercultural language education, although it does not appear as a notion on the pages of textbooks, is an important component of the didactic process in materials for learning the business language, and the approach to interculturality may differ depending on the target culture and status of the foreign language taught (Italian vs English, modern lingua franca).

”Olis sen voinut suoraankin kääntää”

In the Finnish authorised translator’s examination, translation tasks should be carried out in a documentary way, whereby the translation retains the features of the source culture and does not adopt the conventions of the target culture. At the same time, the translation should follow the norms of the target language and avoid expressions that are not typical of the target language. In my article, I examine what culture-boundness and translation of culture-bound expressions mean in the context of the authorised translator’s examination. I ask how examinees and assessors deal with culture-bound expressions. Based on my analysis of the examination translations and interviews, examinees seem to be aware of the principle of documentary translation but do not always associate it with culture-bound expressions. As for assessors, they evaluate culture-bound expressions in terms of how these can be translated either directly or in some other way. The results suggest that both culture and documentary translation need to be considered on a case-by-case basis, considering the specificities of language pairs. Therefore, the recommendations regulating the assessment of the examination translations should be taken with sound judgement.

‟Dare to Think, Dare to Speak, Dare to Act”: Translating Political Slogans in Mo Yan’s ‟Frog” From Chinese Into Romanian, Italian And Spanish

"Dare to Think, Dare to Speak, Dare to Act - Translating Political Slogans in Mo Yan’s Frog from Chinese into Romanian, Italian and Spanish. Slogans are some of the most typical elements of Chinese politics and a significant part of the important decisions took by the Communist Party are made known to the masses using slogans, such as “It is right to rebel!”, “Destroy the four olds!”, or “The most serious problem is to teach the peasants”. Participation in political life after the founding of the People’s Republic, in 1949, could be done only by employing slogans or formulae derived from the elite political discourse. The major impact of politics upon people’s lives has transformed the slogan from a manifestation of political authority into a manipulation tool used by people to make their counterparts react in a desired way. Mo Yan’s novel Frog (Wa/Broaște/Rana/Le rane) shows to what extent slogans can influence ordinary people’s lives, where the use of real political slogans or even make-believe slogans – discourse modeled to resemble a political slogan –, are either attempts by the characters to make their voices heard and participate into decision making, or small acts of rebellion against the system. Considering the culture specific character of the slogans, the fact that they were created into a very particular socio-political context, the paper analyzes the translations of the slogans in Mo Yan’s novel into three Romance languages, in an attempt to identify not only the techniques and the choices made by the translators, but also the possibility, or impossibility, to recreate the slogan and conserve its original impact into the target culture. Keywords: political slogan, ideology, translation, Cultural Revolution, Mo Yan "

The cultural content and intercultural communicative competence in the global and local textbooks used in Indonesian EFL classes

A number of studies on the cultural content represented in local or global textbooks have increasingly been investigated. However, it is scanty research comparing local and global textbooks. This study aims to examine two textbooks determined by the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture, a global textbook entitled English in Mind for schools implementing a new curriculum called Merdeka curriculum and a local textbook, When English Rings a Bell, for schools that have not applied it. The study employed content analysis as a research design. The results show that the global textbook provides more on target culture, but the local textbook highly emphasizes source culture and neglects international cultures. In addition, the global textbook concerns social and environmental themes, while the local textbook focuses more on religion/humanities/art and personal theme. Further, the global textbook does not accommodate adequate intercultural communicative competence, which was absent in the local textbook. The imbalanced cultural representations in those textbooks affect students’ intercultural competence. The study suggests the practical implications of providing students with sufficient references to the target, source, and international cultures to promote their intercultural competence.

Challenges of translating food in multiparallel corpus: Beverages and mealtimes in Balzac’s human comedy (La Comédie Humaine)

French novels of the 19th century recall the aspects of food culture in different ways through their reflections on the golden age for both gastronomy and the pleasures of the table. La Comédie Humaine is a milestone in highlighting the keystones of French food and gastronomy. In this study, we propose a multistage analysis of 21 novels of La Comédie Humaine by examining the food terms and their translations into English and Turkish. Our main contribution is the qualitative and quantitative analysis of food in the Balzacian context. We have performed food data visualization from original and translated texts and thus revealed how the terms for beverages and mealtimes are interconnected in the Comédie Humaine and how food translations might differ in English and Turkish, especially the names of wine, coffee terms and mealtime names. We provide a contextualized food approach to Balzac’s novels through the lens of Turkish and English culture revealing their openness, or not, to French food culture, linked to the rules of prestige and the habitus of the target culture. We started our analysis by localizing food patterns in the source language. Then we analyzed them in distant reading – analysis of quantitative data – and close reading focused on the qualitative analysis. This mixed methodology gives a new layer of insight and could be extrapolated to other texts and languages in the domain of food and literature.

CLASH of the Titans: How CAR-T Cells Can Triumph Over Tumors.

CLASH of the Titans: How CAR-T Cells Can Triumph Over Tumors.

Subtitling Taboo Expressions from a Conservative to a More Liberal Culture

Abstract Subtitling involves constraints about differences between cultures. This requires a set of translation strategies, especially when subtitling from relatively conservative to more liberal cultures. This study explores subtitlers’ strategies when translating the Jordanian Arabic vernacular series Jinn into English. Jinn has been selected because it’s Netflix’s first Arabic-Jordanian series containing explicit scenes and inappropriate language. Further culture-bound expressions were classified according to their connotative functions. The findings demonstrated that subtitlers used various strategies to render culture-bound expressions from Arabic into English. These include translating the source culture taboo to a target culture taboo of the same, higher or lower intensity levels. The findings also revealed that ‘unfriendly suggestions’ and ‘noun supports’ were the most frequently targeted connotative functions of the swear words. The research recommends additional studies on subtitling movies and series cross-culture.

The (non-)ageing of non-retranslations? The alleged ageing of Swedish non-retranslations

ABSTRACT Recently, scholars have pointed to the need for exploring non-retranslations, i.e. translations that are continuously being published in a target culture but not retranslated. Yet, there has not been a thorough examination of the phenomenon to date. This article aims to explore this phenomenon in greater depth by reporting on a pilot study from a bibliography on Swedish non-retranslations. More specifically, the article investigates the concept of (alleged) ageing in relation to fourteen Swedish non-retranslations that have been published, in the same translation, in more than ten editions over the course of 45–87 years. The non-retranslations are discussed through the parameters of publication history, agents of non-retranslations, and textual features. The article’s findings contradict some established views regarding the (alleged) ageing of texts as a motive for retranslation and complement others.

Humor translation: a case study on the loss of humorous loads in SpongeBob SquarePants

Audiovisual translation of humor has long been a challenge faced by translators. It is inevitable for translators to remove or reduce some of the humorous effect in the target language despite their endeavor to preserve the humor elements. This qualitative study aimed to investigate the reasons behind the loss of humor in translation of the humorous scenes from an American comedy cartoon, SpongeBob SquarePants. Sperber and Wilson (1986)’s Relevance theory and Chaume (2004)’s Constraints of Dubbing framework were adopted in this study. The analysis was carried out by comparing the Zabalbeascoa (1993; 1996)’s humorous loads in each identified scenes in English and the Chinese dubbed version. The findings indicated that community and institution, community sense of humor and linguistic elements are prone to be lost in this type of translation not merely due to the linguistic and cultural asymmetry but also because of the synchronization constraints of dubbing. It was found that the substitution strategy which preserved the humor effect became ineffective because the new humorous elements recreated by the translator may not be synchronized with the actor’s lip movements, actions and length of utterance displayed on screen. Despite the unavoidable loss of the untranslatable elements, the maximum preservation of visual and non-marked elements which can be deciphered by the target audience without making unnecessary efforts compensates for the loss, contributing to the popularity and success of this comedy product in the target language and culture.

Examining Cultural Words Translation in Tourism Texts: A Systematic Review

The steady growth of tourism is increasing the demand for tourism translation. Cultural words (CWs) translation is challenging since they are absent from target cultures. This systematic review examines studies on CWs translation in tourism texts to comprehend the literature and explore future research tendencies. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses, researchers did a comprehensive literature review. Twenty-one articles met the inclusion criteria after the protocol-required data selection and screening. The findings reveal that scholars are increasingly concerned with CWs translation in tourism texts. Moreover, all the included articles used varied theories. Most of them focused on applying various taxonomies of translation strategies to compensate for the losses of cultural connotations in cultural words' rendition. Besides, other researchers focused on CWs translation from different perspectives, such as translation quality assessment, Eco-translatology, meaning equivalence, cultural manipulation, and relevance theory.

The representation of foreign culture in English textbooks used in Cambodian upper secondary schools

It is generally recognized that the representation of foreign culture in textbooks is pivotal for effective language learning, and successful cross-cultural communication. With this regard, the present study investigates the representation of foreign culture in English textbooks used in Cambodian upper secondary schools. The current study employs content analysis (CA) approach to analyze three English textbooks used in Cambodian upper secondary schools. Three different frameworks were used as the checklists. To investigate how foreign culture is introduced, and the proportion of subcategories in culture introduction, the framework of Zu and Kong (2009) was employed. The researchers also used the framework of Cortazzi and Jin (1999) to see the percentage of the target culture and international culture within the cultural categories. The last framework is the one proposed by Yuen (2011), which was applied to measure the distribution of cultural elements. The findings show that all two approaches to culture introduction namely direct and indirect introduction are included, but the direct introduction is predominant (61%). For the direct introduction, among four subcategories, the highest proportion is on Texts Depicting Cultural Events (51%) followed respectively by Situational Dialogues (30%), Words Accompanied by Pictures (14%), and Cultural Notes (5%). For the indirect introduction, between two subcategories, Cognitive Approach (80%) is dominant over Behavioural and Affective Approach (20%). Furthermore, regardless of source culture, target culture (66%) covers predominantly in the textbooks compared to international culture (34%). Related to cultural elements, Products account for 74% followed by Practices 13%, Persons 12%, and Perspectives 1%. The results suggest that textbook developers should consider the appropriate proportion of these cultural components, and English teachers should exploit the importance of these cultural contents in their teaching.