Terms Of Culture Research Articles

Evaluating the Quality of Abdullwahab Al-Maqaleh's Translation of Idiomatic Expressions and Culture-Bound Terms in Dave Eggers's The Monk of Mokha by Using House's (2015) Model

This study aims to assess and evaluate the quality of Abdullwahab Al-Maqaleh's Translation of idiomatic expressions and culture-bound Terms of Dave Eggers's Novel "The Monk of Mokha" by using House's (2015) Translation Quality Assessment Model. The descriptive analytical methodology is used in this study. The analysis is divided into two sections. The first section analyzes the source text and target text according to their register and genre. The analysis of the source text and target text shows a number of mismatches and errors (overtly erroneous errors) along these dimensions. The second section categorizes the related overt errors into five categories: not translated, slight change of meaning, significant change of meaning, breach of the target language system, and creative translation. The study shows that the target text has many mismatches at the level of field, tenor, and mode, such as lexical and syntactic mismatches. It reveals that many cultural terms were translated literally and did not reflect the intended meaning of the source text.

Eat healthy, save the planet, but let minced meat save you! Marketing discourses, food practices and meat consumption legitimation

This article aims to critically examine cultural discourses in food marketing from the perspective of mundane food practices and contested meat consumption. In conceptualising normativity and sociocultural contestations of consumption in practice-level performances, less attention has been paid to legitimations of (un)sustainable consumption, such as meat consumption, in marketing discourses. We take inspiration from the concept of teleoaffective formations – particularly that of promotional sustainable consumption – and adopt a critical discourse analysis method to analyse the food marketing content of Finnish grocery retailers. Our findings exemplify discursive tensions between normative ideas of food practices (effectiveness, healthiness and environmental friendliness) and practice reproduction and change. Our analysis uncovers how practices are utilised as arenas for contradictory, parallel legitimations: meat is justified as a convenient means in the fight against busy everyday life, while the shift towards ideal, reduced meat consumption is promoted. Additionally, the findings illustrate responsibilisation of the consumer as both a morally and practically conscious actor concerned about food sustainability and caring for the family. The study exemplifies how analysing discursive consumption legitimation by marketers reveals power issues in consumer culture in practice theoretical terms and elucidates sociocultural conditions for sustainability shifts in normative consumption. This article thus responds to the calls for approaching consumption in practices from a cultural and critical perspective and for extending research to the commercial sphere.

CONSTRUCTING THE DIGITAL: WORKING FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH

The AoIR Flashpoint Symposium conducted in Hyderabad, India, explored multiple facets of digital labour–that which takes place through and on platforms, monitored or managed via digital interfaces, as well as forms of work that contribute to building, maintaining, and populating digital infrastructures. The discussions at the symposium proceeded from the recognition of the need for regulation with the consumer of technology as our main object of concern, while also attending to the humans at the center of the machinery of production–those who build the insides of the machines (coders, designers, annotators) as well as those who make the content that flows through it. This panel extends the discussions at the Symposium with five papers that attend to different types of digital/digitally-enabled work: content creation and curation, app-based services, infrastructuring through tech work, and advocacy for a just and open digital commons. Together, the papers intend to make visible how the everyday labour of those in the Global South undergirds the global network of digital goods, services, and infrastructures–both materially and discursively. We think of the digital economy and culture in planetary terms (Graham & Ferrari, 2022), driven by technologies largely imagined in the West even as they are enabled in very specific ways by workers in the Global South. Much recent work in rapidly digitizing geographies in South Asia and Latin America has pointed to the embedded nature of the digital, as technology and as experience. Cultural creators on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Spotify speak to increasingly dispersed audiences, their content subject to a variety of regulatory regimes monitored and managed in algorithmically impenetrable ways . Gig workers find their work patterns are constrained and defined by interfaces driven by neo-colonial imaginaries that defy regulation yet prompt innovative forms of resistance. Public discourse veers between the celebratory and the cautionary, as in much of the globe, with states responding, in turn, with shut downs and penalties and sops and incentives. The papers in this panel while locating their arguments and their insights in the specific context of India, also speak to the need for imaginaries that are at once broad and contextual, that take from aspirational articulations while rejecting a universalising logic, whether in the realm of design, or use, or regulation.

Retinal organoid chip: engineering a physiomimetic oxygen gradient for optimizing long term culture of human retinal organoids.

An oxygen gradient across the retina plays a crucial role in its development and function. The inner retina resides in a hypoxic environment (2% O2) adjacent to the vitreous cavity. Oxygenation levels rapidly increase towards the outer retina (18% O2) at the choroid. In addition to retinal stratification, oxygen levels are critical for the health of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), which relay visual information from the retina to the brain. Human stem cell derived retinal organoids are being engineered to mimic the structure and function of human retina for applications such as disease modeling, development of therapeutics, and cell replacement therapies. However, rapid degeneration of the retinal ganglion cell layers are a common limitation of human retinal organoid platforms. We report the design of a novel retinal organoid chip (ROC) that maintains a physiologically relevant oxygen gradient and allows the maturation of inner and outer retinal cell phenotypes for human retinal organoids. Our PDMS-free ROC holds 55 individual retinal organoids that were manually seeded, cultured for extended periods (over 150 days), imaged in situ, and retrieved. ROC was designed from first principles of liquid and gas mass transport, and fabricated from biologically- and chemically inert materials using rapid prototyping techniques such as micromachining, laser cutting, 3D printing and bonding. After computational and experimental validation of oxygen gradients, human induced pluripotent stem cell derived retinal organoids were transferred into the ROC, differentiated, cultured and imaged within the chip. ROCs that maintained active perfusion and stable oxygen gradients were successful in inducing higher viability of RGCs within retinal organoids than static controls, or ROC without oxygen gradients. Our physiologically relevant and higher-throughput retinal organoid culture system is well suited for applications in studying developmental perturbations to primate retinogenesis, including those driven by inherited traits, fetal environmental exposure to toxic agents, or acquired by genetic mutations, such as retinoblastoma.

Problemy związane z przekładem tekstów prawniczych w świetle rozważań Jeana-Claude’a Gémara

THE PROBLEM OF TRANSLATION OF LEGAL TEXTS IN THE LIGHT OF JEAN-CLAUDE GÉMAR’S REFLECTIONS The presented study aims to show the translational thought of Jean-Claude Gémar, who is one of the founders of jurislinguistics, a branch of science that deals with the linguistic analysis of legal texts. At the beginning of the article, the reasons for the researcher’s perception of law primarily as a manifestation of culture and the translation difficulties arising from this are shown. Subsequently, Gémar’s proposed translation strategies to be used when translating legal texts are analysed. Particular emphasis is placed on terms that are specific to the legal culture in question and terms that are completely unfamiliar to the target language. Finally, the researcher’s suggestions related to the training of translators of specialised texts are presented.

Research on challenges and optimization strategies of translating culture-loaded terms in Northern Shaanxi folk culture from the perspective of eco-translatology

Research on challenges and optimization strategies of translating culture-loaded terms in Northern Shaanxi folk culture from the perspective of eco-translatology

Ethnicity and Representation

AbstractThose Germans who remained in Hungary after the Second World War faced complex political, economic, and social difficulties. In cultural terms, the diverse self-definitions of the Germans living in Hungary at that time precluded national cohesion, despite the use by the authorities of the unifying definition “German.” This national minority was bound together primarily by shared trauma. Individuals and communities alike were searching for their place amidst the changed circumstances, and it was the umbrella organization known as the Democratic Association of Germans in Hungary (Magyarországi Németek Demokratikus Szövetsége) that sought to bring them together. It was not until the 1970s that the association began to professionalize its activities and to conduct ethnographic research in cooperation with qualified specialists. During this process, the village of Harta, which was already famous for its folk art, came to their attention. It was specifically the economic potential of this settlement in Bács-Kiskun County, and its character as an ethnic and confessional enclave, that laid the foundations for the uniform objects and motifs of this local center of furniture painting. After the Second World War, the county administration's cultural policy was relatively accepting of the furniture-making tradition here, and the local intelligentsia showed a supportive attitude towards the settlement's German heritage. In the 1970s, there was still a furniture painter living in Harta, who won the most prestigious folk-art award, regularly participated in exhibitions and gala events, and even produced painted furniture in the cooperative's subsidiary branch at the initiative of the local council president. This ensured that painted furniture from Harta came to represent not only the traditionalist aspirations of the German Association, but also national cultural policy. Harta furniture emerged as the most iconic style of minority painted furniture and as the shared heritage of the German community in Hungary.

Social, Cultural and Economic Analysis of Post-Pandemic Public Health (COVID-19) in the Case of Peru: an Evaluation of Approaches to Promote Health and Well-Being Within the Framework of the SDG

Objective: To examine the social, cultural, and economic consequences of the pandemic on public health in Peru, recognizing challenges and possibilities to strengthen the system, given that the pandemic aggravated existing inequalities, disproportionately impacting vulnerable groups, such as rural communities and individuals living in poverty, an evaluation of approaches to promote health and well-being within the framework of the SDG. Theoretical framework: This research analyzes the way in which the pandemic has impacted several aspects of public health in the country, in a post-COVID-19 pandemic scenario that showed and aggravated the already existing weaknesses in the Peruvian health system, marked by its fragmentation and restrictions in infrastructure and human resources. Method: A qualitative approach based on a documentary review and critical analysis was used for the development of the research. Research implications: Lack of access to high-quality health services and unfavorable living conditions contributed to an increase in COVID-19 incidence and mortality in these groups. In cultural terms, distrust of the official health system and inclination towards traditional medicines impacted the community reaction to the virus. In economic terms, the pandemic severely impacted the middle class, decreasing its magnitude from 43.6% in 2019 to 24% in 2020, canceling out a decade of economic progress. Results and discussion: The infodemic, or excess of information, including rumors and misinformation, made it difficult to implement effective public health strategies. In addition to job losses and reduced incomes, they restrict access to health services, intensifying pre-existing inequalities. Originality/Value: To enhance public health in Peru after the pandemic, it is crucial to address social inequalities.

Translation of Cultural Terms in Literary Work “Ini Banyuwangi Sri Tanjung Hidup Kembali”

This research is descriptive qualitative research entitled “Translation of Cultural Terms in Literary Work “Ini Banyuwangi Sri Tanjung Hidup Kembali-This is Banyuwangi Sri Tanjung Comes to Life”. This writing is written based on the phenomenon of difficulties in translating cultural terms in many literary works. To be able to provide good translation results, a translator must understand the culture of the source language (SL) and also the target language (TL). The aim of this research is to identify cultural terms of the literary work. This research also tries to examine the translation strategies applied to translate cultural terms in this literary works. The research method applied for this research is a documentation method with note taking technique. This research applies Newmark’s theory to identify cultural terms and also the Translation Strategy to examine the translation strategies used to translate cultural terms. The research results showed that there were thirty-two cultural terms translated from the source language (Indonesian) into the target language (English) and contained three categories of cultural terms proposed by Newmark. The categorization of cultural terms found are ecological culture, material culture, and social organization. The translation strategies applied in translating cultural terms of this literary work are found seven of eight strategies mentioned by Newmark. The dominant strategy applied is adaptation strategy, followed by word for word and literal translation strategy. The least strategy applied is idiomatic translation.

Historicizing the liberal antiracism of Cultural Evolution

The Cultural Evolution Society was established in 2015 to “catalyze a theoretical synthesis” in the scientific study of human culture. As a field of research, cultural evolution took shape in the 1970s and 1980s around the aim of incorporating culture into biology’s modern evolutionary synthesis. Cultural evolution grew around the turn of the twenty-first century at the interface of population genetics and cognitive psychology. This article locates the origins of research on cultural evolution in projects of postwar scientific antiracism and U.S.-based debates about race and intelligence in the 1960s. Charting the development of prominent approaches to studying cultural evolution, I show how population geneticists and cognitive psychologists worked to redefine culture in statistical, populational, and geographic terms to politically neutralize the study of human difference. I situate the forms of genetic and cognitive culturalism that emerged as a result in a longer history of twentieth-century scientific antiracism.

The application of scaffolding instruction and AI-driven diffusion models in children’s aesthetic education: A case study on teaching traditional chinese painting of the twenty-four solar terms in chinese culture

The application of scaffolding instruction and AI-driven diffusion models in children’s aesthetic education: A case study on teaching traditional chinese painting of the twenty-four solar terms in chinese culture

Problems of Translating Cultural Vocabulary: A Case Study on The Translation of Indonesian Folktales

This study investigates the translation strategies employed in rendering culturally-laden vocabulary from Indonesian into Japanese, focusing on the folktale “Bujang Sembilan: Legenda Danau Maninjau”. The objective is to identify the translation techniques used and analyze their effectiveness in conveying cultural nuances and meanings. A qualitative descriptive method was employed, analyzing 33 sentences containing cultural terms. The findings reveal several issues, including the loss of cultural meaning through the use of general terms, inaccurate adaptations, and a lack of supplementary explanations. The study concludes that a combination of transliteration, adaptation, and explanatory notes is crucial for accurately conveying the cultural richness of the source text. This approach ensures that the target audience grasps not only the literal meaning but also the cultural significance embedded within the original vocabulary.

The Erosion of Cultural Essence: Translating Mythical Cultural Terms in Classical Chinese Folk Novels

This paper explores the challenges and implications of translating mythical cultural terms from the Chinese classical literary work Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. Drawing on the theoretical framework of cultural loss and compensation, this study employs a comparative analysis of two selected English translations by Herbert Giles and John Minford to identify and evaluate the compensation methods used and their impact on preserving cultural essence. Utilizing a qualitative descriptive methodology, this research analyzes selected stories featuring mythical beings, focusing on the translation of specific cultural terms and the use of annotations and contextual explanations. The study examines the extent to which cultural subtleties are preserved or lost in translation, evaluating the effectiveness of compensation methods and their implications for readers’ cultural understanding. By examining the translators’ choices and their influence on the portrayal of mythical beings, the study aims to provide insights into how cultural subtleties are either preserved or eroded in the translation process. Key findings indicate that while some translations strive to maintain the original cultural essence through careful annotation and contextualization, others prioritise readability and accessibility, leading to significant cultural loss. The paper concludes with recommendations for translators and scholars to enhance cultural preservation in literary translations and suggests directions for future research. This study contributes to the broader discourse on the translation of classical Chinese literature, highlighting the importance of cultural fidelity in translating mythical beings and the role of translators in shaping cultural understanding and appreciation.

Religious culture and cigarette use: University students’ attitudes towards smoking based on their Islamic value

The current examines the influence of Islamic values on smoking behaviors among undergraduate students at Yarmouk University in Irbid, Jordan (N: 334). Tobacco use, in religious and cultural terms, is viewed as abhorrent; it is a significant concern for this population group. The study intends to identify how Islamic values affect the perception of students on smoking and, consequently, their smoking behavior. A self-administered questionnaire assessed sociodemographic data and the past 30 days of cigarette use. Descriptive statistics, such as frequencies and percentages, midpoint and standard deviation, and inferential statistics, such as chi-square tests, t-tests, ANOVA, Pearson correlation, and hierarchical regression, were used to analyze smoking behaviors, Islamic values, and demographic attributes. The study shows that Islamic values have a strong negative attitude towards smoking; students attributed smoking to religion, family and social expectations and perceptions, health and economic implications. Further, the hierarchical regression analysis revealed that cigarette use, hookah and e-cigarette, gender, and attitude towards Islamic values were suitable predictors for cigarette use. This study advances knowledge regarding smoking behaviors from the cultural-religious perspective. It highlights the importance of historically and culturally informed gender-sensitive prevention programs that address smoking-related beliefs, attitudes, and practices. Collaboration with the Ministry of Health and media outlets to integrate Islamic values into public health campaigns can reduce smoking among university students by aligning cultural and religious beliefs with health messaging.

Painting, Icon, Sonnet, and Text: a Comparative Analysis of Pushkin’s Sonnet “Madona” and an Episode of Dostoevsky’s Novel “The Brothers Karamazov”

The article offers a comparative examination of A. S. Pushkin’s sonnet “Madona” and the description of the cell of elder Zosima in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Brothers Karamazov” as vivid examples of visual representation of the idea of “universal responsiveness” in the works of both authors. They are united by verbal and figurative images that visually embody it. In this case, it is Pushkin’s ekphrastic image of the “Russian Madonna,” which bears the mark of ethno-confessional cultural synthesis. Pushkin’s sonnet contains an intermedial contamination of two artistic traditions — poetic and pictorial. The former is associated with sonnets by Dante and Petrarch, as well as Orthodox prayers; the latter – with Raphael’s painting “The Bridgewater Madonna” and the icon of the Mother of God of Kazan. In Dostoevsky, a similar example of a visual embodiment of the idea of “universal responsiveness” is the description of Zosima’s cell, in which the Orthodox image of the Mother of God neighbors the Catholic image of Mater Dolorosa. From an axiological point of view, the attribute of Catholic iconography purposefully introduced by the writer into the interior of the cell is fundamentally significant. It is absent in the cell of the Optina elder Amvrosy, reproduced by Dostoevsky with great, but not literal, accuracy in order to portray the elder Zosima as the embodiment of the image of the “Russian all-man” who understands everything and everyone and accommodates everything. His iconostasis represents the entire history of Christian culture: the period before the schism in Russia (the image of the Mother of God), ancient Orthodoxy (icons of saints and martyrs), Catholicism (Catholic ivory cross and engravings) and modernity (portraits of bishops). The religious and cultural syncretism of Zosima’s religious feeling, which in cultural terms was in many ways close to Dostoevsky himself, is apparent.

Domestication and Foreignization Strategy in Translating a Paradise for Travelers

A brochure's message and goal must be taken into consideration when a translator makes a decision. The translator must use both foreignization and domestication as translation method. This study aims to explore the relationship between the foreignization or domestication process and the process of translating cultural terminology from Indonesian into English. In this study, qualitative descriptive methods and discourse analysis were used. Making notes facilitates the classification and identification of the information tourist brochures from Ende Regency of East Nusa Tenggara Province in 2023 are the study's aim. The result showed how the translation procedure influences the strategies used in the translation process. When translating cultural terms, translators mostly used domestication method instead of foreignization.

Restoring the question of culture: identity, essence and the unknowability of difference

Throughout the 20th century the question of culture was a central pillar of social scientific thought. From Durkheim to Levi-Strauss, from Stuart Hall to Dennis Cosgrove, the question of culture and cultural difference was a touchstone for understanding the structures, norms and expectations that organised society. Yet, today the concept has disappeared from the academic landscape, including geography, where it is absorbed into other debates and terms, or discarded as an antiquated essentialist construct. Despite pressing political debates about culture wars, identity politics, cultural appropriation and nativism, there seems to be little interest in discussing, debating, much less theorising, the concept of culture as a credible explanatory tool. The aim of this lecture is two-fold: first it explores what has been lost by forsaking the question of culture (in geography and elsewhere); and second, it endeavours to reframe the question of culture in terms that emancipate it from the problem of difference. Indeed, at its heart, I argue that while geographers commonly study difference as an obvious empirical fact of life, emerging and receding at various scales, the nature of difference itself is unknowable. Yet rather than seeing this as an obstacle to theorising culture, the lecture uses it as an invitation to think culture differently: culture not as an explanation for difference but as an elucidation of the phenomenon of claiming difference. The lecture will focus on explaining this distinction and how it fundamentally changes the question of culture. The plenary lecture explores and develops arguments examined in my forthcoming monograph, Dreams of Presence: a Geographic Theory of Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2024).

Engaging with culture and modernity: Cultural studies in India

ABSTRACT This paper discusses two examples of how Cultural Studies in India has assembled research domains around the terms culture and modernity, which have grown out of the debates in colonial society between colonizer and colonized. In my first example, “Indian culture” traveled overseas, to the Caribbean, through indentured laborers who created a form of subaltern diasporic modernity; however, that notion of culture was used to eliminate subaltern women from the normative frames of an Indian modernity taking shape in India. In my second example, “Indian culture” was involved in the creation of a national-modern subject. The creation happened through a process in which modernity was disavowed in the name of “our” distinctive culture even as that culture was propagated through modern institutions. These two examples, taken together, indicate the centrality of “culture” and “modernity” to the conceptual-political field of Cultural Studies in India.

A millifluidic bioreactor allows the long term culture of primary lymphocytes or CD34+ hematopoietic cells while allowing the detection of tumorigenic expansion.

Long-term culture of primary lymphocytes and hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) is pivotal to their expansion and study. Furthermore, genetic engineering of the above-mentioned primary human cells has several safety needs, including the requirement of efficient in vitro assays for unwanted tumorigenic events. In this work, we tested and optimized the Miniaturized Optically Accessible Bioreactor (MOAB) platform. The MOAB consists of a millifluidic cell culture device with three optically-accessible culture chambers. Inside the MOAB, we inserted a silk-based framework that resembles some properties of the bone marrow environment and cultivated in this device either CD4+ T lymphocytes isolated from healthy donor buffy coat or cord blood-derived hematopoietic CD34+ cells. A fraction of these cells is viable for up to 3months. Next, we tested the capability of the MOAB to detect tumorigenic events. Serial dilutions of engineered fluorescent tumor cells were mixed with either CD4+ or CD34+ primary cells, and their growth was followed. By this approach, we successfully detected as little as 100 tumorigenic cells mixed with 100,000 primary cells. We found that non-tumorigenic primary cells colonized the silk environment, whereas tumor cells, after an adaptation phase, expanded and entered the circulation. We conclude that the millifluidic platform allows the detection of rare tumorigenic events in the long-term culture of human cells.

Studies of the cultural layer of the cities of Ufa and Birsk (based on the example of the work of the archaeological expedition of the "Ancient Ufa" museum-reserve)

The article presents the results of an analysis of the latest data of recent years, obtained during archaeological research of the first fortified settlements on the territory of the Republic of Bashkortostan. In the course of the work the analysis reviewed materials from archaeological heritage sites located in the historical center of the modern cities of Ufa (“Hillfort Ufa-II” and “Cultural layer of Ufa dated the late 18th – early 20th century at 29 Sochinskaya street”) and Birsk (“Old Birsk, historical cultural layer and burial ground”). Despite the fact that archaeological sites are subject to a significant anthropogenic influence, the obtained corpus of sources complements the information about the formation of the Russian population and their local tangible culture in chronological terms between 16th and the early 20th century. Studied fragments of pottery revealed differences and features of pottery traditions in the ornamentation, shapes of dishes and additional processing. The materials obtained from the site of Ufa-II indicate local damage (redeposited layer) of the cultural layer and no stratified layers of the New Age. Despite a more significant anthropogenic impact Sochinskaya Street is found with a local patch of preserved cultural layer dated by the period in question. Thus, it will make the reconstruction of the main stages of development of the immediate surroundings of the Ufa Kremlin possible. Alongside it will allow analysis of the adjacent territory. The research on the territory of Birsk documents a good condition of the lower cultural layer of the 17th–18th centuries. The potential of archaeological research of the city lies not only in studying the local features of the tangible culture of the local population, but also in the opportunity to describe the period of the early Russian settlement in Bashkiria in the 16th–18th centuries.