Translation Of Culture-specific Items Research Articles

Translation of culture-specific items from kazakh into english (in the case of “turkistan” by M. Jumabayev)

Translation of culture-specific items from kazakh into english (in the case of “turkistan” by M. Jumabayev)

The Translational Treatment of Social Culture and Social Organization items in Orwell’s 1984

The translation of culture-specific items (CSIs) in literary texts is problematic and challenging. They hold a critical position in the process of translation as they are bound to their source culture and language. Translators tend to render these items using specific translation techniques. These techniques influence and in turn are influenced by the two translation strategies: foreignization and domestication. These CSIs could be divided according to Newmark (1988) into five categories. However, the present study aims to reveal, discuss, and compare the techniques used along with the strategies followed in treating two categories namely social culture and social organization in George Orwell’s ‘1984’ from English into two Arabic translations. The Novel is translated by two translators Anwar Achami (2006) and Alharith Nabhan (2014). To achieve trustworthiness, Toury’s (1995) descriptive translation methodology and Creswell’s (2012) mixed methods research is adopted to describe, analyse, and interpret how, when, and why Pederson’s (2005) translation techniques are used and to take out clear data about the Venutian’s (1995) domestication and foreignization. The study follows the explanatory design. First, the quantitative data is collected manually and uploaded into an Excel sheet format for analysis. It is followed by qualitative data collection and analyses. 162 coupled pairs were identified. The results show that the translators use different translation techniques to produce different translations. Besides, there are various factors influencing translators’ choices and orientations.

The Translation of Culture-Specific Items (CSIs) in Yellow River Cultural Corpus: A Case Study of History of the Yellow River

By constructing a bilingual parallel corpus from scratch and taking History of the Yellow River as an illustrative bilingual text, this study delves into the translation techniques applied to Culture-Specific Items (CSIs) within the framework of the Yellow River Basin civilization. The findings reveal a diverse range of approaches employed by translators, including literal translation, free translation, intracultural adaptation, omission, retention and annotation, especially in handling CSIs related to ecology, material culture, social life, religion, and language within the context of Yellow River culture. These techniques effectively preserve the intrinsic traits of the source language, thereby facilitating the propagation of Yellow River culture. The utilization of corpus-based research methodologies to analyze the English translation of CSIs in the Yellow River culture not only aligns with the essential imperatives of promoting Chinese culture on the global stage but also addresses the intricate nuances demanded by international communication.

Domestication Strategy in the English Target Novel the Red Bekisar

This research article is about the translation of culture-specific items or cultural words from Indonesian into English. It focuses on the Domestication strategy and the procedures of oblique translation applied in the translation. The data source is an Indonesian novel entitled Bekisar Merah, which is translated into English, the Red Bekisar. The novel involves the Javanese cultural background, where Islam religion becomes one of the influential settings. This research was conducted with a qualitative-descriptive approach by adapting the concept of oblique translation from Vinay and Darbelnet, the domestication strategy by Venuti, and the culture-specific items by Newmark. The objectives are to reveal the type of cultural words that are domesticated and to locate the procedures of oblique translation applied in translating the cultural words. The results show that the cultural words which are translated with the domestication strategy are of two kinds: material culture and organizations, customs, and ideas; from 61 data on domestication strategy, all four procedures are identified: transposition, modulation, adaptation, and equivalence; and the most frequent procedure found is modulation.

A Translation of and a Commentary on 100 Cooking Recipes from English into Arabic: How Culture and Culinary Translation Intertwine

Not until the beginning of the 20th century did the recipe begin to be the subject of serious research and academic interest. It is even more rarely tackled in the realm of translation studies. The purpose of this work was to examine the recipe as a separate genre. One-hundred recipes were collected from five different sources, translated from English into Arabic, then both texts were analyzed through parallel-text analysis. This paper aims to identify the difficulties that translators may encounter in translating recipes from English into Arabic at the lexical, syntactic, textual and cultural levels. These textual features are divided into macro-textual and micro-textual features. The findings showed that there were no differences between the English and the Arabic recipe on the macro-textual level; however, there were some differences on the micro-textual level, such as the use of indefinite articles for reference, ellipsis, and the use of pronouns. The translation techniques that prevailed in the translation of culture-specific items (CSIs) were delineated. The analysis showed that the most commonly used method to handle CSIs was couplets (41%), while the least used method was free translation (10%). Furthermore, 223 CSIs were identified, classified and translated.

Translation of Culture-Specific Items from Thai to English in Tourism Promotional Videos

Translation of Culture-Specific Items from Thai to English in Tourism Promotional Videos

Procedures Used in the Translation of Culture Specific Items in Moroccan Literary Texts: Lu'bat al-Nisyan as a Case Study

In recent times, literary translation seems to have gained considerable interest among translation scholars and translators. Furthermore, translating culture-specific items (CSIs) in literary texts appear to be one of the most challenging tasks a translator must overcome. In the present article, attempts were made to describe the most and least frequent translation procedures adopted by translators to overcome cultural barriers in the translation of the literary text. The current study used Newmark’s model (1988) for cultural translation, which includes cultural categories and translation procedures to classify the data. Through this model, it was concluded that in the case studied, ‘The Game of Forgetting’, the translator used most frequently modulation, functional equivalent and cultural equivalent to render the meaning of the source text, such as expansion and notes were barely used.

The Quality of Culture-Specific Items’ Translation in Rob Marshall’s Film Memoirs of a Geisha

This study analyzes cases of culture-specific items, which are often challenging to translate. Lithuanian voice-over version of Rob Marshall’s film Memoirs of a Geisha is being examined, taking a deeper look into translation of culture-specific items in terms of quality. Quality assessment is one of the most important aspects when evaluating translations. However, audiovisual translation differs greatly from traditional translation, and it can pose difficulties not only translating, but also evaluating translation quality or trying to justify certain choices made by the translator. Hence, the paper seeks to define quality of translation having voice-over and its constraints in mind, and to discuss translation strategies of culture-specific items in the film. To this end, the study relies on definitions of quality provided by Juliane House (2013), categorization of culture-specific items by Willy Vandeweghe (2005), and their translation strategies by Eirlys E. Davies (2003). It is found that the mode of the text in the target language remains the same as the text is always spoken, and it includes narration and dialogues. Mismatches between the source text and the translation mainly appear with culture-specific items that are more difficult to translate (for example, ethnographic references). Overall, the translation quality can be deemed to be good enough, with the translator using translation strategies wisely trying to maintain authenticity where possible.

A Study of Persian Translation of Cultural Elements in Waltari’s The Egyptian

This study sought to investigate translation strategies in translation of culture-specific items (CSIs) in Persian translation of ‘The Egyptian’ novel by Mika Waltari. To this end, it benefited from corpus-based comparative content analysis design within a qualitative approach. The corpus of this study consisted of 150 pages of the novel ‘The Egyptian’ by Mika Waltari along with their Persian translations by Zabihollah Mansouri, which were selected through simple random sampling. Data analysis included parallel comparison of the source text and its translation in terms of the occurrence of different types of translation strategies used in the translations. Furthermore, statistical procedures which were conducted consisted of calculation of frequency and percentage of different translation strategies (to identify the most and least frequent strategies) and chi-square test (to see if there is a significant difference between the frequencies of different strategies used by the translator). The results of data analysis showed that the translator has used the following translation strategies: Calque, equivalence, adaptation, literal translation, modulation and omission. Moreover, it was found that the most frequent strategy was calque. Furthermore, the lowest frequency belonged to modulation and omission. In addition, a significant difference was revealed between the frequencies of different translation strategies. The findings have some implications for translation students, translation teachers, and translators.

ASSESSMENT ON VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF OBJECT LABELS AT VIETNAMESE WOMEN’S MUSEUM THROUGH FOREIGN TOURISTS’ PERSPECTIVES

Translation of culture-specific items has posed many difficulties to translators as it requires thorough knowledge of both languages and cultures. This study aims to investigate the assessment of foreign tourists on the translation of object labels at Vietnamese Women’s Museum and to shed light on tourist’s preferences for cultural word translation procedures. In order to fulfil these objectives, a mixed-method research was conducted in which questionnaire and interview were used as the primary data collection instruments. The model proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet (2000) was applied to analyze the procedures of the cultural word translation. The findings showed that the translation at Vietnamese Women’s Museum generally came up to tourists’ expectation and successfully helped them understand the majority of Vietnamese culture exhibited at the museum. However, some contents relating to religion or Vietnamese customs such as Mother worshipping, consecration ritual, 13 celestial Mothers full-month ceremony and traditional outfits such as fabric-making or fabric-dyeing methods, names of traditional costumes caused some challenges to the readers. Suggestions from tourists were valuable for both translators and the museum to improve their translation and display at the museum.

Culture specific items in literary texts and their translation based on “foreignization” and “domestication” strategies

The purpose of this study is to determine culture specific items in the novel titled Baba Evi by Orhan Kemal and find out the translation strategies used in translation of these culture specific items in English translation of the novel titled My Father’s House with a view to exemplifying and presenting potential translation strategies for professional and prospective literary translators. To this end, Newmark’s (2010) categorization of culture specific items was adopted in order to classify the culture specific items besides proper nouns suggested by Aixelá (1996) as culture specific items. The translation of those culture specific items was analyzed based on a synthesis of Aixelá’s (1996) conservation and substitution strategies with Venuti’s (2001[1995; 1998]) foreignization and domestication strategies. The analysis of the culture specific items in the source text yielded 194 items specific to the source culture. 31 items were found from proper nouns category while 163 items were found based on Newmark’s (2010) categorization. The translation analysis showed that foreignization strategies were dominantly used in translation of the culture specific items in the novel, while domestication strategies were used infrequently. Besides foreignization and domestication strategies, the translator also preferred to translate 59 source culture specific items through universal and neutral signs, favoring neither foreignization nor domestication strategies. Therefore, literary translators could benefit from both foreignization and domestication translation strategies rather than adopting only one of them in translation of culture specific items.

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

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.

Features of translation of the names of Kazakh national dishes in the epic novel “The Path of Abai” into Persian

article examines the problem of translating the names of national Kazakh dishes that are found in the epic novel by Mukhtar Auezov, “The Path of Abay”, into Persian. names of Kazakh dishes, as well as methods for their translation into Persian were analyzed in this article. Based on this analysis, an attempt was made to determine the most successful translation of the considered examples. Along with this, the names of Kazakh national dishes found in the epic novel The �ay of Abai, by which method are translated �hen translating into Persian, the names of Kazakh national dishes were translated using transliteration and transcription methods. �hen studying the translation of the epic novel “The Abay �ay” into Persian, we paid attention to the national dishes encountered and translated them into the target language. As a result, we came to the conclusion that the translation should be carried out by people who are fluent in the language of the original and the translation, and also have great knowledge in the field of national culture, traditions and mores of the people from whose language the original work is translated. novel-epic was translated into Persian by N. Asgarzade, however, he did not translate from the original language, but from the Russian version, therefore, the inaccuracies that existed in the Russian translation automatically turned into the text of the Persian translation. Thus, we were once again convinced that translation into any language should be carried out directly from the text of the original, otherwise it is impossible to guarantee a high-quality translation . Key words: «The Path of Abai», the names of national dishes, Persian, culture-specific items, translation of culture-specific items.

Identification of translation procedures for culture specific items in a short story

The aim of this study is to analyze cultural items in the short story Falaka by A–mer Seyfettin based on Newmark’s (2010) revised categorization of culture specific items and find out the translation procedures used to translate those culture specific items based on Newmark’s (2010) basic cultural translation procedures. In the analysis of the source text, 31 contexts were found to include culture specific items. Of those culture specific items, ten were categorized as “social life”; nine were categorized as “personal life”; five were categorized as “customs and pursuits”; four were categorized as “private passions”; two were categorized as ecology; one was categorized as “public life” based on Newmark’s (2010) terms. The analysis of the translation of those 31 contexts showed that “target language cultural equivalent” procedure was used in 22 contexts; “transference” was used in four contexts; “componential analysis” was used in three contexts; “descriptive equivalent” was used in two contexts. It was concluded that no two cultures can be the same and translation of culture specific items into a new culture is sure to bring some sort of tension created by the gap between those two cultures. However, literary translators are not helpless in translating literary works interwoven with cultural items. Translation procedures could help translators in making informed decisions in translation of culture specific items during the translation process. Â

Cross-Cultural Transference in Translation: Translator Preferences in Translating Cultural Elements from Turkish to English in Madonna in a Fur Coat By Sabahattin Ali

This study aims at examining the translation process of culture specific items (CSI) in Sabahattin Ali’s Kurk Mantolu Madonna (1943) and English translation entitled Madonna in a Fur Coat (2016) in a descriptive manner. To achieve this primary aim, the researchers have classified the cultural elements in the source text according to Aixela’s (1996) ‘Categorization of Culture-specific Items’ and analyzed the samples according to the taxonomies proposed by Franco Aixela's (1996) for the translation of culture-specific items. In order to set a general framework, the analysis has focused upon the answers of the questions that; which procedures and strategies are used by the translators in the process of transferring the culture-specific items from the source language into the target language; which translation procedures of Javier Aixela’s are used more or less frequently by the translators; and which one of the translation strategies suggested by Venuti is generally referred to by these strategies; either domestication or foreignization. Besides, to what extent the otherness of Turkish culture has been recreated in the English translation of Kurk Mantolu Madonna according to the dominance of either of these strategies has also been clarified. Consequently, the general approach of the translators who have transferred the novella into the target language will be detected by the researchers. Likewise, a number of translation strategies necessary to deal with the translation of CSIs have also been illustrated; and also some categorization types of those CSIs to be employed during the classification process of cultural elements in the literary texts have been presented.

English to Malay Translation of Culture-Specific Items in Selected Penang Tourist Brochures

<em>Translation of Culture-Specific Items (CSIs) is one of the challenges translators face in choosing the appropriate strategies and finding solutions to the translation problems. In this descriptive study four tourist brochures that promoted the UNESCO-heritage Penang Island in Malaysia were analysed. The texts were selected purposefully from Malaysian tourist websites. Based on Newmark’s (1988) model, the CSIs were categorised, and the problems in translation process were described after employing Venuti’s domestication and foreignisation strategies for translating the items. Overall, 76 CSIs were identified in the four brochures among which the most frequent items were Material Culture (65%) with the subcategories of House/City (39%), Food (10%), Transport (15%), and Traditional Weapons (1%). Ecology category built up 13% of the whole items where 5% were related to Fauna and Geographical features, 3% to Flora and 5% to Geographical location. CSIs related to the subcategory of Artistic Thing and Craft formed 8% of the total items. The CSIs related to Social Culture consisted of 13%, including Work (11%), Names and Terms of Address (1%), and Kinship (1%). One outstanding problem during the translation process was finding dynamic equivalence for the words or phrases in the target language (Malay). The findings revealed that domestication strategy and formal equivalence is more appropriate for translating the tourist brochures from English to Malay, which may enhance understanding of linguistically accurate and culturally interesting translation.</em>

A Diachronic Study on Translation Strategies of Culture-specific Items --- With the Translation of Measurement Unit in Howard GoldBlatt’s Works as An Example

Abstract: The translation of Culture-specific Items (CSI) has been a challenge for translators as well as cited examples for untranslatability. With the analysis of the strategies employed on the Chinese-English translation of measurement unit by Howard Goldblatt in his translation works of different times, this paper discusses the transition from “untranslatable” to “translatable” of certain CSIs. Translation strategies for CSI are also proposed with the consideration of how Chinese culture being introduced into the outside world. The study shows that although Goldblatt clearly advocates “reader-centered” translation, that is, the translator should translate for the target language reader, and emphasizes that the translator can only translate and be responsible for the target language reader, we can still see his efforts to introduce Chinese culture to American readers through his translation.

Ideology of Translation “Discover Bengkulu the Land of Rafflesia”

Ideology in the translation process is important in deciding towards what kind of direction the translation will go. If the primary purpose of the translation is to promote the culture, it is considered adequate to choose the foreignization over the domestication as the ideology of the translation when it comes to the translation of culture-specific items. However, deciding what ideology should be used in the translation process is complicated. There are many factors that can affect the ideology of a translation. Both ideologies can lead to totally different results of the accuracy of the meaning of the translations. This research was content analysis of Historical Book Discover Bengkulu The Land of Rafflesia. This research show that there are two ideologies that appeared in this translation such as foregnization ideology where oriented to source language and domestication ideology where oriented to target language.

Maintaining Cultural Identity in Translated Literary Texts: Strategies of Translating Culture-Specific Items in two Arabic plays

This article focusses on the translator’s task as a cultural mediator who has to transfer the nuances of the literary text faithfully. The translation of culture-specific items, such as proverbs, figurative language, reference to religion, mythology or literature, and stylistics, are at the core of the discussion. This paper discusses generally recommended strategies used in translating culture specific items (CSIs), and further analyses and evaluates such strategies as used in two translated Arabic plays; Sa’dallah Wannous’s The Glass Cafe (1978/2004) and Mamdouh ‘Udwan’s Reflections of a Garbage Collector (1987/2006). The translation strategies used in these two plays are recognized and rationalized in terms of giving a domesticated or a foreignized effect. Besides transferring meaning, the cultural identity of the text is highlighted as a mainstay of the translation process.

The translation of food-related culture-specific items in the Valencian Corpus of Translated Literature (COVALT) corpus: a study of techniques and factors

ABSTRACTThis article aims to analyse the translation of food-related culture-specific items (CSI) in the English–Catalan subcorpus of the Valencian Corpus of Translated Literature (COVALT). This general aim can be broken down into two specific aims: to find out what techniques prevail in the translation of these cultural items, and to determine what factors influence the choice of specific techniques. Corpus analysis is carried out by means of the Corpus Query Processor. The theoretical framework deals with the definition and scope of the concept of CSI, the classifications of techniques put forward in the literature for the translation of CSI, and the position of food- and drink-related elements within the broader category of CSI. Analysis of the results yielded by the corpus shows that neutralising techniques prevail over foreignising and domesticating ones, with the latter coming last in descending order. The most prominent factors identified are non-existence of the source text (ST) item in the target culture, different degrees of institutionalisation, the ST item having been imported into the target culture, and different degrees of granularity. Correlations between techniques and factors are never very strong, but some are strong enough to deserve further attention.