Academic Essay on Loss of Cultural Content in Translation
Translation is a kind of activity which inevitably involves at least two languages and two cultural
traditions." (Toury 1978:200). In this statement, it suggests that translators are permanently faced
with the problem of how to treat the cultural aspects implicit in a source text (ST) and of finding
the most appropriate technique of successfully conveying these aspects in the target language
(TL).In other words, before doing the translation, culture must be well-examined and considered
n order to get the most appropriate meaning of the given context.Cultural understanding during
the process of translation is extremely essential especially in the translation of literary texts, which
require an effort on the part of the translator to retain the cultural information (reflected mostly in
the figurative language) of the source text in the target text.
An important aspect to consider in translation is to determine how much missing background
information should be provided by the translator. This means that as a translator, you should be
well-equipped with the knowledge on a particular language background in order not to spoil the
meaning of the source text. As a matter of fact, a good translator should be familiar with the culture,
customs, and social settings of the source and target language speakers. He should also be familiar with
different styles of speaking, and social norms of both languages.
Lotman's theory states that "no language can exist unless it is steeped in the context of culture; and
no culture can exist which does not have at its center, the structure of natural language" (Lotman,
1978:211-32). Bassnett (1980: 13-14) underlines the importance of this double consideration when
translating by stating that language is "the heart within the body of culture," the survival of both
aspects being interdependent. Linguistic notions of transferring meaning are seen as being only
part of the translation process; "a whole set of extra-linguistic criteria" must also be considered.
This basically means that translated text does not only consider the presence of the rich imagery
in the source text but also consider what the reader meant as he or she reads.
Some translation strategies have lost some points and caused distortion of the message intended in
the source text, and so resulted in a translation that was unjust to the source and target texts alike.
With this, it is really necessary to study culture in a language and language structure, in order to
provide maybe not a perfect translation, but at least a fair and meaningful translation.
References:
Bassnett, S. 1991. Translation Studies. London: Routledge
H Al-Masri - Journal of Universal Language, 2009
sejongjul.org
K James - Translation journal, 2002
bokorlang.com
M Akbari - Journal of Academic and Applied studies, 2013
academia.edu