Cultural Conceptualizations, Semantics and Translation

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (11) ◽  
pp. 2169
Author(s):  
Sajjad Kianbakht

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).

Author(s):  
Antonio Jesús Martínez Pleguezuelos

Abstract In this study we analyse different linguistic elements in the TV series Will & Grace that shape the gay identity of the main characters of the show. We will base the analysis on the inclusion of the cultural turn into the field of audiovisual translation studies and on the technical time and space constraints that may emerge when conveying the message in this type of texts. Therefore, we will focus on the treatment of cultural references associated to the LGBTQI community that are shown on the series, as well as the linguistic variant of gayspeak and the comic elements included in the dialogues in order to observe whether the information that viewers of the Spanish dubbed version receive regarding gay identity is the same that is portrayed in the original version in English.


Author(s):  
Aage Hill-Madsen

<p>Being concerned with (what has hitherto been) a marginal and under-researched area of Translation Studies, viz. intralingual translation, this paper focuses on the particular type of monolingual rewriting which consists in the transformation of specialized LSP texts into a new text type aimed at lay readership. As a specific example of this type of transformation, the paper investigates the rewriting of pharmaceutical product specifications into medicinal package inserts (so-called patient information leaflets). In Translation Studies terms, in other words, the pharmaceutical texts are treated as source texts and the patient information leaflets as target texts. The paper examines certain core intralingual translation <em>strategies </em>employed to make the specialized information accessible to the non-expert audience. The focus is primarily on strategies employed to convert medical terminology into more lay-friendly wordings. The exact linguistic nature of these strategies is examined, and the ways in which they contribute to target-text lay-friendliness are charted.</p>


2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-180
Author(s):  
Krisztina Sárosi-Márdirosz

AbstractThis study deals with the problems related to the translation of political texts in the theoretical framework elaborated by the researchers working in the field of translation studies and reflects on the terminological peculiarities of the special language used for this text type. Consideration of the theoretical framework is followed by the analysis of a specific text spoken then written in English and translated into Hungarian and Romanian. The conclusions are intended to highlight the fact that there are no recipes for translating a political speech, because translation is not only a technical process that uses translation procedures and applies transfer operations, but also a matter of understanding cultural, historical and political situations and their significance.


2012 ◽  
pp. 81-103
Author(s):  
Guia Gilardoni

The article presents considerations regarding the usefulness of social capital in studying integration paths, and it examines research data on the integration of the new generations in Italy, analysing a sample of 17,225 preadolescents (aged 11 to 14), of whom 13,301 were Italians, 2,921 foreigners and 1,003 children of mixed parentage. Data has been collected by a questionnaire translated and adapted from the one used by Portes and Rumbaut in the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) of 1992 in the United States. They are used to present the Italian situation in light of segmented assimilation theory. One first result is the underachievement of Latinos. Given this finding, an effort is made to consider various factors which contribute to shaping the socio-existential circumstances of this specific group. The second main result is that children of mixed couples were those most disposed to form intercultural relations. When distinguishing between those with an Italian father and a foreign mother and those, vice versa, with an Italian mother and a foreign father, forcefully evident is the central role played by the mother in the transmission of cultural elements and in the construction of a sense of belonging and identity. Third, focusing on social capital at family level and within the peer group, it has been revealed a greater cross-cultural propensity among the new generations than among previous ones: Italian preadolescents growing up in a multi-ethnic society are more open to, and willing to accept, the challenge of cultural diversity than are their parents. More in general, the new generations contribute to creating a more inclusive social space in which membership of social circles becomes more transversal with respect to cultural and ethnic origins.


ABEI Journal ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
María Yolanda Fernández Suárez

When researching how hedge schools were represented in literary sources, I realized Brian Friel's depiction in Translations had become the most iconic. Even though he is regarded as a major Irish playwright, whose work has been translated into several languages, hardly any of his plays could be found in Spanish. Therefore, bringing together my interests in Irish and translation studies, I took the opportunity to render this seminal play into the Spanish language with the purpose of making Friel more widely available. When contemplating the work ahead, I was not unaware of the challenges posed by the linguistically complex nature of Translations, shown in its very title. However, soon other less obvious difficulties emerged, like the translation of some Irish cultural elements. Last but not least, some features of orality, related to the intrinsic nature of drama translation, were also challenging. While addressing these issues, I aimed at giving readership the impression that the text had originally been written in Spanish.Keywords: Brian Friel; Translations; Traducciones; Literary Translation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 141 ◽  
pp. 235-244
Author(s):  
Juri Kijko

Im vorliegenden Beitrag handelt es sich um eine kontrastive Analyse von Bauprinzipien in den deutschen und ukrainischen informationsbetonten Paralleltextsorten aus fraktaler Perspektive anhand renommierter gleichrangiger Tageszeitungen. Je nach der Textdimension lässt sich Zwei- bzw. Dreifraktalstruktur in den untersuchten Textsorten unterscheiden. Meldungen weisen α- und ω-Fraktale, Nachrichten und Berichte noch φ-Fraktal auf. Darüber hinaus stehen diese drei Textsorten in fraktaler Relation zueinander. Es dürfte also angenommen werden, dass Selbstähnlichkeit ein universales Bauprinzip in informationsbetonten Textsorten ist. Bedingt ist solch eine Baustruktur vor allem durch extralinguale Faktoren, wobei Zeit- und Platzmangel eine entscheidende Rolle spielen.Fractality in German and Ukrainian news text typesThe present paper focuses on a contrastive analysis of the structural principles in the German and Ukrainian news text types from a fractal perspective based on the material from the equivalent quality daily newspapers. Depending on the text size two- or three-fractal structures may be singled out in the news texts under study. The text type note has α- and ω-fractals, news articles and reports have additionally φ-fractal. Furthermore, these three text types are in a fractal relation to each other. It might be assumed that self-similarity is a universal building principle in news text types. Such a structure is caused especially by extralinguistic factors, where time and space play a crucial role.


This exploratory and descriptive study attempts to investigate Abu Bakr Salem’s songs and poems to see how demanding the process of translating such poetic texts is. Three of the most authentic songs of the Saudi-Hadhrami famous singer have been translated and discussed to achieve the study goals which are refreshing translation studies with this regard as well as checking whether these Arabic songs are translatable. The translator was given much freedom to render this kind of challenging text which is loaded with cultural elements and prosodic features in the light of Low’s (2005) Pentathlon Approach. The translator has done his best to manifest the aesthetic elements as far as possible. The findings are that folkloric Saudi-Hadhrami songs are untranslatable and the translation process is too complicated. Therefore, translators are not recommended to translate songs because a loss of meaning or form becomes something unavoidable. The intricacies lie mainly in manifold dimensions including cultural, colloquial, and prosodic aspects. In addition, the extra dimension of the music is beyond the translator's control.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-84
Author(s):  
Miguel Angel Candel-Mora

Audiovisual translation studies (AVT) have experienced an exponential growth in the last twenty years, have consolidated proven analysis methodologies, and attracted the interest mainly of Western scholars. It is interesting to investigate whether these methodologies are also applicable to the study of subtitling of films from linguistically and culturally distant cultures such as Egyptian and Spanish. Therefore, the main objective of this work is to verify whether the translation norms proposed in the translation methods for dubbing and subtitling, traditionally based on language combinations with English, are applicable for the specific case of the Arabic-Spanish language combination, based on the analysis of the treatment of the cultural elements present in the audiovisual texts selected for this research. Among the findings, the distinctive features and colloquial character and spontaneity of the original versions are frequently lost.


Author(s):  
Ana Marjanovic-Shane

From the mid 1950s through roughly the 1980s, some or many children and youth of the Socialist Yugoslavia, especially those of us in Belgrade, the capital, lived in a curious, almost surreal “window” in the space and time. This surreal window of space-time, offered to children and youth of Yugoslavia, unprecedented opportunities for personal development, exposure to the classic cultures and the newest events in the cultural worlds from all over the world, freedom of speech, gathering, activism and opportunities to travel and interact with a multitude of people of the world who came to Yugoslavia.  Such special window in time and space sounds impossible to believe, all the more, in the light of the subsequent brutal and bloody civil wars of the 90s in which Yugoslavia perished. And yet, for many of us this window in time and space did exist! It was a product, I think, of several paradoxical tensions that may have created unprecedented loopholes in the fabric of an otherwise authoritarian and often brutal regime that had its ugly underside in suppression of any actions and words which would be critical of the ruling regime and its leaders.One could arguably say, that, when I talk about this curious, surreal time, I talk from a point of view that can only belong to the children of the privileged: children of the high officers of the Communist party, of the Belgrade political, intellectual, cultural and economic elite. Of course, in many ways, I cannot escape, some of the privileged vistas of my own background – as no one can entirely escape the bent of their own lives. However, my privileged view comes from being among the intellectual elite of Belgrade, rather than the political elite. But my views were also based on the experiences of “ordinary” others which I shared in the everyday ways of life in which I was not segregated from everyone else: my neighbors, school mates, people I met in various other gathering places. In this auto-ethnographic essay, I explore a uniqueness of my Socialist Yugoslav childhood, where a lot of children and youth lived as if in a golden cage. This golden cage had an internal reality that was in many ways protective of our wellbeing. In this reality we experienced freedoms, stood for justice, had many opportunities to participate in cultural clubs, art studios, musical bands, poetic societies, sports clubs, summer and winter camps, etc. At the same time, the world that surrounded us, and even in many ways created our childhoods, was harsh, often brutal and did not hold any of the high ethical principles and values that we believed and lived in. 


2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-28
Author(s):  
Shyam Ranganathan ◽  

In this paper I address anew the problem of determinacy in translation by examining the Western philosophical and translation theoretic traditions of the last century. Translation theory and the philosophy of language have largely gone their separate ways (the former opting to rebrand itself as “translation studies” to emphasize its empirical and anti-theoretical underpinnings). Yet translation theory and the philosophy of language predominantly share a common assumption that stands in the way of determinate translation. It is that languages, not texts, are the objects of translation and the subjects of semantics. The way to overcome the theoretical problems surrounding the possibility and determinacy of translation is to marry the philosopher of language’s concern for determinacy and semantic accuracy in translation with the notion of a “text-type” from the translation theory literature. The resulting theory capable of explaining determinacy in translation is what I call the text-type conception of semantics (TTS). It is a novel alternative to the salient positions of Contextualism and Semantic Minimalism in the contemporary philosophy of language.


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