Cultural Words In

Translation
 Members of
the group
1. Inda Lailatul Fitra
2. Mutiara Fadila Insani
3. Raudhah Mulyani Asri
Definitions
Culture is manifestations that are peculiar
to a community that uses a particular
language as its means of expression.

Cultural
≠
Universal Personal
Universal : Die, live, star, and
mirror
Cultural words : Monsoon, dacha,
tagliatelle
Personal way : you’re weaving as
usual, he’s a monologger
 translation of ‘foreign’
cultural words in the narrow
sense.
examples:

Cultural Ecology
Flora, fauna, winds, plains,
Categories hills: tundra, tabuleiros (low
plateau), selva (tropical rain
forest), and paddy field.
Material Culture
-Food : ‘zabaglione’, ‘sake’.
-Clothes : kanga (Africa),
sarong (South Seas), dhoti
(India)
-Houses and towns :
kampong, bourg, bourgade,
chalet
-Transport : bike, rickshaw,
moulton, cabriolet, caleche
Social culture – work and
leisure
condottiere, biwa, sithar
Organisations, customs,
activities, procedures,
concepts
-Political and administrative
-Religious: dharma, karma,
‘temple’
-Artistic
Gestures and habits
‘Cock a snook’, ‘spitting’
 General
Considerations
A few general considerations govern the translation
of all cultural words.
1. Recognition of the cultural achievements
referred to in the SL text, and respect for all
foreign countries and their cultures.
2. translation procedures which are at opposite
ends of the scale are normally available;
transference.
3. Lastly, the translator of a cultural word, has to
bear in mind both the motivation and the
cultural specialist and linguistic level of the
 Ecology

In terms of ecology, a word will be

transferred if it has commercial or essential
value in other elements that need to be
changed into a new vocabulary, but if it has
no effect or is not a commercial thing, it is
rarely changed. For example, fruits whose
vocabulary has been transferred to become
more commercial and important, such as
'guava' 'passion fruit' and so on.
Material Culture
In material culture, it refers to physical objects that
are often associated with the dominating country
or region. It's like French food that always wants to
be authentic and explained in its own language,
whether it's for prestige or other things, but more
and more it's starting to naturalize and be
absorbed. As for clothing, many are absorbed into
more general language, but some are still original
and widely known, such as saris, kimonos, kaftans
and so on. Likewise with other objects such as
explaining houses, vehicles will be explained
specifically if it feels familiar enough or influences
cultural terms to be understood.
Same is the case with local
and cultural species of flora
and fauna and are not
translated unless they occur
in sl and tl environments.
For technical texts, Latin
botanical and zoological
classifications can be used
as an international
language.
 In considering socio-culture we
must distinguish between
denotative and connotative
problems of translation. So
difficult vocabulary like
charcuter droguerie and others

Social Culture are almost non-existent in

English speaking countries.
There are seldom translation
problems, as words are
transferable, have one-to-one
translation approximations or
can be functionally defined,
lexical, and apllied.
 Social Organisation -
Political and Administrative
The political and social life of a country is reflected in its
institutional terms. Where the title of a head of state or
the name of a parliament are 'transparent', that is, made
up of 'international' or easily translated morphemes. Some
ministries and other political institutions and parties may
also be referred to by their familiar alternative terms.
Names of ministries are usually literally translated,
provided they are appropriately descriptive. Informally, it
could be translated by a cultural equivalent, e.g., 'the
French Electricity Board' or 'the Postal Services'.
In such cases, you have to bear in mind that the readership may
be more or less acquainted with the source language, may only
be reading your translation as they have no access to the
original, may wish to contact the writer of the SL text, to
consult his other works, to write to the editor or publisher of
the original. Within the limits of comprehension, the more that is
transferred and the less that is translated, then the closer the
sophisticated reader can get to the sense of the original - this is
why, when any important word is being used in a special or a
delicate sense in a serious text, a serious translator, after
attempting a translation, will add the SL word in brackets,
signalling his inability to find the right TL word and inviting the
reader to envisage the gap mentally .
 Gestures and
Habit
For 'gestures and habits' there is a
distinction between description and
function which can be made where
necessary in ambiguous cases: thus if
people smile a little when someone dies, do
a slow hand-clap to express warm
appreciation, spit as a blessing, nod to
dissent or shake their head to assent, give
a thumbs-up to signal OK, all of which
occur in some cultures and not in others.
Summarising the translation of cultural
words and institutional terms, I suggest
that here, more than in any other
translation problem, the most
appropriate solution depends not so
much on the collocations or the
linguistic or situational context (though
these have their place) as on the
readership (of whom the three types -
expert, educated generalist, and
uninformed - will usually require three
different translations) and on the
setting.
 Summary of
Procedures

A. Culture
(1) Ecology
Animals, plants, local winds, mountains, plains, ice,
etc.
(2) Material culture (artefacts)
Food, clothes, housing, transport and communications
(3) Social culture - work and leisure
(4) Organisations, customs, ideas - Political, social,
legal, religious, artistic
(5) Gestures and habits (often described in 'non-
cultural' language)
 B. Frame of
reference
Contextual factors
(1) Purpose of text
(2) Motivation and cultural, technical and linguistic
level of readership
(3) Importance of referent in SL text
(4) Setting (does recognised translation exist?)
(5) Recency ofword/referent
(6) Future of referent
Translation procedures
(1) Transference
(2) Cultural equivalent
(3) Neutralisation (i.e. functional or
descriptive equivalent)
(4) Literal translation
(5) Label
(6) Naturalisation
(7) Componential analysis
(8) Deletion (of redundant stretches of
language in non-authoritative texts,
especially metaphors and intensifiers)
(9) Couplet
(10) Accepted standard translation
(11) Paraphrase, gloss, notes, etc.
(12) Classifier
Thank You..