跨文化交际与翻译

跨文化交际与翻译
翻译与跨文化交际的关系由来已久。

从跨文化的角度来说,翻译实质上就是一种语码化了的跨文化交际。

作为一个译者,在翻译过程中如果能充分考虑原语文化背景,准确而忠实地将原语文化信息传达给读者,这不仅能帮助读者开阔视野、扩大知识面,同时还使自己成为一个文化交流使者,促进了两种文化间的交流。

本文将围绕翻译中风俗习惯问题的处理展开讨论,从跨文化交际、文化和翻译的概念及其关系入手,讨论翻译风俗习惯应遵循的原则及一些处理方法。

关键字:communication;culture;translation
1. General introduction about several main concepts and the connection among them: intercultural communication, culture and translation, which are involved in the late parts of the paper.
1.1 Introduction
There is such a story in Genesis in the Bible:
The offspring of Noah was building a tower, which must be high enough to reach the heaven so that all the people could live in it together instead of scattering on the earth. God came and saw everything. He considered that if the human beings continued to speak the same language, they would become very powerful not very long after, so he decided they should not speak the same language any more.
From then on, people began to speak completely different languages, which became a hinder for association, intercultural communication and the development of civilization of different language group.
However, from the very early time as well, people had begun to exchange cultures though the existing of language barriers. People still speak different language nowadays, but their hearts go closer and closer with translation serving as bridges and ties shortening the distance among different cultures.
1.2 The concepts and their relationship
Since the purpose of translation is to promote intercultural communication, we should first make clear the meaning of the word.
According to Prof. Jin Huikang, intercultural communication is about people from different culture communication. More specifically, intercultural communication is connected with unmediated communication between people from different culture background. Intercultural communication has a long history. It can be traced back to
B.C.1792, however, it did not be regarded as a unique subject until 1970’s.
Then how about culture which is involved in intercultural communication? The concept of culture is very complicated indeed. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary gives us the principle definition of culture like that:
①evidence of intellectual development( of arts, science, etc) in human society;
②particular from of intellectual development;
③all the arts, beliefs, social institutions, characteristic of a community, race, etc.
Modern cultural anthropologists consider ed that “culture” carries four characters:
①culture can only be gotten by getting touch with society instead of by inheriting;
②culture belongs to a community instead of to a single person;
③culture is a kind of mark and language is the most important symbolic system in culture;
④culture can not be separated, it is a united one.
From the description about culture about culture above, it is not hard to see the intimate connection between language and culture. As a key consisting part of culture, language serves as a tool to protect culture, exchange culture and reflect culture, at the same time, culture produces language. Hence, translation is actually a kind of cross-linguistic, cross-cultural and cross-social activity. Without considering the cultural background, a translation can only be a meaningless one. For instance, we usually call Japan, South Korea, HongKong and Taiwan, the four most developed areas in Asia, the “亞洲四小龙” . Someone once translated it as “four little dragons of Asia”. In Chinese culture, dragon is a mascot, which is usually a sign of happiness, riches, luck and even the symbol of imperial authority. However, the implied meaning of dragon is opposite in the West. Dragon in the eyes of occidentals is a kind of ugly, brutal and wick animal. Hence, the proper and acceptable translation should be “four little tigers of Asia(亚洲四小虎)”.
1.3The coexistence of “culture sharing” and “culture losing”in translation.
1.3.1Culture sharing refers to that peoples who have different cultural characters or cultural background can share the same information, the sharing part is happened to be the overlapping part of different cultures. People who live in the same ecological surroundings almost have the same basic recognition to this world. We usually call it
cultural generality, which promise the possibility of translation. Culture sharing makes the operation of translation easy and at the same time makes the different expressions produce the same effect among different reads from different cultures. Such as, “tooth for tooth(以牙還牙)”,“to lose face(丢脸)”and“as pale as death(像死人一样苍白)”and so on. The case is usually called “equivalence on effect”.
1.3.2Cultural individuality decides the unavoidable of culture losing.
Firstly, the specific living condition, social histories, levels of material civilization, characters of language and ways of expression among different language groups, all these became the obstacle for intercultural communication, some are even unexcelled. This is the first important reason leading to the limitation of translation.
Secondly, form personal angle, to know intimately a sort of culture not only depends on personal study, thinking and understanding during the course of getting touch with society, but also has a close relationship with personal intelligence, language ability and social background. Even persons from the same cultural group may have different understanding about the same cultural phenomenon, so undoubtedly the understanding of a translator who stays in a bilingual and a biculturist, a translator knows much more about target-language culture than source-language culture. Sometime, influenced by his cultural background and his mode of thinking, a translator would produce some over translation and under translation. As a result, the loss of information is inevitable. In another case, the purpose of translation—intercultural translation is not reached because reader’s level is far below to what translator ask. All the objective reasons in bilingual communication mentioned above lead to the limitation of translation.
The result of culture losing is that there’s always some regret left in intercultural communication.
2. Three principles to deal with problems of customs and habits in translation.
It is well known that the purpose of translation is to promote cultural exchange, so the standard to judge whether a translation is a good or not is to see whether it helps to promote intercultural communication or not. In order to make translation serve for intercultural communication, three main principles should be flowed in dealing with these problems in translation.
2.1 Trying to avoid misunderstanding and mistranslating the customs and habits in the source text.
The problems on customs and habits are very complicated and hard to deal with. Some customs, which are very common in source-language culture, are completely strange to target-language acceptors. Sometimes, because of lack of knowledge of
source-language culture, a translator often makes some mistakes.
E.g. : The king visits(the Yankee)to confer about appointments and to cure the king’s evil by his touch(Dusby Ian, Fifty American novels).
译文1:国王驾到,同这位美国佬商量军队的任命和用触诊给国王治病事宜。

译文2:国王驾到同这位美国佬商量军队的任命和他亲手治这病的事宜。

The second translation is the correct one. The first translator did not know the British custom carried in the sentence. “king’s evil”is a kind of disease, and British people in the 19th century believed that the disease can be cured as soon as the patient was touched by the hand of a king. Obviously, qualified translator should be familiar with the source-language customs very much and even some historical ones very much.
2.2 Trying to reproduce source-language culture clearly and honestly in target texts.
After thoroughly understanding the direct and indirect description about customs and habits in source texts a translator should reproduce them clearly and honestly in target texts. Any intentional or unintentional changes to source-text information will damage cross-culture information exchange. Only in some forced situation, is the sacrifice of the color of source text permitted for the purpose of promoting cross-culture exchange.
According to my conclusion, the following four types of appearing of customs in source text should be translated out and reproduced in target texts.
2.2.1 The customs and habits described or mentioned directly in source text should be translated out. Sometimes, a direct translation is not enough, for some readers do not know the specific content of the custom at all. In this case, a detailed not is quite needed to help readers understand the context better.
2.2.2 The customs used in symbolic expression should be translated.
In some cases, customs are used as a base to set up some special and vivid symbolic expressions. At the time, translators should also give notes to explain the implied meaning carried by customs to help readers understand better.
E.g. : Bright and costumes, with hats, shoes and stockings to match, are to be all the craze in the spring. Smart women will have to be careful not to yawn in the streets in case some shortsighted person is on his way to post a letter.
译文:穿上鲜红色裙服,再配上帽子和鞋袜是春天最时新的打扮。

这些时髦的妇女在街上,可得小心不要打哈欠,以防哪位近视的人在路上正准备寄信。

Though the literal meaning of the source text is clear and complete, Chinese readers still can not help asking why“smart women will have to be careful not to yawn in the streets”and is there any connection between“smart women”who“yawn in the streets”and“some short-sighted man”who“is on his way to post a letter”. The note helps readers dispel misunderstanding without delay. Different from other countries in the world, the postbox in British is painted red. After knowing the custom, better can we understand the sentence, which carries a symbolic expression based on the custom. In fact, the author was ridiculing the women in red for they looked just like postboxes.
2.2.3 The name of some cultural phenomenon should be translated according to their pronunciations. A good translation for the names of some these special cultural phenomena is a windows for readers to observe the outside world and can help rich the vocabulary of target-language culture. Such as, 威士忌(whiskey),白蘭地(brandy)and沙拉(salad)from English;香槟(champagne)from French and so on are all used in Chinese with their special color protected. Let us look at an example which is familiar to us. The famous Chinese computer brand“联想”is translated in English as “Legend”instead of “Imagination”. After looking at the Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, we can find that“Legend”has not any connection with“联想”. The foreign culture is worth to consider carefully in giving names to Chinese products, which can usually decide the fate of them.“LEGEND”is a proper and successful name which is in keeping with the western customs and culture. On the contrary,“IMAGINATION”can only give westerners the feelings of funny, long and tedious, which will become a big stone for the product to enter into the western market.
2.2.4 The customs reflected form daily communication should be translated. Some similar words in different culture used by different cultural groups should be given special attention in translation. The better way is to translate a word with its original color kept. Someone once translated “阿弥陀佛”which carries strong Chinese cultural color as “God bless my soul”, from which westerners can never see any Chinese cultural characters.
2.3 Trying to avoid target-language acceptors misunderstanding the customs in source texts.
A translator’s responsibility is to display other cultures to reader’s .So a translator is asked to master a great deal of knowledge about source-language culture. But sometimes, a translator can not translate source customs clearly and thoroughly without breaking the completion of target texts. In this case, he should give up these unimportant and uninfluenced customs to keep the style of source texts. In order to make the loss minimized, the following three precondition have to be followed.
Firstly, the translation of a custom should be given up when it still can not be reproduced out properly and honestly after all the ways have been taken; or when too many words have to be used in order to explain it.
E.g.: Will took him up above the salt and made much of him.
译文:威尔请他坐上席,很尊敬他。

In the sentence above, “take somebody above the salt”implies a British custom, which had disappeared in source-language culture. If a translator is persistent to translate out, he may just waste much of his ink. Secondly, a source-language custom should be omitted in target text instead of being replaced by an equal expression in target-language culture.
E.g.: She is a veritable blue stocking, her nose always stuck in a book and her interest devoid of womanly pursuits.
译文:她总是埋头看书,对女人的事一点也不感兴趣,真是个不折不扣的书呆子。

“Blue stocking”and“one’s nose always stick in a book”in the sentence are both habitual expressions in English. Obviously, if we replaced them with the special Chinese words“女学者”and“嗜书如命”in the target text, the original English cu ltural color of the sentence would be lost;
Thirdly, when the omission of a source-language custom would not make readers produce any confusion in understanding a target text, on the contrary, it helps them understand easier and better. Let us look at an example now.
An American: That ‘s a beautiful sweater you are wearing.
A Chinese: 不,一點也不漂亮。

是我母亲织的,我穿了好几年,早已又旧又难看。

Translation A: No, no, not a bit. It was knitted by my mother. I’ve had this ugly old thing for years.
Translation B: Thank you, my mother knitted it for me several years ago.
The answer of the Chinese is a typical one and no one would think it unacceptable in China, however, translation A which is really a rigid one will only make the westerners embarrassing while translation B is a wise and proper one which has reached the purpose of intercultural communication.
3. Several ways concluded to deal with the problems on customs and habits.
Basing on the analyses above, we can see that how to deal with problems on customs in translation correctly. Different cases ask different ways to match. The following ways are the most common ones concluded during the course of dealing with these problems in translation.
3.1 Translating literally to keep source-language cultural color. Such as ,“懒婆娘的裹脚,又长又臭”is translated as “foot-bindings of a slattern long as well as smelly”. The advantage of this way is that source-language cultural color can be reproduced in target text vividly and honestly while its disadvantage is its limited applied sphere.
3.2 Translating to keep the meaning of source text. Sometimes, when literal translation makes readers confused to source texts, free translating may be a proper way to overcome the difficulty. In this case, the source-language customs are usually replaced by equal habitual expression from target-language culture to make the target texts much more understandable and acceptable for readers but at the same time, the original cultural characters have to be sacrificed. Such as,“只有死板板的几条筋”is translated as “a mere bag of bone”and “同声相应,同气相求”as“birds of a feather flock together”and so on.
3.3 Translating directly according to pronunciation to keep source-language cultural characters. Such as,“瘪三”is translated as “biesan”and “叩头”as“kowtou”, etc. This way can keep the original color of source-language culture very well.
The three ways all have their respective advantages and disadvantages; we should choose different ones in different situations and try our best to minimize their disadvantages all the time.
4.Conclusion
Generally speaking, intercultural communication will bring about great influence on the development of personal character, personal cultural attribute and even the cultural trends of different groups and countries. With information exploding, man is acquiring knowledge with much higher speed and on the contrary, is influenced much more by information. Hence, we can say that today’s translation has taken a new timely color and a new historical mission that is to serve as bridges and ties among countries and nations to help them learn from each other to rich themselves.
Translation and intercultural communication are both practical activities. A better translator has to deal with the problems of customs and habits. A translator should be very familiar with both source-language culture and target-language culture and should try his best to reproduce the original color of source text in his translation
instead of replacing it with his own style. What’s more, he should always have deep love for his job, which could encourage himself to go forward on the way of promoting intercultural communication.
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