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SOCIOCULTURAL MODEL. De-emphasizes the linguistic system . In this model, texts are seen as unique products of the history and social structure of a particular culture. Because their context s are unique, texts are not repeatable.
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In this model, texts are seen as unique products of the history and social structure of a particular culture. Because their context s are unique, texts are not repeatable.
The proponents of this model propose specific strategies to prevent sociocultural loss during translation.
In this model, target texts are either not translatable or are corruptions of the original sources.
The socioculturalists particularly oppose the idea of translation equivalence.
Contradicts the text-linguistic model where the motivation is communication with the textual conventions of the target community.
The sociocultural target text is composed of familiar words and phrases, interspersed with untranslatable borrowings from the original.
By compensating for the unavoidable divergence of source and target culture, and by meddling with their linguistic consequences in the target text, sociocultural theorists argue that translators prevent readers from appreciating the source culture.
The sociocultural approach is clearly only applicable to certain kinds of texts. It is useful in situations where the violation of textual conventions in the target language is warranted by an overriding concern with the value of source language linguistic form as a carrier of cultural value.
In 1988 Newmark defined culture as “the way of life and its manifestations that are pecular to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression”, thus acknowledging that each language group has its own culturally specific features.
He also introduced “cultural word ”which the readership is unlikely to understand and the translation strategies for this kind of concept depend on the particular text-type, requirements of the readership and client and importance of the cultural word in the text.
Purpose of text • Motivation and cultural, technical and linguistic level of readership • Importance of referent in SL text • Setting (does recognized translation exist?) • Recency of word /referent • Future &referent
When considering the translation of cultural words and notions, Newmark proposed two opposing methods: • Transference and componential analysis. • According to him, transference gives “local colour”keeping cultural names and concepts. • The importance of the translation process in communication led Newmark to propose componential analysis which he described as being “ the most accurate translation procedure, which excludes the culture and highlights the message”.
Newmark’s Cultural Translation Model • Dealing with Cultural Gaps
1. Naturalization • -a strategy when a SL word is transferred into TL text in its original form.
2. couplet or triplet and quadruplet: • -is another technique the translator adopts at the time of transferring, naturalizing or calques to avoid any misunderstanding: according to him it is a number of strategies combine together to handel one problem.
3. neutralization: • -neutralization is a kind of paraphrase at the level of word. • If it is at higher level it would be a paraphrase . When the SL item is generalized (neutralized) it is paraphrased some culture free words.
4. descriptive and functional equivalent: • -in explanation of source languge cultural item there is two elements: one is descriptive and another one would be functional . Descriptive equivalent talks about size, color and composition. The functional equivalent talks about the purpose of the SL cultural-specific word.
5. explanation as footnote: • -the translator may wish to give extra information to the TL reader. He would explain this extra information in a footnote. It may come at the bottom of the page, at the end of chapter or at the end of the book.
6. cultural equivalent: • -the SL cultural word is translated by TL cultural word
7. compensation: • -a technique which is used when confronting a loss of meaning, sound effect, pragmatic effect or metaphor in one part of a text. The word or concept is compensated in other part of the text.
In 1992, Baker stated that SL word may express a concept which is totally unknown in the target culture. • -it can be abstract or concrete. • -it maybe a religious belief, a social custom or even a type of food. • In her book, “In Other Words”, she argued the common non-equivalents to which a translator come across while translating from SL into TL, while both languages have their distinguished specific culture.
Non-equivalents • A. culture specific concepts • B. the SL concept which is not lexicalized in TL • C. The SL word which is semantically complex • D. the source and target languages make different distinction in meaning • E. the TL lacks a super ordinate • F. the TL lacks a specific term(hyponym) • G. differences in physical or interpersonal perspective • H. differences in expressive meaning • i. differences in form • J. differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms • K. the use of loan words in the source text
Social factors tend to have a quantitative aspect and can be associated with relations between people. • Cultural factors, on the other hand, are more predominantly qualitative and can be related to signifying practices (texts, discourses) • --factors such as exchange of letters within a social network, statistics on translation flows, censorship files, or economic costs of publication. • --others would appear to be more properly cultural: translators’ strategies, functions of literature, images of other cultures, the role of academic disciplines, or postcolonial discourse. • We find that cultural factors ( e.g. language use or translators’ strategies ) tend to be the ones that are observed in our studies, whereas social factors (e.g. the social groups translators belong to ) tend to be the ones used to explain the cultural factors.
Politics, as a socially active and politically vital cause, is one of the very important constraints on the translator’s behavior. • Politics circumscribes the translator’s ideological space , and translators tend to have relatively little freedom in their dealing with politics, at least if they want to have their translations accepted by the target readers. • More often than not, politics makes it quite clear what subject matters can be translated from foreign cultures at a given historical time to meet the need of social development and political stability of the target culture. Therefore, the political influence on the shaping of the translator’s translating activity should not be underestimated.
Bassnet firstly introduces the notion of ideology into translation studies. She defines ideology as “ conceptual grid that consists of opinions and attitudes deemed acceptable in a certain society at a certain time, and through which readers and translators approach texts”.” On every level of the translation process, it can be shown that, if linguistic considerations enter into conflict with considerations of an ideological nature, the latter tend to win out.” • The choice of a source text, which is governed by the preliminary norms , is commonly seen as ideologically driven. In other words, the translator’s choice of a source text for translation must fit in with the target ideology for the consideration of authoritative censorship and its reception among the target readership. Thus, the translator has to make some adaptations or even omissions on the source text so that the ideologies represented in his translation can be adequately accepted by the target readers.
Translation is also influenced by ethics, both important preliminary norms governing the translator’s source-text selection and initial norms governing the acceptability to the target culture. • On the one hand, if the SL ethics appears shocking to target culture, translators may adapt it to the dominant ethics prevalent in the target culture. • On the other hand, if translators object to the dominant ethics of their time, they may introduce the SL ethics to combat and destroy the dominant ethics.
Moral differences are fully displayed in languages and texts. • On the one hand, two languages may use the same term to express different phenomena. • On the other hand , different peoples may label the same phenomenon with different or even opposite moral judgements. For instance, it is impolite and inquisitive to ask about a friend’s salary in England , but it is intimate to do so in China. Burning one’s wife to death is extremely immoral and illegal in most countries, but in India it is acceptable.
Compared with morality, the religious constraint on translation is more compulsory and more rigid. • For anti-mainstream translators, moral trial is intangible and spiritual, while religious trial is often tangible and material, sometimes even going to the extreme of capital punishment. • Therefore, religion can also affect translators’ selection of source texts as well as their choices of the translation readership and translating principles. • With regard to the selection of source texts, translators need to be especially cautious, because religion usually has a very limited tolerance of heterodox works and translations.
