cultural perspective
Part I. Translation studies from a cultural perspective
1.1 Insights of cultural studies related to translation
It is noted by a number of researchers that in recent years there has been“a shift in translation studies from linguistically oriented approaches to culturally oriented ones" (House, 2002: 92). Researchers of translation studies and culture studies have shown increasing interests in the other field by adopting concepts and theories as effective tools to promote its own development. As part of the contributions to the developments of translation studies, some of the findings of culture studies have been borrowed so as to assist the analysis of culture-related phenomenon in translation, which has been proved to be effective and enlightening.
1.1.1 Definitions and features of culture
As a multidisciplinary field, the discipline of culture studies views rapid developments during the last few decades, the achievements of which might cast some light on such discipline as translation studies.
The studies of cultural related issues have a long history, whereas the notion of culture didn't emerge till the German and English Romantic movements. The Romanticists held that each nation or national language possessed its special character or "spirit" that "sums up the experience and history of a people", which came close to a theory of culture (Cited in Nuttall, 2000, 37). , From different points of views, definition of culture varies. One of the most frequently quoted definitions of culture is that of Edward Burnett Tylor's, and the English anthropologist holds that "Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society" (Cited in Katan: 2004:16). A more recent version showing its close relationship with language is provided by Peter Newmark who maintains that culture is "the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression" (2001:94).
Culture is universal in that it exists in every human community, whereas it is also uniquebecause each community is marked with a certain culture which differentiates itself from other communities. Both the nature of universality and uniqueness of culture contribute to the possibilities and the significance of translation across cultural boundaries.
1.1.2 Cultural capital
Among various theories adopted by researchers of translation studies, the major thoughts of Pierre Bourdieu deserve special attention, especially his concept of "culture capital" that has been adopted by Andre Lefevere in his distinction of various translation objectives. Pierre Bourdieu (1930一2002), a French sociologist, anthropologist, and cultural theorist, has made conspicuous achievements in many domains in humanities and social science, with a strong sense of political commitment and a wide range of cultural interests. Not only literature but art, photography, television, journalism, access to museums and art galleries, the funding of the arts, problems of aesthetic taste all come within his researches.
One of the most important concepts raised by Bourdieu is the notion of "cultural capital". In comparison with the term "economic capital" which has been widely known through Marxism, the concept of "cultural capital" received much controversy upon its birth.
As the counterpart of economic capital that emphasizes monetary assets and how to behave in terms of economics, cultural capital highlights the assets on which people's positions are founded. A more historical way to grasp the notion is that "cultural capital is the dominating form of symbolic capital in societies where a centralized school system and the art of writing are developed" (Broady, n.d.).
However, cultural capital resembles economic capital in the sense that it is acquired through competition with others, and "its scarcity and value mean that investments in cultural capital can easily be converted into high economic rewards." According to Bourdieu, cultural capital is often found in "autonomous universes" such as art, science and social work (Fowler, 2000: 14). In these aspects of life including the writing of literary works, the primary concern is not the commitment to profit making; furthermore, a work regarded as a cultural capital, may not produce profits in economic terms, but would still be valuable in terms of cultural assets it contains.
Cultural capital includes three states: embodied in the individual, objectified in culturalgoods or institutionalised as academic credentials or diplomas. The three forms of cultural capital exists "in an embodies state, that is in the form of long-lasing dispositions of the mind and body; in the objectified state, in the form of cultural goods; and in the institutionalised state, resulting in such things as educational qualifications"(Cited in Lovell, 2000: 38).
Literary works, which may fall into the form of "cultural goods", could become cultural capitals when their cultural assets, which are widely acknowledged by the intellectuals, are rich and scarce.
1.2 Translation and cross-cultural communication
In translation, especially literary translation, translators are inevitably faced with people from at least two distinct linguistic and cultural backgrounds: writers of the source texts (hereafter abbreviated to ST) and readers of target texts (hereafter abbreviated to TT). As a result, translation could be regarded as a means of cross-cultural communication in which translators serve as mediators across cultural boundaries.
1.2.1 Language, culture and translation
The first area of intercultural communication focuses on the linguist interactions undertaken by interlocutors from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, which paves the way for the exchanges of other cultural contents such as arts and religion (Kelly, 2004: 178).
The relationship between language and culture has been recognized and discussed by researchers of both fields. It gains increasing attention in the Translation Studies in that "a translation always takes place in a continuum, never in a void" and there are various factors underlying the linguistics forms that translators have to consider (Bassnett, 2001:123) According to Nida, language constitutes the most distinctive feature of a culture, "which may be described in a simplistic manner as the totality of the beliefs and practices of a soc iety"困ida, 2001: 13). Distinctive and a small part of culture as it is, it plays an indispensable role in the realization and functioning of culture. This accounts for the reaon why translators should have the awareness of working out what the words mean in the corresponding cultures where they are used. He also points out that in deciding the meaningof words, the role of context becomes prominent, which means that the context actually provides more distinctive aspects of meaning than the words being analysed (2001:3 l ). In the same vein, cultural context would, to a large extent, be decisive
in the analysis of those words with specific cultural implications, thus translators should take cultural context into consideration in choosing their translation approaches as well as the words' meanings.
An interesting metaphor might show clearly how language, culture and translation relate with one another. In her influential book, Translation Studies, Susan Bassnett compares culture to the body, language to the heart of the body, and translator to a surgeon operating on the heart (2002: 22). The vivid illustration expresses the idea that in the process of translating, translators couldn't treat language in isolation from the culture, but rather bear culture in mind throughout the whole operation.
Concepts and theories of culture studies have been introduced into the discipline of translation studies such as Bourdieu's notion of "cultural capital" introduced in the previous part of the paper (2.1.2). Objectives of translation are multiple and Andre Lefevere distinguishes two distinct ones: communication of information and circulation of cultural capital. According to Lefevere, the former one is what one needs to function at the "professional level", while the latter one is what one needs to be viewed as belonging to the "right circles" in the society where you live. Then further explanations of cultural capital are put forward by him:
Cultural capital, then, is the kind of capital intellectuals can still claim to have, and
even, if only to some extent, to control, as opposed to economic capital, which most
intellectuals do not even claim to have any more. Cultural capital is what makes you
acceptable in your society at the end of the socialization process known as education.
Even if you're a nuclear physicist, or other highly specialized professional, you are
expected to be able to participate in conversations on certain topics, ranging from
Rembradt to Philip Roth, from Watteau to Wittgenstein. (Bassnett&Lefevere, 2001:
41一42)
A great writer could be viewed as a cultural capital; his renowned works containing time-enduring cultural values could also become cultural capitals that are accessible to readers who can understand his language; qualified translations of the works, whichsuccessfully circulate the capital across the cultural boarders, serve as media through which readers from other cultural circles could also enjoy the beauty of the works.
1.2.2 Cultural words, cultural knowledge and intertextuality
In discussing the relationship between language "culture" from "universal" and "personal" language, and culture, Newmark distinguishes translating problems in the translation of "culture words" stating (2001: that there would be more 94).
Such "universal" words like sun and tree don't tend to lead to translation problems in that usually there are exact equivalences in the target language. Most "cultural" words, however, don't have such equivalences, which is due to the cultural differences between the source languages and the target ones.
Though it is not difficult to detect such cultural words, it would be unsafe to be literally translated, because "literal translation would distort the meaning"困ewmark，2001:95) These cultural words would easily remind receptors of the target languages with similar expressions in their own languages. Nonetheless, these words that are seemingly equivalent, and are sometimes called the "faux arms" or "false friends", might not be a desirable choice in that much cultural connotations that are specific to a certain culture might be lost through such a literal translation.
These "false friends", viewed as "borrowed or cognate words which seem to be equivalent", frequently occur in linguistically related languages, but could also be found in such languages as Chinese and English that are distant in terms of both linguistics and culture (Nida, 2000: 130).
In this case, specific translation techniques matter a lot in translating those intetextual discourses with cultural values. It is noted by Nemark that some cultural equivalences, which many translators prefer to resort to, should be chosen carefully in that they are not accurate but only approximate substitutes, and thus they might be used in general texts rather than those with specific cultural meanings (2001:83). When dealing with expressions such as "black man" in the Chinese translations of The Scarlet Letter, different translators adopt different means. For example, some translate it in a literary way such as“黑人”or "黑男人”，while others choose such a cultural equivalence as“夜叉”in the Chinese culture, which might arouse immediate imagination of evil spirits among the readers of TT, but still this choice isopen to discussion in that it contains association which may be different from that of readers of the ST.
These specific translating translators' cultural knowledge strategies may be associated, to a extent, to the and cultural awareness. When translators attempt to circulate the capital across the cultural boarders, it is necessary for them to be equipped with sufficient cultural awareness and knowledge, for there's more emphasis on the "collective control or shaping of cultural knowledge" (Robinson, 2003: 188) in translation studies. Without enough cultural knowledge, the process of translation will be difficult and the product would be less satisfactory in that some of the cultural messages of the ST might be lost or misinterpreted, which would be detrimental to the quality of translation.
The importance of cultural knowledge, including broad knowledge of various subcultures, has long been recognized, as it is the knowledge concerning the relationship between an expression and the cultural situation where the expression is found. It remains crucial to the recognition of particular "situational and social cultural contexts" in which the linguistic units are used, and thus knowing how the linguistic units are applied to certain cultural contexts is indispensable to the translation of the ST (House, 2002: 96).
As stated before, meanings could not be the same across different cultures, but rather they are related to "codes and symbols linked to the translator's and the ethnographer's subjectivity and background" (Wolf, 2002: 185). The "subjectivity and background" including the translators' cultural knowledge as well as cultural awareness, are believed to be significant in interpreting the meanings of words with cultural connotations.
Furthermore, since much of the cultural knowledge is incorporated into intertextual references, translators should pay special attention to intertextuality, through which "texts are recognized in terms of their dependence on other relevant texts" (Hatim, 2001:120). The capacity to detect and analyse the intertextual usages of the ST would help translators perceive the underlying cultural messages including allusions and literary references so that most of the cultural capital of the ST could be rendered to the TT.