On Cultural Factors in Translation 翻译中的文化因素.doc

淮北师范大学信息学院 2010届学士学位论文 On Cultural Factors in Translation 学院、专业 信息学院、英语 研 究 方 向 翻译与文化 学 生 姓 名 王文婷 学 号 2006180430125 指导教师姓名 杨小龙 指导教师职称 讲师 2010年 5 月 5 日15AcknowledgementsI would like to show my deepest gratitude to my teacher, Mr. Yang Xiaolong, a respectable, responsible and resourceful scholar, who has provided me with valuable guidance in every stage of the writing of this thesis. Without his enlightening instruction, impressive kindness and patience, I could not have completed my thesis. His keen and vigorous academic observation enlightens me not only in this thesis but also in my future study.On Cultural Factors in Translation Abstract：Translation is not only a kind of linguistic activity but also a kind of cultural interaction, and thus cultural factors exert great influence on translation. Firstly, this paper introduces the definition of culture. Then, it examines the sophisticated relationships between culture, language and translation with the hypothesis that the essence of translation is a kind of intercultural communication. Cultural concepts underlie the variety of language usage and language habits. The ways of thinking, beliefs, attitudes and values of different cultures not only give rise to failures or misunderstandings in cross-cultural communication, but also pose headaches to translation theorists and practitioners. Next, on the basis of a review and analysis of various treatments of culture at home and abroad, a more inclusive classification of culture is proposed as consisting of the techno-economic system, the social system, the ideational system and the linguistic system. In this working framework a further study is made of cultural factors affecting translation, the very focus of this paper. Those cultural factors mainly include: ecological environment, cultural connotation, religious belief, temporal perspective, thinking modes and so on. In the end, it points out that translation does not merely concern skills. It is the ability of judging and choosing based on culture. In the practice of translating, we should deal with different problems flexibly and convey the source language culture to the target language culture readers.Key Words: Cultural; Language; Translation 翻译中的文化因素摘要：翻译过程不仅是一种语言活动，更是一种文化活动，文化因素对翻译的影响是根本性的。本文首先简单介绍了文化的相关定义，接着探讨了文化、语言和翻译三者之间的关系，指出翻译的深层活动是一种文化交流。文化观念是千姿百态的语言用法和语言习惯产生的重要原因。不同民族的思维方式、信仰、价值和态度不仅会造成跨文化交际的失误，而且是翻译工作者的难题。然后，根据文化人类学对文化构成所作的界定，从技术-经济、社会、观念、和语言这四个文化由以构成的系统角度出发，充分运用例证，着重探讨了影响翻译的文化因素。最后，本文分析得出的结论是：翻译不是纯粹的语言技巧问题，而是在这文化基础上的一种正确判断、选择的能力。在翻译实际操作中，译者应该具体问题具体分析，选择适当的方法，把原语文化准确恰当地传递给目的语读者。关键词：文化；语言；翻译Table of Contents1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12. Culture, Language And Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22.1 The Definition of Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.2 The Relationship between Language and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.3 The Relationship between Culture and Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43. Culture Factors In Translation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53.1 What is Cultural Factors in Translation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63.2 Examples Cited to Illustrate Cultural Factors in Translation . . . . . . . . . . . 73.2.1 Ecological Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83.2.2 Cultural Connotations of Animal Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93.2.3 Cultural Connotations of Plant Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103.2.4 Religious belief. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103.2.5 Temporal Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113.2.6 Thinking Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14On Cultural Factors in Translation1. IntroductionCulture finds its expression mostly in language. Put in another way, language is a major instrument to express, externalize and record culture. Culture and language are intimately interrelated and interactive with each other, but in the interactive relationship culture plays a fundamental role. As a result, different cultures lead to diversified language expressive forms. This is the circumstance under which I will discuss how translating process runs.As we all know, translating process starts from language and ends in language; however, it is not merely a kind of linguistic activity. Rather, it is a kind of cultural activity, and the common cultural core (文化共核) shared by all nations is the basis of translation. Man lives in the same material world and human language reflects the universality contained in the cultural common core. In the process of translation, it is the common cultural core that makes possible intercultural communication between the translation object (the source text and the writer) and the translation subject (the translator). Culture possesses not only universality but also individuality, namely, national character, which is predominantly reflected in the differences in the actual uses of human language. It is cultural factors affecting such uses that constitute the major barriers to communication and translation. In other words, mutual understanding and friendly relationships between various nations across the world are very often hindered by the complexity and diversity of cultural differences as well as linguistic differences. Because different nations have different histories, ecologies, religions and customs, the same reality is often viewed from different perspectives. Therefore, cultural factors such as ways of thinking, beliefs, attitudes and values not only give rise to failures or misunderstandings in cross-cultural communication but also pose headaches to translators because cultural presuppositions may substantially and systematically affect their interpretation of the facts and events in source texts without their knowing it.2. Culture, Language and Translation2.1 The Definition of CultureCulture is ubiquitous, complex and all-pervasive, so defining culture has always been controversial. The word “culture” originated from “kultur” a German word. Historically, anthropologists and linguists defined it in different ways for different purposes. There are many examples which can support my view and I would explore the most famous ones as follows.First of all, the English anthropologist Edward Tylor initiated the notion of culture in his Primitive Culture in 1871. It is generally believed that he was the first to define “culture” in its comprehensive way. In the first chapter of Primitive Culture, he defines culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” (qtd. from Bock, 1979: 13-14) What is more, as early as 1952, Kroeber and Kluckhohn listed 164 definitions of culture that they found in the anthropology literature. (Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1952: 181) Lets consider the following dictionary definitions: 1. Culture refers to evidence of intellectual development (of arts, science, etc) in human society; or refers to state of intellectual development among a people or particular form of intellectual development. It also means all the arts, beliefs, social institutions, etc characteristic of a community, race, etc. (Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English with Chinese Translation, 6th edition, 2000) 2. Culture refers to the total set of beliefs, attitudes, customs, behavior, social habits, etc. of the members of a particular society. (Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics, 2000) Last but not the least, in Richard B. Porters interpretation, culture refers to “the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, meanings, beliefs, values, attitudes, religions, concepts of self; the universe, and self-universe relationships, hierarchies of status, role expectations, spatial relations, and time concepts acquired by a large group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. Culture manifests itself both in patterns of language and thought and in forms of activity and behavior” (Ru Wenzhong, 1990: 3) .2.2 The Relationship between Language and CultureThen, a careful analysis is made of the relation between language, culture and thought, which provides the precondition for the exploration in the following chapters. Hitherto, there have been many arguments over the relationship between language, culture and thought. Among them is the famous Sapir-Whorfian hypothesis, which proposes linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity. In its extreme form, the hypothesis holds that since every language has a form and no two forms are the same, no two cultures having different languages view the world in exactly the same way. Through discussions on the Sapir-Whorfian hypothesis, this paper draws a conclusion on the relation between language, culture and thought: language, culture and thought are closely intertwined and interactive with each other. Thought and culture is the basis of language and language has to depend on thought and culture for its content; at the same time, language provides the best instrument for the expression and communication of thought and culture. Turning to the sphere of translation, the fact that a language with a certain cultural background and structure can be translated into another denies linguistic determinism; however, the difficulty of translation vindicates linguistic relativity. Culture is one of the most pervasive elements of a persons nurture because it represents the overarching principles that shape a society, which will in turn influence upbringing. This means that the cultural and biological elements in language are interdependent. Indeed, it will be obvious that ones linguistic competence, regardless of its biological basis, comes within the scope of culture. Particular languages are associated historically with particular cultures; a specific language offers us the key to its associated culture, especially to its literature. A language cannot be fully understood otherwise than in the context of the culture in which it is inextricably embedded. In a word, language and culture are interdependent. Because a nation has its specific ethnic environment, history, ideology and so on, its culture is unique to that nation. The uniqueness of a nations culture corresponds to the distinctiveness of its language. Cultures are diverse, so are languages. Cultural differences lead to different languages which in turn manifest cultural differences. Languages differ from each other in various levels such as lexicon, syntax and register.The communication and assimilation of cultures will necessarily lead to the interaction of languages most strikingly at the lexical level. When they translate lexical items, translators are inevitably introducing and spreading foreign cultures. Translated lexical items in wide use over a long period of time will gradually merge into the native language and become a part of the native culture. All in all, in communication, unaware of the “cultural information” in a language, speakers from two different cultures cannot communicate effectively. On the other hand, cultural disparities pose great difficulty in translation. When doing translation, translators should grasp not only the literal meaning of a lexical item, a sentence or a paragraph in certain context but also cultural information in the whole of the language they are studying. This point is worth noticing in our further analysis of the relationship between culture and translation in next section.2.3 The Relationship between Culture and TranslationThe illustration of the relation between culture and language places us in a better position to clarify the relationship between culture and translation. Firstly, the essence of translation is a kind of cultural activity. Language can not exist without culture. Susan Bassnett, an English theorist on translation, once compared language as the heart of the body of culture. She remarked: “As people cannot neglect other part of the body, when doing heart surgery, we cannot take the risk of separating language from culture, when doing translation.” (qtd. from Bao Huinan, 2001:12) Translation means not only transferring the denotative meaning of a word or a phrase from one language into another but also conveying cultural information from one language into another. In other words, translation involves two cultures as well as two languages. That is to say that the essence of translation is a kind of cultural activity.Secondly, translation is a kind of intercultural communication. Translation, from the perspective of communication, is a way of transmitting messages and exchanging information. To be more exact, it is an intercultural communication between author and translator and between translator and the readers of the target language.Thirdly, translation is a medium of cultural exchange. The purpose and characteristics of translation lie in cultural and ideological exchanges. It is the urge of people in different communities, nationalities, regions and countries to get to understand each other that makes translation a necessity. Human intellectual pursuit makes necessary translation of intellectual products. Since western knowledge is expressed mainly in foreign languages, translation is constantly an important means of acquiring and spreading western knowledge. We may even assume that most cultural systems in the world cannot have developed so far without the aid of translation.Both Western culture and Chinese culture have benefited a lot from translation. The development of the language, literature, art and science of a modem nation has certainly much to do with the knowledge of a foreign culture acquired through translated works.3. Cultural Factors in Translation3.1 What is Cultural Factors in Translation?Nida once pointed out that (1993:1) “the role of language within a culture and the influence of the culture on the meanings of words and idioms are so pervasive that scarcely any text can be adequately understood without careful consideration of its cultural background”. Even when all linguistic symbols can be semantically translated into a system of different linguistic symbols, the relationship between the target text and the target culture can never reproduce that of the source text and the source culture. Serious blunders in translation and interpretation can be committed, not due to inappropriate diction, but due to incorrect cultural presuppositions: sometimes mistaking an innocent or well-meant remark for a harmful or offensive one and sometimes mistaking deliberate jibes and sneers as compliments to make readers laugh till their sides ache. Cultural factors surface from the confrontation of cultural deposits in translating process from one language to another, making it impossible to recapture the relationship of the source text to the source culture. Cultural presuppositions may induce translators misreadings in translation because these presuppositions may substantially and systematically affect their interpretation of the facts and events in the source text without their knowing it. This chapter is an attempt at pinpointing the relationships between cultural presuppositions and translational misreadings. At the beginning of this paper, I mentioned that culture is normally regarded as comprising, with some slight variations, four subsystems. For further discussion, lets review the following classification: (a) Techno-economic System: ecology (flora, fauna, climate, etc.); ways of production, exchange, and distribution of goods; crafts, technology, and science; artifacts. (b) Social System: social classes and groups; kinship system(typology, sex and marriage, procreation and patemity size of the family, etc.); politics and the law; education; sports and entertainment; customs; general history. (c) Ideational Subsystem: cosmology; religion; magic and witchcraft; folklore; artistic creations as images; values (moral, aesthetic, etc.); cognitive focus and thinking patterns; ideology.(d) Linguistic System: phonology and graphemics; grammar (morphology and syntax); semantics and pragmatics. (Ke Ping, 2000:143)It does not follow that these four systems stand apart. On the contrary they are interrelated, interactive, and even overlapping with each other. Since cultural factors affecting translation under the linguistic system have been much explored, examples cited to illustrate cultural impact upon translation are analysised respectively in next section. 3.2 Examples Cited to Illustrate Cultural Factors in Translation 3.2.1 Ecological Environment“The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (U.K.) is made up of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and a number of smaller islands around them.”(Lai Anfang, 1988).The United Kingdom is an isl