Translation Studies

Introduction

According to Nehru, "Culture is widening of the mind and of the spirit." Language is a
phenomenon and a factor that links different cultures and a way of expressing feelings and
ideas that people try to convey. Studying on language, culture and translation and the
relationship among them are valuable issues due to the importance of human
communication in the world. The variety of languages with different cultures and necessity
of communications in human life caused translation to be a very effective factor in
communicating, exchanging cultures, and knowledge.

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using
complex system of communication or to a specific instance of such a system of complex
communication and at the same time, entrap the knowledge and traditions of the time to
remain available not only for the next generations of the same speaking community, but for
other nations and ethnicities as well. Human language is highly complex in that it is based on
a set of rules relating symbols to their meanings, thereby forming an infinite number of
possible innovative utterances from a finite number of elements. The problem, however, is
that not all people share the same language and culture. At this point the indispensible
intervention of translation and translators is felt.

Culture

Newmark defined culture as "the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a
community that uses a particular language as its means of expression". Vermeer stated that
"language is part of a culture." The term culture originally meant the cultivation of the soul
or mind; culture includes behavior such as courtship or child rearing practices material
things such as tools, clothing and shelter, institutions and beliefs. Culture is the sum total of
the ways of living built up by a group and passed on from one generation to another. Culture
is a complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs and many
other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

Translation

Translation is the process in which a written communication or a text in a first

language is produced as the written communication or text in the second language
interpreting the same meaning. Here the text in the first language is the source text (ST) and
the equivalent text that communicates the same message is the target text (TT). So,
translation is the expression in another language or target language (TL) of what has been
expressed in another, Source Language (SL) preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences.
Therefore, translation consists of language and culture. Jerome said that two things are
necessary for a good translation - an adequate understanding of the original language
(source language) and an adequate command of the language into which one is translating
(receptor language). Larson claimed that "Translation is a complicated process." However, a
translator who is concerned with transferring the meaning will find that the receptor
language has a way in which the desired meaning can be expressed, even though it may be
very different from the source language form. Translation is no longer considered to be a
mere cross-linguistic activity but it significantly is cross-cultural communication.

Culture through Languages

Change of ideas, concentration of mutual efforts in different directions,

communication among different peoples in different ways, all these are a constant necessity
of spiritual and material life. Not only cultural acts are achieved by means of continuity
process alone, but also being discontinuous can be as creative at certain times. Yet, this
breach is to be performed to existent models and not to a state of nothingness. But how
cultures transfer through the languages? For answering this question we should consider the
relationship between culture and language which is deeply rooted. Translation is the only
way which does it. The fact that there is only one human species is explained by the
possibility to transfer sense, meaning from one language to the other, by means of the word,
thus, by translation.

Obstacles:

During translation process there are some obstacles which effect culture transferring
through different languages such as limitation and censor, culture, religion, etc.

 Limitations and Censor: Traditionally, there is something which is lost in

translation process. Limitation and censor as obstacles that limit translators in
conveying the "semantic" message in the receptor language. Limitation related to
different kinds of the audience. So it is the time to say that culture itself is a filter in
translation.

Examples:
in English in Tamil

The man is drinking a soda soDa kuDikkaran (‘soda he drinks’)

The man is showing her a shirt avalakku shokkaa kaamikkaran (‘to her shirt
he shows’)
They’re talking to each other ava peesindirukka (‘they are talking’)

‘(He’s/she’s) hitting books,/dust’ book-A taTTraan, dust-A taTTra

  Culture: Difficulties arising out of differences of cultures constitute the most
serious problems for translators and have produced the most far-reaching
misunderstanding among readers. [12] Culture itself has its own limitation in
transferring the source text into target text. Each society or group of people based on
their historical background, local situations, and religion with their specific
language, construct their own culture which is respected, performed and accepted
along with its limitations.

For example - In the Indian culture, people show respect to their elders by
addressing them in plural. A simple he/she cannot be substituted, because then
the idea behind the use of plural address would be lost. So, in addressing an
elder person, either choice-retaining the plural form or replacing it by a simple
"you"-will lead to ambiguity.

It seems artificial here for family members to greet one another with "good
morning," "have a nice day," etc., to apologize, or to express gratitude by saying
"thank you."

Customs and tradition are part of a culture. Be it a marriage or a funeral, be it a

festival or some vows, the story and the significance or hidden symbolism
behind it become a stumbling block for a translator. For instance, in a Christian
marriage, the exchange of kisses is part of the ceremony. In an Indian context,
this would be totally inappropriate! Even expressing feelings in public is
outrageous here.

 Religion: Religion is one of those obstacles that cause problem in translation.

Religion can be understood only by its cultural language and to translate this
religious context we face with some limitations that cannot be translated. Because
religious texts are described in an implicit way, natural and effective translation is
almost impractical. Besides, religion and culture are intertwined and religion has
taken its root from human mind and soul, people accepted them by the core of their
hearts. Therefore, it cannot be changed or distorted by any one.

Importance of Translation

The utility of translation is universally felt, and therefore, there is a continual

demand for them. Translation has proved very useful. Only because of translation famous
books of one language are made available to the readers of other languages.
1. Making Culture Universal
Translation plays a vital role in making a culture universal and general. It acts as a
bridge to communicate all kinds of languages specially those similar to each other
considering their linguistic features and cultural customs in all parts of the world. So it
links all units of the world in the global network. Moreover, translation presumes the
existence of boundaries between different cultures and the translator most probably is
aware of these boundaries and the inevitability of crossing them. Without cultural
similarities and universalities, there is no way for people of different cultures to
communicate with each other and translation will be impossible. When speaking of two
languages which are to be translated equivalently, translators must convey the same
 referential, pragmatic and interlinked meanings. However, due to differences between
two cultures, semantic equivalence is limited to some.
2. Getting Familiar With Pop Culture And Habits
Pop culture develops within human's growth which some of those pop culture's
would be a part of our life way. Since translation transfers the culture, unconsciously
behind this culture, we get familiar with the pop cultures and people's habits of different
regions. For example, "Mother Day" as a pop culture shows that people respect Mothers.
So this special day has become a habit for all countries in different geographical regions.
Also daily habits such as using the Internet have become so common globally so using
this is inevitable almost for all.
3. To Get Acquainted With Cultural And Religion Customs
Each language has its own culture and religion. Each society propagates its own
specific culture through translation. Culture translation helps to know the variety of
worship of different cultures. For e.g. Muslim pray in Masque, Christian in Church,
Jewish in Synagogue or celebrating "Christmas Day" has been expanded. Thus,
translation link cultures as a chain. Thus translation obviously is a cross-cultural
communication; it is beyond structures and sentences, and not simply a mere language.
4. Give Advantages of The Source Language Cultures
A proper translation makes the reader to ponder over the cultural context of the
source language. Cultural borrowing is one of the advantages that transfer ideas,
customs, and social behaviors from another culture. By an adequate translation readers
or audience of target language culture will acquire a lot of useful benefits for e.g.
hospitality; way of greeting and saying hello when they meet each other in Iran would be
extend in the world through translation. The other e.g. is table manner of some nations
that reflect how that nation's culture is.
Types of Translation
Initially, translation has been a manual activity. Today, together with manual
translation, there is also automatic translation of natural-language texts, which is referred to
as machine translation (MT) or computer-assisted translation (CAT) which use computers
as an aid to translation. Types of translation can be classified as:
TRANSLATION

Human Mechanical Computer-Aided

Machine translation
Machine translation is the translation of text by a computer, with no human involvement.
Pioneered in the 1950s, machine translation can also be referred to as automated
translation, automatic or instant translation. There are two types of machine translation
system: rules-based and statistical. Rules-based systems use a combination of language
and grammar rules plus dictionaries for common words. Specialist dictionaries are created to
focus on certain industries or disciplines. Rules-based systems typically deliver consistent
translations with accurate terminology when trained with specialist dictionaries.
Statistical systems have no knowledge of language rules. Instead they "learn" to translate
by analysing large amounts of data for each language pair. They can be trained for specific
industries or disciplines using additional data relevant to the sector needed. Typically
statistical systems deliver more fluent-sounding but less consistent translations.
Machine translation has been brought to a large public by tools available on the
Internet, such as AltaVista's Babel Fish, Babylon, and StarDict, Systran, Trados. These tools
produce a "gisting translation" — a rough translation that "gives the gist" of the source text.
However, machine translation typically involves human intervention, in the form of pre-
editing and post-editing.

Computer-assisted translation, computer-aided translation or CAT is a form

of language translation in which a human translator uses computer software to support and
facilitate the translation process. Computer-assisted translation is sometimes called
machine-assisted, or machine-aided, translation (not to be confused with machine
translation).
The automatic machine translation systems available today are not able to produce
high-quality translations unaided: their output must be edited by a human to correct errors
and improve the quality of translation. Computer-assisted translation (CAT) incorporates
that manual editing stage into the software, making translation an interactive process
between human and computer.
Some advanced computer-assisted translation solutions include controlled machine
translation (MT). Higher priced MT modules generally provide a more complex set of tools
available to the translator, which may include terminology management features and various
other linguistic tools and utilities.
Computer-assisted translation is a broad and imprecise term covering a range of tools, from
the fairly simple to the complicated. These can include:
Spell checkers; Grammar checkers; Terminology managers - allow the translator to manage
his own terminology bank in an electronic form; Electronic dictionaries, either unilingual or
bilingual; Terminology databases, either on the host computer or accessible through the
Internet; Full-text search tools (or indexers), which allow the user to query already
translated texts or reference documents of various kinds; Concordancers, which are
programs that retrieve instances of a word or an expression and their respective context in a
monolingual, bilingual or multilingual corpus, such as a bitext or a translation memory;
Bitext aligners etc.
Human Translation
Human

Written Oral

Non-Literary Literary Non-Literary

Consecutive

Simultaneous

Sight-translation