From the Introduction of His Translation of Agamemnon

Cultural Untranslatability

by Kanji Kitamura

http://accurapid.com/journal/49translatability.htm

This (below) is the introduction to what could have been an incredibly interesting paper. The introduction contains so many references to these people and those people and this text versus that text that I am lost halfway through the introduction - my eyes are glazing over. What a shame!

First, in my opinion, an introduction should grab the reader's attention rather than reel off facts and footnotes one after the other. I much prefer footnotes at the bottom of the page. Second, it reads like a textbook - dry and full of dull facts. I am sorry.

I had made tea and was looking forward to reading the article. I couldn't even finish it.

Nanna

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"Translatability/(un)translatability is a classic yet vast and fuzzy topic; for instance, Catford (1965: 93) writes that translatability appears "intuitively, to be a cline rather than a clear-cut dichotomy", and "SL texts and items are more or less translatable rather than absolutely translatable or untranslatable". There are a number of possible reasons why translatability can be described like this. In addition to various differences between languages, there can be a specific need (Hatim and Mason 1989: 12) or text purpose (cf. skopos—see for instance Nord 1991: 22-30; 1997: 27-38; Vermeer 2004: 227-238) for translation, difficulty in establishing objectified quality assessment (e.g. Hatim and Mason 1989: 4-5), variance in translators' textual competence, receptors' comprehension and mutual knowledge (e.g. Bell 1991: 35-43; Neubert and Shreve 1992: 53-65; Hatim 1997: 1-12; Campbell 1998: 1-21) and so on. To deal with the topic, Catford (Ibid.: 94) distinguishes linguistic and cultural untranslatability: "In linguistic untranslatability the functionally relevant features include some which are in fact formal features of the language of the SL text. If the TL has no formally corresponding feature, the text, or the item, is (relatively) untranslatable." For cultural untranslatability (Ibid.: 99), "What appears to be a quite different problem arises, however, when a situational feature, functionally relevant for the SL text, is completely absent in the culture of which the TL is a part."..."

You see, in cases like these, I prefer to skip the heavy academic stuff and focus on what I find meaningful instead, e.g.:

 Before discussing any further, we first want to know whether cultural differences in fact cause untranslatability. Considering actual translating, this paper provisionally treats culturally meaningless or incongruous items as 'culturally untranslatable.' The following serves as a sample; a set of Japanese and English proverbs that metaphorically describe personal characteristics, quoted from a study of American and Japanese business discourse (Yamada 1992), followed by her comments:

 

• Deru kugi wa utareru
(Yamada 1992: 33) 

• The nail that sticks out gets hammered back in (Ibid.).

In Japanese culture, the nail (i.e. an individualistic person) gets hammered (e.g. criticized) because it is a violator in the collective society. Yamada's work implies that, if the English proverb is used as a TT in the United States, it can be inappropriate in the TC (American culture) where 'the nail that sticks out' is usually 'a better one' 

or

The index values range from 91 for the United States (high individualism or low collectivism) to 6 for Guatemala (low individualism or high collectivism), with an overall mean of 43 and a standard deviation of 25 (2000: 215). This can be interpreted as: 1) the IDV for Japan is approximately the world average, and 2) the United States, Australia and Great Britain have a high degree of individualism.

Hofstede provides value comparisons, 'cultural values and attitudes', revealed through theoretical reasoning and statistical analysis. I partially quote his 'Summary of Values and Attitudes Differences Found Correlated with IDV', which explains characteristics of high and low IDV countries at the national level.

Low IDV	High IDV
Group decisions are better.	Individual decisions are better.
Interpersonal relations important for students' happiness.	Intrapersonal hedonism important for students' happiness.
Friendship predetermined by social network.	Importance of making specific friends.

Now that you have weeded out the heavy stuff, it is an interesting paper, and I am, in fact, familiar with the mentioned Japanese saying and how it translates into the American culture.

My example is not exactly the same, but a few days ago, I tried to explain to a client that the Danish words, 'Mod kontant betaling' Lit. Against cash payment, i.e., 'cash only' a perfectly okay sentiment in this part of Denmark, were a bit brusque for the British and something along the lines of 'No cheques or credit cards' would be better. Many Danes in southern Jutland would be non-plussed at 'No cheques or credit cards', and smirk at the niceties.

It can be diffcult, for normally, I prefer to state things in the positive, i.e., say what something is rather than what it isn't but it doesn't always work in translation.

Nanna

Originally written by Nanna Mercer on July 2, 2009 4:53 PM ....'Mod kontant betaling' Lit. Against cash payment, i.e., 'cash only' a perfectly okay sentiment in this part of Denmark, were a bit brusque for the British and something along the lines of 'No cheques or credit cards' would be better. Many Danes in southern Jutland would be non-plussed at 'No cheques or credit cards', and smirk at the niceties.

I came across a couple of such freelancers in Poland too and I guess the wording here would be "I only accept cash." We don't use in Polish elliptic clauses the way they are used in English, like "Cash only" or "No checks or credit cards." The latter simply would not be idiomatic Polish when translated literally, the former -  "Cash only" - would be all right in a supermarket, but not with providers of intellectual work I would say.

Originally written by Jacek K. on July 2, 2009 5:46 PM  I guess the wording here would be "I only accept cash." We don't use in Polish elliptic clauses the way they are used in English, like "Cash only" or "No checks or credit cards." The latter simply would not be idiomatic Polish when translated literally, the former -  "Cash only" - would be all right in a supermarket, but not with providers of intellectual work I would say.

Although the tourism industry in Denmark has been hit by the recession, that isn't true of southern Jutland, so I am busy with tourism related translations. The aforementioned 'Mod kontant betaling' related to a flyer (tourism) that will be distributed in parts of the UK.

I think to use 'Cash only' is too blunt, has elements of greed and of not paying your taxes. Whereas 'We only accept cash' is softer and gentler. Many smaller merchants do not want to bother with foreign cheques and the expense of dealing with credit cards, so that was one rationale behind suggesting the 'No cheques or credit cards' wording.  

It is very important, I think, to be culturally attuned to the source as well as the target language. I also find our multicultural TC very helpful.

Nanna