AWEJ. Special Issue on Translation No.3 May, 2014 Pp. 53 – 64
Communicating Culture
Zalfa Rihani
Translation Studies Department
United Arab Emirates University
Abstract
standard in the evaluation of any translation is accuracy and clarity. When a translator comes across a source-text word that does not exist at all in the target language, the tendency is either to substitute it, delete it, or rephrase it. The question is when such a strategy is adopted for communicating meaning that is obliterated from the cultural way of thinking, is culture really communicated? The concept of translation today ceases to be just about meaning and equivalence in the strict sense of producing an English text easily accessible and readable to the English reader. Translation is about communicating culture in the sense of communicating the way of thinking of the source- text culture. It is about creating a medium of readability that is not sacrificial of the source text identity just because that way of thinking does not exist in the target text culture. When the target text fails in communicating this way of thinking in one aspect or another, it fails to be accurate and clear.A basic
Keywords: contrastive conceptual analysis in translation, intercultural communication awareness in translation, translation studies, the translator’s (in)visibility, and translation evaluation.