Introduction
Culture and intercultural competence and awareness that rise out of
experience of culture, are far more complex phenomena than it may seem
to the translator. The more a translator is aware of complexities of
differences between cultures, the better a translator s/he will be. It is
probably right to say that there has never been a time when the
community of translators was unaware of cultural differences and their
significance for translation. Translation theorists have been known of
the problems attendant upon cultural knowledge and cultural differences
at least since ancient time . Cultural knowledge and cultural differences
have been a major focus of translator training and translation theory for as
long as the beginning of time .
The main concern has traditionally been
with words and phrases that are heavily and exclusively founded in
one culture that they are almost impossible to translate into the terms –
verbal or otherwise – of another. Long debate have been held over when
to paraphrase, when to use the nearest local equivalent, when to structure
a new word by translating literally, and when to copy . All these
“untranslatable” cultural-bound words and phrases continued to surprise
translators and translation theorists.
The first theory developed in this field was introduced by Mounin in 1963
who underlined the importance of the signification of a lexical item
claiming that only if this notion is considered will the translated item fulfill
its function correctly. The problem with this theory is that all the cultural
elements do not involve just the items, what a translator should do in the
case of cultural implications which are implied in the background
knowledge of SL readersThe notion of culture is essential to considering the implications for
translation and, despite the differences in opinion as to whether language
is part of culture or not, the two notions of culture and language…
