Translator As Intercultural And Ideological Communicator And Mediator
By: Asst. Instructor Mazin Abduljabbar Reja
University of Anbar- College of Arts-Dept. of English Language
م.م. مازن عبدالجبار رجه
جامعة الانبار- كلية الآداب- قسم اللغة الانكليزية
Translation Studies, 'science of translation' or 'translatology', all refer, even with different names, to the academic discipline which concerns itself with the study of translation (Baker, 1998:277). Therefore, a number of modern, interrelated and interesting topics such as translation and communication, memory studies and translation, intercultural communication, cultural mediation, discourse and ideology have become part and parcel fields of translation studies. Accordingly, the role of the translator in communication and mediation among cultures and how his/her cultural background and ideological trends affect his/her role as an intercultural and ideological communicator and mediator in the creative translation process is of a high importance.
Basically, within Translation Studies, translation can be studied and investigated in an unconventional way. It is seen as a rewriting of an original text influenced by global cultures, cultural studies, identity formation, the concepts of norms, ethics and ideology, since rewriting can provide novel concepts, notions, genres and devices. Translation can be studied in relation with attempts to integrate different universes of discourse and to deal with what lies outside its boundaries in the realm of change and survival (Lefevere, 2003:xi,10). In an intercultural communication, a translator needs to produce appropriate equivalents to bridge the gaps that may appear owning to the cultural differences between two languages. However, in producing 'equivalence', which is a focal point in the translation creativity and a good device for translators to transfer meaning in a proper way from the source language into the target language, "there are a number of linguistic and cultural factors affected this process, and therefore is always relatively obtained" (Baker, 1992:6).
In this context, Bell (1991:6) also agrees with Baker that there is no equivalence can be obtained fully in the target language and the typical equivalence is something illusive. In an intercultural translation, a translator should make an equivalent effect (or response) on the target language's receptors as same as the one was produced on the source language's ones. For her part, Bassnett (2014:36) notes that "the principle of equivalent effect has enjoyed a great popularity in certain cultures at certain times". This principle was introduced by the outstanding American linguist and theorist Eugen Nida in his book 'Toward a Science of Translation' (1964). The equivalent effect principle which 'dynamic equivalence' basically based on, was defined by Nida where as "the relationship between the receptor and message should be the substantially the same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message (Nida 1964:159, as cited in Munday, 2012:67).
However, translation could be a communicative device among languages and cultures and translators, by their competent cultural background, have the ability to adapt and mediate difficult and ambiguous words that have hidden meanings and communicate them to other languages and cultures appropriately, since translation according to (Blum-Kulka 1986/2004:291, as cited in Munday,2009:74) "is an act of communication". Originally, culture has many definitions and this is in itself affect the translator's role in dealing with cultural differences of two languages and their two cultures and could be a matter of controversy (Bennett,1998:3, as cited in Munday,2009:74). She clarifies that cultural differences are existed owing to that cultures are not identical and different in their languages, norms, values and behaviours. To conclude, Ideology, according to Van Dijk (1998) "is the science of ideas; "idea-logy", which refers to the way we think, speak or argue".
However, Translation needs that translators should have a profound knowledge and a scientific background of both Source language (SL)and Target language (TL) and their two cultures. Translation, whether a science, craft or an art, has many definitions, but Roman Jacobson's one is still predominant and most common used, which was formulated and published in his important paper 'On the Linguistic Aspect of Translation', (1959). Jacobson conceived a three-section definition of translation: "1-Intraligual translation or rewarding is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language; 2-Interligual translation or translation proper is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other languages; and 3-Intersemiotic translation or transmutation is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of non-verbal systems" (Williams,2013:8, Munday 2012:pp.8,58). However, Chesterman (1993:74) depicted translation as a means of cultural communication whereby "the translator, as the expert communicator, is at the crucial centre of a long chain of communication from original initiator to ultimate receiver of a message: a human link across a cultural frontier", (Cited in Schaffiner and Holmes, 1995:6).
However, the most common problems the translators encounter in translating between two different languages are related to the cultural differences and then, they are required to regard translation not as a linguistic phenomenon, but a cultural one. In this context, a translator has to decide whether to be literal or free, faithful or functional, communicative or semantic when transfers meaning into target language. A translator should understand the nature and environment a certain community lives in to avoid problems and difficulties in relation to the religion, ethics, social norms, ideology, doctrines, traditions and habits. All these factors are powerful in dealing with a text of a cross-culture communication. Another problem is connected with which an appropriate translation strategy, method or procedure should be adopted by a translator to find suitable equivalents. For instance, to deal with a political text containing neologisms (newly-coined words), here culture and ideology emerge powerful, a translator must put in his/her mind that the strategies or procedures such as 'transference, transliteration, Arabization, borrowing, cultural equivalence, functional equivalence and so on are commonly used.
References
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