foreignization and domestication in trinh lu's vietnamese translation of life of pi by yann martel = ngoại hóa và nội hóa trong bản dịch cuộc đời của pi

The main difference between Venuti‟s strategies and the others is that domestication and foreignization strategies take into consideration the influence of cultural and ideological fact

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMS AND RATIONALE OF THE STUDY 1

2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 2

3 AIMS OF THE STUDY 2

4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 2

5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 3

6 RESEARCH QUESTION 3

7 METHODOLOGY 3

8 DESIGN OF THE STUDY 4

PART II: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND TRANSLATION 5

1.1.1 Concept of language 5

1.1.2 Concept of culture 6

1.1.3 Concept of translation 8

1.1.4 The relation between language and culture 8

1.1.5 The relation between translation and culture 9

1.2 TRANSLATION STRATEGIES 10

1.2.1 Linguistic Dichotomies 11

1.2.2 Cultural Dichotomies 14

1.3 TAXONOMY OF PROCEDURES RELATED TO FOREIGNIZATION AND DOMESTICATION STRATEGIES 17

CHAPTER 2: DATA ANALYSIS 22

2.1 Introduction 22

2.2 Corpus 22

2.3 Design and Theoretical Framework 22

2.4 Procedure 23

2.5 Data Analysis 23

2.5.1 Toponyms 23

2.5.2 Anthronyms 24

2.5.3 Ecology 25

2.5.4 Forms of entertainment 26

2.5.5.Forms of art 26

2.5.6 Local institution 26

2.5.7 Measuring system 27

2.5.8 Religious terminology 27

2.6 Findings and Discussion 27

2.6.1 Manifestations of Foreignization 29

2.6.2 Manifestations of Domestication 29

PART III: CONCLUSION 32

3.1 RECAPITULATION OF MAIN IDEAS 32 3.2 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 33 3.3 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 33

List of tables

Table 1: Translation of toponyms 24

Table 2: Translation of anthroponyms 24

Table 3: Translation of ecology 25

Table 4: Translation of forms of entertainment 26

Table 5: Translation of forms of art 26

Table 6: Translation of local institution 26

Table 7: Translation of measuring system 27

Table 9: The breakdown of selections by procedure and percentage 28

List of figures

Figure 2: Global breakdown of procedures identified in the research 30 Figure 1:

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Statement of the problems and rationale of the study

In the past few decades, translation studies have shifted along with the development of cultural studies Translation is no longer regarded as merely a cross-linguistic activity but translation is considered a cross-cultural communication Cultural diversity, rather than linguistic differences, is believed to produce the most misunderstanding among readers and constitute the most serious problems for translators Thus, one of the focal issues of current translation studies is to explore cultural differences and then decide how to deal with them most appropriately A great number of ethical strategies have been proposed, some of which value the faithful representation of the original and some value communication of meaning Based on his investigation of Western translation history and theories, Lawrence Venuti introduced and described the notions of foreignization and

domestication in his book The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation published in 1995 The main difference between Venuti‟s strategies and the others is that

domestication and foreignization strategies take into consideration the influence of cultural and ideological factors on translation and consider the influence of translations

on the target readers and cultures Indeed, domestication refers to the oriented translation which makes a translated product transparent and easy to read For Venuti (1995:20), the domesticating method is "an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target language cultural values, bringing the author back home." As an opposition

target-culture-to domestication, foreignization is a source-culture-oriented translation which strives target-culture-to preserve the foreign flavor as much as possible in order to transfer the source language (SL) and source culture (SC) into the target one According to Venuti, foreignization signifies “the difference of the foreign text, yet only by disrupting the cultural codes that prevail in the target language” (ibid) In other words, “cultural codes” of the target language (TL) should be sacrificed in order to make the reader of a translated text feel the taste of foreigness Taking into consideration the fact that literary works may represent cultural terms, Venuti‟s theories on domestication and foreignization can be applied to literary translation which plays an important role in the development of the national

literature Literature coming from the English-speaking source cultures may contain various types of cultural terms connoting different aspects (such as place names, foods and drinks, sports and national pastimes, art, legal system, etc) which functions as unique culture-specific items (CSIs) and can be either domesticated or foreignized by a translator After a brief overview of cultural differences in translation, this paper mainly explores foreignization and domestication in dealing with CSIs in the translation of “Life of Pi” by Trịnh Lữ Overall, this product-oriented descriptive translation research is a qualitative attempt to discover the manifestations of foreignization and domestication by analyzing the translation procedures in translating CSIs of the corpus

2 Objectives of the study

The focus of the thesis is to explore the notions of foreignisation and domestication and their application through different procedures of translating CSIs In order to estimate the possible dominance of one of the above strategies over the other, the translation “Life of Pi” by Trịnh Lữ with reference to cultural aspects is chosen for analysis The study is an attempt to find out whether translator Trịnh Lữ domesticates or foreignizes English CSIs when translating “Life of Pi” In other words, the main point of analysis is to explore whether translator retains CSIs to preserve the foreign flavor (foreignization) or tries to make the translation transparent and more accessible to target readers (domesticatication)

3 Aims of the study

As mentioned earlier, the study aims to identify the signs of domesticating and foreignizing strategies applied in the translation of “Life of Pi” by Trịnh Lữ In general, it

is expected that the study would provide translators with some ideas about ways of dealing with CSIs when working on English literary translations Translators may turn to either domestication or foreignization when it comes to translating CSIs As shown in the study (1.3), a variety of translation procedures are available to translators in order to help them either domesticate or foreignize unmatched cultural terms

4 Significance of the study

Hopefully, the study of domestication and foreignization in dealing with culture-specific

theory It is hoped that the findings of the study will contribute to the body of theory of domestication and foreignization in literary translation, and become a reliable source of references for relevant research

5 Scope of the study

The notions domestication and foreignization refer translation strategies on various levels such as lexical, syntactic to semantic Within the scope and scale of a minor thesis, the focus is on whether the translator employs domesticating or foreignizing strategies to bridge the lexical gap between SL and TL To achieve this goal, the first chapter of Trịnh Lữ‟s translation “Life of Pi” is selected, read and analyzed for signs of source-language oriented strategies/ domestication and target-language oriented strategies/foreignization

6 Research question

Based on the previous studies on domestication and foreignization, the following question is formulated:

What are the manifestations of foreignization and domestication in the translation of

“Life of Pi” from English into Vietnamese?

This study is an attempt to find answer to the question CSIs of ST along with TT are collected and procedures employed by the translator are identified as signs of domestication and foreignization so that proper answer to the above-mentioned question will be provided

7 Methodology

The current product-oriented descriptive translation research is a qualitative attempt to describe and analyze cultural translation strategies in the corpus of the research To account for the possible translators‟ procedures in the body of translated text, the novel

“Life of Pi” with its Vietnamese translation by Trịnh Lữ is selected To be precise, the first chapter of the book “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel is chosen as the primary ST to be compared closely with it corresponding translated TT made by Trịnh Lữ

The following steps and analytical procedures are used in the research:

1 Identifying CSIs in the corpus of the study

2 Comparing CSIs in the ST and their counterparts in the TT: Through a

sentence-by -sentence contrasting each source text- target text pair of the corpus of the research and adopting CSIs as the unit of translation After that, instances of CSIs are identified as qualitative evidence The occurrences of CSIs are classified according to the categories proposed by Espindola and Vasconcellos (2006)

3 Analyzing CSIs in terms of translation procedures, as suggested by Kwieciński‟s (2001)

4 Examining the extent to which rendering choices may have led to a foreignised or domesticated translation: After gathering the occurrences in categorized tables, an examination of the extent to which rendering choices may have led to a foreignised or domesticated translation has been conducted, the based on Kwieciński‟s consolidated taxonomy (ibid)

5 Analyzing the extent to which the concepts of foreignisation/domestication may explain the treatment given to the culture-bound terms in both directions

In other words, the rendering choices have been located and noted down as qualitative evidence to show either domestication or foreignization in the TT

8 Design of the study

The study consists of the following parts:

Part one introduces the rationale for the research, the research problem, the aims, the

research question of the study, the scope, the method, and the organization of the study

Part two is the development of the study This part includes two chapters Chapter one

provide critical points of current knowledge, findings as well as theoretical and

methodological contributions to domestication and foreignization Chapter two details a

comparative analysis of the occurrences of domesticated and foreignized culture-specific items as quantitative and qualitative data It also presents results of the study in which the research question is addressed

Part three concludes the study with implications and also points out any limitations of the

study as well as suggestions for further research

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1: Theoretical background and Literature Review

1.1 LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND TRANSLATION

The pre-requisite for both the assumption of CSIs as cultural representations and their use

as a focus for translation studies here lies in the Sapir-Whorf and Lotman‟s statement that

no language can exist unless it is steeped in the context of culture; and no culture can exist which does not have at its centre the structure of natural language (Lotman, 1978:211-32) This integrative view of language and culture entails that the meaning of any linguistic item, CSIs included, be properly understood only with reference to the cultural context enveloping it Since meaning is of particular importance in translation, it follows that translation cannot be fully understood outside a cultural frame of reference

It thus seems that a brief account of the basic conceptualization of culture, language, and translation, and their relationships with one another should be in place prior to the unfolding of the research analysis

1.1.1 Concept of language

Language, according to Bassnett (2002: 3), is a system of communication used by a particular community or country Language is generally defined as a system of communication of consisting sounds, codes and symbols which is used by people to share knowledge and experience (Kramsch, 1998) Also, language is regarded as a symbol of their social identity

“Languages are the best mirror of human cultures, and it is through the vocabulary of human languages that we can discover and identify the culture- specific conceptual configurations of different people of the world”

(Wierzbicka, 1992:22)

Other scholars assert that language is at the heart of culture and it is a means of communication and through the use of language, human beings can identify themselves

and others Sapir and Whorf (cited in Bassnett 2002: 22) state that “No language can exist unless it is steeped in the context of culture; and no culture can exist which does not have its centre, the structure of a natural language” Sapir also claims that “language is a guide

to social reality and human beings are at the mercy of the language that has become the medium of expression for their society”

1.1.2 Concept of culture

Culture is a broad term that constitutes the concern of many different disciplines, and the definitions of culture vary in accordance with the particular frame of reference involved According to Edward Burnett Tylor, “culture…is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs and many other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (1871:1) His definition almost covers every aspect of human‟s life and has been the basis of most modern anthropological conceptions of culture Some scholars try to simplify culture by narrowing down culture

to assumptions about tastes and preferences In their view, culture is "the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression" (Newmark 1998: 94) In addition, Newmark asserts that each language group has its own culturally specific features Similarly, Tashkandi (2009) states that culture includes behavioural norms, customs, and values, and it reflects the personality of individuals Therefore, every culture has unique terms that cannot be found

in others According to Baker (1992), “The source-language word may express a concept which is totally unknown in the target culture” Therefore, the process of transmitting cultural elements is a complicated task Newmark also introduced “cultural word” (Newmark 1988: 96) Newmark (1988: 96-102) has categorised cultural terms as follows:

1) Ecology: geographical features, animals, plants

2) Material Culture: food, clothes, houses and towns, transport

3) Social Culture: work and leisure

4) Organizations, Customs, Activities, Procedures,

5) Gestures and Habits

Such concepts are also referred as “culture-specific items” (Baker 1992: 21) Nord refers

to these culture specific items by using the term “cultureme” which he defines as "a

cultural phenomenon that is present in culture X but not present (in the same way) in culture Y" (Nord 1997: 34) Gambier also refers to such concepts as 'culture-specific references' and asserts that they connote different aspects of life:

Culture-specific references connoting different aspects of everyday life such as education, politics, history, art, institutions, legal systems, units of measurement, place names, foods and drinks, sports and national pastimes, as experienced in different countries and nations of the world (Gambier 2004: 159)

More specifically, Elaine Espindola & Maria Lúcia Vasconcellos (2006:49-50) proposed the following taxonomy of culture-specific items (CSIs)

1) Toponyms: a place name, a geographical name, a proper name of locality,

region, or some other part of Earth‟s surface or its natural or artificial feature

2) Anthroponyms: ordinary and famous people‟s names and nicknames and names

referring to regional background which acquire identification status;

3) Forms of entertainment: amusement or diversion including public

performances or shows, it also encompasses hospitality provided, such as dinners, parties, business lunches, etc

4) Means of transportation: the facilities used for the movement of people and

goods from one place to another; the term is derived from the Latin trans meaning

across and portare meaning to carry, such facilities are, many times, associated

with specific cultures;

5) Fictional character: a person in a novel, play, or a film who is related to fiction,

works of imagination;

6) Legal System: rules of conduct inherent in human nature and essential

to or binding upon human society;

7) Local Institution: an organization that helps or serves people in a certain area -

health, education, work, political, administrative, religious, artistic;

8) Measuring system: units used in the determination of the size, weight, speed,

length, etc of something in the different cultures;

9) Food and Drink: any solid or liquid substance that is used by human beings as

a source of nourishment

10) Scholastic reference: related to school or studying;

11) Religious celebration: to do something special to mark a religious occasion; 12) Dialect: user-related variation, which determines speaker‟s status as regards

social class, age, sex, education, etc

Because of its clarity, the taxonomy of culture-specific items proposed by Elaine Espindola & Maria Lúcia Vasconcellos (2006:49-50) will be adopted as the unit of translation in this study with some modification

1.1.3 Concept of translation

The definition of language and culture serves as a vantage point for a cultural approach to translation as taking place in concrete, definable situations that involve members of different cultures (Chesterman, 1993:2; Nord, 1997:23) There is an agreement among translators that translating means comparing cultures (Nord, 1997:34) According to Bassnett (2002: 21), translation is used to transfer the meaning contained in the source language to the target language through competent use of the dictionary and grammar This process also involves a whole set of extra- linguistic criteria

In his article, “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation”, Roman Jakobson categorises translation as follows (cited in Munday 2002: 5)

1) Intralingual translation/“rewording”: an interpretation of verbal signs by

means of other signs of the same language

2) Interlingual translation/“translation proper”: an interpretation of verbal signs

by means of some other language

3) Intersemiotic translation/“transmutation”: an interpretation of verbal signs by

means of signs of a non- verbal sign system

Furthermore, Jakobson points out the central problem of translation, that is there is no full equivalence through translation

1.1.4 The relation between language and culture

Many scholars agree that language can be considered as part of culture and culture is actually an essential part of the interaction between language and thoughts Its patterns, customs and ways are reflected in language (Brown cited in Valdes, 1986: 45)

House (2002:92) states that language is a “social phenomenon, which is naturally and inextricably intertwined with culture” It is generally believed that language and culture are linked to each other, and the integration of an element into a culture cannot be achieved unless and until the linguistic expression of that element integrates into the language of the culture (Ivir, 1987: 35) As mentioned before, “language is the heart within the body of culture, and it is the interaction between the two that results in the continuation of life- energy.” (Bassnett 2002: 22)

According to Nida (2001: 14), language mirrors the cultural aspects of a given society and helps to identify them Language sometimes ceases to explain things "outside itself'

In other words, language sometimes cannot explain cultural references but can always help to identify them This is simply because some cultural references cannot be understood without fully understanding their original meaning Newmark (ibid) believes that each language group has its own specific culture

1.1.5 The relation between translation and culture

As mentioned earlier, language is a “social phenomenon, which is naturally and inextricably intertwined with culture” (House, 2002:92) This fact entails that translation

is inseparable from culture Sapir-Whorf and Lotman agree that no language can exist without being steeped in the context of culture; and no culture can exist without a natural language at its centre (Lotman, 1978:211-32) From this integrative view of language and culture, it is obvious that the meaning of any linguistic item be properly understood only with reference to the specific cultural context In other words, language and culture are naturally and closely interrelated on the levels of semantics where the vocabulary of a language reflects the culture shared by its speakers Therefore, translation, which depends

on meaning, cannot be divorced from culture In fact, translation is not only word process, but also the culture-to-culture process According to Nida, translation is the communication of two cultures Ivir (1987: 38) describes translation as a way of establishing contact between cultures Translation activity therefore inevitably involves the contact, collision, assimilation or rejection of cultures, as Hervey and Higgins put that

word-to-“translating involves not just two languages, but a transfer from one whole culture to

another” (2002:31) The main objective of translation is not only to cross the linguistic

boundaries that exist between two different languages, but also to bridge the cultural gap that exists between two different cultures Nevertheless, taking cultural factors into consideration is problematic because “translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning, and secondly in terms of style” (Nida, 1969:12) As a matter of fact, due to the uniqueness of each culture, achieving complete equivalence is almost impossible According to Newmark, where there is cultural focus, there is a translation problem due

to the cultural gap or distance between the source and target languages Nida states that

“differences between cultures cause many more severe complications for the translator than do differences in language structure” (2004:157).Thus, translation requires the understanding of both languages and cultures With increasing cultural communication across nations, more and more scholars have put their focus on the interaction between translation and culture As a result, the shift to include cultural factors in the translation model is considered as one most important shift in theoretical development of translation

1.2 TRANSLATION STRATEGIES

It is important to note that when it comes to translation strategies, different linguists use diverse terminology; for instance, translation strategies proposed by Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelent are called methods, Eirlys E Davies and Peter Newmark refer to translation strategies as translation procedures, while Javier Franco Aixelá calls them either translation strategies or procedures According to Schäffner and Wieserman, a strategy is “a general procedure or approach for the accomplishment of a task or for the solution of a problem” (Schäffner and Wieserman 2001: 26)

Jaaskelainen considers a strategy as, “a series of competencies, a set of steps or processes that favor the acquisition, storage, and/ or utilization of information” (Jaaskelainen cited

in Ordudari 2007) A translation strategy, in Chesterman‟s (1993:13) words, is “a potentially conscious procedure for the solution of a problem which an individual is faced with when translating a text segment from one language into another.” In this sense, strategies are represented by “forms of explicitly textual manipulation” and are thus

“directly observable from the translation product itself, in comparison with the source text” Throughout the history of translation studies, different but binary strategies have emerged and evolved In the pre-linguistic Roman era, the traditional opposition between strategies is best summed up in the words of Cicero (106-46 BC), “a translation should be free…a translation should be literal” (House, 1981:2) This paradox is later substituted by

the modern terms of alienating vs naturalising (Schleiermacher, 1813/1992), the contemporary terms of formal vs dynamic equivalence (Nida, 1964), textual vs formal equivalence (Catford, 1965), and semantic vs communicative translation (Newmark, 1981), and the present domesticating vs foreignizing (Venuti, 1998)

The dichotomies can be categorised into two groups on the basis of the subject matter they focus on, i.e., linguistic as against cultural, as mentioned by Venuti (1998c:315):

“In the 1990s, as translation begins to emerge as a scholarly discipline in its own right, two rather different paradigms appear to be driving research On the one hand is an approach that can generally be called text linguistics, in which notions

of equivalence are grounded on the classification of text types and functions On the other hand is an approach that can generally be called CS [cultural studies], which is concerned with how values, ideologies, and institutions shape practices differently in different historical periods”

The linguistic approach include free and literal dichotomy, Nida‟s formal and dynamic equivalence, Catford‟s textual and formal equivalence, and Newmark‟s semantic and

communicative translation On the contrary, the cultural approach is based on

Schleiermacher‟s alienating vs naturalising and represented by Venuti‟s foreignizing and domescating

1.2.1 Linguistic Dichotomies

Linguistic dichotomies typify their approach to translation as “simply a question of replacing the linguistic units of ST with „equivalent‟ TL units without reference to factors such as context or connotation” (Shuttleworth and Cowie, 1997:94) Central to this

approach is the concept of translation equivalence which refers to “the relationship

between an ST and its TT that allows the TT to be considered as a translation of the ST in the first place” (Kenny, 1998:77) This approach finds expression in the following conceptualizations:

1.2.1.1 Literal and free translation

Literal translation, originally called word-for-word translation by Cicero, refers to a

strategy whereby the translator segments the ST into individual words and then renders the word-segments into the TL one at a time (Robinson, 1998b:125) In contrast, free

translation which also goes back to Cicero who uses the term sense-for-sense instead

focuses on the “sense” and style of the SL in order to produce “an aesthetically pleasing and creative text in the TL” (Munday, 2001:20)

With regard to the application of literal-free translation, Barbe (1996:335) concludes that the purported literal approach only finds its way in the domain of scientific, technical texts, i.e., “texts which supposedly would not allow metaphors or irony” In contrast, free translation denotes poetry, literature, that is, “texts which allow metaphors, irony and the like” (ibid) Nevertheless, literal translation can only rarely reproduce the sense or meaning because it is strictly bound to the single word while free translation fails to capture the essence of the word

1.2.1.2 Formal and dynamic equivalence

In 1964, Nida introduces the concepts of formal and dynamic equivalence For him,

formal equivalence is achieved by a faithful reproduction of ST form elements In his own words, it “focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content” and is concerned “with such correspondence as poetry to poetry, sentence to sentence, and concept to concept” (Nida, 1964:159) A translator who strives for this equivalence will not join or split ST sentences, but rather preserve formal indicators such as punctuation marks and paragraph breaks (ibid:165) Such a strategy frequently results in a type of translation that “distorts the grammatical and stylistic patterns of the receptor language, and hence distorts the message” (Nida and Tiber, 1969:201) That is, something of a

“gloss translation” with close but “decontextualised” approximation to ST structure

which often necessitates the inclusion of numerous footnotes in order to make the text comprehensible to the TL reader (Shuttlewoth and Cowie, 1997:62)

Dynamic equivalence, in contrast, is based upon what Nida calls “the principle of equivalent effect” in Bible translation (1964:159) and refers to the quality which characterises a TT in which the message of the ST is so “transported” into the TL that the response is “essentially” like that of the original receptors (Nida and Taber, 1969:200)

To achieve such an effect, the translator has to go through a threefold process of analysis, transfer and restructuring, which in turn “entails such procedures as substituting TL items which are culturally appropriate for obscure ST items, making linguistically implicit ST information explicit, and building a certain amount of redundancy” (Shuttleworth and

Cowie, 1997:47) For example, the Bible phrase “Lamb of God” is translated into an Eskimo language as “Seal of God” because lambs are unknown in polar regions This

highlights his “aim at complete naturalness of expression” and his endeavour “to relate

the receptor to modes of behaviour relevant within the context of his [sic] culture” (Nida

and Taber, 1969:168-173)

Nida‟s formal and dynamic equivalence has made crucial contribution in introducing a receptor (or reader-based) orientation to translation theory

1.2.1.3 Formal correspondence and textual equivalence

In 1965, Catford takes up translation equivalence as both “a key term” and “a central

task” (1965:21) and distinguishes such equivalents into formal correspondence and

textual equivalence Catford has defined formal correspondence as identity of function of

correspondent items in two linguistic systems: for him, a formal correspondent is “any

TL /target language/ category which may be said to occupy, as nearly as possible, the same place in the economy of the TL as the given SL/source language/ category occupies

in the SL (Catford, 1965: 32) This equivalence, however, is just a theoretical, systemic category established on the basis of a formal comparison of SL and TL, because, due to the inevitable incompatibilities between the systems of the two languages involved, the correspondence “is nearly always approximate rather than absolute” (Shuttleworth and Cowie, 1997:60) By contrast, a textual equivalence consists in “any TL text or portion of

text which is observed on a particular occasion” using methods of matching equivalent forms According to Catford (1965:27-28), such equivalence can be identified either “on the authority of a competent bilingual informant or translator”, or more formally by commutation, or changing items in the ST and observing “what changes if any occur in the TL text as a consequence.”

Like Nida‟s approach, Catford‟s “narrowly linguistic approach tends to stress that translation involves the transfer of „meaning‟ contained in one set of language signs into another set of language signs” (Ke, 1995:24)

1.2.1.4 Semantic and communicative translation

According to Newmark (1981:38) “the conflict of loyalties, the gap between emphasis on source and target language will always remain as the overriding problem in translation

theory and practice.” To bridge the gap, he advocates semantic and communicative

strategies as solutions In his view, a communicative translation is measured by means of its attempt “to produce on its reader an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original” The emphasis of such a translation is on conveying the message

of the ST in form which conforms to the linguistic, cultural and pragmatic conventions of

TL instead of “mirroring” the actual words of ST as closely as possible without infringing the TL norms (Shuttleworth and Cowie, 1997:22) A semantic translation, on the contrary,

is marked by “attempts to render, as closely as the semantic and syntactic structures of the second language allows, the exact contextual meaning of the original” (ibid)

1.2.2 Cultural Dichotomies

Apparently, the various equivalence-based dichotomies “distorts the basic problems of translation” (Snell-Hornby, 1988:16) in that it reduces the translational process to a mere linguistic exercise, ignoring cultural, textual and other situational factors which play an essential role in translation (Shuttleworth and Cowie, 1997:50) Cultural strategies, however, are “sensitive to cultural as well as linguistic factors” in translation (ibid:35) In this approach, translation is seen as a process which occurs between cultures rather than simply between languages Such sensitivity is signified either by presenting TL recipients

with a “transparent” (Venuti, 1995:1) text which informs them about elements of the source culture, or by finding items in the TL which may in some way be considered culturally “equivalent” to the ST items in question This cultural awareness finds

expression first in Schleiermacher‟s alienating-naturalising dichotomy, and then in Venuti‟s foreignizing-domesticating dichotomy

1.2.2.1 Alienating and naturalizing

The most “decisive” (Venuti, 1998b:242) development of translating strategies into and

their most direct relevance to the conceptualisation of domesticating and foreignizing

should be attributed to the German philosopher Schleiermacher (1768-1834) In his 1813 influential treatise on translation, he finds the literal-free dichotomy “a different application” (Barbe, 1996:331) and considers there to be only two paths open for the

“true” translator (Munday, 2001:27), namely alienating and naturalising Schleiermacher

acknowledges that most translation is naturalising, that is, an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to TL cultural values This is so simply because of the fact that “a translation should be accessible to those readers who do not know the SL” (Barbe, 1996:332)

1.2.2.2 Foreignizing and domesticating

According to Oittinen, “while domestication assimilates text to target linguistic and cultural values, in foreignization some significant traces of the original text are retained” (2006:42) These two strategies “concern both the choice of text to translate and the translation method” (Munday 2001:146) The term domesticating describes the translation strategy whereby a fluent, transparent style is adopted so as to minimise the foreignness of the ST for TL readers According to Venuti, domestication involves “an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target-language cultural values” (1995, in Munday 2001:146) This means that texts to translate could be chosen in accordance with these domestic values; texts that “are likely to lend themselves to such a translation strategy” (Munday 2001:147) It involves such steps as the careful selection of STs, the conscious adoption of a fluent, natural-sounding TL style, the adaptation of TT to conform to target discourse types, the interpolation of explanatory material, the removal