Ways of translating culture-bound words

Culture-bound words are generally rendered in the borrowing language through transcription, transliteration and calque translation: авеню, sputnik, Статуя Свободы. As compared with transcription and transliteration, calques are more convenient. But at the same time, calques can be misinterpreted by a receptor. For example an English calque from the Chinese Red Guard, meaning ‘a member of an activist pro-Maoist youth movement in China’, is far more convenient than its transcription counterpart Hongwei Bing. However, a Russian receptor can easily confuse this calque with another one, referring to the Russian revolution: красногвардеец, whereas this word is known in Russian as a transcription borrowing: хунвэйбин. There are cases when a translator resorts to calque translation without thinking thoroughly of the meaning of a culture-bound word or, worse, without understanding it.

An explicatory translation reveals a culture-bound word meaning in full: 13 зарплата = annual bonus payment; breadline = очередь безработных за бесплатным питанием. Explication of culture-bound words can be made in commentaries (both in-text and after-text), and in footnotes. The disadvantage of in-text notes is that they distract a receptor’s attention from the main text. However, after-text commentaries are not for a “lazy” reader. So the most convenient, probably, are footnotes which save a reader’s time and effort.

Lexical substitutions can be used to have proper impact upon the receptor. For example, the main character of Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” is called Scout. This name would call specific associations with a Russian reader. To avoid confusion, the translator substituted the girl’s name by Глазастик, conveying her main feature to notice everything.

In news texts there can be possible analogue substitutions of official positions: Under-Secretary – зам. министра, Secretary of State – Министр иностранных дел.

There are known cases of reduction in translating culture-bound words. For example, Mark Twain’s novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is mostly known in Russian translation as Янки при дворе короля Артура, since the phrase “Connecticut Yankee”, which originally meant “heady Americans who made wooden nutmegs and sold them for real ones”, could, possibly, not make sense for today’s Russian receptor.

What is most important in translating culture-bound words is the receptor’s perception and reaction. A translator should be aware of the receptor’s potential problems and, taking into account the receptor’s background knowledge, choose the best means of translation.

Before translating, it is necessary to check whether a loan word exists in the target language, whether its meaning corresponds to that of the source language word, and what its phonetic and graphic form is (care should be taken for the different spellings of a source language word and the loan word, like lunch – ленч).

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