Ii) Definition without Japanese term: deculturalising a cultural word.

At other times the translator may avoid any direct reference to a Japanese 'cultural' word used in the original text, choosing instead to offer definitions composed only of words rooted in the domestic culture:

Zabuton o nimai hara no shita e shiite tatami no ue ni houzue o tuite ita Kaname wa...

(Tade kuu mushi, p.5)

(lit: Kaname, on the tatami with two zabuton under his belly and his chin on his hand...)

Kaname lay sprawled on a couple of cushions, his chin on his hand.

(Some Prefer Nettles, p.3)

The Japanese text here throws up two 'cultural' words: the zabuton under the character's belly, and the tatami on which he is lying. The first thing that will be noticed is that the reference to tatami is unaccounted for. While this may have been omitted because of concerns about text length, it is equally possible that the translator simply decided, rightly or wrongly, that this detail is not of optimal relevance to his readers, that the processing load would be too great if it were included. Zabuton, meanwhile, has been replaced by the functional equivalent cushions. There are several connotations, both descriptive and functional, that cannot be conveyed by the word cushion alone: that a zabuton is usually larger, flatter, and firmer than the typical western cushion, that it is specifically intended for use in a tatami room, in which chairs are not normally used, and so on. Newmark (1988:83) describes this strategy as "deculturalising a cultural word", a concept which seems to capture the essence of what is going on, but his observation that this involves using "a culture-free word" should not lead us to deny that such translations can conjure up images rooted in the domestic culture. In a sense, no lexical word can ever be entirely culture-free, and even a seemingly innocuous term such as cushion can release meanings rooted in the domestic culture; besides matters of size and shape, it might be quite reasonable for the image of cushions to suggest a nearby armchair or sofa from which these cushions have been taken, or a carpet on the floor, etc.. Certainly, it is unlikely that word cushion will be associated by English readers with the tatami referred to in the Japanese. While we cannot know exactly what image will be created by any one reader, it seems likely that there will be common features in the images created by Japanese readers that do not appear in the images created by English readers, and vice-versa. In other words, a zabuton is not, and will never be, simply a cushion, but the translator is unable to find a strategy to encode the more specific features of a zabuton without at the same time destroying other relevant features of the text.

This is not to suggest that a different strategy might have achieved greater success, but merely to remind ourselves that however rigorous the translation, communication can occur only if readers are able to connect the words on the page to images drawn from their own experiences. As Venuti (1995(b):9) notes, "the goal of communication can be achieved only when the foreign text is no longer inscrutably foreign, but made comprehensible in a distinctly domestic form." In the example above the choice of cushions focuses the reader's attention on the features of the object that the translator deems relevant in this instance. The functional equivalent will usually be a more general term than the Japanese term, and the translator may supply extra information explicitly through classifiers and epithets. In other words, the Japanese object is represented as a subclass of an item familiar to domestic readers. For example:

in Some Prefer Nettles:

nurimono (p.23) ⇒ wooden lacquerware (p.20)

koushi (p.36) ⇒ latticed window (p.33)

noren (p.40) ⇒ shop curtain (p.38)

yukata (p.118) ⇒ cotton summer kimono (p.111)

in Shiokari Pass:

haori ⇒ men's kimonos (p.14)

himo ⇒ tasseled ties (p.14)

ramune ⇒ fizzy drink (p.25)

butsudan (p.66) ⇒ family altar (p.55)

obi (p.122) ⇒ ornamental waistband (p.93)

As noted earlier, an unfamiliar foreign item can be defined in terms of a familiar foreign item, hence yukata and haori each become a subclass of kimono. At other times, however, many more 'folded' meanings may need to be unfolded if communication is to succeed. Consider this example:

Machiko ga tsukutta teruterubouzu ga noki ni nureteita.

(Shiokari toge, p.117)

(lit: "The teraterabouzu made by Machiko had gotten wet in the eaves.")

A borrowing will not suffice here as the item is unfamilair and the cotext, which informs us only that the teraterabouzu was made by Machiko, and that it was hanging in the eaves, offers few clues to its meaning. The translator must uncover a whole array of relevant senses of teraterabouzu, implicit for the Japanese reader: that it is a kind of doll, that it is relatively small, that it is made of paper, and that Japanese tradition holds that making one and hanging it up outside one's home is believed to keep the rain away. The translator chooses to include all of this information in a single nominal group complex:

The little paper doll that Machiko had made as a charm to keep the rain away, hung limply from the eaves.

(Shiokari Pass, p.90)

This is perhaps a good illustration of the impossibility of perfection in translation work. Although the most relevant aspects of the item may have been captured, the increase in processing requirements is marked in comparison to the original text (one word has become eleven), and yet the definition given still embraces objects that a Japanese reader would not recognize as a teruterubouzu. A teruterubouzu may indeed be a doll which is both small and made of paper, but this is not enough information to ensure that the mental image in the reader's mind corresponds closely with the actual referent. The domestic reader's imagination is restricted only by size and material, and remains otherwise free to create a doll of whatever shape, color and texture it chooses. Moreover, though explicit information about the doll's function is given, readers may still fail to realize that this is normally the reason for making a teruterubouzu, and that it is a quite typical thing for a Japanese child to do.

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