On Intercultural Differences: Translation Challenges
In 1820, Humboldt declared that “the diversity of languages is not a diversity of signs and sounds but a diversity of views of the world.”1 In other words, each language—with their lexical and grammatical categories, syntactic structures, conceptual organization, etc.—crafts the individual’s perspective on life in a particular way. To speak one language would mean to inhabit the same lands, to share the same culture, practices, values, family, and history. Languages go beyond words and their sophisticated or less sophisticated grammatical systems. Our languages shape our reality. Though the planet with its mountains, diverse landscapes, vast waters, various animals, etc. will continue to exist regardless of our presence on Earth, there is another type of reality—my reality and the way I interpret it, which differs from yours. If, according to Jakobson, language is merely a tool of communication, for Humboldt and later, Coșeriu, any speech act is both an act of understanding and not-understanding in the sense that meaning is created by the speaker and then re-created by the conversation partner through the process of interpretation. We see our reality through different lenses because of the different concepts languages possess to refer to the same objects or things. So, what makes my reality different than yours? One simple answer is language.
In the Indonesian archipelago, there are languages that are reported to have 10 different terms to denote the action of standing and 20 for the action of sitting. Most other languages outside of Indonesia possess a single term for each of these actions. Several Native American languages have 13 terms to denote the action of washing (to wash hands/face/dishes/meat/clothes, etc.). What does this mean? Are the Indonesian or Native American languages richer? If we find more lexical items in a language, it means that the speakers of that language determine the boundaries of their world differently. According to Coșeriu (2009: 48)2, these delimitations are not dictated by the extralinguistic reality, but are in fact defined by our inner world. One simple test, often employed in schools, is to show your students an image of a tree. To the question, “What do you see in this image?”, Romanian speakers could provide three different responses: (1) pom, (2) copac, (3) arbore. English, French and other speakers, however, likely would provide one single answer: (1) Eng. tree; Fr. arbre. This could be an example of concept-related multiple equivalence. According to Sipka (2015: 72), “this type of multiple equivalence is related to the fact that different languages carve their conceptual spheres differently, most typically with one language being more precise than the other.” In this example, Romanian is more specific. What is evoked in the speaker’s mind (the mental concept or the signified) could lead to different representations based on distinctions a language makes. In Romanian, the differentiating sign is the “feature of producing or not edible fruits.” An apple tree is a pom, whereas an oak is a copac, and both of them are an arbore. Arbore could function as a hypernym with two hyponyms, pom and copac. In other languages, this level of preciseness is not needed.
Another example of multiple equivalence, where the source-language (SL) has one word for which there are two or more equivalents in the target-language (TL), is the Romanian word dor. Dor conveys a culture-specific way of feeling the meaning of which seems to be almost impossible to translate into other languages. A Romanian-English dictionary translates dor as (1) longing, (2) melancholy, (3) dor de casă sau țară homesickness3. In reality, the concept of dor is much more complex and this cultural specificity is not registered in the bilingual dictionaries. A few other equivalents for dor in English could be yearning (for/after), hanker (for/after), grief, sorrow, desire, want, thirst, hunger, urge, wish, appetite, lust, ache (for), etc. The specific meaning of dor in a particular context matters in translation and if the equivalent in the target-language is not satisfactory, footnotes often are employed to navigate foreigners through the lexical preferences of a language and its cultural specificities. In reference to the Romanian translation of Alexis Stratton’s “The Interpreter,” the Romanian translation of “to miss someone or something” into “dor” enhanced the quality of the message, creating a more powerful image: “You must miss them. And your home.” / “Of course. […] The way you would miss a song you once knew […]” – “Trebuie să-ți fie dor de ei. Și de casa ta.” / “Desigur. [...] În felul în care ți se face dor de un cântec pe care l-ai știut cândva [...]”4
Another example is the Romanian term a cânta with two equivalents in English, to sing and to play (an instrument). This time, the differentiating sign in English is the feature that refers to how the sounds are made (with the voice or produced from a musical instrument). Romanian does not posses this dictinction. Usually, the context will provide clarifications: “Piano-playing fingers [...] Do you play piano?” – “Degete de pianist. [...] Cânți la pian?”5
Further, when examining the Romanian noun poală (sg.) and poale (pl.), the Romanian-English dictionary explains the word as (1) hem, (2) lap, (3) la poalele dealului at the foot of the hill. However, in Romanian culture, the same word appears in multiple (idiomatic) expressions, such as a săruta poala (poalele) cuiva ‘to bow’, la poala cuiva ‘at the mercy of’, a se ține de poala mamei ‘to hang to the skirts of one’s mother,’ etc. A better approximate equivalent for the latter would be the English ‘to hide behind your mother’s skirts.’ However, there are still a few different semantic nuances between these two. These occurrences also contribute to the Romanian cultural specificity; a metaphorical counterpart in TL (i.e. English) cannot always be identified. In “The Interpreter,” the primary meaning of the word lap was encountered, with a perfect equivalent translation into Romanian as poală: “my mother’s hands crossed tightly on her lap” – “mâinile mamei mele strânse tare în poală”.6
As can be seen from the aforementioned examples, multiple equivalence can be created by various distinguishing criteria. As Sipka (2015: 94) states, “differences occur in the entities that cultures do not share, in the way they conceptualize the world, in the way the speakers use the words, and in the way they interact with one another.”7 To translate the cultural elements from a ST into a TL the adaptation seems to be the most appropriate strategy used by translators. All these differences express the individuality of each language to which Humboldt referred in the 19th century. Language is the creation of the signified—our interpretation of the world is always subjective.
1 Trabant, Jürgen. “How relativistic are Humboldt’s “Weltansichten”?”, in Pütz and Verspoor, 2000.
2 Coșeriu, Eugen. Omul și limbajul său. Studii de filozofie a limbajului, teorie a limbii și lingvistică generală, Editura Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, Iași, 2009.
3 Dicționar Român-Englez / Englez-Român, Prof. Mariana Lungu, Steaua Nordului, 2002.
4 Stratton, Alexis, “The Interpreter,” pp. 16-17.
5 Idem, p. 22.
6 Idem, p. 22.
7 Šipka, D. (2015). Lexical Conflict: Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781316337004
About the Translator:
Gina Scarpete Walters is currently doing her Ph.D. in Comparative Culture and Language at Arizona State University, where she also serves as a Graduate Teaching Associate of Linguistics. Her research interests lie primarily in the area of cognitive linguistics and cultural linguistics. She holds two M.A. degrees from the University of Bucharest, one in Advanced Studies in Linguistics and another in Translation Studies. She is one of the recipients of the 2022 NFMLTA-NCOLCTL Graduate Research Support Grant. Scarpete Walters is an advocate for linguistic and cultural diversity and less commonly taught languages.
Translations:
"The Interpreter" by Alexis Stratton (Greek)
"The Interpreter" by Alexis Stratton (Romanian)
"Drink" by Chidelia Edochi (Greek)
"Drink" by Chidelia Edochi (Romanian)
With grateful acknowledgment to translation reviewers: Iulia Costea (for Greek) & Alexandru Vlad (for Romanian)