Lecture I. Translation problems and difficulties in applied translation

Lecture II. Cultural translatability and untranslatability

Lecture outline:

Language and culture.

Types of text.

The concepts of translatability and untranslatability.

Key words: phenomena, language, culture, translatability, untranslatability, the beliefs, customs, history, literature, source text, target text, linguistic, cultural barriers, source text, target text, interlingual, communication, interlingual communication, informative text-type, expressive text-type, vocative text-type, rhythm, diction, formalistic elements, poetry, the monadist approach, socio-cultural, syntactic, semantic, speech community, a chronological concept.

Language and culture are two inseparable phenomena that underline any act of translation. To transfer a message from the source text into the target text, the translator must somehow overcome linguistic and cultural barriers. Cultural aspects of translation are related to the beliefs, customs, history, literature, and shared knowledge of the speech community in which the original text has been created. This shared or common knowledge makes the members of the same speech community capable of communicating and understanding each other. However, in interlingual communications such as translation, this knowledge must be transferred to the target readers to enable them to understand the messages or the meanings contained in the target text.

Accordingly, throughout the history, translation has played an important role in conveying thoughts and knowledge from one nation to other nations. Apart from this importance, the act of translating is not simply changing a message from the source language into the target one; translation is an act of problem solving.

Sometimes it is difficult to solve problems existing in translation, and so the notion of untranslatability emerges.

According to Newmark [1], there are three types of text: 1) informative text-type in which the topic or content is the main focus, 2) the expressive text-type in which the author and the aesthetic dimension are important, 3) vocative text-type in which the readerresponse is important. Literary texts and especially poetry fall under the second category. The features of poetry make the translation of such texts more difficult than other texts. When translating a piece of a poem, the translator may also encounter a number of problems arising from rhythm, diction, and formalistic elements. In addition, the translator has to preserve the exact sense convoyed by the poem while taking into account linguistic, literary and aesthetic, and socio-cultural problems. The aesthetic and literary aspects cover issues such as poetic structure, metaphorical expressions, and sounds. Socio-cultural issues occur when the translator faces expressions containing four major cultural categories: ideas, ecology, behavior, and products. Such aspects make some elements of poetry impossible to translate or untranslatable.

The concepts of translatability and untranslatability have been widely discussed and scholars have taken on two different approaches to the notion of untranslatability: the monadist approach and the Universalist approach [2]. The first approach was adopted by Nida, Jakobson, Bausch, Hauge, and Ivir.

They believed that translatability is ensured by the existence of linguistic universals such as syntactic and semantic categories shared by all languages. Other scholars adopted the second approach based on which the reality is interpreted in different ways by different linguistic communities and thus the translatability is jeopardized [2]. This approach is known as the Sapir- Whorf hypothesis because of the work done by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf. According to Sapir, “the real world is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the

group. […] The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.” [2]. Accordingly, it is argued that each linguistic community has its own perception of the world, different from those of other linguistic communities. This shows that the existence of different worlds is determined by language [2].

The third approach to translatability, which developed in France in the late 1960s, was the Deconstructionists approach, which challenges the notion of translation as a transfer of meaning. Andrew Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Paul de Man and Jacques Derrida, the founder of this approach argue that as the translation of a text involves a rewriting of the original text, the target texts is not considered as subsidiaries of the original text but as dependent on translation [2]. Three important concepts operationalized in this approach are the translation process, the originality, and the authorship of a text. The translation process is “a validation of the text that is being

translated”.

Secondly, originality is not a chronological concept.

In other words, it is not about which text was produced first but it is a qualitative matter as it refers to the nature of the text which was conceived first.

Finally, the authorship is questioned as the translation is regarded as a process which constantly modifies the source text [2]. In the same line, it can be suggested

that translatability/untranslatability is a matter of degrees as there is no text or element of it that is absolutely translatable or totally untranslatable.

As such, a study of these untranslatable elements can provide useful insights on how translators tackle such elements in the translation process. In the same vein,

the present study tries to explore linguistic and cultural untranslatability in an English translated version of Shahnameh by Ferdowsi. The rationale for choosing Shahnameh is that Ferdowsi is one of the undisputed giants of the Persian literature. After Ferdowsi's Shahnameh a number of other works similar in nature appeared over the centuries within the cultural sphere of the Persian language. Without exception, all such works were based in style and method on Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, but none of them could quite achieve the same degree of fame and popularity as Ferdowsi's masterpiece. Therefore, Ferdowsi has a unique place in Persian history because of the strides he made in reviving and regenerating the Persian language and cultural traditions. In addition, Shahnameh or The Epic of

Kings is one of the definite classics of the world. It tells hero tales of ancient Persia. The contents and the poet's style in describing the events take the reader back to the ancient times and make him/her sense and feel the events. Another reason for conducting this study on Shahnameh was that there is little research, if

any, on the translatability or untranslatability of linguistic and cultural elements in Shahnameh. For that reason, this study is going to explore linguistic and cultural untranslatability in the Story of “Rustam and Sohrab” by Ferdowsi, the well-known poet of Persian language and its equivalent translation by

Helen Zimmern.