Luận văn foreignization and domestication of culture specific items in two vietnamese translations of the english novel the wind in the willows

ABSTRACT ‘This research investigates the translation strategies and procedures applied to treat culture-specific items appearing in “The wind in the willows” by Kenneth Grahame in its Vi

FOREIGNIZATION AND DOMESTICATION OF CULTURE-SPECIFIC

ITEMS IN TWO VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS OF THE ENGLISH

NOVEL “THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS”

(Ngaại lai haa va ban địa hóa các yếu tô đặc thi van haa trong hai ban dich

Anh-Việt “Giỏ qua rặng liễu” và “Gió dùa trong liễu”)

M.A MAJOR PROGRAMME 1IIESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01

HA NỘI -2U20

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSLLY, HANOL UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

VUONG THU HANG

FOREIGNIZATION AND DOMESTICATION OF CULTURE-SPECIFIC

ITEMS LN TWO VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS OF TLOE ENGLISLL

NOVEL “THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS”

(Ngoui lai héa va ban dia héa các yếu tổ dặc thủ văn húa trong hai ban dich

Anh-Việt “Giỏ qua rặng liễu” và “Giỏ đủa trong liễu”)

M.A MAJOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Lé Hing Tién

TIA NOT - 2020

DECLARATION

L hereby state that the major programme thesis entitled “Ioreignization and

Domestication of Culture-specific Items in Two Vietnamese Translations of the English Novel “Ihe Wind in the Willows”" has been conducted and submitted in

partial of fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty

of Postgraduate Studies, University of Languages and Tnlermational Studies, Vietnam National University, [lanoi 1 confirm that this submission is my own work and has not

been submitted for any other degree, and all the references to other works mentioned in

the paper have been ciled properly, to the best of my knowledge and belie!”

Vueng Thu Hang

Ua Ndi, June 2020

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the first place, 1 would like to express my sincere thanks for the l'ranslation

and Interpreting Division, Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University

of Languages and International Studies, VNU Hanoi for providing me with an advantageous environment to gain useful knowledge and access materials about translalion studies

Noxt, I focl profoundly grateful to my supervisor, Assov Prof, Dr Lé Hing Tién, for his enthusiastic support and encouragement that helped me surmount difficulties

Without his valuable contributive advice, this study could not have been completed

Besides, my heartfelt thanks are given to my classmates from class QH2016D1 for standing by my side and urging me on throughout the research period I genuinely appreciate their support and constant encouragement

Also, [am much obliged to other fellow friends of mine Thanks to their positive

suggestions and encouragement, T could possibly gain greal inspirations Their provision

of rare and precious reference materials was real help to me

Ultimately, I am deeply indebted to my husband and my whole family for their wholehearted support, Thanks to them, 1 could maintain high motivation and study in

favorable conditions.

ABSTRACT

‘This research investigates the translation strategies and procedures applied to treat culture-specific items appearing in “The wind in the willows” by Kenneth Grahame

in its Vietnamese translations “Gid qua rang liéu” by Nguyén Tam (2006) and “Giỏ đúa

trong liéu” by Neuyén Thi Cam Linh (2017) To fulfil this aim, the mixed method is

adopled im this study The qualitalive melbod and quantitative calculations are used to process 171 culture-specific items identified from the 12 chapters of the source text and their translations in the target texts Based on the taxonomy of culture-specific items

synthe:

dl from different works, especially Espindola (2005) and the laxonomy of domesticating and foreignizing procedures following Aixela (2016), the study compares and contrasts the culture-specific ems in the source text with those in the target texts

and between the target texts themselves and describes the phenomenon of translation

practices with culture-specific items As a result, among 14 types of culture-specific items, food and drink, toponyms and ecology are the largest groups Next, loreignizalion

is more prevailing than domestication to treat 171 culture-specific items in both of the translations Intratextual gloss and linguistic (non-cultural) translation are the most dominant foreignizang procedures, and deletion and absolule universalivation are the most dominant domesticating procedures The procedures used to treat each type of

culture-specific items are also identified Most of food and drink items are foreignized

through linguistic (non-cultural) translation and ntratextual gloss Toponyms are frequently foreignized through repetition and extratextual gloss Ecological items are

mainly foreignized through linguistic (non-cultural) translation

ia

TABLE OF CONT!

2.1.2 Categorization of culture-specific items - - 8

2.1.2.6 Other theoretical frameworks of CSls in the 21* century

2.1.3.7 Taxonomy oŸ culture-speoific items adoptedl in this research 19 2:2 Domestieation and foroignization ccoeeseriresrrirrrrreosseues 2] 2.2.1 Concepts of domestication and foreipnization à.c con cseeeeeoeee 2] 2.2.2 Local procedures of damestication and foreignization of CSIs 23 2.2.2.1 Vinay and Darhelnet (1958) - - 2 3.2.3.3 Aixelá (1996) - - - - 25

2.2.2.3 Llervey and Lliggims (1992)

2.2.4, Bastin (in Baker, 1998)

2.2.5, Laviosa and Braithwaite (1998) .0

2.2.6 Harvey (2000) CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY,

3,3, Procedure of data collection

3.4, Proccdure of data analysis eo

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION,

Answer to research question 1: To what extent are the culture-specific items

domesticated and foreignized in the two Vietnamese translations “Gié qua ring én”

by Nguyên Tâm and “Gió dùa trong liễu” by Nguyễn Thị Cảm Tĩnh? 48

Answer Lo research question 2: Which domestieaien and [oreignization-onented procedures are the most dominant as the treatment of all the culture-specific items in

general and for each Lype of cullure-speeilic ilems in particular? 61

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS List of abbreviations

Table 1.1: Taxonomy of culture-specilic iterms by Aixcla (1996) 15

Table 1.2: Taxonomies of culture-specific items in the 21st century 18 Table 1.3: Taxonomy of culture-specific items synthesized in this

Table 4.1: Frequency and percentage of the overall sialegies of

domestication and forcigmzation applied in “Gié qua

rặng liễu” and “Giỏ đủa trong liễu” 55

‘Table 4.2: I'requeney of domestication and foreignization for each

Table 4.3: Frequency of domestication and foreignization-oriented

Table 4.4: Frequency of foreignization and domestication-oriented

vi

List of figures

Page Figure 1.1: Newmuark’s taxonomy of culture-specific items (1988) 12 Figure 1.2: Taxonomy ol’ culture-specilic items by Stemploski and

'Tomalin (1993) 15 Figure 1.3: Taxonomy of cullure-specifie lems by Davies (2003) 17 Figure 2.1: Aixela’s taxonomy of domestication and foreignization-

oriented procedures (1996) 26 Figure 2.2: Hervey and Higgins’s laxonomy of forcignizalion and

domestication procedures (1992) 30 Figure 2.3: Taxonomy of domestication and forcignization-onented

procedures adopted in this research based on the framework by Aixcld (1996) 38 Figure 4.1: Percentage of the types of culture-specifie items collected

from “The wind m the willows” 49 Figure 4.2: Percentage of foreignization and domestication-oriented

procedures used to treat the CSls 63 Figure 4.3; Percentage of forcignization and domestication-onented

Figure 4.4: Percentage of forcignization and domestivation-onented

procedures applied to treat C’SIs about food and drink 71 Figure 4.5: Percentage of foreignization and domestication-oriented

procedures applied to treat ecological CSIs 73

vũ

CUAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

‘This chapter makes the statement of the research problem and gives the rationale

of the study Besides, it presents the aims and objectives of the study, its

and its organization

1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

In the presem era of globalization and integration, translation has become increasingly significant in various arcas in countries aeross the world because iL is necessary for people to overcome the language barrier in order to successfully communicate with one another Translation has been defined over the past decades Aauong the carliest definitions, the oue proposed by Hartman and Stock (1972 - Cited

in Tidn & Bac, 2008) said that translation was the substitution of a source language unit with an equivalent target language wit Then, Larson (Cited in Tiến & Bắc, 2008)

defined tamslation as a procedure of three major steps of examming ST factors, grasping their meaning then and reconstructing it with TL units appropriate for the target culture

Tt conkd be seen that Larsen’s definition shows more imlerest im the maluralness of

translation In other werds, Larson's approach sccms more TL-oriented Besides, Munday (2001) considered translation as either “the general subject field, the product (he text that has been translated) or the process (the acl of producing the translation, otherwise known as translating)” (pp 4-5) Generally, there have been various definitions of translation, and each emphasizes different issues in translation Among them, there have been discussions about whether translation should be SL-oriented or

‘TL-oriented ‘Ihe task of translation has never been easy due to many factors including complicated cultural and linguistic factors among which are culture-specific items Concerning cultural translation, culture-specific items are embedded with very special connotation; therefore, the successful translation of one “cultural word” has never been

an easy task To deal with culure-specific words or phrases, there are two basic

strategies proposed by Vemuti (1995), Controversy surrounding domestication and

foreignization has been lasting for a long time (Yang, 2010) It is partly because this matter is related to ethic problems in translation Normally, the translator is supposed to

be faithful to the souree text; therefore, culture-specilic ilems are supposed lo be maintained as foreign as they are Attempts to make them become less strange to the largel readership may involve an omission, an addition or a change Besides, foreignization and domestication have their own merits and demerits, For example, when CSIs are foreignized, the translation may not be easy to understand, however, it brings the target readership a chance to know the souree culture Meanwhile, domestication could make it easier for the target readership to reader the translation; however, the opportunity for them to gain new knowledge about a different culture could

be missed

Internationally, there have been various studies on the same research problem Locally, there is a research gap in existing research As for the pair of English and Vietnamese, (ere has been a shiorlage of studies conducted in the same way as (ins research, Nguyén ‘hj Huong (2011) carried out a study named “Foreignization and domestication in Trinh Lu's Vietnamese translation af “Life of Pi" by Fann” The study cxamined a collection of 33 CSTs adopling lhe taxonomy of CSTs proposed by Fspindola (2006) and the framework of translation procedures by Kwiencinski (2001) and resulted

in the finding of the dominance of foreignization through the English-Viemamese translation In 2014, Duong Thi Ngoe Anh researched on the domestication and foreignization in the English-Vietnamese translation of “Let's pretend this never happened” by Jan Brenton in her bachclor thesis The study, combining different models of CSIs and translation procedures, focused not only on CSIs but also on other aspects including wordplay and syllables The result based on the analysis of 45 CSIs showed a similarity with the finding of the afore-mentioned research by Huong (2011) that foreignization occurred more frequently than domestication Apparently, CSls have gradually received more attention when in the following year Lã Thị Hồng Hải (2015) and Pham Thị Qu‡nh Anh (2015) both carried out studies on them despite their different

Ww

approaches Lai (2015) laid more emphasis on CSls together with idioms and colloquialisms Meanwhile, Anh (2015) concentrated on proper names The former research applying the theory offered by Venuli (1995) and Aixela (1997) displayed the result that most of the time, foreignization was adopted to treat CSIs but domestication was preferred by the translator to deal with idioms and colloquiaisms This research did not focus on discussing in detail procedures as the manifestation of domestication and foreignization The latter study centered around 109 proper names and disregard other lypes of CSTs The result showed bitle difference from the previons ones Accordingly, foreignization appeared to be dominant Recently, the prominent study related to the translation of culture-specific items conducted by Trigu Thu Hẳng (2019) điscusses the

translation quality assessment rather than the translation strategies, particularly

domestication and foreignization So far, there have been a considerable quantity of papers striving to explore the translation of CSIs, especially the domestication and foreignization strategies international, however, nationally, in Vietnam, this area has not attracted sufficient attention that it deserves A certain number of works have been implemented and showed a resemblance im the dominance of foreignivalion over domestication in the treatment of CSIs Nonetheless, they discover dissimilar aspects of CSls using various taxonomies and frameworks In addition, the size of their data is still modest, Therefore, no valid generalization has been made about the Ireatment ol CSIs

in Linglish- Vietnamese translation ‘This current situation sets a reasonable requirement

for Curthor research on this issue

This research will explore more about this phenomenon in the way of examining the translator's application of domestication and foreignization in translation, specifically translating a children’s navel as a novel written for children will necessarily use cither of the above strategies to deal with culture-specific items for children’s understanding.

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

‘The purpose of this research is to describe and explore the manifestation of

domestication and foreignization in the two Vietnamese translations of the English

children’s novel “he wind in the willows” by two translators Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Linh and Nguyên Tâm The research does not aim to assess the quality of the translations The major ann of the research is to identify the domestication and feigrnzaHon of culure-specific items appears in the novel for children l'o compare and contrast the

phenamenon in the two works done by two different translators to figure aut the way

they deal with culture-specilic items using the strategies, which, together with ofher and further research, contributes to the enablement of the suggested approaches to translating cullure-specific items as for the type of literalure for children To reach the above goals, the study will answer the following, questions:

1 To what extent are the culture-specific items domesticated and foreignized in

the to Vietrrsmese translations “Chó quá răng liểu” by Nguyên Tâm smd “Giỏ dùa trong

liễu” by Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Linh?

2 Which domestication and foreignization-oriented procedures are the most dominant as the treatment of all the cullure-specifie items in general and for cack type

of culture-specific items in particular?

1.3 Scope of the study

The study foouses on the field of culture-specific items and their translation slralogies of domestication and foreignization logether with local procedures Tis major aims to discover the overall strategies that translators have used to tackle those culture- specific items in English-Vietnamese translation to check whether foreignization or domestication is more prevalent The results can help discover a way to overcome possible translation difficulties encountered by translators, especially those lacking experience when dealing with CSIs

‘The subjects that are used in the research are the whole book “"he wind im the

willows” written by Kenneth Grahame and their Viewamese versions “Gié qua rang

” translated by Nguyén Tam (2006) and SGié dim trong du” translated by Nguyễn Thi Cam Linh (2017) The source text has a total of 12 chapters It retells a story of main characters whe are animals livimg in the context of the Greal Britain m somewhere

‘between the Victorian and Edwardian periods It is said that even though “The wind in the willows” is a children’s novel, it is suitable for the readers of different ages as well

Tn the Tntroduction of the novel 1iself writlen by the publisher Wordsworth Editions, il

is stated that “this one was about animals such as could be loved equally by young and old” (Grahame, 1993, p 7) The world of the animals in the story reflects much of the world of the British people at that time

‘The CSls taken from the Sil’ are mostly at the word or phrase level Rare cases

are in full sentences This is partly because this study has adopted a less linguistically

oriented approach, which often focuses on the analysis of syntactic, grammatical and other linguistic aspects of the CSIs, but a more culturally oriented approach based on the chosen framework of CST categorization adapted from different works, particularly Espindola (2005) and the theory of domestication and foreignization-oriented

procedures proposed by Aixeld (1996) There might be a variety of CSIs in the ST but

ouly potential CSIs fulfilling the defixitions and falling into the adopted taxenomy have been chosen ‘therefore, certain units such as idioms, metaphors, wordplays and so forth

are nol thơ [ocus of this study

Based on the research questions which have been raised in the previous part, the

study concentrates on the identification of the types of CSIs and the domestication and

foreignization-oriented overall strategies and local procedures to treat the whole range

of selected CSIs and each type of CSls ‘'he manner in which and the reason why the

translators have decided to adopt a certain procedure or follow either of the two

slralegies are not the goals of this study and are considered as lhe suggestions Cor further

study That means further research could be carried out to clarify how the translators

rendered the items or what steps they actually took to translate them and factors interfering in their translation process

1.4, Organization

‘The study has been organized into 5 chapters as following Chapter 1 - Introduction consists of the statement of the research problem, the rationale

of the study, the aims and objectives of the study, its significance and organisation

Chapter 2 - Titsrature review prescrs he theorclical background of the study, including the theory about definition, types and characteristics of Hnglish culture-specific items

and the translational theory which focuses on translation definition, culture-specific

tem translation difficulties and strategies

Chapter 3 - Methodology shows and justifies the rescarch methods, specifically research sampling, data collection and analysis procedures

Chapter 4 - Results and Discussion presents the research findings which respectively

CUAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, the theoretical background of the study, which includes the

definitions and categories of English cullure-specifie items and the Wanslational perspectives which emphasize the translation strategies and local procedures to treat cullure-specific items, is presented Tn olher words, the typical taxemomies of cullure- specific items and translation procedures, which arc oriented towards foreignization and

domestication, are displayed, analyzed and synthesized to build the theoretical

frameworks

2.1, Culture-specific items

In the ficld of translation, culture-specific items aro undeniably important and interesting ‘hey are so highly concerned that many studies have researched on them in terms of their definition and categorization A variety of culture-specific items are popular in texts, especially literary works ‘They reflect certain aspects of the native

culture mentioned in the work

2.1.1 Definition of culture-specific items

When discussing translation and culture in “A textbook of translation” published

in 1988, Poler Newmark agrees that culture is suggestive of “the way of life and its

manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its

means of expression.” He proposed different concepts about language, which includes

“cultural” and “universal” to help distinguish cultural manifestations In his viewpoint,

he saw no translation challenge in translating, universals Translation issues would rise

in processing cultural words “unless there is cultural overlap between the source and the target language (and its readership)” (p 94) Vollowing his proposal of cultural words versus universal words, Peter Newmark also expressed his ideas which signifies that dialect words are nol viewed as cultural words il they represent universals rather than those carrying cultural connotations Besides, he also touched upon the concept of

“cultural focus”, which is “when a speech community focuses its attention on a

particular topic” (p 94), leading to the development of a multitude of terminology

Culural focus usually govs hand in hand with (ranslalion challenges duc to cultural gap,

which is also called cultural distance between SL and TL Together with his definition

of cultural words, Newmark also discusses [hai language is nol considered a component

of culture but it contains “all kinds of cultural deposits” from the grammar, ways of

address to the lexis ““The more specific a language becomes for natural phenomena (e.g

Nora and fauna) the more iL becomes embedded im cultural features, and therefore creates

translation problems” (p 95) Cultural words are detectable because they cannot be translated directly in a literal way, which cannot transfer the meaning properly, even in case of cultural customs depicted in ordinary language Peter Newmark also pomts out that cultural objects may consist of “a relatively culture-free generic term or classifier”

and “various additions in different cultures” In addition, his study also presents the idea

that cultural words are “always less context-bound than ordinary language” (p 96)

According to Mustafar (2018), regarding their definition, CSIs belong to the terminology of the ST and are related to the SC Tt poses a difficulty to translate thom due to the differences in content, subject matter, system from the ‘I’! and ‘IC, whieh results in the lack of translation equivalents

2.1.2 Categorization of culture-specific items

animals, names of objects; geographical names; and weight and measures To be

more specific, literary references refer to those about characters and incidents in

literary productions as well as titles of literary writings and other publications In

addition, they could be loanwords from other languages bul not necessarily from the source language According to Klingberg, those languages could be either imagined or unitagined The familiarity of literary terms and the status of publication titles help the translator make decision on appropriate translation procedures to deal with thom

Foreign language occurring in the ST should be regarded in this manner as well The

similarily and dissimilarity of the [orsign language happening in (he ST 1o the target readership should be major factors for the translator to opt for a translation procedure

Culnral references relevant to mythology and popular belief include

“supernatural beings, concepts, events, and customs” (Dukmak, 2012, p 70} There are

some special cases which could occur to the cultural references of this kind ‘I'hese terms

could have equivalents in the TL, or they could convey a unique sense in the SL which

is confusing to the ‘I'L readership In another case, the words could be coined by the S'I writer Besides, cultural words belong to this type could be unknown to the majority of people m the TC They wight be familar ideas to the ST readership but not the TL

readership Eventually, cultural words of this category could originate from another

language with a form resembling to some extent to the form of the TL terms

Culuure-specilic items about historical, religious and political background pose a translation issue which is closely related to the research objectives of this study which is about translation stralogies of domesticaton and forcignizalion duc to possible

“different religious faiths and customs” and “difficulties arising from dealing with

political references” (Dukmak, 2012, p 72) Buildings, home furnishing and food are

of great attraction to readers particularly children According to Klingberg (Cited in

Dukmak, 2012, p.73), “children are imerested in the detailed description of food in literature” as well as “what children eat and drink ina different culture” Customs and

practice, play and games of the SC which are [orcign lo or differen [ram the TC also

cause translation challenges, in which the translator possibly needs to think about

suitable translation strategies to treat them properly

Regarding Mera and fauna, translation issues arise when there is ne name

referring to wees, flowers, bushes and creatures in the TC Besides, when the SL names

of plants and animals could make mention of multiple species in the SC The category

of personal names, titles, names of domestic animals and names of objects reccived

great concentration from Klingberg Persanal names are subdivided into five smaller

groups The first group centers around “personal names belonging to everyday language”, which do not bear any particular meanings such as the names “Andrew,

Matthew, Priscilla and Esme” in Joan G Robinson's When Mamie Was There (1967)

(Dukmak, 2012, p 75) Next, it is about “personal names belongmg to everyday language, the meaning of which has been utilized by the author in a way not intelligible

to the readers of the target text” such as “the name “Goodenough” from The Borrowers Afield (1995) by Mary Norton” (Dukmak, 2012, p 75} ‘Ihe third type is comprised of

“personal names not belonging to everyday language and with a meaning, essential for

the understanding’, which are said nol be popular nowadays any longer and could be illustrated by “Jenny Peace, Dolly Friendly, and Luey Sly” (Dulanak, 2012, p 75) In addition to the three previous subcategories of personal names, the fourth subdivision is

made up of “licutious personal names with a special melodious ring” as illustraled by

“Mumintrollet, Snorkarna and Snusmumriken from The linn Mamily Adoomintroll (1984) by Tove Janson” (Dukmak, 2012, p 75) Lastly, the other fiflh subdivision 1s

composed of “personal names which are loans from a primary language” (Dukmak,

2012, p 76) The primary language mentioned here could be either a fictitious primary langnage or a real one A fictious primary language means that the primary language might originate from a mythical nation such as the name “Zardeenah’ in ‘I'he Lorse and his Boy by C S Lewis (Dukmak 2012, p 76) With regard to titles, there are familiar

English tiles such as “Mr., Mrs., and Miss” and also mythical titles such as “Tisroe’ as

“the title of the ruler of “Calormen’ in The Horse and his Bay” (Dukmak, 2012, p 76)

10

With reference to names of domestic animals, they are supposed to be coped with in the same manner as personal names However, in several cases, names of domestic animals could carry “a deseriplive meaning” which might require banslalion or explanation (Dukmak, 2012, p 76) For instance, ““‘a dog called “Scamp” and a horse called

“Prince”” are the examples of names with descriptive meanings (Dukmak, 2012, p 76) Names of ebjects melude names of boats and could bear a particular meaning in them such as “The Adventure” appearing “in the English Finn Family Moomintroll” (Dukmak, 2012, p 77) Another major category in the framework of cultural references

by Klingberg in 1986 is geographical names As regards geographical names such as

“Thames”, “Fosse Way”, Klingberg’s viewpoint is that their “standard forms” could

exist in the target language or not (p 77) They could include “a common noun” in them,

In some cases, geographic names could become ambiguous to understand for the target

readership The final significant category in the framework of cultural references

proposed by Klingberg is weights and measures ‘Iranslation matters can arise when non-metric measures such as “mile” occur in the source texts For some languages there

is no equivalents for such non-metric micasures im the largel language Pertaming lo currency, several foreign currencies could pose translation challenges such as “half-

crown” (p 78) Unfixed exchange rates are a matter to consider when dealing with

currency translation

2.1.2.2, Newmark (1988)

‘Together with his proposed definition of cultwal words, Newmark (1988) suggests the categorization of cultural words into five major groups comprising of Ecology; Material culture (artefacts), Social culture — work and leikure;

Organisations, customs, activities, procedures, concepts; Gestures and habits

11

Figure 1.1: Newmark’s taxonomy of culture-specific items (1988)

Firstly, as for Ecology, cultural words belonging to this type are geographical features

which “are usually value-free, politically and commercially”, according to the Newmark

(1988, p The popularity of ecological words is affected by “the importance of their country of origin and their degree of specificity”, which could contribute to whether

they could be considered cultural words or not “The importance, and geographical and

political proximity of their countries” can increase or decrease the familiarity of cultural

local words Several ecological features can “become more or less a lexical item in the

‘importing’ TL” if they are commercially significant Furthermore, a couple of

ecological features may not be interpreted “denotatively or figuratively, in translation”

in the places where those ecological features “are irregular or unknown” (Newmark,

1988, pp 96-97) As proposed by Newmark, “the species of flora and fauna are local and cultural, and are not translated unless they appear in the SL and TL environment”

(Newmark, 1988, p 97), When they are used in a technical manner, terms describing

12

“botanical and zoological classifications” could be considered as an international

language Next, about Material culture (artefacts), Newmark has clarified material

culture into stualler subcalegories such as food, clothes, houses, transport and flora and

fauna Regarding food, according to Newmark (1988), “food is for many the most

sensitive and imporlanl expression of nalional culture” (p 97) In English, foreign food

terms such as Italian and Greck torms, particularly French words, could appear in

different settings including menus, cookbooks, food guides, tourist brochures,

journalism Those food terms require the translator to decide appropriale translation procedures to resolve the translation issue, which is the cultural aspects of those terms Clothes are another potential culture-bound case In English, many words referring to women’s elothes are French At the same time there arc many national costumes typical for each country worldwide ‘!hey may require the translator to explain for ‘I'L readers

or to use generic nouns or some classifiers, or even replace the cultural clothes-relevant

terms Similar to food and clothes, “many language communities have a typical house which for general purposes remains untranslated” (Newmark, 1988, p 98) as well as different parts of the houses coukl be cultural words As for transport, there are many neologisms, vogue-words as well as anglicisms created by imovations together with

commercialization _In his work, it is also noted that different carriage terms could

produce local color, However, nowadays, many lors related to transport such as cars and planes are near-intemationalisms, probably for the educated laymen Concerning the division of social culture, which centers around work and leisure (erms, i is essential to figure out the denotative and connotative meaning of the terms Several expressions could pose translation challenges, which are “the connotative difficulties of

words” (Newmark, 1988, p 98) Terms about working classes could be used for a

particular purpose As for entertainment, oulture-specific items include “national games with their lexical sets”, several non-team games, card-games or gambling games (Newmark, 1988, p 99) About the caloyory of urganisations, customs, activities,

procedures, concepts, Newmark (1988) emphasizes terms reflecting the political

13

aspects, social features of a country his major category contains institutional terms

such as “the title of a head of state”, “the name of a parliament”, government-relevant

lemms, ministries, parlies, a public body, national orgatisations, government posts, political concepts Terms falling into this category could be historical institutional terms,

imfernalional institutional terms, religious terms, artistic terms including “names of

buildings, muscums, theatres, opera houses” and so forth (Newmark, 1988, p 99)

Newmark recommends considering transference or naturalization with description

depending on (he educalional lovel of TL readership and the universality of Ihe terms

‘The final group of cultural words are associated with gestures and habits Some gestures and habits, which are “often desoribed in non-cultural language” exist in several

cultures but notin other ones, or some occur in different cultures with different mearungs

(Newmark, 1988, p 103); therefore, in situations with ambiguity, the translator needs to

distinguish between the description and the function of the gestures and habits,

especially the ‘IL readership and settings for the most satisfactory translation

2.1.2.3, Stempleski and Tomalin (1993) Krom a pedagogical approach to teaching culture, in their work named “Culture awareness” first published in 1993, Stempleski and Tomalin reviewed “achievement culture” and “behaviour culture”, which respectively foregrounds “clements of British and American culture - history, geography, institutions, literature, art and music and the way of life” and “cullurally-influenced belie(s and perceptions, especially as expressed through language, but also through cultural behavious” (p 6) The categorization adopted by Stempleski and Tomalin (1993) is manifested through the diagram below

14

Figure 1.2: Taxonomy of culture-specific items by Stempleski and Tomalin (1993)

2.1.2.4 Aixelá (1996)

In 1996, Aixela proposed another theoretical framework of culture-specific

items, which appears to be succinct, from the translator’s perspective In Aixela’s

arrangement based on Theo Herman’s differentiation proposed in 1985, culture-specific items are divided into two fundamental groups, which are proper nouns and common

expressions

Conventional names and loaded names

Objects, institutions, habits, opinions restricted to culture

Table 1.1: Taxonomy of culture-specific items by Aixela (1996)

In details, proper names are classified into two categories, which are conventional

names carrying no meaning and loaded names Conventional names include “important

toponyms, historical fictional or non-fictional names like saints, kings, etc.” (p 60)

15

Loaded names are literary ones, which “range from faintly “suggestive” to overtly

“expressive” names and nicknames” (p 59) Loaded names subsume fictional or non- fictional ones connected with hislory or cullure As regards Lo the other group of culture- specific items, common expressions incorporate “the world of objects, institutions, habits and options restricted to each culture and thal eannot be included m the field of propor names” (Aixela, 1996, p 59) According to Aixclé (1996), culture-specitic items

pertaining to this group are of more considerable perplexity with “supratextual, textual

or intralextuat factors” (p 60)

2.1.2.5 Davies (2003)

In her commonly cited work named “A goblin or dirty nose? ‘Ihe treatment of culture-specific references in translations of the Harry Potter bocks” published in “The Translator” in: 2003, Eirlys F Davies proposed her distinction of cullure-specifie items

in an alternative approach to this translation issue, which shows a wider perspective (Dukmak, 2012) The culture-specific items in her research gathered from Harry Potter books were categorized into “networks of culture-specific items” (Dukmak, 2012, p 79), Davies (as cited in Dukmak 2012) did not cope with culture-specitic items singly

bul paid more attention to “thew global effect of the whole text” (p 79)

l6

Figure 1.3: Taxonomy of culture-specific items by Davies (2003)

The first network embodies items which are illustrative of the British features of the

setting such as “food, traditions and school customs” (p 79) Apart from references to

“realistic background” of Harry Potter books, with respect to the second network of

culture-specific items, it contains literary expressions, wordplay such as “puns (e.g

Diagon Alley, Floo powder), anagrams (e.g Erised, Tom Marvolo Riddle rearranged

into I am lord Voldemort), evocative acronyms (S.P.E.W., N.E.W.T.S.) and sound

patterns (Moaning Myrtle, Rita Skeeter)”, proper names, fictional toponyms and non-

fictional place names (Dukmak, p 83)

2.1.2.6 Other theoretical frameworks of CSIs in the 21" century

The 21* century has witnessed continued interests in matters about culture-

specific items There have been a variety of studies, which have adopted the theories of

distinguished scholars in the previous time and proposed different models of the

categories of culture-specific items The following table shows several representative

theoretical frameworks by way of illustration

17

CSIs by

1 Toponyms 1 Toponyme 1 Toponym | 1 Toponyms

2 Anthroponyms 2 Anthroponyms 2 Anthroponym 2 Anthroponyms

3 Forms of entertainment | 3, Forms of entertainment | 3 Food and dink 3 Forms of entertainment

4 Means of transportation | 4 Means of transportation | 4 Measwing system 4 Means of transportation

S Fictional character ‘Fictional character $ Means of transportation _ | 5 Fictional character

6 Brazilian legal system | 6 Legal system 6 Dialect 6 Local institution

7 Local institution 7 Local institution 7 Date 7 Measuring system

8 Measuring system 8 Measuring system 8 Costume and clothes | 8 Food and drink

9 Food and dink 9 Food and chink 9 Fictional character 9 Scholastic reference

10, Scholasticreference | 10, Scholastic reference 10, Form of entertainment | 10 Religious cetebration

11 Religious celebration | 11 Religious celebration | 11 Idiom

12 Dialect 12 Dialect

Table 1.2: Taxonomies of culture-specific items in the 21" century

As Espindola in 2005 independently and in 2006 and 2011 in collaboration with her research fellows undertook different research studies on the translation of subtitles in the field of audiovisual or multimedia translation, the framework of a total of 12 types

of culture-specific items was adopted Among those culture-specific item categories, toponyms pertain to the proper names of locations, geographical zones, or sections of the terrestrial sphere or their natural and non-natural attributes Connected with anthroponyms, they signify the names of average or widely-publicized people or the nicknames given to them and names indicating regional background and enabling the establishment of identity Another type of cultur

specific items, forms of

entertainment, concerns multifarious forms of recreation, which could be demonstrated

by recitals, with their offered services such as receptions, banquets and business meals

One further type of culture-specific items in this framework is means of transportation,

which relate to the modes of carrying passengers and transferring freight With respect

18

to fictional character, this subdivision subsumes fanciful people in literary works and

tales or fictitious roles in movies What is more, legal system means indispensable or

obligalory comporlmont, regulalions in the seciely of human beings Among the categories of culture-specific items in the madel which Espindola first proposed in 2005,

local institution is manifested as associations, federations, imslitulions which focus on

tackling issues concerning different aspects such as politics, rohgions, education,

administration and health, Next, measuring system is an additional type which

incorporates unils ol “the size, weight, specd, length” and so forth (Espindola, 2005, p

20), ‘Ihe category of food and drink covers items belong to the source of sustenance

Scholastic references are cultural items connected with schools, learning and education Concerned with religious celebration, this subdivision involves spiritual

events, holy incidents, sacred occurrences or divine gatherings and activities ‘Ihe final

category is dialects which Espindola adopted the definition Halliday (1978) offered to

explain As stated by Halliday, dialects signify “user-related variation, which determines speakers’ status as regards social class, age, sex, education, etc.” (Lispindola, 2015, p

20) The framework proposed by Fspindola appears lo be inclusive and comprehensive

1n 2009, Firooskoohi and Zare-Behtash put forward the model of eleven culture-specific

items, eight of which resemble the types in Espindola’s frame They added date, costume

and clothes and idiom and omitted legal system, local ustituion, scholastie reference

and religious celebration

2.1.2.7 Taxonomy of culture-specific items adopted in this research

Based on the taxonomies of culture-specific items proposed by scholars through

lime, this rescarch has adopted the [following taxonomy of CSTs

19

Measuring system and currencies

Food and drink

Costume and clothes

Ecology

10 Scholastic references

11 Buildings and home furnishings

12 Fictional characters, mythological,

religious, literary references,

beliefs, values, customs,

traditions, habits

13 Legal system, local institutions, military, historical and political

references, organizations

14 Others (dialects, idioms,

wordplays, sound patterns,

acronyms, foreign language in the

ST, dates, work, gestures,

Table 1.3: Taxonomy of culture-specific items synthesized in this research

The chosen taxonomy has been built on the foundation of the earlier frameworks,

notably the models proffered in the 21* century by Espindola in 2005, 2006 and 2011

for their meticulousness It is the synthesis of the reviewed taxonomies The integration

of the taxonomies via the identification of their similarities and differences has

facilitated the establishment of the adopted taxonomy with greater particularity and

thoroughness The models do not apply the classification of CSIs into a few large groups such as material culture and social culture as in Newmark’s taxonomy in 1988 or into

divisions such as products or behaviors as in Tomalin and Stempleski (1993) The

arrangement of CSIs into two wide groups including proper names and common

expressions by Aixela (1996) is rather over-general when common expressions may

include miscellaneous items

The synthesized taxonomy comprised of 14 distinct categories and another kind

including assorted subtypes which could not be classified into the other 14 well-defined

categories and which are basically not targeted items of this research such as dialects,

20

idioms, wordplays, dates They are not fooused on as this researoh does not intend to

analyze the CSIs from a linguistic approach by concentrating on the linguistic features

and origins of” cullure-bound idioms, proverbs, fixed expressions or wordplays Furthermore, the majority of those items such as foreign language in the ST in the taxonomy by Klingberg (1986) im nature would refer to a concrete object or a certain intangible concept or phenomenon belonging te one of the other 14 categories What is

more, items including dates and gestures are less expected to ocour highly frequently in

the chosen sourve texl and largel (exis via [he researcher's general readings for pleasure

before selecting the works as the sources of data for this researcli Besides, as mentioned above, because this research takes an approach towards cultural items and the treatment

of those items in translation rather than linguistic features of item and the SL, ether

textual items including metaphors and syntax are not taken into consideration in the

taxonomy adopted by this research

All in all, the laxonomy with 14 categories as displayed visually in the table above is quite inclusive since it includes seemingly all types proposed in the reviewed theoretical frameworks by the scholars With its high thoroughness and particularity, the laxonomy 1s employed as Ihe key Framework to identify and calcgorzing cuHure- specific items occurring in “The wind in the willows” by Kenneth Grahame and its two Vietnamese translations, “Gié qua rang lid” translated by Nguyén Tam and “Gió đùa trong liễu” translated by Nguyễn Thị Cảm Linh

2.2, Domestication and forcignization

2.2.1, Concepts of domestication and foreignization

The translation of CSIs has caused a challenging task and controversial matters for translation researchers and practitioners and those who work in relevant areas ‘The translation of culture-specific items (CSIs) can present real difficulties for translators from different perspectives According to Aguilera (2008) and Toury (1980) as cited im ALRikaby, Mahadi, Lin and Tan (2018), “First, culture-bound terms, at the text level

21

such as social terms, rhetorical devices and genre-specific norms, tend to be tackled

within the frameworks of contrastive rhetoric and contrastive pragmatics drawing on

pragmatics and discourse theories such as deixis, presupposilions, implicatures and coherence And according to [lolmes (1988) as cited in Al-Rikaby, Mahadi, Lin and Tan

(2018), “cullure-bound Lerms al the lexical and semantic levels such as those relating lo customs, traditions, attires and cuisines are often dealt with within the taxonomies of cultural categories.” This research has laid emphasis on the CSIs collected from the

Brilish novel “The wind in the willows” at the lexical and semantic levels and focused

ou the treatments for them based on the theory of domestication and foreignization through the two Vietnamese translations

In the ficld of translation, there are two major opposite trends of the translation

of CSls One conviction is that CSIs should be remained in the translations so that the

source culture can be exposed to the target readers On the other hand, some hold the

view that CSIs should be translated in a way that the target readers do not have to struggle to understand the difference between the saurce culture and the target culture The former refers to the translation strategy known as foreignizalion while the latter refers to the opposite translation strategy called domestication ‘hey are two major

options frequently chosen to deal with culture-specific items in translation

As slaled by Firoozkouln and Zare-Behtash (2009), it was Lawrence Veruli who

coined and first used the terms “domesticating” and “foreignizing” as translation

methods (p 1577) However, it was also claimed im thew work that the concepts of

domestication and foreignization were previously mentioned by Schleiermarcher, who was a German philosopher The concepts originated from the philosopher’s talk in 1813 Touching translation strategies, one of the most fundamental and highly-concerned issues, Schleiermarcher admitted only domestication and foreignization as the sole methods a translator could select to employ in the translation process Back to that time,

as regards domeslicalion, (he method was descnbed as the manner in which the

translator facilitates the reader’s reading process by making the author’s writing more

22,

reader-friendly In contrast, the adoption of foreignization is when the translator does

not impinge upon the author’s side Accordingly, with respect to foreignization, the

reader nevilably makes more efforts to construc what is read without the translator’s

interference which happens when domestication is employed As believed by Schleiermarcher, the method of domesticaling represents “an ethnocertric reduction of the forcign text to targct-language cultural values” while the other method of

foreignizing represents “an ethnodeviant pressure on those values to register the

linguistic and cultural differences of foreign text” (as cited im Firoozkoobi & Zare- Betash, 2009, p 1577) It is also maintained that it is the translator who should demonstrate preference for source culture over target culture make selection for foreignization or it could work contrariwise In addition, the degree of forcignization

and domestication depends on the translator as the decision maker In domestication, the

translation complies with the usual and comprehensible forms and styles of the target

language without foreign peculiarity for the comfort of the readership of the target text Meanwhile, foreignization enables the translation to maintain the disparities between the source culture and targel culture, henec the translation can reserve the oddity and

break the rules and norms of the target text and culture

2.2.2, Local procedures of domestication and foreignization of CSIs

Over the course of translation history, there have been a multitude of scholarly allenmpla (o approach the CSIs applying the theory of demeaticalion and foreignization

as the treatments for those cultural references, As the result, several frameworks of more specific procedures belonging to the two major strategies of domestication and

foreignization to address and handle different categories of CSTs have been developed

2.2.2.1, Vinay and Darbclnet (1958)

Virst and foremost, Vinay and Darbelnet (cited in Munday, 2001) proposed the

system of two general translation strategies called “direct translation and oblique

23

translation” (p 56), in which direct translation refers to the literal translation and

oblique translation is synonymous with free translation The two apposite translation

strategies are divided into sub-components, which are seven translation procedures Three translation procedures belong to the group of direct translation are borrowing,

calque and literal translation Meanwhile, four procedures under the group of oblique

translation arc transposition, modulation, equivalence and adaptation In detail,

borrowing is the transference of SL words to the TL text Calque is considered to be a

unique form of the borrowing procedure, in which (he ST untils are moved info a literal translation Borrowed and loan words tend to fully incorporate into the target language

In several cases if their meaning changes, false friends can ocour in the pair of SL and

TL According to Vinay and Darbelnet in the work by Munday (2001 ), beside borrowing and calque, literal translation is the other procedure belonging to the group of direct

translation, which is equivalent to foreignization Literal translation in their definition is

“word-for-word translation”, which is the “most common between languages of the same family and culture” (p 57) When literal translation appears to be unfeasible due tothe toss or change of meaning or “structural and melalinguistic requirements”, oblique translation, which includes the procedures demonstrating domestication, could be

applied (p $7)

Among four procedures categorized into the indirect translation strategy, transposition invelyes “a change of one part of speech for another without changing the sense” (p 57) In Vinay and Darbelnet’s view, transposition is “the most common structural change undertaken by translators” (Munday, 2001, p 57)

Example:

ST: He is an excellent laiker

TT: Hain la ké ndi nang gide hoat

Medulation is not oriented to structural variation but the alteration in “semantics and

point of view of the SL” (Munday, p 57) In some situations, a literal translation is still acecplable as regards grammatical aspecls, nevertheless, it may sound unidiomatic and

24

rather perplexing, The applieation of modulation in translation eould reduee possible unnaturalness The sub-categories of modulation are “abstract for concrete, cause-effect,

parl-whole, parl-another part, reversal of Lerms, negalion of opposile, active to passive

(and vice versa), space for time, rethinking of intervals and limits (in space and time), change of symbols (including fixed and new metaphors)” (Munday, p 58)

Example: ST: To cost an arm and a leg - TT: Pat cat ed

Next, equivalence is popularly employed in the translation of idioms and proverbs, in which the Sand I'l would adopt dissimilar styles and structures to convey the message

or the sense Besides, Vinay and Darbelnet (1958) also introduced adaptation, which is the [inal procedure belonging to the group of domesticalion-oriented procedures, in their taxonomy of translation procedures Adaptation could be used when there is a gap between the SC and TC A cullure-specific item appearing in the ST could he altered into another reference

‘This taxonomy has become popular, however, still, it adopts more of a linguistic approach For instance, transposition emphasizes on the part of speech of cultural items and considers the structural alteration in their translated versions The grammatical

aspect is highly stressed for this procedure Modulation is also a case in point

Modulation is illustrated by porspective dillerences but tls sublypes also iticlude the

change from passive voice into active voice, which is still about grammatical features

2.2.2.2 Aixelá (1996)

One of the best-known and influential works centering around the two translation

stralogies of domosticalion and [orgignizalion is the taxenomy including cleven procedures, which were proposed by Aixeld in 1996 In his view, his proposed categorization scale of translation procedures to treat CSIs was methodologically useful, allhiough there could presumably be “border cases of fuzzy or overlapping nature” ¢p

60) Ihe translator could combine various translation procedures to treat identifiable

CSIs in the same TT, which seems reasonably practicable Aixela looked at the

2

“conservative or substitutive nature” of the translation sub-strategies of domestication

and foreignization (p 61) In other words, the group of foreignization-oriented

procedures enables the conservation of the original references in the ST Meanwhile, the

group of domestication-oriented procedures results in the substitution of the CSIs in the

ST by items which are closer to the TC This scale proposed by Aixela, “from a lesser

to a greater degree of intercultural manipulation”, consists of conservative procedures,

illustrated by repetition, orthographic adaptation, linguistic (non-cultural)

translation, extratextual gloss and intratextual gloss, and substitutive procedures,

exemplified by synonymy, limited universalization, absolute universalization,

naturalization, deletion and autonomous creation (p 61) The scale is visualized by

the following figure

Figure 2.1: Aixela’s taxonomy of domestication and foreignization-oriented

procedures (1996)

In detail, among foreignization-oriented procedures or conservative procedures,

repetition is considered the most extreme Adopting this procedure, the translator

26

conserves the CSIs in the SI to a maximum, which possibly intensifies the foreignness

or peculiarity of CSIs to the TL readers The alien “linguistic form and cultural distance”

of the CSTs may decrease the accessibilily of the TT bul could make the TT readers be

aware of culture differences (p 61) That the majority of toponyms, or place names, are transferred into the TT without translation can epitomize the deployment of repetition,

As for orthographic adaptation, there arc sub-procedures such as “transcription and

transliteration” fp 61) According to the study, orthographic adaptation is adopted when

the source CSIs are writlen in an alphabet which is disparale in comparison with the onc

of the IL In this day and age, orthographic adaptation is applied in translation if there

is a presence of CSIs belonging to third cultures, which means those references do not originally derrve from the SL and obviously not from the TL cither

Lxample: ST: Gethie - I'l: Gé-tich

As regards linguistic (non-cultural) translation, the translator opts for a TL reference whose denotation is remarkably close to the source item and through which the aspect

of the SC is still idemtfiable Linguistic (non-cultural) translation is frequently adopted

to deal with “ums of measure and currencies” or “objects and insGtutions which arc

alien to the receiving culture but understandable because analogous and even

homologous to the native ones” (p 62) In connection with extratextual gloss, this

procedure is the application of the aforesaid procedures Logether with the clarilicalion and explanation of the CSls in terms of their meaning or any possible implications in the forms of “footnote, endnote, glossary, commentary / translation in brackets, in italics” (p 62) ‘he so-called untranslatable CSIs, including “quotations in third languages [ ] to offer data about famaus people and to explain puns” are reportedly treated in this manner (p 62) The other sub-strategy in the category of foreignization-

oriented or conservative procedures is intratextual gloss Intratextual gloss bears a

similarity to extratextual gloss in that the translators offer a further explanation in addition to applying (he above procedises, which are repelition, orlhographic adaptation

and linguistic (non-cultural) translation to treat CSIs, however, the explanation is

27

integrated into the main I'l “as an indistinct part of the text, usually so as not to disturb the reader’s attention” (p 62) The CSIs which are not fully expressed in the ST or allered by a pronoun can become explien by way ol’ intralextual gloss

Example: ST: Buggin's - TT: Llding Buggins

Concerning domestication-oriented procedures in the framework proposed by Aixelé in 1996, there are six procedures which are synonymy, limited universalization, absolute universalization, naturalization, deletion and autonomous creation First, applying synonymy, the iranslator uses 2 “parallel reference lo avoid repealing the culture-specific item” (p 63) This procedure was illustrated by the translation of the CSI “Barcadi” in the ST in English into “libation of the delicious liquor of sugar cane”

in the TT in Spanish and into a Spanish word meaning “rum” to avoid the repetition of

“Bacardi” in the I'l in Spanish (p 63) Next, limited universalization is adopted when the CSI appears to be too alien and obscure for the readers of the TT to interpret and is resultingly replaced by the translator with nother $1 which still represents the SC but

is more accessible “for the sake of credibility” (p 63) This procedure was exemplified

by the Fnglish-Sp ish translation of “an American football” into “a ball of rugby” or

“five grand” into “five thousand dollars” (Aixela, 1996, p 63) Meanwhile, absolute

universalization is the procedure in which the translators decide to eliminate any strange connotalions and “choose a neulral reference Lor thew readers” instead of “a

better known CSI” as in limited universalization (p 63) By way of illustration, the

English word “comed bee!, which is a CST of SC in the English-Spanish translation

example shown by Aixelé (1996), was translated into a neutral reference in Spanish

which means “slices of ham”, which carries no obvious foreign connotations for Spanish

readers Another instance is the English word “a Chesterfield” was rendered into a neutral Spanish word which simply means “a sofa” (p 63) Both limited universalization

and absolute universalization are the procedures which are chosen by virtue of

eredibilily Inrelation to naturalix:

felt as specific by the target language culture” (p 63) According to Aixelé (1996), this

lion, the CSTs are added into “the intertextual corpus

28

procedure does not prove applicable broadly in literature, apart from children’s literature

though there has been a tendency for the translators to shun the employment of

naturalivation im their translation of children’s literature Nalurahvation should be

distinguished from linguistic (non-cultural) translation, which is a procedure belonging

to the category of foreignizalion im that the former involves a “cultural substitution”

while through the latter the translated references still reflcet the aspects of SC (p 64)

Example: ST: A đozen - TT: Một chục

Another procedure which is typical of domestication is deletion Tn this procedure, the CSls are omitted in the I'L translation ‘fhe employment of deletion is not widely acknowledged by translation theorists and is normally not recommended for translation practitioners on account of work othic Nonetheless, in practice, deletion is not infrequently applied According to Aixela (1996), what lies at the root of the choice of

deletion includes the inappropriateness of the CSIs with regard to the ideology and style

of the TƠ and ‘IL, the excessive obscurity of the CSls and the inapplicability of other procedures such as the foreignization-oriented procedures such as intratextual gloss and extralextual gloss due to the immer or outer factors such as the translalor’s personal decision or the prohibition of the publishing house Ihe final domestication-oriented

procedure in Aixelé’s taxonomy is autonomous creation Aixelé assumed that

autonomous crealion is “a very litlle-used strategy im which the Lranslators decide | |

to put in some nonexistent cultural reference in the source text” (p 64) ‘The procedure was said to be most [requently applied in the tamslation of movie lilles as for Frglish- Spanish translation,

The approach to the treatment of CSIs that the taxonomy displays does not place heavy emphasis on the linguistic characteristics of the items but it adopts a theoretical position more on culture and translation procedures

2.2.2.3 Hervey and Higgins (1992)

Next, one taxonomy, which dates back to 1992, was proposed by Hervey and

Higgins Discussing cultural matters in translation, they introduced a general term,

“cultural transposition”, to refer to “the various degrees of departure from literal

translation that one may resort to in the process of transferring the content of a ST into the context of a target culture” (p 28) According to Hervey and Higgins (1992), “any

degree of cultural transposition involves the choice of features indigenous to the TL and

the TC in preference to features with their roots in the SC” so as to decrease the SL-

specific characteristics in the TT to a minimum and to boost the naturalness of the TT

(p 28) The aforesaid five-point scale ranges from exoticism to cultural

transplantation Between the two extremes of the scale, the other three procedures are

cultural borrowing, calque and communicative translation The scale can be visually

represented in the Figure 2.1 beneath

Figure 2.2: Hervey and Higgins’s taxonomy of foreignization and domestication

procedures (1992)

The translation which lays emphasis on “cultural foreignness in a TT” represents

exoticism (p 30), Adopting this procedure, the translator maintains the linguistic and cultural attributes of the SL in the TT without much modification, which results in that the unfamiliarity of the SC is clearly indicated in the TT Meanwhile, the other extreme

30

called cultural transplantation is described as a procedure “resulting in the text being

completely rewritten in an indigenous target culture setting” (p 30) According to

Hervey and Higgins, the two extremes are nol normal translation practice These

categories should be avoided by the utilization of the other three altematives in between

To regard 10 cultural borrowing, when the use of exact TT, equivalents or appropriale

TL expressions to translate SL words 1s unworkable, onc solution is “te transfer a ST

expression verbatim into the TT” (p 31) In addition to cultural borrowing, in the theory

suggested by Hervey and Higgins, communicative transtation is an allernative way to handle the translation of CSls ‘This procedure focuses on the dealing with set phrases, idioms or proverbs It is defined as the use of “a TL expression standard for an equivalent

target culture situation m the TT” to translate “a SL expression standard for that

situation” (p 21) Despite the differences between the SC and the IC, the

communicative equivalents of a variety of SL fixed phrases such as proverbs, idioms

and clichés are readily available in the ‘IL ‘lo ensure the stylistic effect which is brought tothe ST by those set phrases, identifiable corresponding TL set phrases are easily opted for by the translator Nevertheless, there are arguably a plethora of SI set phrases, the communicative equivalents of which are hardiy distinguishable I'o respond to sueh difficult situations in translating culture without using literal wanslation which can breed exoticism contriburing to the lack of plausibility of the TT, the translator can resort to communicative paraphrase “by rendering the situational impact of the phrase in question

with a TT expression that is not a cliché but is nevertheless plausible in the context

defined by the TT” (p 32) Finally, in the taxonomic syslom proposed by Hervey and Higgins, besides exoticism, cultural borrowing, communicative translation and cultural transplantation, ealque is a procedure of literal translation in nature It “exhibits a certain degree of exoticism, bringing into the TT the cultural forcignness and strangeness of the source culture” (pp 32-33) Calque involves the borrowing of SL grammatical structure

The meaning of calqued phrases may not be understandable in the TT Successful cases