Abstract: Language and culture are inseparable. Language has rich cultural connotations, and there is no language without cultural connotations. Cross-cultural language communication is often interfered by cultural differences. The existence of cultural differences often becomes an obstacle to translation, and translators must deal with the differences between language and culture, so that translation can truly become a medium for spreading culture.
Paper Keywords: language; Culture; Cultural awareness; translate
Translation involves not only language issues, but also cultural issues. Translators should not only understand foreign cultures, but also deeply understand their own cultures, and constantly compare the two cultures, so as to have a correct understanding of the meaning, function, scope, emotional color and influence of their respective cultures and avoid ambiguity caused by cultural differences and falling into the translation trap.
I. Language, culture and translation
Culture refers to the sum of a country's history, customs, traditional customs, lifestyle, literature and art, way of thinking and values. Language and culture are inseparable. Language has rich cultural connotations, and there is no language without cultural connotations. Different countries have different languages and cultural customs, and each language reflects the culture that produced it, so any form of language has certain cultural connotations. Cross-cultural language communication is often interfered by cultural differences. Because language is very sensitive to the development of social culture, any change will be reflected in language. If we don't know the development and change of social culture, we can't fully understand the language that reflects it. Linguistically speaking, language, as a sign system, is often closely related to a specific cultural system. Language is the carrier of culture, and culture is deeply rooted in language. Language is not only a reflection of culture, but also a direct and effective tool to master a culture. If you don't have a corresponding knowledge and understanding of a specific cultural system, it will affect your in-depth understanding and proper use of its language.
Human beings have their own culture and cultural exchanges. Communication promotes development. As long as a country and a nation are isolated for a long time, they can all benefit from communication to a greater or lesser extent. Modern international cultural exchange is going on directly or indirectly with unprecedented scale, content, form and means. So it can be said that in modern countries, there is no inherent culture that is absolutely unaffected by the outside world.
Cross-cultural communication must be through translation. Without translation, there would be no cross-cultural communication. Cultural exchanges between countries and nations not only promote the prosperity of their respective cultures, but also enrich the world culture and promote the development of world civilization. It can be seen that language, culture and translation are closely related and inseparable.
Second, cultural differences-obstacles to translation
As a kind of inter-language communication, translation is not only a process of language conversion, but also a process of cultural transplantation. As the main body of this process, the translator should not only be proficient in the source language and the target language, but also be familiar with the culture reflected by these two languages. Any two societies have cultural overlap. But apart from similarity, all cultures have their own characteristics. English and Chinese are two completely different languages, and the cultural differences between them constitute an obstacle to communication. In cross-cultural translation, when faced with a foreign language and culture different from the mother tongue, translators often encounter things, things or concepts that cannot be understood or explained by their own language, culture and social values. This kind of cross-cultural confusion is common in translation practice. For example, there is a dialogue "No, you don't have' Disturbus'. We are fighting fat. "Chewing the stern doesn't mean chewing fat, it really means" chatting ". Therefore, this sentence should be translated as "no, you are not bothering us." "We were just chatting." Another example: just got paid, someone suggested that we all go to a restaurant to eat toothache on weekends. A lady from China wants to lose weight so that she can wear a new skirt. She refused and said, "No, I don't want it. "Later, a friend asked her quietly," What can I do for you if you are short of hands recently? The lady was confused by this question, and it took her a long time to understand. It turns out that "tightening one's belt" is financially strapped, so we must tighten our belts and save money. For example, "Last year, we all tightened our belts ..." (Last year's harvest was very poor, so we must scrimp and save. )
It seems that there are a lot of troubles caused by cultural differences, which deserves our further analysis and study.
1. The reason why cultural differences affect listeners' acquisition of information is often because the speaker transcends the literal meaning of words and conveys an implicit intention with cultural factors. For example, that guy's sgotamidastouch .. As a listener, you must first understand what midastouch is.
Although we know that it comes from a Greek story, midastouch refers to the goldentouch of the Greek king Midas, but it is still not enough to fully understand the cultural connotation of this sentence, and we can't get the information that the speaker wants to convey. It is also necessary to combine social context (such as business activities), and finally infer the original intention of this sentence: the man is good at doing business, and he will make money as easily as turning the stone into gold without spending too much effort.
2. Influenced by their respective cultures, China people and British people have different ways of thinking and reasoning, which will lead to different associations in their languages. If both sides do not pay attention to this cultural difference, it will cause obstacles to communication and cause poor information transmission between them. For example, the word "adultbooks" in English literally means "adults" and "books", which together are naturally "books for adults". However, the answer deduced in this way is only its literal meaning. In terms of cultural connotation, it is actually synonymous with "pornographic books and periodicals". It turns out that in western society, obscene books and periodicals flooded the market. In order to hide people's eyes and ears, this euphemism came into being. Another example is the word old people. Many students said without thinking, it refers to "citizens with social status". In fact, the seniors here are not directly related to social status. China people have a tradition of respecting the elderly, and people often rely on the elderly to promote their sales. However, westerners don't want others to say that they are old, and they don't want to get old. Old age means loneliness. So the word "senior" sounds impressive in front of "citizen".
For such words, it is difficult to really understand and use them correctly if we only pay attention to their literal meaning and ignore their connotation or social and cultural significance. In cross-cultural verbal communication, if we don't understand the "cultural information" carried by language, effective communication will be hindered. If someone casually equates literal equivalence with cultural equivalence and interprets "milkyway" as "milk road", it is ridiculous to know nothing about astronomy.
3. Cultural differences between the East and the West result in different cultural connotations of words, which leads to the phenomenon of cultural vacancy between languages and a large number of "cultural vacancy words".
With the deepening of economic reform, this city, once known as the financial, economic and trade center of the Far East, is playing a leading role in promoting the economic development of the Yangtze River basin.
With the deepening of economic reform, the city has officially become the center of finance, economy and the Far East. Show displayingdragonheadroleinboosting economic development entyantzeriveval-ley
It is not appropriate to translate "protagonist" into "leading role" in this sentence. Because in English, the word "dragon" means "amvthicalmoster" (that is, Collins' latest English), China people regard "dragon" as an auspicious god with incredible power, thus becoming a symbol of the supreme emperor, and even seeing it as a bright future, hoping for a long life. However, Britain and the United States regard the dragon as a fierce monster. The so-called "leading role" here means "leading, leading and pioneering role". Failure to understand this cultural difference will lead to mistranslation.
With the deepening of economic reform, this city, once a financial, economic and trade center, is leading or promoting economic development.
It can be seen that cultural differences will bring many obstacles and difficulties to understanding and translation. Some things are self-evident in one culture, but difficult to understand in another; The same word or idiom often has different meanings between people in different countries. If we don't understand its cultural connotation, it will be difficult to understand and translate it correctly. Therefore, translation should not only focus on the transformation of language, but also understand its deep connotation and cultural significance through the surface of language. Translators must be proficient in the national language and culture they want to communicate. As for the translatability of cultural differences, it depends on the translator's cultural literacy and language skills, and on the translator's wisdom and subjective initiative.
Third, raise cultural awareness and cross the cultural gap.
Cultural awareness refers to the translator's awareness that translation is a cross-language and cross-cultural information exchange, and cultural differences, like language differences, may become obstacles to communication. Translators should also pay attention to overcoming the obstacles caused by cultural differences while converting language into words, so as to ensure the smooth realization of information exchange. Therefore, translators should not only be proficient in the target language and the target language, but also understand and study the cultures behind many languages, constantly compare the two cultures, and know how to deal with cultural differences and cultural obstacles under the guidance of a correct translation concept. Translators who lack cultural awareness may only pay attention to literal transformation and ignore the cultural problems behind it, or misinterpret information with cultural experience taught in their mother tongue. This will lead to mistranslation. Therefore, we say that translation is not only a linguistic activity, but also a cultural activity. Susan Basnet, a British translation theorist, once compared language to the heart of a cultural organism. Therefore, language translation is not only the transformation of meaning, but also the mutual exchange and transplantation of two different cultures. Translation involves two languages and two cultures.
When dealing with cultural factors, translators must keep in mind two points: first, how to correctly understand the meaning of the original text; The second is how to make the target readers correctly understand the meaning of the translation within their own cultural framework and absorb as much cultural nutrients as possible from the source language. As a disseminator of culture, translators should try their best to strengthen and improve the comprehensibility of different cultures in readers' minds, try their best to shorten the distance between two languages and cultures, and eliminate obstacles caused by incomprehension or even misunderstanding. With this attitude, the translator can truly make translation a medium for spreading culture.
In the process of translation, the translator should not only pay attention to the differences between language and culture, but also be good at discovering the universality of language. Speak of the devil and he will come .. It is not difficult to find that in this idiom, Chinese and English have amazing similarities and differences. In China culture, Cao Cao is called a "traitor", and the word "devil" is used in English. There are also striking similarities between Chinese and English usage: hethathasbeenbittenby aserpentisafraidofarope. Towamasnakeinone's som tells the story of "the farmer and the snake" in China culture.
Translation, whether as a cultural phenomenon or ideological movement, or as a profession or a kind of knowledge and skills, is always inseparable from the background of the times. The concepts, methods, styles, standards and styles of translation keep pace with the times. Observing the translation practice and theoretical research in the world and China, it is not difficult to draw a conclusion that translation is indeed one of the most dynamic and sensitive fields in human spiritual civilization.
Because culture has unique national characteristics, it is a unique creation of different nationalities in a special historical and geographical environment. Therefore, there are many differences between different cultures, and the existence of cultural differences determines that readers of different cultures cannot have the same reaction to the same work. Readers in different cultures have unique sensitivity to their own society and culture. This unique cultural sensitivity of readers is the pragmatic premise for the author to create language works. Therefore, only people who live in this linguistic and cultural environment will react to works created in a certain language, and this reaction can only be roughly the same. As the saying goes, if you read Hamlet, a thousand readers will have a thousand Hamlets.
It can be seen that the translator's handling of cultural factors is a very complicated problem. Translation is not only the transformation between languages, but also the communication between cultures. From the perspective of cross-cultural communication, both the original text and the translated text are products of culture. Therefore, in cultural communication, translation should not only overcome language barriers, but also overcome cultural barriers. Only by fully understanding the cultural differences between the East and the West, understanding the true meaning of words, grasping the reasons and scales of translation, not only considering how the cultural factors in words are reflected in translation, but also paying attention to avoiding mistranslation caused by cultural factors, can translation be the closest and most natural.
In short, only by raising cultural awareness can translators cross the cultural gap.
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