Article deals about peculiarities of translation and teaching of culture-bound words, which are language barriers to cultural norms in English classes to non-native speakers. Approaches of teaching culture-bound words and ways of translating culture-bound words are the essence of the article. It includes categories, classification of culture-bound words and phrases that are necessary for everyday conversations.
Keywords: culture-bound, translation, peculiarity, equivalent, phrase, catogery.
Human culture is a very broad subject of study and includes many aspects of society. Culture is the multifaceted which includes knowledge, history, art, belief, custom,morals, law, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by human as a member of people. It is important to address many English-speaking countries and therefore be proactive when it comes to learning about different cultural backgrounds. Teaching culture can be a great tool in order to motivate the students.
Merriam-Webster dictionary mentions culture is “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behaivourthat depends upon capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations” [4]. Culture is acquired by the human and the educational system has a major part in creating as well as preserving the cultural values of a society. Therefore, it is acknowledged that culture and foreign language play a vital role in the foreign language classes. During the language learning process a student has to refer different sources concerning the country’s culture. If they deal with culture-bound words they have to consider the words that don’t have an equivalent in the target language because they haven’t been invented yet, and the words that cannot have any equivalent because they don’t present in the target language culture. Culture-bound words occur when a target language concept is not known in the source language. For example in English and Turkmen: drugstore — dermanhana, mandatory registration — öý ýazgysy, TV-dinner — telewizordaky mahabat naharlary.
When language learner deals with words denoting places, flora and fauna they usually loan words. Transcription is the best of presenting the idea. For example: jungle-jeňňel, tundra — tundra . In teaching realia are also objects used in classroom instructions to make sense of new concepts of another culture. In Turkmen culture there are hundreds of realia such as tahya — embroidred skullcap, keteni — cloth of special type, kürte — national cape for brides.
According to Adaskou, culture is divided into four categories: [1, p. 3–10.]
Aesthetic culture such as literature, poetry and music , sociological culture such as leisure time, history and family , semantic culture which contains certain words and expressions that are specific for the country and pragmatic culture which contains words and phrases that are necessary for everyday conversations.
Table 1
|
Aesthetic |
Sociological |
Semantic |
Pragmatic |
|
literature and other fiction |
living conditions |
the relationship between language and power |
communication strategies in real life situations |
|
older literature and poetry |
attitudes |
the use of words and phrases that clarify causal connections and time aspects |
|
|
cinema |
values |
oral and written production |
|
|
history of literature |
traditions |
||
|
drama |
social, political and cultural conditions |
It was found that most teachers have a sociological and pragmatic sense of teaching culture.
Approaches of teaching culture-bound words
Equivalent-lacking words signify notions lacking in the target language and culture. They are sometimes called untranslatable words or ‘unfindable’ words.
Sometimes equivalent-lacking words are associated with culture-bound words or culturally loaded words. However, the term of culture-bound word is of narrower meaning than the term of equivalent-lacking word. A culture-bound word names an object peculiar to this or that ethnic culture. Equivalent-lacking words include, along with culture-bound words, neologisms, i.e. newly coined forms, dialect words, slang, taboo-words, foreign (third language) terms, proper names, misspellings, archaisms, etc. [1, p.3–10]
Culture-bound words are classified into following types [3, 117]:
— toponyms, or geographical terms (Munich, the Great Lakes, the Sikhote Alin, Beijing, Awaza, Akdaşaýak, Garadaşaýak, Akdepe);
— anthroponyms, or people’s names (Aristophanes, Victor Hugo, Alexander Hamilton, Bezirgen, Baýly, Çary);
— zoonyms, or animal names (kangaroo, grizzly, cougar, dingo, emu);
— social terms (House of Commons, Halk Maslahaty, Mejlis);
— military terms (lance corporal, garawul, polkownik, podpolkownik);
— education terms (junior high school, eleven-plus, child/day care; on bir ýyllyk, on iki ýyllyk);
— tradition and customs terms (Halloween, nowruz, gurbanlyk, küştdepdi);
— ergonyms, or names of institutions and organizations (Heinemann, häkimlik, arçynlyk);
— history terms (civil war, War of Independence, Raýat urşy, Gazawat söweşi);
— words for everyday life (cuisine, clothing, housing, etc.) (sushi, kilt, trailer, don, telpek, gupba, gyýma, gyňaç, ýaşmak, gowurma, çekdirme, tamdyrlama);
— titles and headlines (Vanity Fair, Dordepel);
Based on the time coloring, culture-bound words classification falls into the following groups:
— neologisms: junk food, internet
— historisms: or outdated words denoting realia that no longer exist: Beat Generation, WASP; tümen, wezir. Historisms have no synonyms in a modern language.
— archaisms: or out-of-use words having synonyms in the modern language: Sire = father, clime = climate and country; злато = золото, tegin — şazada, bitigçi — ýazyjy, tünek — türme.
Ways of translating culture-bound words
Culture-bound words are generally rendered in the borrowing language through transcription, transliteration and calque translation. As compared with transcription and transliteration, calques are more convenient. But at the same time, calques can be misinterpreted by a receptor. There are cases when a translator resorts to calque translation without thinking thoroughly of the meaning of a culture-bound word or, worse, without understanding it.
An explicatory translation reveals a culture-bound word meaning in full:
Bride price — payment made by a man to the family from whom he takes a daughter in marriage, Expatriate — someone who has left his home country to live and work in another country, xenophobia — belief that people and things from other countries are dangerous. Explanation of culture-bound words can be made in commentaries and in footnotes. The disadvantage of in-text notes is that they distract a receptor’s attention from the main text.
Lexical substitutions can be used to have proper impact upon the receptor. For example, the famous adventure novel by Robert Louis Stevenson “Treasure Island” is called in Turkmen “Hazynalar adasy”. There can be possible analogue substitutions of official positions: Under-Secretary — ministriň orunbasary, Secretary of State — Daşary işler ministri.
In conclusion, almost certainly the greatest challenge for teachers today is to ignite the will for learning in the students. Teaching culture is a great tool for inspiration and that is why it is of such importance to develop culture within the subject of English. Another hard challenge the teachers encounter every day, is which culture should be dealt with and how could they be taught. The answer to this often lies within the teachers themselves since they might pick the culture they are most familiar with. It is important to explain students why English has become such a widespread language. In this manner, the students will not only familiarise themselves with the great number of variations in English but also the connections between the English-speaking countries.
References:
1. Adaskou K., Britten B. and Fahsi B. Design decisions on the cultural content of a secondary English course for Mororcco. ELT J 44(1). 1990.
2. Chetverikova O. Culture-bound words of the Danube Basin countires: Translation into English. Jounal of Danubian Studies and Research, Vol 5, No 2, 2015.
3. Proshina Z., Theory of translation. — Vladivostok, 2008.
4. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture
