Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2004. Vol. 4. Eger Journal of English Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 30)
ALBERT PÉTER VERMES Culture in Translation: Strategies and Operations
Culture iri Translation: Strategies and Operations 93 The most frequent operation is substitution with a total of 80 occasions, followed by transference with 67 occasions, translation proper with 30 occasions and, finally, modification with only 17 occasions. What seems interesting still at first sight is the relatively great number of substitutions and translations in the material and intellectual culture category, the domination of transference in the persons and the topography categories, and the excessive domination of substitutions in the situation schemas category. However, to check out what the numbers mean, we will need to look behind them and see what we can learn from the individual examples. 4.1. Transfer The use of transfer dominates two categories, those of expressions referring to persons and topographic features. These expressions, being among the most numerous categories in the text, can be identified as the prime indicators of the cultural and physical setting of the story, and are mainly transferred (or in certain cases substituted, as will be seen later), with very few exceptions, to provide for the accessibility of the appropriate background assumptions concerning the setting of the story. In one extreme case even the common noun head of a street name is transferred ( Váci utca), presumably because it marks one of the best-known places in Budapest and is supposed to figure as a unit in the target reader's cognitive environment. The exceptions are either simple mistakes, as with the modification of three personal names ( Bolyai, in the translation, for Bolyai, Odon Suck for Sück Ödön Mihály and Dansco for Dancsó) or are due to the relevance of the logical content of the expression, as with the translation of three topographic expressions (Inner City for Belváros, or Black Forest for Fekete-erdő). Other transferred expressions can be found in the categories of administrative culture (AVO , discussed below), history, material and intellectual culture, social culture and units and measures, all contributing to the preservation of the original spacial, temporal and cultural setting for the story, serving thus as tools of foreignising. 4.2. Translation Translation proper is a means of preserving the logical content of the original, in order to ensure that the translated utterance gives rise to the same analytic implications as the original. This can be the most obvious solution, when the source expression activates some relevant encyclopaedic assumptions which, however, cannot be preserved in an effort-effective way. Thus, in the English version the pronoun you is used for both maga and önök, which share the same logical content but are loaded with different
