Nobody works in French English translation for long without coming up against cultural issues. It soon becomes very clear that language and culture are very closely intertwined.
Unwritten assumptions
When you are beginning to translate between two languages – for instance, between French and English – you find that there are a number of unwritten assumptions that the writer of the source text has made about the reader. These include:
- knowledge of historical events.
- folk memory.
- opinions and prejudices.
- certain accepted norms of behaviour.
When dealing with the target language, you can’t assume that the reader will know or be familiar with these factors – although there is more likelihood of this knowledge between two languages in geographical proximity, such as French and English, than, say, between English and a language group in the Amazon rain-forest. However, the translator can’t make the same assumptions that the writer of the original text has made.
To deal with this you need to remember that in French English translation work you are an intermediary not only between two languages but also between two cultures, and in many instances these cultures may vary greatly.
Steps to take:
So what are the steps to take to ensure you are conveying the right cultural messages?
- Cultural interpretation. You first do a cultural interpretation of the source language. Identify all the cultural nuances, or the assumptions that are being made. That is, the implications, historical allusions, references to customs etc. which the readers of the source text would understand even if they are not explicitly there. Then you recreate the text in the target language, with the cultural nuances made as explicit as necessary for the text to be equally understandable to the readers.
This is not an infallible process. It is
really a balancing act and the balance can’t always be perfect
– some subtle nuances are going to get lost along the way.
However, the readers of the target text need to have as much information
as possible in order to recreate the experience of the original
passage.
- Decide on equivalence. In French English translation there are two approaches you can take. These have been called formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence.
- If you are taking a formal equivalence
approach in French English translation, you aim to find the
closest possible lexical equivalent to the item. This
does make it clear however that the item has no cultural equivalent
in the target language. Sometimes the actual word is used
without being translated. For example, when translating
a business document from French to English, you may come across
the term cadre. This is often translated as “professional”
or “employee”. However, it is a concept which
is very familiar to all the French but has no real equivalent
outside France. It really denotes a status that
you keep forever and that entitles you to special benefits including
special pension rights. So it is better to be hired as
a cadre than as a non-cadre even at a lower
salary. This cannot be conveyed by translating it as “professional”.
It is probably better to retain the term cadre in the
English translation – perhaps with an explanatory note
if required.
- If you are using dynamic equivalence, you make the effort to express the term in a way that is understood by readers in the target culture in a similar way to the way it is understood by the original readers. This is sometimes called the “closest natural equivalent”. A famous example is in the translation of the Bible in the Inuit language. The phrase “Lamb of God” would be meaningless to the readers as they do not have sheep and lambs, so it is translated by “seal of God”, which conveys the idea of gentleness and innocence.
Using this approach in French English translation means being less tied to the forms of the original language. Sometimes it may involve using a phrase rather than a single word as in the original and this can end up being unwieldy. For example, in French, the phrase d’après le café would immediately be understood by a French person as the time of day that follows the small espresso coffee drunk at the end of the meal. Translating this into English as “after coffee” would not get this across, so it is preferable to translate it as “after the meal”.
There can be similar problems when translating from English to French . If the English text says for example “There is no silver bullet” the reader will certainly understand this as meaning “there is no infallible solution that works in every case.” So there is no point in translating this as balle d’argent – this would make no sense at all to a French reader. A translation that would convey the actual meaning of the phrase would be solution magique. However, what this doesn’t express is that the phrase originates from a popular TV programme of some decades ago, The Lone Ranger, in which the hero had a magic silver bullet that never missed its mark. This has passed into the language to the extent that even those British and American readers who don’t remember the programme are thoroughly familiar with the expression. None of the nuance of this history, or folk memory, can possibly be expressed in the French translation, but even so, solution magique, is a lot better than balle d’argent.
Generally it seems that a slavish adherence to either formal equivalence or dynamic equivalence isn’t a good idea. It is better to use common sense and achieve a balance between the two.
How important is culture in French English translation?
So in the field of French English translation services how much importance should be given to the cultural aspect?
The answer to this probably depends on how “culture bound” the original source text is, and what the purpose of the translation is. For instance, if the document is an instruction book, the main object is to convey the exact method of using the appliance to the reader and this is more important than cultural aspects. This is also probably true of technical material in any field – the important thing here is to get the technical terms right.
On the other hand, for business and commercial
material, where conveying nuances is important, and care has to
be taken not to give offence, awareness of cultural norms is much
more important. This includes advertising material, web
copy, reports, tender documents etc. In all these
areas of French English translation, culture is something you
simply can’t afford to ignore.
|
