Culture and Translation

Since the existence of humans, there have always been some means to communicate. The establishment of language has allowed humans and countries to cultivate culture. Ever since the growth of nations and the process of encountering various countries and their cultures, many civilizations began translating and interpreting language. Since each nation and its peoples have different culture standards, the language that they speak are also embedded with culture-specific items. When people proceeded to translate, there has always been a dilemma of how to handle

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culture-specific items. Linguists, anthropologists, and translators have all been stumped or hesitant as to how to handle the delicate process of translating culture nuances. Translation theorists such as Nida believe that "language reflects the culture, provides access to the culture, and in many respects constitutes a model of the culture” (Nida, 1994: 1). Many people will agree with Nida, that a language certainly does reflect its culture, and that specific language acts as gatekeeper to that culture. But there are others who believe that culture cannot be expressed through language, such as Peter Newmark. Newmark believes that on an operational level, he does not regard language as a component nor a feature of language (Newmark 1998: 95).

Newmark refutes that instead there are cultural deposits within language, or specifically culture exists in grammar, he gives examples of genders of inanimate nouns, forms of address and the lexis. Even with this belief, Newmark still gives a how to classify culture items. Since there are believers and non-believers that language and culture are intertwined, where does that leave translators and translations? Which brings us to Wilhelm Von Humboldt, a linguist and a translator well aware of the translator's dilemma. Humboldt states that

"All translation seems to me simply an attempt to solve an impossible task. Every translator is doomed to be done in by one of two stumbling b locks: he will either stay too close to the original, at the cost of taste and the language of his nation, or he will adhere too closely to the

characteristics peculiar to his nation, at the cost of the original ” (Wilss, 1982: 35).

So, then what is a translator to do, if we are already doomed from the start? By logically thinking about the author and readership, the translator then translates with those two things in mind.

10 Terms utilized

Vinay and Darbelnet’s and Peter Newmark’s theories and strategies are often taught and used within Translation Studies. Although each translator has their preference as to how to translate the source text, the mentioned translation theorists are just a few of the most commonly mentioned and used methods. If the three translators utilized strategies or did not include a translation that are not within the researcher’s theoretical framework, the researcher will list it as

‘omitted.’ The following terms below will occur within this research and will provide the reader a clear understanding of what will occur within the research.

Culture-specific items (CSI)- Per Javier Franco Aixela (1996), CSI are usually expressed in a text "by means of objects or systems of classification and measurement whose use is restricted to the source culture, or by means of the transcription of opinions and by description of habits equally alien to the receiving culture" (Aixela, 1996, p.56).

Culture- According to the Collins Cobuild English dictionary, culture means relating to a particular society and its ideas, customs, and art. It consists of activities such as the arts and philosophy, which are considered in relation to its beliefs, way of life, or art (Sinclair J., 1995, p.399).

Source-language orientation (SL) - As the name of the term states is the orientation of the original text of the translation. It is also known as the ‘source text (ST)’ (Munday and Hatim p.

xx).

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Target-language orientation (TL) - Refers to the translated text or product of the source text. This term is also known as ‘target text (TT)’ (Munday and Hatim p. xx).

Translation- Is a piece of writing or speech that has been translated from a different language (Sinclair J., 1995, p.1781).

Adaptation- As the name of the term implies, the translator would use this strategy when coming across a situation where the ST is unknown or non-existent in the TT. Therefore, translators would have to ‘adapt’ or create new situations that are equivalent to the ST (Vinay and Darbelnet, 2004, p.134).

Borrowing- Vinay and Darbelnet stated that if translators did not occasionally utilize this strategy, then this term would not be worth mentioning. Borrowing consists of the translator creating a syntactic effect, such as "introducing flavor of the source language culture into a translation, foreign terms maybe be used." In Vinay and Darbelnet t's book, they gave examples such has using Russian words as ‘roubles’ ‘datchas,’ and ‘apparatchik.’ We often see the use of borrowing with food. For instance, in English, we often see words of various source language origins being kept in the target text translation, such as ‘a la carte,’ ‘tortillas,’ ‘sushi,’ ‘kebabs,’

the list goes on (Vinay and Darbelnet, 2004, p.129).

Calque- A calque is a different type of borrowing; it entails a word or phrase that is borrowed from another language by word-for-word, literal or root meaning (Vinay and Darbelnet, 2004, p.129).

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Equivalence- This strategy refers to producing completely different stylistic or structural methods in the target text, but tries to maintain the general meaning of the source text. This method is often used to translate idioms and proverbs and is very useful in translating cultural differences (Vinay and Darbelnet, 2004, p.134).

Literal Translation- Like the name of the term, literal translation is the process of a "word-for-word" translation. It is one of the most common translation strategies utilized. It involves "the direct transfer of the source language text into a grammatically and idiomatically appropriate target language text" (Vinay and Darbelnet, 2004, p.130).

Modulation- Refers to "a variation of the form of the message, obtained by a change in the point of view" e.g. ‘God knows’; ‘沒人知道,’ which translates to ‘no one knows’ (Vinay and

Darbelnet, 2004, p.133).

Transposition- Transposition involves "replacing one-word class with another without changing the meaning of the message" (Vinay and Darbelnet, 2004, p.132).

2.2 Relevant Literature and Reviews

The researcher has discovered other relevant literature that also focus on examining Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. The thesis conducted by Sheng-fu Lin (林聲孚) titled “A Comparative Study among Three English Translations of Sun Tzu’s Art of War: The First Six Chapters (2013)”

also aims to analyze Sun Tzu’s treatise in regards to the English versions.

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This paragraph will give a summary, critical look at the research, establish the major achievements, areas of debate and distinguished research questions or points. The relevant literature aims to focus on and analyze English versions of Sun Tzu’s treatise but instead of focusing on cultural-specific items, aims to inform readers the best methods of translating from Chinese to English and certain translation problems that might occur. Lin decided to utilize only six chapters of The Art of War, the reason for doing so is that he believed that these six chapters establish the main idea of Sun’s military thought. He also decided to utilize four translation theories to analyze the three English texts. The following theorists and their theories are used within his research: Walter Benjamin’s Task as a Translator, Eugene Nida’s theories of equivalence, Peter Newmark’s text analysis, and Mona Baker’s different levels of translation equivalence. In terms of the English versions of Sun Tzu’s manual, Lin selected Lionel Giles, John Minford, and Roger T. Ames. Lin then proceeds to give a critical analysis of the selected English versions of The Art of War, or in other words pointing out the translation errors in the selected examples. The researcher states that the primary categories of translation error include:

mistranslation, over interpretation, omission, and inappropriate translation. The data analysis and discussion chapter is organized where the reader sees a brief explanation of the translation error principle, then an example, followed by analysis. The researcher also included their suggested translation and a back translation. From a critic’s perspective, this study has left the reader with a few questions that have not been addressed within the research, one of them being the structure and organization of the paragraphs. When Lin tries to explain translation theories the content is present within the paragraph but the organization and structures the paragraph makes it difficult for the reader to follow Lin’s ideas. By doing so, readers with no prior knowledge about this field will have difficultly comprehending the meaning. In terms of Lin’s examples, he does a

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good job explaining the problems that occur within the translation and even adds his own

translation. The question here is, should Lin have added his own translated version? How reliable is his translation? What methods did he use? Did a professor approve this translation? There are many factors that could have influenced the accuracy of Lin’s translation. The researcher did not provide answers to any of the questions mentioned above. Although his research examines translation errors, Lin does not include which strategies would be better alternatives suited to avoid these errors. Although Lin’s research shows the readers what are some possible translation errors that occur between Chinese and English translation, the last chapter does not include an aggregated table or chart of his findings. This researcher does provide some possible reasons why these errors occur, and how can they be avoided, but again does not explain how future translators can avoid these mistakes. By including a chart, graph or a more visual method of his research findings, the reader could easily grasp and understand his findings.

Although Lin’s research is like this research, there are several varying factors. The biggest varying factors are the Translation Studies strategies selected and the primary goal of the research. Another varying difference is that the researcher chose to analyze all of Sun Tzu’s treatise and instead of only focusing on English translation errors, she has decided to also analyze culture-specific items that occur in The Art of War. Furthermore, the researcher also explains the strategies used by each translator and tries to discover possible strategies to overcome the CSI headache. Lastly, Lin’s research stresses the dialectical aspect of translation, whereas this research not only focuses on the linguistic aspects but also discusses culture-specific items that occur within a language and how to find a solution when it comes to translating CSI.

15 Reviews on the The Art of War Translations

Since there are few theses that focus on Sun Tzu’s treatise in regards to translation and culture, the researcher aims to discuss the reviews on the selected English translation that will be utilized in this research. In this paragraph, the researcher will cover reviews on the various

translation version that are used in this research. In the following paragraphs bellow are reviews discovered onJ-stor. Please take note, the researcher has found reviews on Griffith’s and

Sawyer’s translation, but there were no results for Cleary’s translation of The Art of War.

The first reviewer is B.E. Wallacker, who gives his general opinion on Griffith’s translations of The Art of War. This review was published in Journal of the American Oriental Society in 1963. Wallacker begins by comparing Griffith’s translation with that of Lionel Giles.

Giles, a curator who worked in the British Museum for most of his career, was a prominent translator of his time. Giles translated several ancient Chinese texts, such as: Taoist Teachings from the Book of Lieh Tzu (1912), The Art of War (1910), The Book of Mencius (1942), and A Gallery of Chinese Immortals (1948) (Minford, 2007, para. 2). Wallacker even claims that Griffith’s version can supplant Giles’ translation. The reviewer mentions that Griffith’s version varies in style rather than degree of accuracy. The next few paragraphs mention Griffith’s supplemental content. Wallacker believes that Griffith’s version surpasses older translations of The Art of War because of the extra information about ancient Chinese military that is provided.

The main paragraphs of this review are points in the translation that deserved to be mentioned.

Here, Wallacker mentions that Griffith does a splendid job in translating 道 dào or ‘the way,’ the reviewer continues to state that the other translator, Giles chose ‘moral law,’ which the reviewer believes is a less suitable word choice. The whole review consists of Wallacker going over good

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translation points. In conclusion, Wallacker believes that Griffith’s version does a fantastic job in moving away from the Western European traditiona l ideologies on war.

A second review is on Sawyer’s translation is by William A. Turner, who is from Air Command and Staff College. This review can be originally found in The Journal of Military History in 1997. In this short review, Turner mentions that Sawyer has done a great job of outlining concepts and principles within this version of The Art of War. The reviewer also states that “stripped of much historical background, battle analysis, and other scholarly information,”

Sawyer’s translation is easy to understand (Turner, 1997, p. 356). Turner then turns to the topic of the rise of Communist China as a world power, and states that it is important to have materials that provide in depth study about ancient Chinese strategies.