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Language and Culture |
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The Importance of Culture in Interpreting and Translation, by Charles Qin |
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"Gan bei"
When President Hu Jintao proposed this to the Queen of Australia, the audience at the State Banquet in Canberra downed glasses of alcohol in great mirth. This is an example of a cross-cultural gap - in Australia gan bei has been hijacked as a signal to engage in drinking bouts - what the audience didn't appreciate was that in Chinese gan bei also means a toast - in the formal sense. The Queen of Australia also presents a translation challenge!
Similarly at an official banquet in Melbourne hosted by then Premier Jeff Kennett, I had to interpret a joke about the 4-child family of the Premier at the expense of the one-child family of the Chinese dignitaries - they didn't laugh.
What is the responsibility of the interpreter in such instances? Certainly not to interrupt and explain the mistake or elicit a different joke! Or should I have said 'Excuse me Sir, the Premier has just told a joke, but my Chinese is too poor to translate it, would you all laugh please'? Bob Hawke's Japanese interpreter didn't think so when, during a speech, he interpreted literally Bob's 'we're not going to play funny buggers with you'.
Language and culture cannot be separated - but, in my opinion it is not the job of the interpreter or translator to offer cultural insights or to intervene in an interlocution, unless consulted specifically. We are professionals who facilitate communication through meaning transfer - 'meaning experts'. But, much more than a walking dictionary, we have to be able to negotiate the two cultures - something that was just too much for Bob Hawke's interpreter that day - but then he was hired in Tokyo and despite a great command of vocabulary, had limited, if any, knowledge of Australian culture.
What is culture?
It has to do with common factual knowledge including political institutions, education, history and current affairs, etc. Culture is also the overall way of life of a community or society. Language is immersed in culture and cultural context determines meaning.
Hofstede devised a model of culture which was separated into practices and values, the core of culture being 'values'. It is easy for an interpreter/translator to make the cultural switch at the practices level - these are words, gestures, rituals, (an example of a ritual would be a social nicety like how you say hello); but many interpreters and translators will struggle at the deeper 'core of culture' - the implicit, the Unconscious as Freud called it. Margherita Ulrych pointed out that these are the "culturally or socially determined value judgements that are implicit in the semantics of a word." (Ulyrch in Translating Cultures, Katan, David, 1999).
What about language?
Edward Sapir claims that "language is a guide to social reality" (in Bassnett, Translation Studies, 1988) and that human beings are at the mercy of their language. I might add that interpreters and translators are at the mercy of their writers/speakers and perhaps in Bob Hawke's case - speakers are at the mercy of their interpreters! This shouldn't be the case.
Bassnett likens language to the human heart - she describes a surgeon operating on the heart - the surgeon cannot neglect the body surrounding the heart (the culture), nor can the translator treat text in isolation from the culture (Bassnett, 1988). The interpreter/ translator, perhaps then is the life blood that links the two.
Chinese characters evolved some 4000 years ago and were influenced by the environment - they started life as pictographs - culture influenced the language. In Chinese history though, language has also been a means of control. The educated people were the only ones with access to reading and writing - they kept the poor, uneducated people down until the 20th century. They even had a name for it 'Mandarin' and it was the possession of the ruling classes. Under the Communists, as they imposed their new culture, we had to acquire a new vocabulary and forget some of the old - the Communists used language to try and change the culture.
With the Open Door Policy, China has had to embrace many new concepts, technologies, vocabulary - much of it has come from the West and it is all underpinned by interpreting and translation. Now, the language is being heavily influenced by the West - and in particular English. China is a microcosm of globalization in which the translator is now recognized as playing a vital role in negotiating what is both a global marketplace and an increasingly divided world.
Cultural knowledge has long been recognized as indispensable for translation as it is the knowledge of linguistic applications in particular social and cultural contexts that make translations possible at all. But contrary to some contemporary scholarship that suggests another role for translators as culture mediators, I believe that the prime function of the translator is as the communication facilitator - to transfer meaning; cultural advice and advocacy are specialised skills in their own right and cannot be tacked onto what is already a very intense and specialized job.
The originator of the source text is the subject expert - he/she usually knows (or ought to know) the audience and subject much better than the interpreter or translator. It is the T/I's skill to render the text accurately reflecting the meaning in the appropriate cultural framework, but ensuring it reads/sounds like a natural and original work and is complete. We usually discuss with clients any issues we see as problematic in a written text, or give guidance as to how they might prepare a text. While interpreting, however, interrupting is either not possible or ill-advised, unless of course something needs clarification or something wasn't heard clearly, but certainly not to intervene. Any other discussions with the client about an interpreting role take place in advance or perhaps after the encounter - not during. It is important for the client to thoroughly brief the interpreter in order to obtain the highest quality of interpretation. This means making available any reference materials, copies of papers and previous translations, names, terminology, etc in plenty of time before the assignment (also vital for written translations).
Recently I was interpreting for a VET computer training programme. The term 'middleware' was used. I wasn't too clear exactly where 'middleware' fits into the picture, but I knew the word in Chinese, so I interpreted it. It wasn't my job to say "Excuse me Mr Lecturer, please explain". If the understanding wasn't there, I would, presumably, have interpreted questions from the audience back - if I had interrupted it would have stopped the flow and wasted time and made me look foolish.
Every day, we see misunderstandings that illustrate the necessity of cultural understanding in the work of interpreters and translators. Some are of minor consequence, for example nursing home was rendered as 'accommodation for nurses', board (of directors) as, you guessed it, a bit of wood, but as the stakes are raised, so are the demands placed on the interpreter (think about medical emergencies, not to mention diplomatic and corporate negotiations).
Further education and training of interpreters and translators is vital, like any other profession. Because a person has some level of bilingualism doesn't make them an interpreter or translator - this is usually achieved through tertiary training of students with outstanding language ability. This training must embrace the culture of the country where they will be working. Culture and language are intertwined and language will not be complete without the appropriate cultural framework. Skilled migrants who are able to gain permanent residence in Australia by calling themselves 'interpreters' and/or 'translators' and by passing a 3 hour NAATI (National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters) test do so without any training as interpreters or translators. They have no experience and are not familiar with the culture in Australia. They will not be able to do the job effectively without the cultural framework and training. Language is meaningless without culture.
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