Procedures and Strategies in Art and Culture Translation

INTRODUCTION
Literary texts display many linguistic peculiarities, as well as social and cultural aspects of our lives
and, thus, we can assert that literary translation is one of the main ways of communication across
cultures. Translating literary texts, however, is not an easy task, since it certainly poses many
problems for the translator. One of the problems a translator can face arises from the fact that
some words or phrases denoting objects, facts, phenomena, etc… are so deeply rooted in their
source culture (SC) and so specific (and perhaps exclusive or unique) to the culture that produced
them that they have no equivalent in the target culture (TC), be it because they are unknown, or
because they are not yet codified in the target language (TL). When discussing the problems of
correspondence in translation, “differences between cultures may cause more severe complications
for the translator than do differences in language structure” (Nida 130). Moreover, several theorists,
such as Santoyo, García Yebra and Yifeng, amongst others, support untranslatability when we face
texts with terms which are so culture-bound and culture-specific as to defy translation (cf.
Fernández Guerra, “The issue” 41).
In all cases, when cultural differences exist between the two languages, it is extremely difficult to
achieve a successful transfer, if not impossible (whatever the competence of the translator in the
two languages involved). And even the slightest variation from the source language (SL) cultural
term can be taken as an act of subversion against the culture it represents. Literary translation itself
can even be regarded as an act of subversion, or a means of providing an alternative or sub-
version of reality. As Levine affirms, “the literary translator can be considered a subversive scribe”

TRANSLATION PROCEDURES AND STRATEGIES
According to Krings (263-275) or Lörscher (76-81), among others, translation strategies are usually
defined as the procedures leading to the optimal solution of a translation problem. The procedures
or strategies based on comparative stylistics (Vinay y Darbelnet, Malblanc, Intravaia and Scavée),
also used by other scholars (Vázquez Ayora, Newmark, …), or the techniques suggested by Bible
translators (Nida, Nida and Taber, Margot), intended to propose a metalanguage and to catalogue
possible solutions in the task of translation. Such procedures have been sometimes criticized,
among other reasons because there is even a lack of consensus as to what name should be given
to these categories (procedures, techniques, strategies or methods are often interrelated and used as synonyms). Naming problems occur because the procedures sometimes overlap, they only
catalogue differences in terms of language and not usage, and they focus on translation results
rather than on the translation process. There have been, however, several attempts to differentiate
procedures from strategies, which are more related to the translation process (Hurtado 36). In any
case, the procedures or strategies that are usually mentioned in academic publications serve both
to analyse and catalogue translation equivalence and to improve the acquisition of translation
competence, since knowing and comparing them is definitively necessary to obtain an adequate
translation.
One of the leading taxonomies, and certainly the best known, is that of Vinay and Dalbernet. The
seven basic translation procedures are, according to them, adaptation, calque, equivalence,
modulation, borrowing, literal translation and transposition; although they also refer to
compensation, expansion and contraction. Other authors have reformulated and added new
procedures, or broken down the aforementioned ones into distinct subcategories. Among the well
known reformulations we should mention the one proposed by Vázquez Ayora (251-383), for
example, who distinguishes between (i) oblique translation procedures (adaptation, amplification,
compensation, equivalence, explicitation, modulation, omission and transposition) and (ii) direct
methods (calque, loan and literal translation). Hurtado (36-37) expands the list with strategies that
account for solutions of textual nature: extension, amplification, compression, discursive creation,
description, generalisation, particularisation, reduction, paralinguistic or linguistic substitution, and
variation.
It is also worth mentioning that some studies focus only on specific translation procedures that
should be used when dealing with cultural elements. This is the case with Graedler (3), who cites
four: (i) making up a new word, (ii) explaining the meaning of the SL expression in lieu of
translating it, (iii) preserving the SL term intact, and (iv) replacing it using any term in the TL that
has the same “relevance” as the SL term. Harvey (2-6) also proposes four ways: (i) functional
equivalence, using a term with the same “function”, (ii) formal or linguistic equivalence, or word by
word translation, (iii) transcription or borrowing, which may include notes, and (iv) descriptive or
self-explanatory translation. Mur Duenas (74-79) labelled her translation procedures as (1) TL
cultural cognate; (2) SL cultural and linguistic borrowing; (3) SL cultural borrowing plus explanation; (4) replacement of SL cultural referent by explanation; (5) TL cultural referent suppression; and (6) literal translation of TL cultural referent. Finally, Marco Borillo (“Les tecniques” 138), considering the intervention of the translator and his approach to the TC as a continuum, proposes the following six procedures: (i) pure or naturalised loan, (ii) literal translation, (iii) neutralisation (description,generalisation or particularisation), (iv) amplification or compression, (v) intracultural adaptation,and (vi) intercultural adaptation. The aforementioned procedures will now be briefly described and illustrated, in alphabetical order.

Adaptation
Adaptation is used in those cases in which the type of situation being referred to by the SL
message is unknown in the TC and translators create a new situation that can be described as
situational equivalence (Vinay and Darbelnet 52-53). Thus, it can be understood as what other
authors have called cultural, dynamic or functional equivalence (cf. 2.7.). It actually refers to a SL
cultural element that is replaced by another term in the TC. This would apply, for example, to Christmas pudding , and its possible translation into ‘turrón’ mentioned above.
There are situations in which adaptation seems, to some extent, necessary: in advertising slogans,
or children’s stories, for example. In other cases there are certain conventions, more or less
generalized, as regards adapted translations of foreign cultural elements in the TL. This applies, for
instance, to weights and measures, musical notation, generally accepted titles of literary works or
geographical names, etc. The basic goal of the translator when trying to ‘adapt’ the translation is to
have a similar effect on the TL readers, ‘domesticating’, in a way, the cultural terms.


Borrowing
Borrowing a term is taking a word or expression straight from another language, without
translation. The procedure is normally used when a term does not exist in the TC, or when the
translator tries to get some stylistic or exotic effect. It can be “pure”, if there is no change of any
kind in the foreign term (broker, chip, clown, feeling, stop, etc.), or “naturalized”, if the word hassome change in the spelling, and perhaps some morphological or phonetic adaptation (as in
diskette ‘disquete’, format ‘formatear’, indent ‘indentar’, reset ‘resetear’, etc.).
Some authors prefer the terms foreign word, foreignism, Anglicism, Germanism , ... when referring to pure borrowings (that have not been fully assimilated into the TL system), and use borrowings or
loans when the words are naturalised in the TL, the difference being when the term has been
incorporated and how it has been adapted to the TL (Torre 94). In any case, borrowings are one of
the main ways of enriching a language, as the Spanish writer Unamuno indicated as regards literary
translation: “meter palabras nuevas, haya o no haya otras que las reemplacen, es meter nuevos
matices de ideas” (cf. Lorenzo). And, as far as English is concerned, Wagner states that it is “the
only language whose elements are seventy-five percent of foreign origin” (cf. Fernandez 514).
When translating texts with a great amount of cultural terms, however, we should be cautious
(García Yebra 340), unless we want to maintain a certain local colour or exoticism.

Calque
Calque could be described as a literal translation (either lexical or structural) of a foreign word or
phrase. It could actually be considered a special type of loan or borrowing, since the translator
borrows the SL expression or structure and then transfers it in a literal translation (Vinay and
Darbelnet 47), as in the case of shocked ‘chocado’, stressed ‘estresado’, etc.
The difference between loan/borrowing and calque is that the former imitates the morphology,
signification and phonetics of the foreign word or phrase, while the latter only imitates the
morphological scheme and the signification of that term, but not its pronunciation. In the case of
football , for example, using the same term in Spanish would be a pure borrowing; the word fútbol
would be a naturalised borrowing, and balompié a calque.
According to Santoyo ( Teoría 93), calque is not only an acceptable form of translation, it is strict
and correct translation, since it is built with significants of the SL. García Yebra (335) also considers
that it leads to a good translation and that it can certainly contribute to enrich the TL (whereas
borrowings are not really translation procedures, but giving up in the translation task).

Compensation
The aim of compensation is to balance the semantic losses that translation involves (either in the
content of the message or its stylistic effects). Compensation introduces a SL element of
information or stylistic effect in another place in the TL text because it cannot be reflected in the
same place as in the SL: the translation of dialects, irony, politeness values, etc. In the case of
Spanish-English translation, we could mention, for example, the familiarity or formality of “tú” and
“usted”. Both words are translated into English as “you”, so the translator will have to express
degrees of formality in different ways, maybe compensating by using other English words of the
formal and informal registers, in order to preserve the same level of formality.

Compression / reduction / condensation / omission
These four terms are opposed to the ones mentioned in section 2.8. In all of them the translator
synthesizes or suppresses a SL information item in the TL text, mainly when that information is
considered unnecessary (Vázquez Ayora 359) because the cultural term does not perform a
relevant function or may even mislead the reader.
Compression/reduction/condensation/omission of information is not common when translating
cultural terms and, when it occurs, it is usually to avoid repetitions, misleading information, or lack
of naturalness.

Description
As the term itself indicates, a term or expression is replaced by a description of its form or function.
It could, thus, be regarded as a sort of paraphrase, or even as an amplification or explanation (cf.
2.8.) of a SL term, as in the Spanish translation of He’s a Cockney ‘Es de la parte este de Londres, de
la parte más pobre’.

Equivalence
According to Vinay and Dalbernet, equivalence refers to a strategy that describes the same
situation by using completely different stylistic or structural methods for producing equivalent texts
(Vinay and Dalbernet 52). This basically means that the translator uses a term or expression
recognised as an established equivalent in the TL. It is similar to adaptation (cf. 2.1.) and to
modulation (cf. 2.11.) in that it expresses the same situation in a different way (Vázquez Ayora 322),
mainly in cases of idioms and formulaic language, as in God bless you ‘!Salud!’, Holy cow! ‘!Madre
mía!’, You must be joking! ‘!Ni hablar!’, Only the good die young ‘Mala hierba nunca muere’.

Explicitation / expansion / amplification / diffusion
These terms are in opposition to the ones mentioned in section 2.5. Explicitation means that we
express in the TL something that is implicit in the context of the SL (Vázquez Ayora 349), or that we
introduce details that are not expressed in the SL, such as more information, translator’s notes, or
explicative paraphrasing, as in IRA ‘La organización terrorista IRA’.
In the other three cases, those of expansion (Vinay and Darbelnet 184), amplification (Vazquez
Ayora 137) and diffusion (Malone 45), the translator uses, in the TL, more words than in the SL to
express the same idea.
Examples of these procedures could be the following ones: Coffee break ‘descanso para tomar
café’, The man next door ‘el hombre que vive (en la puerta de) al lado’, Successful fishermen went
back home ‘los pescadores que habían tenido éxito volvieron a casa’.

Generalization
With this procedure, in opposition to particularisation, the translator uses hypernyms or more
general or neutral terms, normally for stylistic reasons, or to avoid unnecessary repetitions or
ambiguity, as in the case of John has a beautiful dog ‘Juan tiene un hermoso animal ’.

Literal translation
Literal translation, or word by word, occurs when a SL word or phrase is translated into a TL word
or phrase, without worrying about style, but adapting the text to the TL syntactic rules, with
minimal adjustments, so that it sounds both correct and idiomatic (word order, functional words,
etc.). In Vinay and Dalbernet’s words (48), it is the direct transfer of a SL text into a grammatically
and idiomatically appropriate TL text in which the translators’ task is limited to observing the
adherence to the linguistic servitudes of the TL.
An example of literal translation could be John loves Mary ‘Juan ama a María’, in which the
preposition ‘a’ has been added because it is a requirement for direct objects denoting a person.

Modulation
Modulation consists of using a phrase that is different in the SL and TL to convey the same idea
(Vinay and Dalbernet 51). In other words, there is a change in the point of view, focus, perspective
or category of thought in relation to the SL, as in Neither head nor tail ‘ni pies ni cabeza’, Don’t get
so excited ‘tranquilízate’, …
It is similar to transposition and, sometimes, necessary in order to avoid lack of fluency or exoticism
in the translation.

Particularisation
Particularisation is in opposition to generalisation (cf. 2.9.). It refers to the procedure in which the
translator uses in the TL hyponyms or more precise or concrete terms, as in She’s a great person ‘Es
una mujer maravillosa’, in which particularisation disambiguates whether ‘person’ is male or female,
since there is no translation of ‘she’ in this case.

Substitution (linguistic-paralinguistic)
According to Hurtado (36), linguistic-paralinguistic substitution is the translation procedure in
which linguistic elements are replaced by paralinguistic elements (intonation, gestures, etc.) or vice versa, as in Oh , what a shame !, which could perhaps be translated as ‘!Qué pena! dijo
sorprendida’, or to translate the Arab gesture of putting your hand on your heart as ‘Thank you’.

Transposition
This procedure involves changing a grammatical category or replacing one part of the speech for
another, without changing the meaning of the message (Vinay and Dalbernet 50). The following
translations are types of transposition: This computer is out of order ‘Este ordenador no funciona’, I
knocked him down ‘Le derribé de un golpe’, I touched a footbrake ‘Frené’… (this last example also
includes a reduction).
Grammatical transpositions, with appropriate morphological and syntactic adjustments, are quite
frequent in order to obtain a translation that sounds as if it had been originally written in the TL.

Variation
Finally, variation is a procedure in which the translator changes elements that affect several aspects
of linguistic variation: changes in tone, style, social dialect, geographical dialect ... (Hurtado 37), as
in the case of I ain’t no fool ‘No soy ningún tonto’, or in Yep, and it’s dirt cheap ‘Sí, y se lo dejo muy
barato’, in which the register used in the TL is completely different.


EXERCISE:
Find an Indonesian folklore. Take a part of the story which consist of 500 words or more. Translate the part from Indonesian to English.