Literary Text Translations: Problematic Aspects of Cultural Barriers

Year 2013, Volume: 10 Issue: 2, 201 - 206, 02.11.2013

Mohamed M. Benotman

Abstract

Literary translation is closely linked to the act of interpretation; interpretation in
fact precedes the very act of translation. Schulte points out that: “Interpretation in itself
is the act of translation, therefore, the concept of translation should be anchored in a very
simple recognition; all acts of communication are acts of translation whether we try to
explain an idea or whether we try to relate an exciting experience to another person.”3
Many of the words have an evident meaning, but the way they are strung in sequence in
a literary text, especially in a rich or inventive one, confers on these words a well-defined
type of meaning. 

Keywords

Literary Text Translations, Cultural Barriers

Literary Text Translations: Problematic Aspects of Cultural Barriers

Abstract

Literary translation is closely linked to the act of interpretation; interpretation in
fact precedes the very act of translation. Schulte points out that: “Interpretation in itself
is the act of translation, therefore, the concept of translation should be anchored in a very
simple recognition; all acts of communication are acts of translation whether we try to
explain an idea or whether we try to relate an exciting experience to another person.”3
Many of the words have an evident meaning, but the way they are strung in sequence in
a literary text, especially in a rich or inventive one, confers on these words a well-defined
type of meaning. 

Keywords

Cultural Barriers, Literary translation

References

• Yusuf Ali, Abdullah. The Translation of the Meanings of the Holy Quran (Maryland: Amana Corporation, 1983). Allen, Roger. Autumn Quail (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1985).
• Balasubramanian, Koushik and Mohan, D. R. “Contextual vs Textual Specifics: the Limits of Translation,” in Talgeri, P. and Verma, S. B. (eds.), Literature in Translation. From Cultural Transference to Metonymic Displacement (New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University, 1988).
• Barnstone, Willis. The Poetics of Translation, History, Theory, Practice (Newhaven: Yale University Press, 1988).
• Beaugrande, Robert. Critical Discourse: A Survey of Literary Theorists (New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1988).
• Hatim, Basil and Mason, Ian. Discourse and the Translator (London: Longman, 1990).
• Lotfipour-Saedi, Kazem. “Components of Translation Equivalence,” in Talgeri, P. and Verma, S. B. (eds.), Literature in Translation. From Cultural Transference to Metonymic Displacement (New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University, 1988).
• Mahfouz, Naguib. Autumn Quail (Cairo: Dar Massar, 1962).
• Savory, Theodore Horace. The Art of Translation (London: Cape, 1968).
• Schulte, Rainer and Biguenet, John. Theories of Translation: An Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
• Wellwarth, George E. “The Problem of Cultural Recontextualisation in Literary Translation,” in Talgeri, P. and Verma, S. B. (eds.), Literature in Translation: From Cultural Transference to Metonymic Displacement (New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University, 1988).