1. Introduction

Translation is one of the important fields in building cultures. Therefore, translators bear the responsibility of reconstructing the source language text in the target culture in a way which complies with the cultural beliefs of the target language. For the descriptive point of view, Tory (1995, p. 56) states that translation is an activity which ‘inevitably involves at least two languages and two cultural traditions, i.e. at least two sets of norm-systems on each level’. Additionally, structuralisms highlight the effects of translators’ ideologies and their role in maintaining or changing the meaning according to the cultural values of certain dominating culture.

Cultural differences between languages may happen because of the differences in time, religions, moralities, etc.. The translator’s role involves in the reception and production of the massage which poses the problem and how cultural meaning should be presented from and into different cultures to ensure mutual understanding for two different ‘worlds’. Snell-Hornby (1999) described the translator as an expert in intercultural communicative working in internationalized world. The problem here is the cultural elements which do not involve just the meaning of the item.

In this article, I am going to review the ideas and theories for authors in cultural translation, which explain the role of translators in culture and how and why they continually make decisions about cultural issues. The first step will be toward examining for selecting the cultural meaning and evaluate its degree between two different worlds, I will go across language and culture, which are the main elements that the translator depends on through the process of translation to make the decision in choosing the proper words\ phrases in the target text. This will be supported by the opinions from different authors from intercultural, perspective, communicative and sociological approaches.

Then, the exchangeable relation between language and culture will be discussed with the explanation for ‘intercultural’ problems supported by some prominent examples of different languages and text genera. Also, I shows the role of the translator as mediator between languages and cultures and how he\she forming their texts and on what criteria. All of this will be supported by translation authors’ ideas from structural, descriptive, communicative, skopos and poly-system approaches. It will be concluded with an evaluation of this issue and the relation between translator’s decision in choosing the cultural meaning in other fields of study such as the field of international marketing.

2. Theoritical Framwork

2.1. Role of Language

Language works as a tool of communication between cultures; it is participating in presenting the cultural identity of each society. Merriam Webster (2008) defined language as ‘the system of words or signs that people use to express thoughts and feelings to each other’. So, language is the tool which people use to communicate, but translators as a bilingual have two languages which belong to different cultures. Benson and Voller (1997) state that in the last two decades, there has been a wide interest in language and its relation to society which creates a shift from the positivism and adopting scientific methods in translation to constructivism ideas in studying translation.

So, each two different languages present two different cultural realities. The translation uses languages for moving from culture to another or from ancient to modern times. Edward Sapir (1921) states that ‘language is a guide to social reality’. Humans at the mercy of the language which is the source of expressions for a society. He affirms that no language can exist unless it steeped in the context of specific culture and no culture can exist if it does not have in its centre the structure of a certain language.

Svalberg (2007) suggests that language is not simply as a body of knowledge that anybody may know about, but it is needed for social and cultural practice to know the correct use of the expressions in that culture. While Castro-Paniagua (2000, p. 1-2) states that ‘language is the reflection of a culture’ so, in every time we translate we make ‘cross cultural comparison through a linguistic filter and compare languages, cultures and societies’. Therefore, the processe has four perceptions of filters; ‘physiological’, ‘cultural’, ‘individual’ and ‘language’ for a professional translator, and affirms that ‘language’ is the most important one because it helps to learn about other worlds.

Further description in translation studies, Albrech (1989, cited in Simon,1996) states that there is a ‘link’ between the components of the two languages through translation, the translator is the only one who is able to create that ‘link’ through creating equivalence which can conceive both dynamic and static models. Moreover, language is essential to the cultural identity, because it reflects all communicative values, beliefs and customs such as Bininjs who have their unique world in their language.

After all, before doing any work in translation, translator should understand the source text culture in order to present a good piece of work because the text ‘embedded’ in its culture, the more embedded source text, the more difficult to find equivalent terms and ideas in the target langauge (Simon, 1996). Then, what is culture? And how the translator deals with it?

2.2. Culture and Intercultural Relations

Culture is the characteristics of a particular group of people like; their language, religion, social habits, literature, etc., which transmitted from one generation to another. Newmark (1988) defines culture as "the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression", so each language has its own cultural features. Translator should be familiar with the source and target culture in order to achieve closer and more accurate translation through choosing proper vocabularies which comply with the text. For example, one cannot speak or translate properly from English into Arabic without having knowledge with its underlying cultural or Islamic influence. The translation of the English words ‘aunt, uncle, grandfather, grandmother and nephew’ which have more general references than in Arabic language.

Arabic language has specific intended references like; for the word ‘aunt’ which refers to both father’s and mother’s sisters while in Arabic there is a specific expression for father’s sister as ‘Am^’aa’ and mother’s sister as’ Khalah’. In addition, the use of the word ‘Arab’ in Arabic for referring to ‘Almighty Allah’ while Western cultures use the word ‘The Lord’, also words like ‘Allah’ and ‘God’, etc. (Darwish, 2010). House (2009, p. 17) represents a more descriptive picture for cultural theories in translation relevant to construction of the meaning which is ‘cultural filter’. He argues that functional equivalence can be done through employing this filter which the translator can accommodate with social norms and different conventions for cultural specificity.

Katon (2004, p. 45) adds another description for culture and describes it as an iceberg of three frames ‘technical, formal and informal cultures’ and the translator should act as intervene in each of them. Formal culture includes all types of expected things. In that level, the translator will be concerned with Skopos theory of translation, whereas he (Ibid, p. 82) mentiones that ‘tailoring the translation according to reception in the target culture’. Informal culture basically includes values orientation, Brake et al. (1995, p. 34) define it as ‘preference of certain outcomes over others’. Recently, cultural studies are more influential in translating rhetorical studies to describe cultural values, as well as to increase the production of cultural ‘internationalization’.

Furthermore, the struggle between languages and cultures has been started through translation over the time, particularly in the post- and during the colonization era, as well as during the development stages of cultures. Newmark (1995, p. 5) mentions that ‘translation mediates cultures’. Also, Liddicout (2005) explains that in order to understand certain culture and presenting dynamic translation, the translator must understand the culture during three stages; ‘Facts’ which relate to a certain culture, ‘Practice’ which is the correct usage of words and expressions, ‘Processes’ the placement of these words and expressions during the translation process.

“The goal of the learning is to decentre learners from their own cultural based assumptions and to develop an intercultural identity as a result of engagement with an additional culture. Here the borders between self and other cultures are explored and redrawn.” Liddicout (2005, p. 25).

Liddicoat, in this way, differentiates between ‘cultural’ and ‘intercultural’ perspective, explaining the role of the translator in understanding the variety between presenting harmonious forms on both levels of individual cultural identity and foreign cultural identities ‘intercultural’ knowledge. Simon (1996) states that there is a wide tension in understanding the relation between translation and cultures, especially of the post-colonial stages when people treat translating cultures as an activity for ‘destabilizes’ cultural identity of the nation. This may lead to a certain social reaction against translation.

Even more, the culture may effect on the language itself, whereas Spanish language used as official language in twenty countries around the world. But, some food names used in Mexico which the Americans familiar with may have different meaning in other Spanish speaking countries such as, in translating English word ‘Pastry’ into Italian in regardless of its significant cultural meaning will not be able to perform its function in the target translating culture as a type of food (Bassennt, 2002). Therefore, translation has abundantly nourish effects on cultures such as Anglo-American cultural studies. He adds that it is a matter of time when the translation will be a machine for creating transmitted cultures and cultural values.

2.3. Mutual Influence of Language and Culture in Translation

The relation between language and culture is wide and complex. Language is the heart within the body of culture. The relation of the translator to them can be represented as the surgeon who cannot treat or deal with the heart ‘language’ neglecting the body ‘culture’ (Bassentt, 2002). Thus, the translation will involve more than being a replacement for the grammatical and formal unites between two languages. The cultural turn of translation studies has been started through the descriptive approach by the Poly-system theory for studying specific translation norms by Even-Zohar and Tory, translated genera such as theatre by Brisset (1990), etc. (Simon 1996). Mayoral et al. (1988, p. 357) describe the translator as ‘a receptor of the message within the source culture as well as a source of the message in the target culture’.

From anthropological sight, Snell-Hornby (1988, p. 46) mentiones that translation takes place between cultures from the 1980s onward, therefore the translator should not be only bilingual but also bicultural. The problems of correspondence in translation discussed by Nida who conferred equal importance to both linguistic and cultural differences between the source and the target languages. He concluded that differences between cultures may cause more severe complications for the translator than differences in language structure. The movement from translation as a text for translation as culture and politics called as ‘Cultural Turn’.

Moreover, twentieth century authors such as Hatim and Mason (1990), Bill (1991) and Baker (1992\2004) agree that the cultural factor is a crucial one in understanding source texts and translating them into target cultures. Simon (1996) suggests that the translator’s practice and conceptualization for certain cultural identity may affect on the moving boundaries of that culture such as the challenges of moving boundaries in literary genera presented by Eva Hoffman, Nicole Brossard, etc. which will be discussed later on. During the translation process, lines of transmission of thoughts and ideas open up between cultures and creating a permanent feature of ‘internationalized culture’ to form a point of contact between them.

Numerous examinations had been done on the translated texts as separate from their originals to understand the cultural forces around them and to show the translator’s behaviours ‘Ideologies’ toward those attitudes through the differences in cultures (Lefevere, 1992). There are many types of relations between language and cultural identity which remains static, for example, Simon (1996) states that at the beginning of the 20^th century, certain literary uses of slang French in Quebec still have archaic visions of that culture. Moreover, in later ‘Anglicised’ of Urban slang (Joual) in literature, when the translators cannot find an equivalent from English for this word, they had to activate their readings in the way in which cultural meaning changes.

It can be mentioned that in order to get the adequately transferred meaning, the translator has to ‘engage’ with the values of the text and live with the implicit cultural meaning which brought to bear. Pratt (1992) states that there is cultural contact zone between translation and languages where the translator creates relations through equal expressions between languages to have cultural acceptance. For example, the translation of the artist Coco Fusco and her partner from English in America to Spanish in Mexico, involves a variety of disciplines and languages.

This kind of translation describes the role of harmonize and points of creating cultural harmony between different languages through the decision which the translator will take at his\her translated version;

“Working in different languages creates different levels of complicity. When we speak in English, we are the other, Spanish is for us the language of translation and interpretation. When we use it, we explain the condition of the Mexican American to the monolingual Mexican” (Fusco, 1995, P.151).

The growing in the contemporary national cultures with a wide diversity of languages causes that mixing code and other forms which lead to form contemporary modern literature.

2.4. Effects of Cultures on Translation Process

There is no total equivalence between cultural systems. Therefore, the drawing line between source and target cultures ought to be skewed as shown by some translation theorists. In order to understand the ‘cultural meaning’, the translator may not find this meaning in the culture itself, but it may be located in the process of negotiation within the culture which it is part of its reactivation. The translator presents a solution to this problem in understanding the language which related to local realities, literary forms and changing identities. Also, the translator’s job has less to do with finding the cultural inscriptions of a term than in reconstructing its values.

Prominent examples of how the translators make a decision on a cultural issue presented by Needham (1972) who is a British cultural anthropologist, translating the concept of ‘Belief’ to Nuer, who are African group, to which British social anthropologist Evans Pritchard had a major study. Needham startes to mention the difficulty of translating religious concepts in different foreign cultures and concluded that the Neur have no verbal concept that conveys the English word ‘Believe’. Needham’s findings contrast with the findings of missionaries who found equivalent terms for English term ‘Believe’.

This shows that the missionaries depend on their ‘conceptions of faith’ to determine the translatability of that term (Needham, 1972). However, Needham keeps on investigating whether this religious concept is transferable from and to European languages or not and reach to a final answer that the adequacy of the translation can only be measured according to its effects in the target culture (Ibid, p. 205). The history of religious and literary translation filled with such examples. Translating religious texts from Arabic to English language in the word ‘Allah’ which most western translators translating to ‘God’. Islamic society could not accept the second form of the word because it did not show the same social and spiritual meaning of the word ‘Allah’.

Catford (1965, p.93-106) highlights that there are two types of untranslatability of texts which are linguistic and cultural untranslatability. The former when there is no equivalent forms of the source language in the target language for example, in translating from German ‘Um wieviel Uhr darf man Sie morgen wecken?’ or even from Danish ‘Jeg fondt brevet’ to English. These examples cannot be translated unless the translator makes certain procedures and restructuring them using English language grammar through adjusting the position of the words to be accepted in English like; ‘What time would you like to be working tomorrow?’ for German example and ‘I found the letter’for the Danish.

The later is the cultural untranslatability which is more difficult and require more effort from the translator to deal with it because target language culture does not have equivalent expressions for the relevant situation for the differences in cultural and social values. Again, it’s the translator’s role in bridging the gap and solving cultural problems through presenting proper terms during the translation process. The translator’s role could be seen in making decision about the cultural meaning in the ‘Le Desert Mauve’, a novel by the Quebec feminist writer, which is translated from French to English by Susanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood in 1990.

Simon (1996) states that the novel has been divided into three parts; the first one is a dramatic story of murder and betrayal. The second is ‘A book to translate’ and the last part entitled ‘Mauve, the Horizon’ which is a rewriting of the first one in translation, but it contains some changes in the rhyme, phrasing, etc.. There is a contrast between the author’s text and the translation, which is the longest; the translator explains the skeleton of the narrative and supposing hypothesis for explaining enigmas and reconstructing the dialogue. This represents the painstaking task for the translator in taking the decision for creating the unified and equal cultural meaning.

The result was practically identical work with the original one and recognized as interchanged translation in Canada and Quebec through deletion, adding or explaining some parts and meanings that are not adequate to the target audiences (Ibid.). Bassnett (2002) presents another example about the cultural bounds and how the translator makes a decision in translating Italian idiom ‘Menare IL can per l’aia’ to English which provides the proper example of cultural shift that takes place in translation. She states that both English and Italian have corresponding idiomatic expressions of the idea of evading.

Boroditsky (2010) mentiones that a remote Aboriginal in Australia, they do not have terms like ‘left’ ‘right’ in their language, instead of this they refer to the absolute cardinal directions such as ‘north, south, east and west’ like in saying ‘There is an ant on your south west leg’, Also she states that when you want to say ‘Hello’ to someone you probably say ‘Where are you going?’. Such an expression will be strange if it is used in another country such as England, U.S, etc., because of the cultural differences. In this way, the translator has to be aware of the right expressions which comply with translation for the target culture.

Fausey (1978, cited in Bassnett, 2002) presentes another example of the cultural differences between languages, English likes to describe events in terms of agent doing things and the English speaker may say ‘John broke the window’ whether he intended doing this or not, but in other languages such as Spanish and Japanese it would be represented as ‘The window broke itself’, such a difference may cause a huge consequence of how the listener or the reader will understand the language. Japanese and Spanish people remember or mention the events as eye witness and how to blame or punish others, rather than remembering the agent for accidental events.

Bassnett (2002) provides some examples like the word ‘Coffee’ which is an ambiguous word in Japanese because of their country’s temperature, it can be either hot or cold coffee. Therefore, Japanese customers ought to specify which kind they want. On the contrary, English speaker understands that ‘Coffee’ is hot, so if you asked for cold one you have to specify ‘Iced coffee’. Also, Canadians use the word ‘Dollar’ to refer for Canadians currency ‘Canadian Dollar’ while in other parts of the world such as ‘America, Australia, New Zeland’ which have the same term ‘Dollar’ refers to their national currencies, so in Canada you have to specify which dollar you are looking for.

Benjamin (1980, cited in Stiefel, 2009) points out that in spite of the equivalence in lexical meaning between two languages, the difficulty is to choose the equivalent cultural meaning between them. English, French and German cultures have a different referential meaning of the same entity (Bread) which may seem ambiguous relation depending on the type of the meal and other food which are used with a specific kind of bread. In addition, Benjamin (1980) mentioned another type of cultures which implied within one nation such as, political culture in using expressions differ from one culture to another.

Stiefel (2009) states that Helmut Kohl, former German chancellor, when he met former U.S president Regan, trying to create relaxed atmosphere by saying ‘You can say you to me’. This phrase will seem ambiguous or meaningless to English unless it reconstructed to German sociopragmatics. The same thing applied through using medical expressions such as ‘Yellow Skin’, whereas if it's used in public Asian society will mean a humiliation to them, but in medical cultures mean that this patient suffers from ‘Anaemia’. All of this shows the effects of pragmatic social knowledge on sensitivity for choosing the meaning.

From all of this, one can conclude that there is a wide dynamic relation between languages and cultures. Therefore, translators must have the right decision in choosing the cultural meaning which related to the target language in order to convey equivalent meaning in the target culture.

2.5. Translator as Cultural Mediator

There are many academic contributions which suggest the role of the translator as a cultural mediator and translation as a cultural activity. According to Merriam Webster dictionary (2008) ‘mediate’ means ‘to act as intermediary agent in bringing, effecting or communicating’. This suggests the role of the translator for being not only reforming what is mentioned in language A into language B, but works as an agent who acts as intermediary between two worlds ‘cultures’ and tries to reconcile the communication barriers between them.

Hatim and Mason (1997, p. 147) define mediate as ‘the extent to which translator intervenes in the transfer process feeding their own knowledge and beliefs into their processing of a text’. Federici (2006) discusses the role of the translator as cultural mediator in the post-colonel translation within the theoretical background image within the character of Spivak as a mediator in the Second World War, presents the beginning of forming modern culture at the ruins of that war and the cultural movement between English, French, German which represent a symbol for a new wave of international culture.

Nida (1964) was the first author who refers to the cross cultural sides of translation and mentioned ‘the danger of subjectivity in translating’. He added, ‘it is always inevitable that translators be affected by their own personal set of values’. This is to emphasize that the translator has to stay in between in the same distance from the source and target cultures and not being biased in their ideologies to choose their terms. Hofstede (2001) classifies five cultural differences which the translator has to keep in mind through the study of foreign cultures; individualism, cultural meaning distance, ambiguity, masculinity\femininity and long\short term orientation.

Katan (2002, p. 188) states that ‘mediating is the point of refraction’ that the translator ought to be aware through his decision to choose the correct cultural meaning from the consequences of both domestication and foreignization strategies that the translator adopts and aims to achieve the maximum level of equivalence within minimum efforts. For example, the word ‘Red’ which is used in English to specific colour while Hungarian have two words for this colour which is ‘Vrs’ dark red and ‘Pivos’ light red, the specific meaning connected with the shade of that colour.

It is essential that translators assess their attitude toward self-censorship through self-reflexivity. The self-reflexivity is required in order for translators to become aware of perceiving cultural differences. Tymoczko (2007, p. 257) discusses the translator’s ideology in term of strategic self-censorship occurs when ‘some cultural elements of the source text are given zero translation because of goal-driven decision making procedure consciously made by the translator’.

Hatim and Mason (1990, p. 223-224) state that translators are not only working as mediators between cultures, but they also work to ‘overcome those incompatibilities which stand in the way of transforming meaning’. The descriptivists like the role of the translator as cultural mediator such as; Toury (1995) mentiones this as ‘explanatory power with respect to translational phenomena’. Castro-Panniagua (2000, p. 24) goes further in describing the role of the translator and suggested that ‘translator should be an ethnographer’, that is the translator is not able to transfer the semantic information only, but inherent of cultural codes between the two worlds too.

Thus, the important duty of the translator for being a mediator ‘embedded’ with in managing cultural differences through the process of translation and selecting proper terms in order to ensure intercultural understanding of values, because of the diversity of language and cultures with respect for ‘identity’ and ‘individuality’.

3. Practical Framwork

3.1. Sample of the Study

A sample of (4) students was selected from MA in translation studies. The demographic background information about the students’ general background included social data such as gender, age, nationality, number of years they have worked in translation, and the number of years spent in English speaking countries as showing in the following table:

3.2. Methodology of the Study

The method used in the study is a translation test, constructed specifically for the needs of the study. It includes 4 cultural statements which the translators asked to translate form Arabic to English language. Four copies of the test were distributed along with a cover letter which explained the purpose of the study.

3.3. Gathering Data

1) S.L (گلبي مثل النار عليك)

Gloss [on you] [fire] [like] [my heart]

T.L - S. 1: My heart is like fire on you.

- S. 2: I am very worried about you.

- S. 3: My heart is burning on you.

- S. 4: I cannot bear to see you.

2) S.L (متترس عينه غير حفنة تراب)

Gloss [sand] [handful] [only] [his eye] [will not full]

T.L - S. 1: His eyes cannot be closed with mold.

- S. 2: Greedy man.

- S. 3: Sand only will fill his eye.

- S. 4: He will never be filled.

3) S.L (عين غطة و عين فراش)

Gloss [An eyes is a mattress] [and] [An eyes is a blanket]

T.L - S. 1: An eyes is a blanket and the other is mattress for you.

- S. 2: You are welcome.

- S. 3: I will take care of you.

- S. 4: You are very welcome.

4) S.L (دير بالك على حالك)

Gloss [on yourself] [Take care]

T.L - S. 1: Turn your mind on yourself.

- S. 2: Take care.

- S. 3: Be careful.

-S. 4: Take care of yourself.

3.4. Data Analysis

As it is known that there are different strategies and procedures for transition, especially in translating cultural expressions, adopted by translation theorists. The demographic characteristic above shows how the age, years of experience and number of years living in English speaking countries affects on formulating the cultural background of the translator. These affacts controls the translator’s way and strategy in translating cultural expressions through choosing the words which he\she found will convey the style, meaning, sense or all of them such as the explanations of Holly Quran form Arabic to English, there are a lot of which adopt communicative approach to convey the meaning while there is other explanation which adopt stylistic approach to convey the same style in English language, etc..

In the above data translated by the students readers can notice that first translator adoptes literal translation in translating the four cultural samples to convey the same denotative meaning of Arabic words in English and let the reader free to explain them according to the situational context. Third and fourth translators adopt descriptive way in translation through finding equivalent words in English language for Arabic expressions to have the same effects of foreign language reader as the source one depending on connotative meaning of that expression.

The second translator who has more experience and lived for longe time in English speaking countries translated Iraqi cultural expressions adopting the proper strategy of finding equivalent cultural expression in the target cultural. This shows the more criteria (age, living in English speaking countries, etc.) which translator have, it can formulate his skills, ability in both cultures that enable him to produce equvallent conotational and denotational translation in the target language for a special context.

3.5. Result of the Test

The result of the test shows that different translators form different demographic characteristics make different decisions about the cultural meaning. Each of them presents his\her translation according to different strategy for translating cultural texts which he\she mentioned that it is better to be translated by this way for more understanding and presentation of the cultural meaning with in the cultural context which he\ she grows up within. This shows how the mother cultural background of the translator and his knowledge of the foreign target culture effects on the translator decision to formulate his translation in the target cotext for certain needs.

4. Conclusions

In writing the conclusion, I am constantly aware of the wide amount of materials which left for explaining with further details and deeper explanations on how translators constantly make decision about cultural meaning. All of this because of the huge amount of pinions for translation authors on this issue. Simon (1996, p. 139) mentions a fact that the translator is the only one who is responsible for selecting the cultural meaning. In the same way translator bears the responsibility to find a certain way for having a certain type of equivalence between these two different worlds.

In the same way translation related to approaches in other fields of study such as in the field of analysing international marketing whereas Casteora and Graham (1999, p. 85-86) stated that ‘what a marketer is constantly dealing with is culture of the people’ and ‘language may be one of the most difficult cultural elements to master’. They advocate the term of ‘cultural translator’ emphasizing that the translator who is the cultural mediator can avoid the obscene and offensive results in translation.

During this work I discussed the main elements of translation, namly language and culture and how they are affecting each other. Also, what does the foreign concepts mean within the target culture and to what extent does this concept equivalent to another one in the source culture. Tymoczko (2007) says that the translators have far more to do with the notions in the chain of communication between author, text, reader and culture for the source and target texts in relevant to their own culture. For this reason the role of the translator as cultural mediator had been presented to show how the translator deals with cultural issues to be objective rather than subjective in his\her decisions.

To sum up, after studying all of those theories and examples which had been presented by translation authors and explained how the selected translators dealt with different situations. The translator was the author of the translated version of that text, as many translation’s authors emphasize over the time, in his\her decision for choosing terms and expressions to apply certain cultural meaning in the target text. Simon (1996, p. 139) agrees that the translator has wide authority over the translated text even more than the source author. At last, this can show the wide culture influence over the translators on their dicesion to choose the equivalent words for the cultural expresions.

Abbreviations

S.L = Source Text

T.L = Target Text

S. = Student