Suggesting some strategies for translating culture-specific items

1. Translation of Some Culturally
Bound Expressions and
Phrases
BY
Dr. Montasser Mohamed Abdelwahab
An Assistant Professor at Al Imam
Muhammad Bin Saud Islamic University

2. Cultural issues in translation
• Cultural issues in translation are connected
with the problem of understanding the texts
to be translated, because in many cases the
translator is not necessarily a member of the
same culture.
• without any cultural or factual pre-knowledge
the translator will not understand a piece of
information, even if it is presented to him/her
in the most logical way.

3. Cultural Elements in Texts
• Detecting cultural elements in texts is decisive for
translation as culturally based conventions of text
construction may even constitute a major translation
problem for communication.
• Cultural elements are a background of knowledge which is
generally relevant for adequate communication within a
society
• Culture is not a material phenomenon; it does not consist
of things, people, behavior, or emotions. It is rather an
organization of these things. It is the forms of things that
people have in mind, their models for perceiving, relating,
and otherwise interpreting them (Goodenough 1964: 36).

4. Literal Translation of the Phrases
• Such translation means a lot to the target reader. In
fact, it does not reveal the correct or semi-correct
meaning of the English.

5. Examples of Culturally-Bound
Expressions in English
How can we translate the following expressions?
• 1. one parent child
• 2. palimony
• 3 . car boot sale
• 4. mentors
• 5. big brothers and sisters organization

6. The Phrases in Sentences
(1) The one parent child association released its latest
booklet which includes all the services it offers to its
members.
(2) The Lee Marvin palimony case shows that married
or unmarried people who live together can not
avoid a shared responsibility.
(3) According to the police, car boot sales are
notorious places where stolen goods are sold .
(4) In the US, an organization called big brothers and
sisters provides mentors for poor under-privileged
and high-risk children.

7. Difficulty in Translating these
Culturally-Bound Expressions
1. The context is not clear at all.
2. The inability of an Arab or a Muslim reader to
understand such notions.
3. These phrases reflect the existence of concepts
which, in turn, reflect events/actions that are
not found in the Arabic or Islamic culture,
therefore the concepts expressing them do not
exist and consequently, the language has not
devised linguistic means to express them.

8. Some Guidelines to Translate these Phrases
• As for the first example, An Arab or a Muslim reader can
not understand the notion of a child with one parent
only.
• The nearest notion in the Islamic culture to the phrase
one parent child is the child who has lost one or both
parents, in which latter case it is called an orphan in
English. Even in this latter case, i.e. losing one’s parents
in war or earthquake etc., the parents of the child are
still known through the Civil Service Records.
• In the case of a child who is found by itself without it
being possible to know his/her parents by any means, it
is called laqiit, i.e. foundling not one parent child.

9. A Suggested Solution
• Any rendering of the phrase one parent child without
adding a commentary or a footnote will not yield a
translation that is understandable to the Arab reader. The
following comment should be presented to give an
acceptable translation:
“ It is possible for a woman in the western world to
have a baby with any man she likes, and she is not
legally obliged to declare the father’s name or
nationality etc. or she may not be certain about
them. In this case the family which consists of only
the mother and the child is called “one parent family”
and the child is called “one parent child”.

10. A Suggested Acceptable Translation
• Without such commentary, the translation is not
understandable at all. Although this translation is
more accessible to the target reader, nevertheless
it may be opaque without the commentary.

11. Problems in Translating The Second Phrase
(1) The problem lies in the word palimony (pal informally
means a close friend + alimony, an allowance paid
under a court order by one spouse to another when
they are separated, either before or after divorce)
(2) Arabs and Muslims in general cannot understand how
a person could be obliged to pay a regular sum of
money for someone he or she is not legally married to.
(3) According to the Arab’s culture and religion and in fact
to all Muslims alimony, rather than palimony, is to be
paid by a husband to his former wife if they are legally
divorced, but the opposite can never be, i.e. a divorced
woman can never be obliged, neither by court nor by
culture or tradition, to pay alimony to her divorced
husband.

12. How to overcome this cultural gap?
The translator has to translate the original and then
supply the necessary missing information either by
a footnote or between parentheses. Without the
additional commentary , the translation would not
achieve its purpose.
• The translation could be accepted as an adequate
translation with the following commentary:
“It is common in Western civilization for a man and
a woman to live under one roof and to have a
sexual relationship without being married
legally.”

13. A Suggested Acceptable Translation
•

14. The Translation of the Third Phrase
(1) The problem lies in the phrase car boot sale.
(2) The nearest equivalent in Arabic would be an
auction sale, which is, of course, not what car
boot sale is.
(3) This problem too is a cultural mismatch.
(4) The following commentary could be helpful:
“In Britain, it is usual for a person to collect some
goods (second hand or new) in his car boot, and
sell them in some assigned places on weekends,
special occasions, festivals etc. and this event is
called car boot sale.”

15. A Suggested Accepted Translation
•

16. Translation of the Fourth Phrase
• There are two unfamiliar phrases: big brothers and sisters
and mentors. Each of them needs a commentary from the
translator because the concepts that lie behind them are
not found in the Arabic culture yet.
• As for the word,” mentor”, The nearest equivalents to it in
Arabic would be mushref which means academic
supervisor, or murabii which means an educator, a person
who teaches small children good behavior, or mu’adeb,
which could be translated into a tutor and is considered a
synonym to murabii.
• However, these words are not equivalent to the English
original as mentor is a member in the Big Brothers and
Sisters organization.

17. The second Phrase in the fourth text
In the USA, Big Sisters and Brothers is a special
organization of adults and experienced volunteers
who spend about five hours weekly with
underprivileged or high-risk children to help them
overcome the difficulties they may face in their daily
life so that they may not be victims of drug
traffickers etc.
The point that should be stressed is that such
expressions are culturally bound as they are not
found in the Arab/Muslim target culture

18. A Suggested Accepted Translation
•