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WONG SHIU PING (B150041A)

Cross-Cultural Translation Assignment:

Difficulties of Translating Cultural Items: Festivals


Translation is a process of conveying messages or ideas or concepts from a source
language to a target language. During the process of translating, equivalence is to be
preserved in order to avoid misdirecting of ideas and to be faithful to the author's original
idea, but 100% equivalence does not seems to be possible in certain translating process
especially translation that involve cultural items. This is because there are many items that
exist in a cultural but do not exist in another. In this case, translator should be aware of the
word chosen either does it makes sense to the receptor audience or does it makes other sense
for them. Most of the time, a footnote will be given to explain that term, yet translating the
terms from one language to another is still inevitable. There are several translating methods
used to translate cultural items, which will be further elaborate later, the main focus of this
assignment is to pinpoint the difficulties of translating cultural items (festivals).

Before starting to list down the difficulties, we should equip some basic knowledge of
translating methods. There are 3 methods that have been widely used to translate cultural
items, namely, borrowing, Calque, and transliterations. Borrowing is a method that borrow
the whole items directly from the source language to the target language, where the foreign
word is used rather than finding a less satisfying(over translate or under translate) equivalent
word from the target language. This method is consider the simplest method because the
translator need not to find a substitute for the cultural term which might distort the original
meaning. Yet, there are still shortcomings while applying this method, the faux amis (same
word but different meaning). For example, a French word, agenda is borrowed into English,
this word might be similar to dairy, but there are still differences between them and this will
cause confusion when audience from French and English interpret it. Calque is a special type
of borrowing whereby a language borrows an expression form of another, but translates
literally each of its elements. Results of this method is either lexical calque or structural
calque. These two methods share a similarity: those borrowed element will fuse into the
language, becoming part of the language after a period of time. Lastly, transliteration.
Transliteration is a method that translate a term from source language into target language by
using pronunciation. This method is used when there is merely no equivalence in between
source language and target language and in order to keep the originality of the idea. All these
three methods are very useful in translating cultural terms but a translator have to be very
careful of the faux amis and taboos in both source and target language.

Malaysia is a multiracial and multicultural country. There are 3 main races (Malay,
Chinese, and Indian) and many others tribes. Each of them have their very unique and special
culture, therefore, there are many differences between the festivals they celebrate. Such
differences make translating process become very complicated as stated before, there are
some cultural terms that exist in one culture but does not exist in another, and hence
translating the cultural items is very difficult. Festivals celebrated by each race are different,
some of them share similarities but some are totally different in each culture. There are
several examples given below.

New Year for Chinese people is originally Nonglixinnian (), but it had been
translated into Chinese New Year. This translation applied calque method where the concept
of a cultural item is translated into another language by borrowing the concept from source
language and being expressed in the target language using their own words. In such
circumstance, the concept of New Year is clearly conveyed and it is understandable for
targeted audience, it does not arouse any ambiguity and it is not a taboo for the targeted
audience. But the Malay New Year is not translated using such method. Malay New Year in
source language is called Awal Muharram its translation into English is Awal Muharram too.
The translating method applied is borrowing, where the whole phrase in Malay is borrowed
into English without any changes of spelling. Nevertheless, there are some misunderstanding
of this festival. Malay New Year, Awal Muharram had been mixed up with another festival
called Hari Raya Aidilfitri () . Such conflict happens because of the phrase
Hari Raya that have the meaning of big festival or joy festival or celebrating festival, have
caused confusion for others culture which celebrate New Year grandly. Due to the variation of
culture, Chinese who celebrate New Year ceremoniously will automatically assume Hari
Raya Aidilfitri which is celebrated solemnly is the New Year for Malays. The same situation
applies to another Indian festival called Deepavali. Deepavali is the festival that celebrate the
victory of ancient Indian to fight and get rid of monster. Deepavali is also a borrowed that
from Indian language. This is same as the Malay Hari Raya Aidilfitri, because it is celebrated
grandly, it is always mistaken as the New Year of Indian.

Here is another confusion of festivals. The fifteenth day of Chinese New Year is
called ChapGorMeh which is originated from the dialect of Fujian. This festival had been
translated as Lantern Festival. The translation had created a confusion between Lantern
Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival. Mid-Autumn Festivals a translation of a Chinese word
. The translating method used is calque, where the meaning is directly translated by
using the target language words. CharGorMeh is the fifteenth day of Chinese New Year, it is
a joyful festival and tangyuan () eaten on that day. Meanwhile, Mid-Autumn Festival is
on the fifteenth day of August in Chinese calendar, mooncakes are the signature food for this
festival. Both festival involved the element of lantern but both of them are two very different
festivals. Chinese can easily differentiate these two festival due to their cultural experience
but for people from different culture will have difficulties to identify them.

Malay festival are hard to differentiate too! There are total 3 festival starting with
Hari Raya, namely, Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Hari Raya Aidiladha and Hari Raya Haji. All of
these three festivals are translated by borrowing hence there is no explanations from name for
each of them. People asides of Malays will have a hard time to differentiate the 3
festivals .Hari Raya Aidilfitri also known as Hari Raya Puasa and Hari Raya Fitrah, is to
celebrate the successful escape of the Prophet Muhammad from Mekkah to Madinah. Hari
Raya Aidiladha is the feast of sacrifice to pay respect for Ibrahim who sacrifices his son, as
an act of submission on the command of God. On that day, Muslim from worldwide will kill
cows, goats to offer to Allah. Hari Raya Haji another name for Hari Raya Aidiladha. These
festivals are very hard to be understand and difficult to be differentiate without the
knowledge of Islam and translating them are also difficult because such ideas and concepts
only exist in Islam but not in other culture or religion. A translator cannot find words that are
equivalence to them because all of them are Islamic words hence only borrowing will keep
the originality of the festival.

There is an Indian festival that has the concept of sacrifice namely Thaipusam. It is a
festival celebrated mostly by the community on the full moon in the of Thai (January or
February).The Kavadi Attam ("Burden Dance", also written as cavadee) is the ceremonial
sacrifice and offering performed by devotees during the worship of Murugan, the God of War.
Thaipusam is translated using the method of borrowing too.
One of a Chinese festival had become a problem in translation. It is the fifteenth day
of July in Chinese calendar. It is translated as ZhongYuan Festival, Hungry Ghost Festival,
and Ghost Festival. ZhongYuan Festival a transliteration of and Hungry Ghost
Festival and Ghost Festival are the calques of and . Since there is various
translation of a festival, people from others culture would find it complicated whether they
are the same festival or each of them are different from one another.

In conclusion, cross-cultural translation is not only the word-for-word translation


from one language to another, it should take concept and idea (sense) into consideration. A
translator must be very clear of both the source language culture and the target language
culture in order to translate cultural items correctly. Besides, translator should always be
aware if their translation accidentally stepped into the red zone of the target language culture
because a good translation should always respect both the source language culture and the
target language culture. Lastly, a translator should always be faithful to the original idea and
concept of the source language culture, a translation should never differ from the origin.

Reference:
1. Anuradha Dingwaney, Carol Maier. Between languages and cultures: Translation and
Cross-cultural texts. London: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995. Print.
2. Newmark, A Textbook of Translation. UK: Prentice Hall. 1958. Print.

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