awej 5 no.4 full issue 2014

AWEJ Volume.5 Number.3, 2014The Arab translation students’ hindrances in translating political cultureQassemstudents of English to various types of authentic texts that reflect English culture such as politicsand train them to translate such types of texts.To sum up, the problem in translating the political terms above lie in the process ofcomprehension and production. The comprehension problems is ascribed to the students’ lack ofexposure to the TL culture and the production problems occurs because the students are nottrained enough to translate such political terms.Cultural ModelIt is one of the best models to translate culture. It consists of two methods- semantic methodand dynamic equivalence method that will be sketched below.As for the semantic method, it is based on the theory of language, which defines meaning interms of its cultural fields and contexts. According to this method, translating is describing andexplaining the world view of one people to another. The proponents of this method believe thatcultural gaps among languages are inevitable and are not always bridgeable. Ghazala (2004)comments on such a case, saying that culture is one of the most difficult topics in translation,however, it is not right to say that it is untranslatable. The translation practice all around theglobe proves the translatability of alien and remote cultures and languages concerned.In terms of translation teaching, teachers following this method concentrate on contrastsbetween various cultures, demonstrating to the students how different people conceptualize andview the world differently. The students are trained to attain the maximum degree of sensitivityto the culture-bound elements inherent in each lexical item (ibid).The Dynamic equivalence method is defined by Nida (1964: 166) as "the closest naturalequivalence to the source language message". As a student of Nida, Newmark (1981) developsthis method and calls it 'communicative translation' due to its focus on creating a successfulcommunication between the translator and his or her readership. Unlike semantic translation, thepriority here is given to the TL readers over faithfulness to the SL.Dynamic equivalence takes different forms such as alterations, paraphrasing, description,omission, borrowing with some added explanations of the foreign terms and substitution ofdifferent concepts and images. It is considered one of the most successful translation methods.However, it was criticized by some translation theorists for ignoring the SL culture. Bassnett-McGuire (1980) and Kornissarov (1991) argue:Replacing one concept by another in translation is deceiving the TL readerby making him or her ignorant of the reality of the SL culture. It is anunderestimation of his or her capability of understanding the SL culture. Thefact that a concept does not exist in the culture of the TL reader does not atall mean that he or she is incapable of understanding it. (cited in Kashoob:85)By way of illustration, they reject Nida's translation by replacing the Biblical expression'to greet another with a kiss' by "to give a hearty handshake all around" when translated to peopleto whom the kiss would have a completely different meaning (ibid). As I see it, Bassnett-McGuire (1980) and Kornissarov (1991) have a point in their criticism of dynamic equivalence.The substitution of one term by another term since it does not exist in the TL is not anappropriate alternative in many cases because it makes the TL reader ignorant of the SL culture.In spite of that, the dynamic equivalence remains an efficient method in cases whereArab World English JournalISSN: 2229-9327www.awej.org242