11
beginning of a business relationship is viewed as more important than
signing the contract (Latifi 1997, Budwar and Yaw 2001).
Translation Studies
In this section we want to examine some of the key ideas in the field of
translation studies which might shed light on the present study, though it is
useful to recall Nida‟s point that many translators will not draw upon theory
in any conscious fashion:
Instead of speaking of theories of translation, we should perhaps
speak more about various approaches
to the task of translating,
different orientations which provide helpful insight, and diverse
ways of talking about how a message can be transferred from one
language to another.
(Nida, 1991: 21).
We can see that the translator has a key role to play in this process, but
Pym (2006) notes that until recently the field of translation studies has
paid relatively little attention to their role as mediators. It should be noted
that although we have used translator as
a generic term, it is more precise
to use this to refer to those who translate the written word. Translators of
the spoken word are more commonly referred to as interpreters, and Pym
(2006) suggests that the importance of the mediating role is more obvious
12
and immediate for interpreters.
Consistent with this, our findings suggest
that the issue of untranslatable words presents more of a problem for
interpreters than translators.
Our discussion of linguistic imperialism highlighted issues of power in
language, and work within translation studies highlight a very
specific
example of how power dynamics affect translation. There appears to be a
„gradient‟ of prestige, such that when material is
translated from a highly
prestigious language/culture, it retains more of its original form, consistent
with the „law of interference‟ (Toury, 1995), which emphasis that the
nature of the source text affects the target text. Thus a Shakespearean
sonnet is likely to be rendered into the target language as
a fourteen-line
poem, even if that language/culture had no tradition of using such a poetic
form. It would be a matter of empirical investigation to determine which
languages/cultures are viewed as „highly prestigious‟, but in the context of
international business it seems legitimate to assume that English is more
prestigious than Farsi. Logically, this would mean that English gets
translated in Farsi in a form closer to the original than occurs when Farsi is
translated into English. The complex and culturally-specific
phrases
associated with
tarouf
would therefore be rendered into their nearest
English equivalent, almost certainly losing something in the process. Note
13
however that this may be simply an effect of the „law of growing
standarization‟ (Toury, 1995) – the tendency for translated texts to be
more similar to each other than other texts – since Pym (2008) notes that
when he puts „Australianisms‟ into his academic texts they either
disappear or “are turned into something absolutely standard” in
translations. Taken together Toury‟s two laws of translation would be
expected to lead to a situation in which translation from Farsi into English
produces „texts‟ (including the spoken word) which lack many of the
important cultural nuances
of the original, having considerable similarity to
other translated texts and few distinctly Iranian features.
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