Cultural Functions of Translation

This book discusses the far-reaching effects that translated texts may have in the target culture and illustrates that translation as a culture-transcending process is an important way of forming cultural identities and of positioning cultures.

Lawrence Venuti discusses the enormous power translation wields in constructing representations of foreign cultures.

The conservative or transgressive effects of translation are illustrated by several translation projects from different periods: novels, philosophical texts, and religious texts.

Candace Seguinot focuses on effects of globalisation for translating advertising.

She argues that the marketing of goods and services across cultural boundaries involves an understanding of culture and semiotics that goes well beyond both language and design.

Translation is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.

The translator, as the expert communicator, is at the crucial centre of a long chain of communication from the original initiator to the ultimate receiver of a message.

The papers and the debates take up important related issues: translation strategies (foreignising vs. domesticating strategies; translation and marketing strategies); the knowledge required of translators as interlingual and intercultural mediators; ethical responsibilities; and consequences for translator training.

Contributors to the debates include Mona Baker, Terry Hale, Paul Kussmaul, Kirsten Malmkjaer, Peter Newmark and Douglas Robinson.