When intending to charge per source word, we translators are able to give clients an accurate quotation for the translation up-front. That will be advantageous to the client in knowing how to budget for a particular project, as opposed to charging per target word that will give a rough estimation of what the final cost […]
Archives for July 2019
“Source culture translation or target culture translation?”
Is it the translator’s task to focus primarily on the source culture or the target culture? The answer is not clear-cut. Nevertheless, the dominant criterion is the communicative function of the target (receptor language) text. Let us take business correspondence as an example: here we follow the commercial correspondence protocol commonly observed in the target […]
“Assimilation and social differentiation, and language.”
Through time, variations appear within a language. Transmission of a language is self-perpetuating unless there is deliberate interference. However, it became important for humans to improve their social hierarchies and social status to advance personally. Thus, many people cultivate the right dialect with their phonological, grammatical and lexical features to make better than the rest […]
“ (3) The importance of culture in translations.”
Multiculturalism, which is a present-day phenomenon, plays a role when translating, because it has had an impact on almost all peoples worldwide as well as on the international relations emerging from the current new world order. Moreover, as technology develops and grows at a hectic pace, nations and their cultures have, as a result, started […]
“(2) Culturally transmitted language.”
Language is the reason why humans have histories that animals do not have. In the study of animal behavior through the course of history, alterations to their behavior were the result of the intervention of humans through domestication and other types of interference. The culture of humans on the other hand is as different as […]
“Translation and Culture: Literal and Contextual Meaning.”
For every translated sentence, the translator must be able to decide on the importance of its cultural context, what the phrase really means, not necessarily what it literally means, and convey that meaning in a way which makes sense not only in the target language but also in the context of the target culture. There […]