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On Transliteration from the Perspective of Cultural Manipulation

Author: HuCui
Tutor: XuLiNa
School: Qingdao University
Course: Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Keywords: transliteration culture translation rewriting theory translation methods
CLC: H059
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2011
Downloads: 66
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Abstract


Cultural differences are perceived as the obstacle in cultural communication, and translation is an effective method in removing these obstacles and promoting cultural communication between different nations. However, untranslatability occurs when it is impossible to bestow functionally relevant features of the situation into the contextual meaning of the TL (target language) text in translation. Transliteration is therefore believed to be a ready substitute for the word or expression which is difficult to translate into the other language. In translation history, transliteration has been neglected for a long time. However, transliteration has shown distinct advantages where there are no equivalent expressions in the TL.Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan belong to two different language systems. Indo-European language belongs to the phonetic system or an alphabet system, while Chinese characters are ideograms, conveying their meanings by structures or patterns of those characters. A Chinese character which codifies the pronunciation and the meaning could be a morpheme or a word; therefore, the associated meanings must be produced in transliterating foreign words into Chinese. In Chinese, there are several Chinese characters which share the same pronunciation and we call those characters "homophones", and homophones give more freedom to translators in selecting Chinese characters in transliteration. As a result, translators will take different Chinese characters in transliterating foreign words to deliver the meaning of foreign words.As a translation method, transliteration is restricted by cultural factors. On the one hand, it enriches the Chinese vocabulary and promotes the communication between different nations; on the other hand, any translation practice, including transliteration, is not made in a vacuum, but is influenced by socio-cultural elements. Thus, from the cultural perspective of translation, transliteration can not simply be conceived as the rewriting of a word from SL (source language) to TL. The transliteration process is manipulated in varying degrees by translators in order to make the transliterating words adapt to the culture system of the TL and be accepted by more readers. Therefore, cultural manipulation is crucial in the selection of Chinese characters in the transliteration of foreign words into Chinese.Taking the rewriting theory as the theoretical frame, this thesis analyzes principles of selecting Chinese characters in transliterating foreign words to show the cultural manipulation of transliteration practices. And the cultural manipulation lies on three levels:(1) cultural factors do not carry the same weight, nor are they at the same hierarchical level in the transliteration of foreign words of different categories; (2) translators’ opinions and intentions determine the selection of Chinese characters under the influence of certain cultural factors; (3) transliterating words have to go through the natural selection process and finally the fittest will survive with the development of culture. Readers’ ideology and aesthetic taste work as the most important determinant of the process of natural selection.Transliteration practice is manipulated by cultural factors. The study of transliteration from the cultural perspective aims to correct the original view that transliteration is the transcription from one alphabet to another.

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