From: rhinoceros (rhinoceros@freemail.gr)
Date: Sat Jun 21 2003 - 15:03:07 MDT
[rhinoceros]
I stumbled upon this very interesting text during my web leisure time. It is to be expected that a Chinese would see the issues of cultural presuppositions and misunderstanding more vividly than most of us.
Cultural Presuppositions and Misreadings
http://www.erudit.org/revue/meta/1999/v44/n1/003296ar.html
Full text posted in the BBS here:
http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=3;action=modify;msg=124740;threadid=28743
<begin quote>
Abstract
Of the many factors that may lead to misreadings in translation, cultural presuppositions merit special attention from translators because they can substantially and systematically affect their interpretation of facts and events in the source text without their even knowing it. This paper attempts to pinpoint the relationship between cultural presuppositions and translational misreadings. The author considers major elements in the four sub-systems of culture and examines how these elements help breed presuppositions that inadvertently affect the translator's decoding of the original message.
<snip>
Cultural presuppositions related to ideational systems are responsible for the greatest number of translational misreadings because the realities different cultures face differ much less than the ways in which different cultures regard these realities. For instance, both Chinese and Anglo-American culture regard time as a continuum, but when referring to the past and the future in terms of "back" and "ahead," they adopt different starting points. A traditional Chinese stands facing the past, perceiving what just happened as ahead of him and what is yet to come as behind him. A native English speaker, however, assumes the opposite viewpoint.
<snip>
Neglecting this difference in temporal perspective would result in a wrong translation of the following passage, in which the context provides no clues as to the relative earliness or lateness of the time in question:
"The first is in the two essays of part II on culture and biological evolution, where the fossil datings given in the original essays have been definitely superseded. The dates have, in general, been moved back in time..." [Geertz 1973: preface]
<snip>
Different cultures may cling to significantly different presuppositions in terms of values and attitudes. While Western culture prizes the individual, for example, traditional Chinese culture places great emphasis on the group. It is no accident that in the following illustration:
"There was nothing mass produced about the school. But if it was individualistic, it also had discipline." [Agatha Christie. Cat Among the Pigeons]
the translator should turn the phrase "mass produced" into the more favourable (and wrong) *daliang chu rencai de* "producing a large number of talented personnel," because in the Chinese mind, group behaviour is socially commended and usually regarded as antithetical to individualistic action, which is often met with suspicion and disapproval.
<end quote>
[rhinoceros]
By the way, notice the four basic assumptions about culture. What are the implications of the assumptions (1) and (2) for evolutionary psychology? What are the implications of the assumptions (3) and (4) for memetics? Any thoughts?
<begin quote>
Most anthropologists agree on the following features of culture:
1. culture is socially acquired instead of biologically transmitted;
2. culture is shared among the members of a community rather than being unique to an individual;
3. culture is symbolic. Symbolizing means assigning to entities and events meanings which are external to them and which cannot be grasped alone. Language is the most typical symbolic system within culture;
4. culture is integrated. Each aspect of culture is tied in with all other aspects.
<end quote>
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