...Three important cultural interactions from ‘Lost In Translation’: 1. Greeting Scene Bob arrives at the Park Hyatt Tokyo Hotel and is immediately greeted by his Japanese associates. They greet him with gifts and present their business cards instead of the casual handshaking or general conversation making to build rapport. It is evident that this scene demonstrates the honorifics in Japanese communication. This is incredibly crucial in terms of communicating as the Japanese addresses/refers to one another accordingly depending on their position. I find this scene to be interesting as the Japanese always demonstrate a sense of humbleness and respect for one another and expect these customs to uphold even with foreigners who may not yet fully understand what is expected of them. 2. Whiskey Commercial During Bob’s filming of the commercial, it is evident that there is a large language barrier between the director, the Japanese interpreter and himself. The director gives Bob instructions that seem to be incredibly complex and somewhat offensive due to his body language and tone of voice. However, the translator only interprets a few words from the director’s lengthy instructions and Bob becomes incredibly confused. It is evident that this scene demonstrates ambiguity (aimai) as the interpreter may not want to cause offence and conflict between the director and Bob. It also can be said that the interpreter didn’t want to abuse her position as an interpreter by being out...
Words: 605 - Pages: 3
...Ricks: http://aib.msu.edu/fellow.asp?FellowID=46 International marketing can be a tricky business. With the increase in global trade, international companies cannot afford to make costly advertising mistakes if they want to be competitive and profitable. Understanding the language and culture of target markets in foreign countries is one of the keys to successful international marketing. Too many companies, however, have jumped into foreign markets with embarrassing results. Out of their blunders, a whole new industry of translation services has emerged. Faulty translations The value of understanding the language of a country cannot he overestimated. Translation mistakes are at the heart of many blunders in international advertising. Since a language is more than the sum of its words, a literal, word-by-word dictionary translation seldom works. The following examples prove this point. Otis Engineering Company once displayed a poster at a trade show in Moscow that turned heads. Due to a poor translation of its message, the sign boasted that the firm’s equipment was great for improving a person’s sex life. The Parker Pen Company suffered an embarrassing moment when it realized that a faulty translation of one of its ads into Spanish resulted in a promise to “help prevent unwanted pregnancies”. Automobile manufacturers in the United States have made several notorious advertising mistakes that have been well publicized. General Motors learned a costly lesson when it introduced...
Words: 1387 - Pages: 6
...Chapter Assignment 1 Template Name: Liberty University Email Address: Assignment 1-1: Select five translations that we talked about in this chapter. Select a passage from the Bible (it must be at least two verses long) and write out how the translations render this passage. Next, mark or highlight the differences among the five translations. Write a paragraph summarizing what you have observed by comparing the translations. (p.38) (10 Points) 1 Corinthians 10:13 Translations Used: NLT, KJV, NIV, NKJV and ESV NLT – 1 Corinthains 10:13 the temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure. KJV – 1 Corinthains 10:13 there hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. NIV – 1 Corinthains 10:13 no temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. NKJV – 1 Corinthians 10:13 no temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with...
Words: 3920 - Pages: 16
...mind is Sophia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation”. Bob Harris, played by Bill Murray, is an American actor who visits Tokyo, Japan to film an ad for whiskey. Bob, away from his wife and his familiar western environment, experiences isolation, loneliness, and sleeplessness upon entering Tokyo. He is constantly frustrated, due largely in part to his understanding of what others, such as a film director, restaurant waiters, and prostitutes are trying to convey to him in Japanese. In the midst of all this, he meets Charlotte, an American woman who like him, is lonely because her husband is more interested in his photography work than her. Due to their shared loneliness and feelings of isolation and culture shock, Bob and Charlotte become friends, and begin a relationship through respect, trust, and self-disclosure. Bob and Charlotte become a mirror to each other, as both try to sort out their identities and how proceed from their own relational crossroads. While the audience may wonder throughout the movie if Bob and Charlotte’s relationship will ever become romantic, it is plain to see that they learn lots about themselves and each other as a result of being outsiders in this new and unfamiliar culture. The most evident intercultural concepts I noticed in the film is culture shock, language, and identity. The first concept, culture shock, is explained in our text as “the psychological and emotional reaction people experience when they encounter a culture that is very different from...
Words: 1081 - Pages: 5
...Lost in Translation Fawne Cady University of Maryland University College Turnitin Originality Score: 7% Turnitin Originality Score: 7% Abstract Managers who take time to become familiar with the basic cultural beliefs of a patient foster an environment of mutual respect and consideration. Cross cultural communication can enhance patient-provider relationships and improve quality of care outcomes. Cultural unfamiliarity hinders autonomy of the patient and threatens an optimum level of care health care professionals are sworn to strive towards. Language barriers and mediated conversations hinder communication and foster an environment filled with confusion and apprehension. This essay reviews a scenario featuring a health care team’s disregard for communication barriers and its impact on an Iranian man diagnosed with cancer. Recommendations are offered on traditional American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) approaches to cross cultural medicine as they apply to this scenario. The ultimate objective is for health care providers and administrators to be aware of the possible impacts elicited by the lack of attention to language barriers and to provide approaches to combat these obstructions of quality health care. Keywords: cross-cultural medicine, cultural miscommunication, cultural awareness Lost in Translation Hospitals in the United States are not restricted to serving a single language population or culture. Many medical professionals consider...
Words: 1257 - Pages: 6
...Orientalism in Films There have been many uses and abuses in Western view of the Eastern cultural and social concept of orientalism. This paper discusses how orientalism relates to the three films namely M. Butterfly, Madame Butterfly, and Lost in Translation. Like the title, "M. Butterfly" basically was playing about transformation. This is the first of the Giacomo Puccini opera metamorphosis that was famous, in which "Madame Butterfly" became the modern geopolitical argument to understand the culture. In this film, through love relations that really did not make sense between a French diplomat and the Chinese opera singer he believed the man became the woman, how could the failure for the wish to be separated from reality result in the deception and the tragedy. Gallimard changed Sole from "only humankind" in the "Perfect Woman". Due to his insecurity about his own masculinity, Gallimard needs to create Song in the image of the perfect Asian woman, which is exotic, sensual, and acquiescent, in order to feel wholly male. Although he seeks to confine Sole within the context of his fantasy, Gallimard poster vulnerability and need actually free Sole by providing her with an outlet to flee the Orientalist representation of Asian people. Gallimard transforms Sole into a butterfly, boots instead of transforming him into one of the butterfly. Whereas Gallimard, is actually the one who eventually ends up trapped by his own fantasy. Through an analysis of Gallimard practice cultural...
Words: 2090 - Pages: 9
...Language Shapes Our Minds Language is so essential to our existence, so deeply part of what every human has and does, and it’s impossible to picture life without it. As social creatures, we use language as a tool, but this tool is embedded in us. This tool doesn't just help us shape the world around us and create bonds and express things, but this tool also shapes our mind. They can alter the way we see the world and the way we think and the way we live our lives. I’ve always been a firm believer of this and many different persons including lawyers, linguists, and psychologist speculated it, but not until recently were studies actually done to prove these statements. This was mostly done because it was presumed “untestable”, but luckily, Stanford and MIT found ways to reopen the question. “We have collected data around the world: from China, Greece, Chile, Indonesia, Russia, and Aboriginal Australia. What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world.” (Boroditsky, Lera. "HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK.) Language is a unique thing that humans have had the ability to create and develop and it is not only a key example to express how humans work, but it allows us to express ourselves in so many ways. To understand how language works, we must first understand what language is. Language is defined as ‘a body of words and the systems for their use...
Words: 2093 - Pages: 9
...and Foreignization in Translation Wenfen Yang School of Foreign Languages, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, China Email: wfyoung@163.com Abstract T his essay gives a brief study of Domestication and Foreignization and the disputes over these two basic translation strategies which provide both linguistic and cultural guidance. Domestication designates the type of translation in which a transparent, fluent style is adopted to minimize the strangeness of the foreign text for target language readers; while foreignization means a target text is produced which deliberately breaks target conventions by retaining something of the foreignness of the original. In the contemporary international translation field, E ugene Nida is regarded as the representative of those who favour domesticating translation, whereas the Italian scholar L aw rence Venuti is regarded to be the spokesman for those who favour foreignizing translation, who has also led the debate to a white-hot state. Index Terms domestication, foreignization, translation strategies I. OVERVIEW OF DOMESTICATION AND FOREIGNIZATION Domestication and foreignization are two basic translation strategies which provide both linguistic and cultural guidance. They are termed by American translation theorist L.Venuti (qtd. in Schaffner 1995:4). According to Venuti, the former refers to -language cultural values, bring the author the linguistic and cultural designates the type of translation in which a transparent...
Words: 2334 - Pages: 10
...Vijayan’s Translations Introduction The process of globalization affects almost all the fields of research undertaken by human beings; translation has not been an exception. The present phenomenon of globalization in fact promotes almost all languages to have benefits, which offering mainly through the information technology and its new exposures to a global audience from the different parts of the „glocal‟ village. Cultures are getting closer and closer, and this is something that translators need to take more into account. Translocating the Subject: The Re- Sited Structures of O. V. Vijayan’s Translations problematizes O. V. Vijayan‟s novel translations in this new global locality. This is a new aspect that is gaining focus in the field of world literary translation studies. Hence this is an attempt to initiate fresh discussions on the link between translation and globalization in the translations by OV Vijayan (1930- 2005), one of the key figures in Malayalam literature. New Canonization The introductory chapter “New Canonization”, proposes analyse the terms “translocating the subject” and “globalization” and envisages to take a serious look at the author particularly in the context of the changing terms of Translation Studies within the context of globalization as well as of postcolonial discussions on translation. Globalization and translation both deal with languages and cultures. They attempt to remove cultural and language barriers but while translation targets better...
Words: 3047 - Pages: 13
...phenomena that are peculiar to the life (the geographical surroundings, culture, everyday realities or sociological and historical specifics) of the people of one nation, country or tribe, and alien for another, thus conveying national, local or historical colouring. As a result, they do not have exact equivalents in other languages and, therefore, need to adopt alternative approaches to their translation [11, 47]. The notion of realia was further developed and enriched in terms of the Translation Studies by prof. R. Zorivchak, who suggests the following definition of the term: realia is a mono- and polylexeme unit, whose main lexical meaning contains (in a binary opposition) the traditionally attached complex of ethno-cultural information alien to the objective reality of the target language [15, 58]. Furthermore, the scholar lays great emphasis on the fact that the concept is a relative changeable category which is distinct in the binary contrastive opposition of certain languages and cultures. The aforementioned definition would be a working definition for this chapter of the course paper. The definitions of realia vary with the scholars. A lot of prominent researches have investigated this cultural notion, naming it differently, in particular, I. Korunets (‘units of nationally biased lexicon’ [18, 151] or ‘nationally specific/culturally biased units of national lexicon’ [18, 157]),M. Baker (‘culture-specific concepts’ [3]) and P. Newmark (‘cultural term’ [6, 81]). The...
Words: 2202 - Pages: 9
...constantly changing. With the proliferation of the Internet it’s now easy to be heard as an individual. We are able to communicate with people in places which only a few years ago were difficult to reach. The Internet offers many ways for us to communicate and its access and use have changed the way we perceive society and personal relations. The world seems to be smaller and we are more often in contact with people from other cultures. It’s therefore important constantly to develop our cultural awareness in order to be more skilled and sophisticated in our communication. Culture has its roots in traditions which are taught and inherited over time. It binds us together in the society we live in and it’s a part of our personal identity. Culture makes us feel as members of the same group, tribe or guild and this knowledge makes us feel related and safe. Our language has cultural expressions which are very recognizable to others and each language has its own intonations and inner meanings. To the outsider these meanings are often lost in a translation as...
Words: 337 - Pages: 2
...CHALLENGES OF HUMOUR TRANSLATION IN FICTION Reda Baranauskienė, Laura Pociūtė Šiauliai University Introduction Humour is not a modern invention nor is humorous literature. However, what concerns its perception, it appears that humour is highly dependent on cultural background of the perceivers not to mention different cultures and different languages in which people express themselves. All these factors affect the understanding of humorous material and its ability to travel from one culture to the other. Although humour has been studied from philosophical and psychological point of view in the first place, linguistics is not an exception. The patterns of humour and its mechanisms have been studied by Hazlitt (1903), Raskin (1994), Attardo (1994), Alexander (1997), Chiaro (2010) and Berger (2010). The problems of translation have been studied by Nida and Taber (1969), Newmark (1991), Bell (1991) and Chiaro (2010). What concerns translation into Lithuanian valuable contribution has been made by the Lithuanian linguists Armalytė and Pažūsis (1990). Translation of humour has been researched by Alexieva (1997), Chiaro (2010) and Lithuanian linguist Pažūsis (2006). The novelty of the work: the problems of translating English humour into Lithuanian have not been thoroughly studied, therefore it has been chosen as a subject of this paper. The article reveals the complexity of humour phenomenon which exists in every part of the world, nevertheless, travels from one language to another...
Words: 4029 - Pages: 17
...certify this report of the Study Project entitled: “The difficulties and some solutions to Vietnamese-English translation” to total fulfillment of the requirement for the report of graduation practice. Son La, April 2011 Nguyễn Thị Thiện ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisors, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Thuy and Mrs. Nguyen Mai Huong, lecturers of the Foreign Languages Department of Son La College. This report could have probably not completed without their patient, enthusiastic and instructive supervision and encouragement. I also would like to show my profound gratitude to all the lecturers in the Foreign Languages Department in Son La College for tirelessly devoting time and efforts to enrich, broaden and deepen my knowledge over the past three years. My special thanks go as well as to the Foreign Languages Department of Son La College for giving me the opportunity and permission to implement this report. I also would like to delicate my special thanks to my classmates in English course 45, who have supported, cooperated and provided me with valuable suggestions. Especially, I am obliged to my friends who looked closely at the final providing me their translation exercises and assignments to use as version of the report for English style and grammar, correcting both and...
Words: 8842 - Pages: 36
...story of his narrative collection, Junot Diaz enumerates the story of a Hispanic youth growing up in New Jersey. Though Diaz explores issues of queerness, shamelessness, and familial relations within this selection, it is his use of language that proves most intriguing. Rather than simply describing the struggles of adapting to a new language or customs, Diaz portrays how, at an early age, he manipulated language as a tool to makes sense of his new hybrid identity. The use of language in Junot Diaz’s Drown is spare and unadorned, often rendered in "Spanglish," an unpredictable mixture of both English and Spanish. Diaz uses Spanish words in the midst of standard English sentences to fortify the differences between Dominican and American cultures. Although, the integration of street slang with Spanish may confound the typical reader, it accurately depicts the taxing experience of new immigrants struggling to make sense of new phenomena in the United States and engages the harsh reality of the multilingualism. The difference in language between the Dominican and...
Words: 1680 - Pages: 7
...Syed Abuzar Naqvi ENGL 511 04 Jan. 2015 The Role of Equivalence in Translation Theory and Practice. Abstract This paper highlights the development of translation studies, and equivalence as a form translation theory. It reveals the fact that translation theory and translation practice both are inseparable from each other. It tries to discover an approach which shall guide translators to produce relatively good translations. Though exploration and explication of this theory is multidimensional hence debatable but it is beneficial nonetheless to present the same plurality of views. Although equivalence may be considered the vital issue in translation but its interpretation, significance, and applicability remains debatable within the field of translation theory. It further explains how translation keeps oscillating between the equivalence and lack of equivalence. However,this paper continues to study, criticize, and even judge the translation according to the criteria of equivalence. Finally, the role of equivalence and translation theory is exemplified in the translation fromUrdu into English of short story and poems by various authors. The main aim of this paper is to introduce reader tothe concept of translation studies, and theory of equivalence.The English term translation was first introduced in around 1340. It was derived either from Old French translation or more directly from the Latin ‘translatio’ that means transporting,which itself coming from the participle...
Words: 5141 - Pages: 21
