Translation of Cultural Items in Vidas Secas/Barren Lives

Drawing on Descriptive Translation Studies and the concept of norms proposed by Toury (1995/2012), this study aims to analyze the translation of cultural items in the Brazilian novel Vidas Secas (1938), by Graciliano Ramos, and translated into English, Barren Lives (1999), by Ralph Edward Dimmick. More specifically, the study aims at a) identifying the predominant group of translation strategies - syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic - (Chesterman, 1997/2016) used to translate cultural items (Newmark, 1988); b) examining which strategy is the most predominant in the translation of cultural items and c) analyzing if the most predominantly strategy used is related to Toury's notion of norms. Data collection consisted of four steps: 1) source text reading; 2) identification of cultural items in the source text followed by their insertion in an Excel spreadsheet; 3) target text reading; and 4) selection of the translation given to each cultural item followed by their insertion in the spreadsheet. Data analysis was carried out quantitatively and qualitatively. Results have shown that most strategies used by the translator belong to the pragmatic group. As for the most frequent type of strategy employed to translate the cultural items, the analysis has shown that most of them were translated through the use of Cultural filtering, which means the translator has adapted most of the items to functional or cultural equivalents in the target language. Using Cultural filtering (pragmatic strategy) indicates that the translator was influenced by norms of the target culture, based on ideas, values, and knowledge shared by an English-speaking community

Art · Humanities · Product (mathematics · Translation (biology · Chemistry · Mathematics · Translation Studies and Practices