| Considering translation as communication implies that a linguistic barrier must be overcome. However, in order for a message to be fully understood, some other kind of knowledge must be shared by both communicators. This shared knowledge refers to common beliefs, morals, habits, history and institutions, that is to say, cultural aspects of the community to which the communicators belong. When translation of a message is attempted, the background information which enables sender and receiver to produce and understand messages must be supplied or compensated for.; In literary texts, as in all expressive texts, the link between the linguistic items and the cultural background is stressed: words tend to represent images and connotations rather than facts. In the present study I am concerned with the translation into Spanish of culture-bound terms in British fiction. A novel, Changing Places, by the British author David Lodge, and its translation into Spanish constitute the corpus of my study.; The first chapter surveys the latest viewpoints on the nature of translation, focusing on issues such as the process/product approach to the study of translation, the concept of equivalence, and the unit of translation, among others. Culture and its relevance to the study of literary translation will also be discussed.; The second chapter classifies culture-bound terminology, and two types of cultural terms are distinguished: cultural dimensions and cultural expressions. Terms taken from the novel proposed will be commented on.; In the final part of my dissertation an analytical framework will be suggested and discussed. My analytical approach will be based on Basil Hatim and Ian Mason's model, proposed in their essay Discourse and the Translator. Basically, the authors argue that the translator should bear in mind a three-fold dimension of context, communicative, pragmatic and semiotic, at the time of a transferring a text into a different language.; In short, my intention is to systematize both the practice of translating culture-bound terms and the criteria for the assessment of their translation into Spanish. |
