STRATEGIES IN TRANSLATING CULTURE-SPECIFIC ITEMS IN DUMB LUCK

Abstract

ABSTRACT Translation of culture-specific items(hereafter referred to as CSIs)has long posed great challenges towards translators as these items are composed of specific meanings, implications that belong exclusively to the source language and culture. Among the studies carried out on CSIs translation in Vietnamese-English, inadequate attention was directed towards CSIs in 1930-1945 literary works. This situation brought this paper into existence. Regarding CSIs’ uniqueness and textual dependence nature, the paper investigated strategies used by Peter Zinoman in rendering CSIs belonging to different culture categories in So Do - an outstanding work in 1930-1945. The novel So Do and its English version translated by Peter Zinoman and Nguyen Nguyet Cam were chosen as subjects of this study. CSIs classification was adapted from Newmark’s theory of 5 culture categories while translation strategies were based on Baker’s translation taxonomy. The 266 CSIs identified in the novel and their translation revealed that only 7 out of 8 strategies were applied and there were substantial gap in their proportions. Translation by paraphrase using related words (36%) and translation by a more neutral/ less expressive word (17%) were the most favorable strategies employed by Peter Zinoman.