Lingua- cultural problems of translation

2. Cultural Adaptation
Culture is a broad term that may cover many things related to people’s life. It may be defined as the total set of beliefs, attitudes, customs, behaviors, social habits, etc. of the members of a particular society. I might confess that the present study can all be covered in one word which is cultural adaptation. It is also well-known that a translator is bicultural as well as bilingual. That means he / she is the bridge not only between two languages but also between two cultures. In other words, a translator must take into his / her account the target text culture as well as the target text structure. The only means for doing such a thing is applying the techniques of adaptation. To make the point clear, I give the example of the two cultures: The Uzbek culture and the western culture. The Uzbek national character by their nature and culture do not speak directly, unlike the westerner who speaks openly and directly. A translator or even an interpreter should take this into consideration while translating or interpreting from English into Uzbek or vice versa. Otherwise, there will be what is called a cultural shock. In addition to this, it might be stated that a dispraise in one culture can be a praise in another. To make the point clearer, I might give a funny example with my Ph.D. supervisor when he once told me
“Your mother is a cow!!!!!!” At the beginning, I was irritated and terribly shocked since names of animals in general and cow in particular in Uzbek cultures used to dispraise people. But, then I recognized that my dear professor didn’t mean it, but he meant to praise my mother for her good education she gave for me. He is Hindu. It’s well-known that in Hindu culture Cows are holly and dignified. 3. Literary Adaptation
This type of adaptation is found in translating pieces of literature such as novel, short story, drama or poetry. Here, the translator has taken into consideration the cultural divergence while translating a piece of literature from one language into another. For example, translating the title of Hemingway’s masterpiece The Old Man and the Sea into Arabic like: انبحز ٔخ ٍانش)alsheikh wa al bahr) (The Sheikh and the Sea) rather than the literal conversion: انبحز ٔسٕانؼج (al’gooz wa al bahr) while the former term (sheikh) in Arabic in dates to many dimensions of the protagonist Santiago, the old man, such as experience, faith, determination and backbone, the latter, (old) does not cover all these dimensions but refers only to old age.
The same for poetry, though poetry is believed to be untranslatable. The old Romans indicate that a translator is a traitor in poetry. Aljahiz once state that rendering poetry is not allowed. All translation theorists are in agreement that poetry is technically untranslatable. But, adaptation can offer help in this aspect and of paramount significance. Literary adaptation becomes a skill instead of a basic requirement. A good poetry translator instinctively knows the difference between the aesthetic traditions of different cultures, so his / her translation can be better appreciated by the target reader and can achieve the required effect. Otherwise, the translation is doomed to be a failure no matter how close or similar it looks to the original. Shi (2003) give an example of Wan Rongpei who is a senior translator, who changed the original Chinese image to be adapted to the English aesthetic tradition when he translated a poem in the ancient poetry collection generally known as The Book of Songs. The ancient Chinese used the following simile to depict a beautiful girl. (Literally translated): “her hands are like soft sprouts; her skin, condensed cream; her neck, lava of a scarab; her teeth, devil tree; her head, qing (a cicada-like insect); and her brows, the shape of a moth. Let us not inquire about the reasons why the ancient Chinese made such comparisons or analogy. But one thing is certain: Westerners would not be able to appreciate such a beautiful girl. Wang’s version, after applying the literary adaptation, reads like this:
Her hands are small, her fingers slim; her skin is smooth as cream; her swan-like neck is long and slim; her teeth like pearls do gleam. A broad forehead and arching brow
complement her dimpled cheeks and make her eyes glow. 4. Ideological Adaptation
By the term Ideological Adaptation I mean sexual and religious concerns. Most Arabs, even today are preserved in dealing with sexual and religious concerns. They avoid the topics of sex, which is usually considered pornography. If you do not, you will be regarded immoral, dishonest, unreliable and simply bad. This is one of the principle reasons why sex education is in school or even in university curriculum but never seriously taught. The teacher just tells the students to read what is written in the textbook and discourages the students from asking and discussing. So in translation, we as translators, either omit or abbreviate the original sex scene of the source text. Translators often edit the language or the scene, or make it implicit instead. In English - Arabic translation, the translator would always make adaptation to soften the original tone, hopping not to offend the target text readers as well as to escape censorship.
This does not mean that Arab literature, especially the old one in the pre-Islamic age, never touches upon sex. Finally, the other topic that needs to throw a light on is the religious writings, especially those who attack Judaism, Christianity or Islam. Let us assume, and this really happens occasionally, a foreign magazine carries offensive topics against Islam and its prophet, Mohammed, peace be upon him. Some might say no need to translate them at all, others are on the opposite side and say a translator should translate everything in detail honestly without hiding anything, simply because this is his / her job which is to express others opinions not his / her own. If the first opinion is to be followed and never translated writings, then we shall not be able to reply against the aggressive writings, and in case the second opinion to be followed which is to translate everything in detail, this may offend the target receptors and may lead in to a religious conflict. The best thing, in my opinion, is to translate the overall idea of the writing and the details not to be translated. In case the translator wants to object the source text author, he / she writes a footnote at the bottom of the page denying the author’s information. I remember a book entitled A Place under the Sun written by the Israeli prime minister and the Leekud Party leader Binjamin Nitinyahoo translated into Arabic by Mohamed Odah AL-Dwery and revised by Kalthoom Alsa’dy. In this book the author attacks
Mohamed, the prophet of Islam, peace be upon him. The translator did not change or distort or even modify his translation, on the contrary, he translated the book honestly as it is, but when arriving to the points that attack Islam and its prophet, the translator delivered some notes at the bottom of the page that deny what the SL author states.
The book, the translated version, became best seller and gave opportunities to many Arab and even foreign writers to reply against his claims.
4. Conclusion
In the above I have discussed the need for adaptation in translation. I suggest that adaptation is also translation even if it means addition or loss of information, explanation, rewriting or recreation. Finally, I classified adaptation into four types.
They are as follows:
1) Collocation adaptation.
2) Cultural adaptation.
3) Literary adaptation.
4) Ideological adaptation.

1. 
   Calque In linguistics, a calque (or loan translation) can be defined as a word-for-word translation from one language into another. For example, when you take a phrase in French and then literally translate root-for-root or word-for-word into English, that’s a calque. In English we see many examples of common phrases that are calques translated from other languages. For example; Beer Garden is a calque of the German Biergarten, and Adam’s Apple is a calque of the French pomme d’Adam. In both these examples, English phrases are derived from a direct literal translation of the original. Calque is a loanword from a French noun – it’s derived from the verb calque, meaning to copy, to trace. Loan Translation: Loan translation is just another term for calque. When used as a verb, to calque means to borrow a phrase or word from another language whilst translating its components in order to create a new lexeme in the target language. It’s a class of loan in which words or phrases are borrowed from another language, with each of the elements of the phrase being translated. Basically, it’s respecting the syntactical structures of the target language .Calque contributes to the richness of a target language by avoiding the direct use of foreign words. Calque is a construction, unlike a loan which is a phonetic and morphologic adaptation.