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The Role of Cultural Awareness in the Process of Learning the English Language:

Cultural Context and Translation

Pavol Burcl

Key words: cross-cultural interaction, cultural awareness, translation, context, source


language, target language, understanding texts, plurilingualism

Foreword
Every time we talk about the foreign language education, we cannot miss the four key skills
involved. More or less, for many teachers or lecturers is typical to reinforce one or two
favourite skills. There are colleagues who prefer writing, reading, audio-oral drilling or just
speaking, practical usage by role plays, etc. It is various. Anyway, we are sure about the fact
that reading is not very popular among the students, mainly if they hate it in Slovak. They
often consider reading to be just time killing boring activity.
Our point of view is kind of different. We would like to concentrate on the co-operative
system within the communicative competence, on the appearance of other factors when
working on texts. It will be better not to focus on reading separately. Going through the lines,
as many students do, is not enough.
It is clear that when reading, we are in contact not only with the text itself, but acquire
knowledge. Knowledge of the culture of the particular language. There is no text existing
separately apart from the previous situations. Thing known as intertextuality. Each text is
connected with the culture of origin. So when we try to understand the text, we have to
understand the culture, as well. We must build - cultural awareness.

Cultural awareness
We will take various elements into consideration, such as reading as the skill, understanding
the source text, finding the logic of the source (original) text, the process of translation into
the target language, the level of the mastery and also the motivation. We must change the
rooted perception that it is only geography and history we should deal with.
Gail Robinson (1985), an American expert for the field of intercultural education states that
when the majority of teachers are given the question – „What does culture mean to you?“,
answers appear within the three categories: products, ideas and behaviour . According to
Robinson (1985, p.11) “culture ... is a dynamic system – an ongoing, dialectic process, giving
rise to symbols which may be viewed historically”.

Fig. 1 The model of culture by Robinson

“ ... it is needed to remind that language communication is a component of the social


interaction (reciprocal action of people within the frame of their life activities ) and language
itself as the tool of communication is defined by the language community needs.“ (Dolník,
1999, s.5)
It is important not to forget about the fact that students should know the culture of their own
nation and language sooner than the foreign language. This is the only way to faster
understanding the differences between the source and target languages, cultures and the nature
of translation.
A new linguistic term has appeared in the practice and common life - plurilingualism. In the
plurilingual approach, the role of cultural context dominates in the building the
communicative competence, based on the knowledge and skills dealing with the particular
fields of language usage. We start at home, then neighbourhood and surroundings, society,
other languages, personal experience. It relates to the ability to use more than two languages
within the same conversational situation and continuous switching between them, even in
particular sentences.
As far as we talk about the cross-cultural interaction, carried out in the multinational space,
being helped by plurilingualism we can enrich each other, thanks to the cognition of our
history and cultures. The benefit of the intercultural education is in the tolerance and diversity
understanding emphasizing.
Shifts in translation
When transferring information in the cross-cultural interaction, sometimes the wrong
decoding happens or the differences are intentional, or more precisely, they are necessary.
Shifts appear in many ways.
Catford (1965, p.73) defined them as the changes appearing in the process of translation,
caused by the structural incompatibility between the source and target languages. They are
mostly of the grammatical and lexical nature.
Popovič (1970, s.78-87) broadened the term shifts not only into the linguistic differences, but
also textual, literary and cultural differences.
It is not possible to choose whatever kind of expression, found in the dictionary, for the
translation. And just to replace the original. When translating, we are not interested in form,
but meaning is the first. That is why the process of translation is about the finding the suitable
semantic and content equivalent. There is no absolute translation, because there are no
languages absolutely the same.
“...Words in the text, they are not the same bricks that can be easily changed - piece for
piece.“ (Mistrík, 1984, s.100)

Working on texts - Complex


As we said at the beginning, it is a complex – a set of actions we do. When we read the text in
English, we do the analysis, even if we do not want to. We translate from the source language
(English) into the target language (Slovak), even if we do not want to. We search for the
proper equivalent, so to find out the proper meaning if we want to understand the idea of
the text. These are the things the students should get familiar with. They should be aware of
tight connection between the culture awareness and the ability to translate.

Several examples of possible difficulties


- using connotations, emotional expressions, loaded words
HOW TO SLASH THE PRICE
800,000 BUTCHERED
- using homophones, according to Reah (2002)
DR. SPUHLER WILL MAINTAIN SWISS ROLE
- using proverbs, sayings
OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND
- using literature
BABE IN WOOD FOUND SAFE
- using historical events
There was BOXER REBELLION in China.
- using famous celebrities
LOTTA CARY GRANT IN HIM
NEW RAMBOS RISE

Literature
Catford, J.C. (2000) A Linguistic Theory of Translation. London: OUP, 1965, p.73. According
to: Gromová, E. Kapitoly z úvodu do prekladateľstva. Nitra: FF UKF, 2000, p.19. ISBN 80-
8050-359-1
Dolník, J. (1999) Základy lingvistiky. Bratislava: Stimul, 1999, p.5. ISBN 80-85697-95-5
Robinson, G.L.N. (1985) Crosscultural Understanding. New York: Prentice Hall, 1985.
According to: Tomalin, B. – Stempleski, S. Cultural awareness. Oxford: OUP, 1993, p. 7.
ISBN 0-19-437194-8
Popovič, A. The Concept „ Shift of Expression“ in Translation Analysis. In: Holmes, J.S.- De
Haan, F.- Popovič, A. (eds) The Nature of Translation. The Hague: Morton & Co., p. 78-87.
According to: Gromová, E. Kapitoly z úvodu do prekladateľstva. Nitra: FF UKF, 2000, p.19.
ISBN 80-8050-359-1

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PaedDr. Pavol Burcl
Jazykové centrum, FF UKF
Hodžova 1
949 74 Nitra, Slovensko
e-mail: pburcl@ukf.sk , pavolburcl@yahoo.com

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