Cultural Symbols Wander In Translation
01-Aug-2011
Someone who has never learnt to speak another language would probably be very surprised at how drastically the intrinsic meanings of English phrases, idioms and film titles can metamorphose when translated into another language for the edification and delectation of a very different culture to ours.
“The nature of language is so different between two languages that sometimes you can’t have a direct translation, a one-to-one translation, if you will,” says Michael Cortez, a Spanish graduate student.
Some of the things that are altered in translation most often include film titles, the lyrics of songs, and sometimes even entire works of literature.
Xi Qian, a Chinese tutor, says that this happens all the time with film titles that have been translated into Chinese. Why? To make the films more easily marketable. If they are just translated straightforwardly they are often no longer captivating, because the trailers for English films are not displayed at Chinese cinemas. Therefore, the film titles have to become more mysterious in order to grab the customer’s attention.
Film titles will often be completely changed to reflect the content of the story, sometimes to describe a leading character and sometimes to make a title more understandable – especially in the case of Greek or European mythology, which is not taught in China.
Sometimes words are deliberately mistranslated because a true translation could cause offence, and sometimes they are altered because if they were translated literally they would not make sense in a different language or be relevant to another culture.
It is often not just the original concept of a title or a piece of literary work that is lost in translation, however, but the beauty of language itself. That’s why if you are having a creative piece of work translated by us,
Technical Translations will match you with a translator who is also an expert in your field, so that you will be able to say just what you want without fear of the original potency of your message becoming blurred or even obliterated in translation.
Comment