Does “naturalness” promote parochialism?
As I understand it, the argument that naturalness promotes parochialism says that when attempting to create the most naturally “equivalent” translation into a target text, linguistic elements of the source text, and therefore the source culture, are often omitted. This is to say that, especially in our predominantly English-speaking world, Anglo-Americans could be not only unaware of the range of cultural styles that exist through text, but also perturbed by language that is not similar to their own. When facing this issue, one must wonder: which party is suffering from such parochialism through translation? The creator(s) of the source text, who have been robbed of their natural writing style, or the recipient, who by will of the translator has become ignorant to the primary intentions of the text? The notion that naturalness promotes parochialism necessarily implies that, by virtue of natural equivalence, translators have adequately communicated meaning from one party to another at the expense of intercultural forms. In other words, while the translator may have successfully transferred a text across languages in a way that appeared natural to the recipient, the reader will not have fully experienced the text in a way that is culturally, stylistically, and socially different than his or her own mother tongue. Pym does not consider, however, that this idea may be limited to translations that are received by English-speaking Americans. World renowned literary works are often not exclusively translated in English; they are translated in French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, and many other major languages to be received by people from across the globe. Thus, while this problem may be significant to and not to be undermined by monolingual Americans, the work itself may be translated differently for various cultures and not only in a way that is “natural”. Ultimately, I believe this argument rests on the function of the translation. If the source text is highly technical and contains overwhelming amounts of what Seleskovitch calls “obligatory correspondences”, perhaps it is best for the target text to be received in the most natural way possible without a great deal of concern for cultural nuances. Conversely, if the source text comes from a literary work that requires maintaining its artistic forms and lexical/syntactic styles, it then may be optimal for the target text to be produced in such a way that is not naturally equivalent for the recipient, but rather representative of the natural source language and culture. An example of a translation that would support this argument is the translation of the Spanish term la quincena (referring to a pay period, typically every fifteen days). Based on my own experience as a Spanish interpreter, I hear this term quite frequently, though I tend to translate it as “payday”. This translation supports the argument that what sounds natural for, in this case, English-speaking Americans, solidifies a type of parochialism that does not fully credit the Spanish term for what it truly is – a term that does not have a true equivalence in English. On the other hand, translations of everyday terms such as mesa (table), silla (chair), or casa (house) seem entirely natural to both English and Spanish speaker without promoting any type of parochialism or exclusion of foreign cultures. Although these terms contain intersubjective meanings for every individual, they are not detrimental to the inclusion of a culture or identity from one language to another. The former example would certainly not do justice to the Spanish language by simply translating la quincena as “payday”, allowing it to become absorbed into the American style. The latter example, however, reveals how one can translate many elements of a language without omitting culture.
