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JoLIE 4/2011

TRANSLATION AS CULTURAL TRANSPOSITION

Vera Savić University of Kragujevac, Serbia

Ilijana Čutura University of Kragujevac, Serbia

Abstract The paper1 studies to which extent and under which conditions a translator is able “to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work” (Benjamin 2008:82). In some cases, the intrinsic quality of the text (Xie 2006:207) cannot be preserved without transposition of linguistic and cultural patterns or ‘culture units’. The definition of cultural information enables the study of different translation procedures of ‘cultural words’.

There are two hypotheses: 1. there are various modes of translating culture specific lexis; 2. there are different ideas behind using culture specific lexis in the source texts. The corpus of the research involves three literary pieces and their corresponding translations: A Guide to the Serbian Mentality by Momo Kapor, The Days of Consuls by Ivo Andrić and Ezra Pound’s poem Hugh Selwyn Mauberley. The methodology is interdisciplinary and includes contrastive analysis, text analysis, analysis of the lexical items and analysis of translation methods. The paper aims to study the translation methods applied by translators and their translation tendencies. Special attention is given to the translation of cultural words and untranslatable culture-specific lexica in the source texts, and to the translators’ recognition and treatment of the aims of using cultural references in the source texts, as pre-requisites of successful transposition of source text cultural concept. Key words: Translation; Cultural information; Cultural words; Cultural concepts; Translation strategies. 1 Introduction The aim of the paper is to study different ways of using culture specific lexica and different methods of its translation. The paper examines to which extent and under which conditions a translator is able “to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work” (Benjamin 2008:82). As Brisset (2008:337) argues, ”translation is a dual act of communication. It presupposes the existence, not of a single code, but of two distinct codes, the ‘source language‘ and the ‘target

1 The paper has been written within Project 178014, titled The dynamic structure of the

Serbian language, financed by the Ministry of Science of the Republic of Serbia.

Vera SAVIC and Ilijana ČUTURA 126

language‘. The fact that the two codes are not isomorphic creates obstacles for the translative operation. This explains why linguistic questions are the starting-point for all thinking about translation”.

In some cases, the intrinsic quality of the text (Xie 2006:207) cannot be preserved without transposition of linguistic and cultural patterns or “culture units”. The paper gives the examples of translating (or preserving) specific phrases and lexical items as the superficial markers of overlapping of different cultures, ethnicities, beliefs and values.

In the analysis of the translation procedures we will apply definitions of cultural information given by several authors. Chick (1999:5) comments that “When viewed as information, culture includes shared knowledge, behavioural patterns, material artefacts and may be characteristic of either small groups of individuals or of large aggregates of people”. The first of the prerequisites which Durham (1991:188) sets in order to define units of culture is that the cultural unit ”consists of information that actually or potentially guides behaviour”. Galisson (1991:116) makes the difference between two types of culture: explicit, learned culture which consists of encyclopedic, learnable knowledge and implicit culture, common culture. The ‘lexiculture‘ is defined as the entirety of culture-bound and frequent lexical items, which are more or less culture-loaded.2 In other words, ‘lexiculture‘ is a collection of implicit knowledge, shared by all members of a linguistic community.

The signs of the “lexiculture”, or more widely, the units of culture, can be used for different aims in the text. Translation strategies should respond to these aims. As “translation is a special kind of transfer, one of which is culturally determined, since culture forms a general framework within which any possible action is included” (Inigo Ros 2003:4), the paper aims to analyse translation strategies of source texts which contain different cultural references themselves.

It is well known that the translator must have perfect knowledge both of the source and the target cultures: ’Er muss bikulturell sein‘ (Reiss & Vermeer 1984:26) (Inigo Ros 2003:4). But, when the source text already contains a variety of cultural references from culture(s) other than the source culture, it is not easy either for the translator or for the reader of the target text to follow the multicultural references and to mediate the complicated and multiplied cultural transfers – primarily from the foreign culture(s) to the source text, and secondarily from the source to the target text.

In such cases, the role of foreign lexica and its transference to the target text is very important. Moreover, one of the groups of such lexical items is that of ’cultural words‘. Despite the fact that there is no absolute agreement on defining the concept of ’cultural words‘,3 there is a general agreement that such words

2 “Die Gesamtheit der kulturträchtigen un weit verbreiteten Wörter (’mots à C.C.P.‘) umschreibt die ’lexiculture partagée’. Ein grosser Teil der Wörter ist kulturell geprägt, aber einige haben nach Galisson grösere ’kulturelle Ladung’als die andere“ (Brunzel 2002:132).

3 M. Inigo Ros usefully sums up the differences in defining cultural terms/realia: ”It is not easy to explain what cultural terms and realia are, since there is no agreement in this respect either in

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denote (at least) material objects which are characteristic for certain nations (i.e. for their customs, culture, social and historical development) (Vlahov & Florin 1980:47-140). Cultural words can also be connected to different phases of the social and historical development of a community (Kutz 1977:256). In other words, these lexical items belong to certain semantic fields.4

The treatment of untranslatable culture-specific words is one of the important questions in this paper. The words with no equivalent lexical items (or items of other linguistic levels) in the target language (i.e. with zero equivalence)5 are treated in several ways in the translations we analyse. A new question arises from that fact: are there reasons for a specific translation strategy in some cases? If there are such reasons, they could be viewed as parts of ”the system of textual deformation that operates in every translation and prevents it from being a ‘trial of the foreign’ “ (Berman 2008:278). 2 Material and Methods The research material is based on a corpus of three different literary pieces and their respective translations. The pieces are either written in Serbian and translated into English or vice versa. Two of them are translated from Serbian into English: A Guide to the Serbian Mentality by Momo Kapor and The Days of Consuls by Ivo Andrić. The third is Ezra Pound’s poem Hugh Selwyn Mauberley and its several translations into Serbian.6

The corpus has been chosen following two hypotheses: a) there are various modes of translating culture specific lexis in the analysed texts; b) as there are different reasons for using culture specific lexis, they are – if recognised by the translator – followed in the translation.

concepts or in terminology. The English-speaking scholars (such as Nida and Newmark) refer to cultural words or culture-specific terms, whereas the German scholars have coined a number of more specific terms which are not easily translated into other languages: the Latin term ’Realium‘ (plural ’Realia‘) or ’Realie‘ refer to the objects and concepts which belong to a culture, whereas ’Realienbezeichnung‘ or ’Realienlexem‘ are the words used to name the cultural item in question. Therefore, they are equivalent to the English term ’cultural word‘ “ (Inigo Ros 2003:17).

4 P. Brunzel (2002) agrees with Vereščagin & Kostomarov (1990) in listing such semantic fields for the purpose of foreign language teaching: “1. Sowietismen 2. Wörter des neuen Altagslebens 3. Bezeichnungen von Gegenständen und Erscheinungen des traditionellen Alltaglebens 4. Historismen 5. Lexik phraseologisher Einheiten 6. Wörter aus der Folklore 7. Wörter nichtrussischer Herkunft (bazar, šašlyk)“ (Brunzel 2002:129). Djoric-Francuski (2008:145-160) shows that most mistakes in translating Indian English authors into Serbian are made in translating lexical items of several semantic fields which are culture specific (e.g. food, clothes, smoking habits).

5 Müller argues for a more qualitative than quantitative approach in the treatment of equivalence between languages. A qualitative approach would take in account the relations of units of different linguistic levels (Müller 1987: 49).

6 The examples are given with the following abbreviations: GSM – A Guide to Serbian Mentality, DC – Days of the Consuls (the translation), TH (Travnička hronika – the original). The numbers in brackets behind examples and abbreviations are the page numbers of given examples.


The selection of the corpus is intentional: a) all original works and their translations show high frequency of culture specific lexica, and b) it is assumed that the idea which is behind this frequency, both in the originals and their translations, is different in each work. These assumptions are based on the following basic features of the texts: 1. A Guide to the Serbian Mentality by Momo Kapor is a book which consists of short texts7 connected by one topic – the specific mentality, cultural and behavioural patterns of the Serbian people. Therefore it contains many culture-bound lexical items, phrases and idiomatic expressions in Serbian, but also many lexical items from other languages, culture elements of which are present in Serbian for geographical and/or historical reasons (Turkish, German, Russian etc.).8 2. Andrić’s novel Travnicka hronika describes a long period in a multinational and intercultural area (Bosnia), with its four different religions and cultures (Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim and Jewish). The translator of this novel is Celia Hawkesworth9, a researcher of Andrić’s work (she is the author of the book Ivo Andrić: Bridge between East and West),10 which is one of the reasons to assume that she managed to transfer Andrić’s ideas about representing the above mentioned four Bosnian cultural types, and also Oriental, French and Austrian elements (the first represented by the Turks in governmental and administrative positions, the other two by two consuls living in Bosnia with their families). A large number of the lexical items which do not have proper translational equivalents in some of Andrić’s novels have already been commented on in the reference literature (see, for instance, Petronijević 1994, Đukanović 1994, Krstić 1994). 3. As set by the hypotheses, the selected works should show different reasons for using culture specific lexis. Ezra Pound’s poem Hugh Selwyn Mauberley has been chosen for two reasons. Firstly, unlike the two other pieces, it is absolutely not connected to Serbian culture or Bosnian culture subtypes, and the lexis connected to these culture types can appear only in translations, but under special conditions. Secondly, it is known that Pound used a variety of reminiscences of the ’cultural

7 The book is a compilation of Kapor’s articles published in the Serbian daily Politika and in the monthly magazine Jat Review for several years. The book was published only in English.

8 In the paper on equivalence in translation, Walter (1987) states that Kapor’s novel Provincijalac and its translation into German are an example for examining (in)adequacy of translation because Kapor’s style is very original (Walter 1987: 85). We will illustrate this by one of Walter’s examples (the section where Kapor describes calling the register): (a) “Njihova imena u monotonoj molitvi spiraju blagošću njegovo okorelo srce: - Antić? – Ja (…) – Guzina… Šta se smijete? Šta je tu smiješno? – Molim, ne smijemo se, gospodine… - Nisam gluv!”; (b) “In der monotonen Aufzählung umspuelten sie sanft sein erhaertetes Herz: - Antić? – Hier (…) – Guzina… Warum lacht ihr? Was ist daran komisch? – Wir lachen ja gar nicht, Herr Lehrer… - Ich bin doch nicht taub!” (Walter 1987: 88). Walter comments that a (family) name which is intentionally motivated in the original needed to be translated with respect to motivation, otherwise a German reader would not be able to understand what is funny (Ibid. 89) (Guzina is motivated by guzica, a vulgarism which means ’ass‘, ’bottom‘).

9 In collaboration with Bogdan Rakić. 10 The book was published in London in 1984 by The Athlone Press.


units‘ and symbols of the whole civilisation. As Kenner comments, these “components of Pound’s poetic world […] appear, it is true, in mere listening, haphazard and heterogeneous to an unsupportable degree” (Kenner 1985:19).

As the material offers contrasting samples of the original and the translation(s), one of the methods used in the paper is contrastive analysis. The methodology is based on text analysis which is done on concrete linguistic material. While the culture-bound items are primarily present at the lexical level, the analysis of the lexical items is applied (origin, meaning, expressiveness, level of adoption, etc.). Besides, the differences in the material (sources) itself implied the usage of stylistic comparison among original texts and among their translations, as well as analysis of translation methods. 3 Results 1. The original culture-specific lexis can be preserved in the translation with the goal to represent specific cultural patterns, as in A Guide to the Serbian Mentality by Momo Kapor. The book itself is written as a humorous, auto-ironic description of Serbian customs, beliefs, attitudes, behavioural and cultural patterns, which are common to all members of that linguistic and cultural community. It can, therefore, be said that Kapor describes the implicit culture, using mostly specific material objects as signs of the culture: drinks, dishes, grill specialties, well-known places (The Writer’s Club, Skadarlija, the Flea Market in Belgrade, etc.). Culture specific lexica – which, of course, comes from the source language –, is preserved in the target language (English), and written graphically differently from the rest of the text. We will show some examples:

Serbs are people who have from time immemorial made rakija (brandy) from anything they could lay their hands on. From mulberry fruit, apricots, cherries, peaches, and sour cherries. They make it from a special type of pear, named after an Englishman, William, after whom the brandy received its name Vilijamovka. [...] There are also, of course, lozovača and komovica, both made from komina, which is a by-product of wine making. (GSM 44-46)

Kapor analyses highly specific and unique items of Serbian culture – food, drinks, clothes. These are, as already known, items which can hardly have any translational equivalents, i.e. they are realia.

However, Kapor concludes in the majority of cases that all ’highly specific‘ things, which are proudly promoted amongst Serbians as unique, do not belong only to one culture or nation. He tries to list the proofs for that with humour and his specific ’easy‘ style which often gets close to the conversational styles:

What, then, is the Serbian brand? Slivovitz? Hardly so; it is also made – albeit not as well – by Hungarians, Bulgarians and other nations, while


Germans still hold the old license to export prepečenica (high-grade plum brandy) throughout Europe. (GSM 24)

If original words are preserved, they are sometimes translated in brackets, as in the previous examples, or explained earlier in the text, or in the same sentence using apposition or brackets, or not explained at all. The following examples, which contain lexica denoting specific food, show this:

The grill, for instance, comes from Arab countries, while ćevapčići (a cylindrical-shaped piece of grilled meat) from Turkey, and further back from Persia. Njeguška smoked ham is close relative of ham from Parma... (Kapor 22); Ah, but what indescribable joy when my friends spread kajmak from Čačak on slices of New York bread! (GSM 25)

The same holds for the dishes mentioned as typical of the north of Serbia (Vojvodina) and showing the impact of German culture (the first example), then of the list of equivalents or dishes similar to the Serbian ones throughout Europe (the second example), and of the Russian impact on the diet (the third example):

After a mere twenty-minute drive across the Sava River, in Zemun and Pančevo you may be offered dumplings, šufnudle, štrukle, mlinci, ćušpajz, melšpajz, goulash and Hungarian perkelt, as well as strudel with poppy seeds... (GSM 24) These include the Hungarian fish paprikahs, Austro-Hungarian fish paprikash, Austro-Hungarian goulash with noodles, sarma (stuffed sauerkraut leaves with dried pork chops), stewed chopped sauerkraut with pig`s legs, (closely related to the Alsatian choucroute), cooked young beef with vegetables, Greek meat-balls in tomato sauce and a whole range of different mousakas. (Kapor 37) Then some over enthusiastic Slavophil tried to import Russian kvass, which did not pass muster. Piroshki, however, went down quite well. (GSM 43)

It is obvious that Kapor is explaining some characteristics of Serbian mentality by demystification and breaking illusions, and by showing that many culture specific items and words are specific to a wider (Balkan, Slavic, Oriental or Central and South European) culture. Explaining the origin of bean dishes, he uses a wide range of foreign words (German, Italian, Latin, French etc.) which denote beans or bean dishes. In that way Kapor invents a cross-languages word play. The translator does not use the Serbian word for bean (pasulj), following Kapor’s idea of showing plurality rather than cultural uniqueness:

Serbs naively believe that they invented the bean (like everything else)! True, Vienna’s menus have for centuries offered bean soup with smoked


meat under the showy name Serbische Bohnensuppe, and until the latest wars Serbian-style beans were a specialty of the „Gradski Podrum“ in Zagreb. ... The bean, Phaseolus vulgaris in Latin, belongs to the genus Papilionaceus, and arrived to our region from Peru in the late sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries. Almost every nation has several bean dishes in its national cuisine. The French cassoulet with its many variations, the Basque bowl, beans with lamb in Britany, the Catalonian or Greek shepherd’s beans, the Israeli pot with onion, barley and beef, the Mexican chili con carne, Tuscany beans with young courgettes (zucchini), potatoes and leek, the Romanian dish with French beans, the Columbian with corn kernels and bananas, the Tunisian couscous with mutton and corn flour, šajkaški cooked by Danube fisherman, not to mention janija broths and salads, even the Latin American turnovers with beans called empanada! (GSM 40-41)

As in the case of drinks, Kapor again shows that there are just a few things ’no one else in the world has‘:

There are just two things that no one else in the world has: kajmak and another item I will disclose at the end of this little treatise on brands. Just as I was never able to find – neither in New York, Paris, nor in Rome – seashells called prstaci (found stuck to underwater rocks), the same is true for kajmak, which is skimmed from freshly boiled milk... (GSM, 24-25); I cannot imagine why, but even cattle breeders from the most remote areas of Georgia, the Caucasus and Tibet have not thought of kajmak. (GSM 25)

Such demystification of the uniqueness and exclusiveness of one’s own culture implies the author’s, but also the translator’s and the reader’s deep understanding of the creation of cultural/national symbols which are based on cultural material artefacts. As Durham underlines, such symbols are mostly encoded in language:

In the view of most anthropologists today, culture is heavily dependent upon ’symboling‘, or symbolic encoding, which is the bestowing of conventional, nonsensory meaning upon things or acts (as defined, for example, by White 1959b). Through symboling, particularly the symboling we can call language, the information content, accuracy and efficiency of social transmission are all enormously increased over non-symbolic modelling and behavioural imitation. (Durham 1991:6)

Kapor’s A Guide to Serbian Mentality shows the relationships between old (national) and new (international) tendencies, an equilibrium between local and global identity, evidencing that everything declared as exclusive has its roots in a wider or universal cultural context. Kapor stresses multicultural and multilingual values by humorous and critical evaluation of Serbian mentality which is not only ’Serbian‘ but takes advantages and influences from other cultures, e.g. Italian shopping and fashion (the first example), or the enjoyment typical of the Turkish


culture (the second example). The culture specific lexis is translated into the target language in brackets:

The first Italian words we learned were troppo caro (too expensive). (GSM 8) Not far from there is a monumental Turkish hamam (bath) from the 18th

century… (GSM 21)

Failing to provide an example of certain items, dishes, drinks, etc. (in other words, material artefacts) of Serbian culture which are unique, Kapor turns to the specific Serbian behavioural pattern – inat – and finds no adequate translation equivalent:

Another thing we could certainly get rich on if we could export it – inat. Although Serbs don’t have a corresponding word for spleen, I don’t think Anglo-Saxons have an adequate term for inat...

Having thus found a word with ’zero equivalence‘, Kapor concludes that even the concept of inat is hardly explainable. Here begins his `game` with SL and TL, and the `game` with the process of translation. Namely, the author inserts a short note in which he mentions the translator, but also checking the dictionary in the writing process:

...inat, something that is, of course, bound to make things harder on my translator. To assist him, I go to the Great Dictionary, where it explains: ”Deliberate, provocative behaviour against someone’s will; defiance, quarrel, wrangling“. (GSM 25)

At this point (as in many others) the author turns from material objects, customs etc. to their linguistic encoding. He stresses that not only do single words belong to the ’lexiculture‘, but also the presence of various lexical items which denote the same object or belong to the same semantic field can be significant for one culture, e.g.:

The Serbian language, being a language of peasants, still has no words for some urban concepts. When it comes to words related to rakija, however, the ingenuity is boundless. For instance, the glass vessel for drinking rakija, which has a wide bottom and a narrow neck to prevent the alcohol from going flat, has a number of names: fić or fićok, čokanj, čokanjčić, unuče, šiš, šiša or polić... Rakija, though, is also drunk from canteens and jugs, and sometimes directly from the barrel. (GSM 49)


In these ways Kapor, who was not a linguist,11 directly becomes involved in a ’linguistic‘ debate which gets a specific stylistic tone with tiny signs of popular scientific functional style as an additional component.

We can note that the aim of the text is to be ’ethnocentric‘, to describe the uniqueness of one implicit culture, and that the translation procedure (transference, which means bringing the source language word into the target language text) fulfils this aim.

2. Specific lexis can be present as an intercultural sign in the original text, and transferred as such in the translation. In such cases it is national and culture specific both in the original and the translation. The example is Andrić’s novel Travnicka hronika and its English translation, where culture-specific lexical items show the characterisation of four different cultures (Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim and Sephardic Jewish culture). Most of all, the words of Oriental origin are contrasted to the surrounding text and function as markers of the culture that differs from the other cultures presented in the novel. These words are preserved in the English translation and commented on at the end of the book, or explained in the text. The problems of translation

become more complex when historical time is factored in. Should the translator re-create the feeling of the time period of the text for the contemporary reader? Or, conversely, should the archaic form of the language be modernized to make the text more accessible to the contemporary reader? (Brisset 2008:338)

The translation method which is often applied can be referred to as ’foreignisation‘. As Venuti describes two general translation strategies, domestication is an ’invisible‘ translation strategy which is applied with the goal to minimize the original source text cultural elements and to make the target language text linguistically and culturally adapted to the target language and culture. On the other hand, ’foreignisation‘ is a translation method which emphasizes cultural references of the source text, creating a “form of resistance against ethnocentrism” (Venuti 1995:20). Andrić’s novel, furthermore, includes the elements of foreignisation in the original text. As the novel itself describes a multicultural space and the relations and attitudes to the Turks and the newly arrived consuls, culture-specific elements are valuable components of the source text. The importance of both geographical (Bosnian) and historical localisation and the author’s relation to the culture (Inigo Ros 2003:4) resulted in the choice of the translation strategy as a means of transferring the ideas of the novel. Thus, minimising the cultural distinctiveness of the translation is applied as the most adequate method when viewed in correlation with the ideas and the theme of the original text. Moreover, the characters that belong to four different cultures (Serbian Orthodox, Croatian

11 Momo Kapor (1937-2010) was a painter, but also a very popular journalist and novelist.


Catholic, Bosnian Muslim and Jewish) speak the same language12 in the original text. Andrić differentiates them by using variations, dialects, sociolects13 and mostly specific lexis, which remain untranslated. In this sense, Venuti (2004:3) suggests a ’rule‘ for reading translations:

Don’t expect translations to be written only in the current standard dialect; be open to linguistic variations. The translator’s hand becomes visible in deviations from the most commonly used forms of the translating language. Social and regional dialects, slang and obscenities, archaisms and neologisms, jargons and foreign borrowings tend to be language-specific, unlikely to travel well, their peculiar force difficult to render into other languages. Thus they show the translator at work, implementing a strategy to bring the foreign text into a different culture. Matthew Ward’s version of Albert Camus’s novel The Stranger opens with the surprising line, “Maman died today”. The context makes clear that the French ’maman‘ means ’mother‘. Ward retains Camus’s use of the word, yet it means so much more in English: not only does it signal the childlike intimacy of the narrator’s relationship, but it tells us that we are reading a translation, a hybrid, not to be confused with the French work.

As we see, Andrić`s novel is even more complicated for a translator because of the co-existence of numerous elements which are represented as more or less culturally alien in the source text. Additionally, there is one more obstacle to reading this translation. Namely, readers of the original work – let us suppose native speakers of Serbian (Croatian/ Bosnian/ Montenegrin) – have a kind of intercultural knowledge and experience of the Balkan cultural (sub)types. It cannot be assumed that an average reader of the translation has knowledge that seems to be a prerequisite to understanding the text fully. But the aim of translation is not to teach the reader the source culture(s), nor to explain everything about the relationships, historical background, social, religious, sociolinguistic and other features which are present in the source text. The aim of applied translation strategy is to emphasize the otherness and underlining cultural mixture which is

12 Here we should note that the language spoken by the Serbs, Croats and Muslims (also the

Sefardic Jews) was officially called Serbo-Croatian. After the war and the splitting of the Republic of Yugoslavia into several independent countries, the common language was named as Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian (and Montenegrian in Montegro) in different parts of the ex-Yugoslavia. For the purpose of this paper, we will only state that the language of Andrić’s novel is one language, and that Andrić used different variations and dialects to differentiate different cultures, nations or religions.

13Brisset points to various kinds of deficiencies of the target language, especially in subcodes as dialects and variations: “More often, however, the deficiency in the receiving code has to do with the relation between signs and their users, a relation that reflects such things as individuality, social position, and geographical origin of the speakers: ’thus the relatively simple question arises, should one translate or not translate argot by argot, a patois by a patois, etc....’ (Mounin 1963:165). Here, the difficulty of translation does not arise from the lack of the specific translation language. It arises, rather, from the absence in the target language of a subcode equivalent to the one used by the source text in its reproduction of the source language.“ (Brisset 2008: 337-338).


confusing to most strangers who came to the town (Travnik).14 According to Levy (1982:110-111), a translator can make an impression of cultural characteristics, but cannot transfer all nationally and historically specific elements.

Additionally, there are phrases and sentences in other languages, such as German and French, spoken by the consuls and their families and co-workers,15 or Latin which is used as a means of characterisation of Catholic priests and monks, when citing prophets, saints etc., or praying. Those phrases and sentences are not translated, but the translator fully follows the original text, giving the translations in footnotes, as in the following examples:

Das ist ein Urjammer (DC 113); [footnote: That is an ancient, primeval sorrow, footnote in the original text: To je drevni, iskonski jad (TH 119)]; Do you know that Pliny called the earth `benigna, mitis, indulgens, usuque mortalium semper ancilla` and wrote: Ìlla medicas fundis herbas, et semper homini parturit`. (DC 206); O, ma vie! O vain songe! O rapide existence! Qu amusent les désirs, quàbuse lèspérance… (DC 331)

The language and culture mixture leads to Hawkeswort’s note that ”Andrić is notoriously difficult to translate… I shall always cherish the memory of our working sessions round a table laden with dictionaries in which we frequently found that illustrations for rarely used words were taken from Andrić himself“ (DC, Translator’s preface). Containing numerous cultural terms and realia, mostly of Oriental culture which are also alien to the Serbian language and culture, the original novel is accompanied by a glossary of Turkish, regional and other less common words (the choice of those words depends on the editors). The translator deals with this lexis in different ways. As we already mentioned, the foreignisation is very often applied, as in the following examples:

…Sultans were replaced and Grand Viziers perished. … But no one could get the janissaries into rank… (DC 245) Here were the Vizier’s twelve Mamelukes from the unit which Mehmed Pasha had brought from Egypt as his personal bodyguard… Their dexterously wound turbans of fine cloth, woven with threads of gold and silk… attracted everyone’s attention. … (DC 18); Tu je bilo dvanaest

14 We will illustrate this with only one example from the novel. Riding to his first meeting

with the Vizier, Daville is pretty surprised by the way people show their hatred towards a stranger. His translator, D’Avenat, who has been living in Bosnia for a long time, gives him this instruction: ”I beg Your Excellency to ride calmly on and pay no attention to any of this. Wild people, uncouth rabble. They hate everything foreign and greet everyone like this. It is best to ignore it. That’s what Vizier does. They’re just barbarians. I beg Your Excellency to continue“. (DC 19)

15 Besides the spoken language, there are a few short parts of a long poem which is being written by Daville.


vezirovih mameluka iz odreda koji je Mehmed-paša kao svoju ličnu pratnju doveo iz Egipta… Njihovi zaista vešto savijeni turbani od finog tkiva, - žica zlata, žica svile, - (…) privlačili su sve poglede. (TH 29)

The comments of the translator, including the Glossary of Turkish Words, belong to the so-called hypertextual character of translation, which is defined as ‘paratext’ (a text which accompanies the main work) (Genette 1982:9). The Glossary contains, for example, the following explanations:

Muderris – high ranking teacher in Islamic college, medrese Khan – Caravanserai, inn, lodging place, warehouse (example: The Consul’s escort was lodged at the Khan… (DC 14); They decided on a large, somewhat dilapidated house belonging to the State, where Dubrovnik merchants had usually stayed and which was therefore known as the Dubrovnik Khan. (DC 10)

But some words, evidently of Turkish origin,16 which are highly culture-specific, are not explained in the Glossary, because the context supports the understanding as in the following cases:

…brandy had prevented him from completing his studies to become an imam in Travnik… (DC 294); With these words, the Reeling Hodja took his glass from the tamboura with a resolute movement… (DC 298)

Some of the words are written with orthographic adoption (i.e. naturalisation as a translational strategy is applied), as in tamboura (Serbian: tambura), janissaires (Serbian: janjičari) or khefay (Serbian: ćehaja).

Another strategy which is applied is ‘domestication’. It is applied to lexical items which denote objects or concepts which are unknown to the Western culture, e.g. organisational and territory units, titles and specific occupations etc., mostly in the Ottoman Empire, for example:

They decided on a large, somewhat dilapidated house belonging to the State… (DC 10); Zaustavili su se na jednoj velikoj, pomalo zapuštenoj kući koja je pripadala Vakufu... (TH 22) The house was on a slope, above a Muslim school, in the middle of a large, steep garden, divided in two by a stream. (DC 10); Kuća je bila u strani, iznad medrese, usred velike, strme bašte koju je presecao potok. (TH 22)17

16There are many words of Turkish origin which are fully adopted in Serbian, have no

alternative Serbian word and are not ’foreign words’ for Serbian native speakers. Here we take into account only the words which are not adopted in Serbian, or which are archaisms of Turkish origin.

17M. Krstić states that the cultural word medresa is differently translated in German translations of Travnička hronika: Dor & Federmann translate it as höhere Schule, while Zöler transfers it only with ortographic adaptation: die Medresse (Krstić 1994: 406).


The first to greet the Consul was the Chief Secretary for Finance. (The Vizier`s local deputy, Suleiman Pasha Skopljak, was not in Travnik.) He was followed by the Keeper of the Weapons, the Master of the Wardrobe, the Treasurer and the Keeper of Seals, with a whole throng of men of unknown or indeterminate rank and occupation. (DC 22) Prvo je pozdravio konzula teftedar. (Vezirov ćehaja Sulejman-paša Skopljak nije bio u Travniku.) Za njim su išli silahdar, čohadar, haznadar, muhurdar, a za njima se gurala i laktala čitava gomila čeljadi nepoznatih ili neodređenih činova i zvanja. (TH 32)

The last example contains several culture-specific terms which denote occupations connected to the Ottoman court. These words, which belong to specific terminology, are not familiar even to the original text readers (see Krstić 1994: 401). That is why they are explained in the glossary in the source text.18 As the example shows, the translator recognised these terms as completely alien to the target text readers, as well as being frequent enough to make the reading too complicated. A similar solution is found in translating the words of Turkish origin kantardžija and telal, both denoting specific occupations which exist no more (i.e. belong to historical lexis). Moreover, in the same sentence the nickname ludi Švaba19 is brought closer to the target text readers by a replacement which is more familiar to them (Mad Fritz):

’Mladi konzul‘ je upoznao sve glavne ličnosti na pazaru, Ibrahim-agu, kantardžiju; telala Hamzu i čaršijsku budalu ’ludog Švabu‘ (TH 66) The Young Consul met all the notable figures in the market: Ibrahim Aga, the ‘scalesman’, Hamza the town-crier, and the bazaar fool Mad Fritz. (DC 57)

The gap between cultures – where the source culture is not even the culture of the original text – is, in some cases, solved by appositions. In the following example, the first element of the apposition is the explanation of the Turkish word, and the second element is the Turkish word. The comparison with the source text shows that there is only a Turkish term in the original sentence:

There was the dark, thin Chief Archivist, the Tefter Khefay, Ibrahim Effendi, of whom it was said that he was incorruptible… (DC 153); Tu je

18 teftedar – poreznik, sekretar, ministar finansija, glavni kontrolor; silahdar – čuvar oružja,

dostojanstvenik na sultanovo, ovde: vezirovom dvoru; čohadar – lakej; činovnik na dvoru koji se brine o odevanju dvorskog osoblja; haznadar – blagajnik; muhurdar – čuvar državnog pečata; ćehaja – vezirov pomoćnik i zamenik

19 Švaba is a colloquial term which is used in Serbian to denote person from Germany, despite the fact that Shwab is one of the German states, and that Švaba should denote a person from that region. The translator(s) were confronted with culture-specific names for nations in one more case, and they had to give the following explanation in the Glossary: “As was the common practice in nineteenth-century Bosnia, the words ’Turk’ and ’Turkish’ in the text are frequently used to denote Bosnian Muslims, i.e. Slavs converted to Islam.“ (DC 397).


bio crni, mršavi tefter-ćehaja Ibrahim efendija za koga se govorilo da je nepodmitljiv… (TH 155)

The translation of several motivated proper names was also a challenge, while in the source text their origin is explained. For that reason they had to be changed, as in this example:

The story went that when he was due to take his final examination, he had appeared before the muderris and the examination board so drunk that he could hardly stand, and he staggered and reeled as he walked. The muderris refused to examine him and called him the Reeling Hodja. (DC 294) [In original text: Ljulj-hodža].20 The Vizier, who was lame in the right leg (which was why he was known among the people as The Limping Pasha), moved briskly… (DC 23) Vezir, koji je bio hrom u desnu nogu (zato su ga u narodu zvali Topal-paša)21, išao je žustro... (TH 34)

Finally, stylistic effects often take second place because of the untranslatability of the original. The expressiveness of the less common or archaic Turkish words or loanwords in the source text is neutralised in the sequences where they are omitted or replaced by neutral English words (these techniques are listed by Newmark (1988:103). The expressiveness of the phrase Turci dućandžije (TH 30) comes from the combination of two means: use of two nouns where one of them functions as an attribute to the other, and use of the noun (dućandžije) which is derived from the base dućan (‘shop’) and the suffix –džija (meaning ‘a person who has a certain occupation’). Both the base and the suffix are of Turkish origin. In the target text the phrase is translated as Turkish shopkeepers (DC 19), which does not transfer the uncommon impression of the source phrase. A similar example is the translation of the phrase which contains the noun kahva, denoting a coffee shop. The meaning is uncommon and archaic, but the noun kafa, denoting coffee, is common in Serbian. Moreover, Andrić used kahva, which is adapted to Turkish (and Bosnian Muslim) at the phonetic level. Both phonetic and semantic features contribute to the expressiveness, but the translation could not measure up to it:

As every year, the beys had begun to come out to talk together on the Sofa at Lutvo’s. (DC 395); Kao svake godine, begovi su počeli da izlaze na razgovore na Sofi u Lutvinoj kahvi. (TH 387)

The analysis of the source and target texts shows that the translator as ’interlinguistic mediator‘ (Taft 1981:75) may be in the position to mediate amongst

20 In Serbia, ljulj is a morpheme, the root of which is used for derivation of numerous

nouns, verbs and adjectives. The verb ljuljati (V.t.) means swing, rock, sway, while ljuljati se (V.i.) means swing, rock, sway or totter.

21 Topal is a Turkish word which does not exist in Serbian.


multiple cultural patterns symbolised by linguistic means. In the translation of Andrić’s novel, the twofold cultural and linguistic mediation has been made, primarily due to the fact that ’foreign‘ elements in the source text become secondarily ’foreign‘ in the target text. 3. The third mode is the use of specific phrases, lexica and proper nouns as signs of a complete human cultural heritage, as in Ezra Pound’s poems. This does not have the aim to evoke a specific culture or to point to linguistic and cultural diversity, but to collect ’culture units‘ evocations. In such cases, the original lexica is preserved in translation as direct signs, but indirect evocations as stylistic means are transferred through preserving intrinsic qualities (Xie 2006).

Modernist poems, being in a certain relationship to mythology (Whithworth 2010:118), show different ways of referring to mythological elements and symbols. As Whithworth puts it, “for Ezra Pound, myth was a scaffolding: useful for the construction of the text, but not an integral part of it”.

Hugh Selwyn Mauberley is a ’quasi-autobiographical and satirical‘ poem (Nadel 2006:3), ’a great poem‘ (T.S. Eliot in Leavis 1972:102) characterised by its simplicity, subtle versification and allusiveness. The poet reflects on the modern world and modern culture as hostile to the artist.

Pound published the poem in 1920, the year that marked a new phase in his poetic career as his interest in poetry shifted from art to the wider social issues of politics and economy. This change is presented in the poem through two characters: the poet’s, portrayed as ’E.P.’, and ’Mauberley’s‘, a fictional poet’s. The poem consists of twelve sections bearing titles or numbers, and the thirteenth one entitled ’Envoi‘. The primary theme of the poem is the difference between the modern culture and the classical one.

The bearers of cultural units in the poem are many allusions to literary history, and they are made through the names of authors, characters, places, Greek gods and goddesses, and intertextual references in foreign languages: Latin, French, and Greek. There are allusions to Homer’s Iliad, Ronsard’s Odes, Villon’s Testament, and Dante’s Purgatory. The ironic allusion to Ronsard’s Odes is given in French and it introduces the topic of the poem – the poet’s looking back on his life and summing up his achievements. The evocation of Homeric verse shows the poet’s love for classical poetry.

Intertextual references appearing in the poem can be classified into two groups: direct and indirect. Direct references, which are not written in the original text in the source language (i.e. English), but in foreign languages (i.e. Greek, Latin or French), transfer cultural patterns directly, and are therefore untranslatable. Such references are not restricted to the source culture; they do not represent it or belong to it at all. As such, they are not suitable to be transferred into the target language. In Pound’s Mauberley they evoke the entire European cultural heritage: there are even whole lines which are taken from other poems. Intertextual references are made by ample use of double inverted commas or italics. Here are the examples:


- A line taken from the Pindar’s Second Olympian Ode: ”O bright Apollo, / Tin andra, tin eroa, tina theon,22 / What god, man, or hero / Shall I place a tin wreath upon!“ (lines 57-60); - A line from Dante’s Purgatorio: ”Siena mi fe’, disfecemi Maremma.“ (title of Section VII); - A line from Villon’s Le Testament: ”He passed from men’s memory in l’an treiniesme / De son eage; the case presents / No adjunct to the Muses’ diadem.“ (lines 18-20); - A quote from Odyssey: ”Idmen gar toi panth, os eni Troie /Caught in the unstopped ear;“ (lines 9-10); - A partial quote of Horace’s Odes: ”Dulce and decorum est pro patria mori“ (line72); - A quote adapted from a phrase by Remy de Gourmont: ”Conservatrix of Milesien“ (line 187).

Some lines are borrowed by Pound from poems in languages other than the source language and incorporated in his Mauberley upon translation into English. The reader is acquainted with these intertextual references in the paratext provided by the editors of the books of Pound’s poetry. Such lines are given within inverted commas, as quotes. Here are some examples: - The two-line quotation from Le Chateau du souvenir by Theophile Gautier: ”Daphne with her thighs in bark / Stretched toward me her leavy hands,“ – / Subjectively. In the stuffed-satin drawing-room / I await The Lady Valentine’s commands,“ (lines 195-198); - A reference to Rossetti’s poem ”Jenny“: ”Questing and passive.... / ’Ah, poor Jenny’s case’ ... “ (lines 114-115).

The second group of intertextual references are indirect references. Such references evoke mostly Hellenic and Biblical myths and legends more stylistically than directly, by mentioning anthroponyms and toponyms, giving artefacts as symbols of ’deep‘ and ’shallow‘ culture. To illustrate the disintegration of modern society and ’general deterioration of old values‘ (Nesme 2004:55), Pound contrasts and juxtaposes cultural elements related to modern art, in which an artist (‘E.P.’) pursued shallowness, and classical art, which aimed to achieve profundity. Realia related to life in London at the beginning of the 20th century are contrasted to classical objects: a ’prose kinema‘ is contrasted to ’alabaster‘, a ’tea-rose tea-gown‘ to ’mousseline of Cos‘, the modern ’pianola‘ to the Greek poet Sappho’s ’barbitos‘. The poet feels that ’tawdry cheapness‘ has destroyed the greatness of classical culture, and the victory is turned into defeat: “Even the Christian beauty / Defects – after Samothrace“. The poet’s voice changes from irony, rage and detachment to impersonal sympathy. The symbols of the decline, like pianola, present the modern art as mechanical, while electoral ’franchise‘ and mass media become symbols of mechanical democracy (Witemeyer 2006:54-55).

22 The underlining in all examples is done by the authors of this paper, I.C. and V.S.


Pound criticises the modern poets who fail to find the new voice, but rather respond with compromise to the expectations of the time: “The age demanded an image, / Of its accelerated grimace, / Something for the modern stage, / Not, at any rate, an Attic grace.“ Using various allusions, Pound exhibits a gallery of writers who opted for escapism: Ruskin, Rosetti, Swinburne, Burne-Jones, Johnson, Dowson, Beerbohm, Bennet and Ford. He then goes on to satirise bourgeois audience and modern public taste not based on aesthetic values. Like T.S. Eliot, Pound here sees Western civilisation ’as a cultural waste-land‘ (Shucard et al. 1989:125).

The quatrains of alternating rhymes are used in ten of twelve sections, while the other two sections create a sort of tension with the formal meter by abandoning it altogether. These two sections are famous anti-war lines. Pound condemns the war, saying that modern civilisation (‘an old bitch gone in teeth‘) did not deserve such a sacrifice (‘wastage as never before‘). Falsehood is a connecting thread between artists and warriors: Pound shows how the low morality and lies of the politicians and the rich led to World War I and to the massive death (‘a myriad died‘) on the battlefields.

How much do the translations of Mauberley preserve these direct intercultural references and reflect the source language culture? The translations into Serbo-Croatian were published from 1961 to 1980, by two Croatian (Ladan 1961, Šoljan 1980) and one Serbian (Danojlić 1974) translators. As Venuti argues, it is important to understand how the translator “has performed the crucial role of cultural go-between. To read a translation as a translation, as a work in its own right, we need a more practical sense of what the translator does. I would describe it as an attempt to compensate for an irreparable loss by controlling an exorbitant gain“ (Venuti 2004:1).

To avoid the ’irreparable loss‘ Danojlić (1975:226-229) offers about fifty notes to explain and clarify most of the references and allusions Pound uses in his poem. This paratext provides the translations of the lines in foreign languages, relevant information on the sources of cited lines, data related to the authors, Greek gods and literary heroes mentioned in the poem, and clarifications of allusions (e.g. ’old bitch‘ is understood as an allusion to Great Britain). Most readers of the poem in Serbo-Croatian translation did need clarifications of this kind in order to appreciate the satire and irony of the poem. As the other three translations of Hugh Selwyn Mauberley into Serbo-Croatian were published in journals and anthologies, where the space is limited, there are no explanatory notes accompanying the translation. How this has affected comprehension is the issue related to reception, as Venuti (2008:335) rightly comments: “Translating always encounters incommensurabilities, different ways of comprehending and evaluating the translated text and indeed the world. But these encounters do not so much negate the communicative function of a translation as splinter it into potentialities that can only be realised in reception.“


All translators of Pound’s poem into Serbo-Croatian keep the lines in foreign languages in the form they appear in Mauberley, without translating them. Thus direct intertextual references are fully kept, as in the following examples:

- A line taken from the Pindar’s Second Olympian Ode:

O bright Apollo, Tin andra, tin eroa, tina theon, What god, man or hero Shall I place a tin wreath upon! (Pound 1920:57-60)

O, svijetli Apolone, Tin andra, tin eroa, tina theon, Kakvu bogu, čovjeku il’ heroju Limeni vijenac da stavi on! (Ladan 1961:137) O, divni Apolone, Tin andra, tin eroa, tina theon, Limenim vencem da okitim? Junak ili bog, gde je on! (Danojlić 1975:97) O, sjajni Apolone, Tin andra, tin eroa, tina theon Kojeg da boga, čovjeka il junaka Krunim tim vijencem limenim! (Šoljan 1980:242)

- A line from Villon’s Le Testament:

Unaffected by ”the march of events“ , He passed from men’s memory in l’an treiniesme De son eage; the case presents No adjunct to the Muses’ diadem. (Pound 1920:17-20)

Netaknut ”maršem dešavanja“, Napustio ljudsko sjećanje u l’an treiniesme De son eage; bez dodavanja Ičega za Muzin dijadem. (Ladan 1961:137) Mimoiđe ga ”događaja sled“, Iz ljudskog sjećanja uđe u l’an treiniesme De son eage; prilog bled Za venac Muza, sve u svem. (Danojlić 1975:94) Nedirnut ”razvojem događaja“, Iz ljudskog sjećanja on prijeđe u l’an treiniesme de son eage. Taj slučaj ne predstavlja dodatak dijademu Muza. (Šoljan 1980:241)


- A quote from Odyssey:

Idmen gar toi panth, os eni Troie Caught in the unstopped ear; (Pound 1920:9-10)

Idmen gar toi panith, hos’ eni Troie Zatečen uha nezapušenoga; (Ladan 1961:137) Idmen gar toi panth, os eni Troie Dopre kroz nezačepljen uha kut; (Danojlić 1975:94) ”Idmen gar toi panth, os eni Troie“ Nezačepljeno mu začu uho; (Šoljan 1980:241)

As for the lines that represent quotations in foreign languages which Pound quotes in English translation with inverted commas, they are given in Serbo-Croatian translations in the target language, and inverted commas are kept, as in the examples:

- The two-line quotation from Le Chateau du souvenir by Theophile Gautier:

”Daphne with her thighs in bark Stretched toward me her leavy hands,“ – Subjectively. In the stuffed-satin drawing-room I await The Lady Valentine’s commands,“ (Pound 1920:195-198)

”Dafne, drvenih bedara, lisnatim Rukama diže me palog,“ – Zamišljam. U ututkanom salonu čekam Ledi Valentine nalog. (Danojlić 1975:106)

- A reference to Rossetti’s poem ’Jenny‘:

Questing and passive. ... ”Ah, poor Jenny’s case“ ... (Pound 1920:114-115)

Pun iščekivanja, smiren. ... ”Ah, tužna je priča o Dženi ...“ (Danojlić 1975:100)

Only one of the translators of Mauberley into Serbo-Croatian, Danojlić, has translated the poem in full, that is why there is only one target language example to illustrate translation of this kind of direct intertextual references. Moreover, the same translator gives more information on the above lines in the paratext accompanying his book of translations.

The translators manage to point to the indirect cultural references making the right choices in the target language that contrast and juxtapose culture units in the same way as it is done in the source text. Irony in viewing the modern culture is kept in each of the following translations:


The ’age demanded‘ chiefly a mould in plaster, Made with no loss of time, A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, Alabaster Or the ’sculpture‘ of rhyme. (Pound 1920:29-32)

’Doba je iskalo‘ lik u plasteru, Zbog vremena da se žure, Proznu kinemu, ne, sigurno, u alabasteru Ili rimu od ’sklupture’. (Ladan 1961:137) ’Vek je tražio‘ gips, jer Stvrdne se za tren oka, Bioskop, a ne, svakako ne mermer Il ’fini rez‘ sroka. (Danojlić 1975:95) ’Doba je tražilo‘ uglavnom odljev u gipsu, Načinjen bez gubitka vremena, Prozna kinema, a ne alabaster Ni rimu ’klesanu od kamena’. (Šoljan 1980:242)

The poem is thus seen “as a transitional textual space, a locus of translation as a potentially unending process of transferring poems from one period to the next“ (Nesme 2004:59). 4 Discussion The relationship between translation and culture, and the way of transferring signs of the source culture into the target text, is viewed as an integrative process which comprises two aspects: the recognition of the aim of using cultural references and the way of responding to that aim in translation.

The analysis confirms our hypothesis that the culture-specific references in the corpus are used with different goals: a) to represent the ’culture units‘ of the source language and to describe one (source) culture, as in Kapor’s book, b) to present a variety of source culture types in contact with culture(s) other than the source culture, as in Andrić’s novel; and c) to represent a wider cultural heritage which signifies the entire heritage of human civilisation, as in Pound’s poem.

The basic field of the research is translation of ’cultural words‘, understood as a broader concept which involves not only material objects, but also habits, values, views, behaviour etc. The translation strategies applied in the target texts differ for several reasons, one of them being a very high frequency of culture-specific lexical items. In Kapor’s A Guide to Serbian Mentality, most of the cultural words are preserved, i.e. transferred into the target text. This does not burden the text because the book aims to describe the specificities of Serbian culture by explaining the words and the objects they refer to. Despite the fact that


the book is translated by a group of translators, there are no notable differences in following the main ideas and in choosing the most prominent translation methods.

While analysing specific items of Serbian culture, Kapor explains realia and concludes, in most cases, that these items are present in a wider or universal cultural context. This idea is stressed in a good-natured way by critical evaluation of ethnocentric ideas and beliefs. Following Kapor’s idea of showing plurality rather than cultural uniqueness, the translators preserve culture-specific lexical items, sometimes translating them in brackets, and – in most cases – explaining them earlier in the text or in the same sentence (often by using apposition or brackets).

Another aim of using cultural words and even sequences in languages other than the source language is obvious in Andrić’s novel Travnička hronika. Describing life in a multicultural area, the novel contains a variety of cultural references from the source cultures, but also from several cultures and languages which are alien to the source culture(s). This puts the translator into the position of a two-level mediator, who transfers units of the source culture and foreign culture(s) into the target text.

Signifying a mixture of different cultures in the original, culture-specific lexis is often transferred in translation and commented on at the end of the book. Preserving cultural terms in translation – which can be referred to as foreignisation – fully follows the idea of the original text. However, the translator sometimes applies domestication as a means of bringing the target text closer to the readers, mostly when dealing with Oriental realia alien to Western culture.

In Pound’s poem Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, cultural references are not connected to any real geographical space or historical time. Therefore, the translators are not expected to transfer specific source culture(s) into the target text and to create an impression of cultural, linguistic and behavioural diversity. Pound uses specific phrases, lexica and proper nouns as symbols of the complete human cultural heritage, creating a multitude of voices and evocations. The translators transfer original lexica as direct signifiers of cultural totality, preserving even the whole lines and sequences in foreign languages as parts of world literary heritage (lines from Homer, Dante etc.). The lines that represent quotations in foreign languages which Pound quotes translated into English and using inverted commas, are translated in the target language, and inverted commas are kept.

On the other hand, numerous evocations we referred to as indirect (of Homeric verse, Hellenic and Biblical myths and legends, etc.) are transferred with more or less success by several translators. Danojlić (1975:226-229) offers the notes accompanying the main text to explain and clarify most of the references and allusions which are not understandable even to an average reader of the source text.

The analysis shows that the aim of cultural references in source texts guides prominent strategies of translation and a specific combination of translation methods. As a translator performs ’the crucial role of cultural go-between‘ (Venuti 2004:1), the correspondence between source and target text and between their cultural references results from the translator’s success in decoding and his deep


understanding of the idea which is behind the types of cultural information existing in the source text. 5 Conclusions The aim of the paper has been to study different translational methods of culture specific elements and the appropriateness of these methods.

Besides the fact that two linguistic codes which are relevant in translation – the source and the target language – are not isomorphic (Brisset 2008:337), an obstacle for successful translation can also be the presence of cultural information in a source text, including ’cultural words‘ as lexical items belonging to certain semantic fields.

Two hypotheses have been set, but in the contrastive analysis of the original texts and their translations they have been viewed as inseparable. The first hypothesis is that there are various modes of translating culture specific lexis in the analysed texts, which is obvious. The second one is that there are different ideas behind using culture specific lexis in the source texts, and that the translators of the studied texts recognised and followed these ideas in translation.

Using different translation strategies, the translators manage to transfer culture units at several levels: description of a single source culture, mediation of several source cultures with elements of foreign cultures, and scanning the whole human cultural heritage. The studied texts also tend to present the relations of the source culture to the surrounding cultures or the relations among various cultures which are either spatial or temporal. The potentialities of these translations as cultural transpositions can be realised in reception, where translation achieves its communicative function. References Andrić, I. (1985). Travnička hronika. Sarajevo: Svjetlost. Andrić, I. (2003). The days of the consuls (C. Hawkesworth, Trans., in collaboration with B. Rakic). Belgrade: Dereta. (Original work published 1945) Benjamin, W. (2008). The task of the translator: an introduction to the translation of Baudelaire’s Tableaux Parisiens. In L. Venuti (Ed.), The Translation Studies Reader (2nd ed., pp. 75-83). New York: Routledge. Berman, A. (2008). Translation and the trials of the foreign. In L. Venuti (Ed.), The Translation Studies Reader (2nd ed., pp. 276-289). New York: Routledge. Brisset, A. (2008). The search for a native language: translation and cultural identity. In L. Venuti (Ed.), The Translation Studies Reader (2nd ed., pp. 337-368). New York: Routledge.


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