Culture-specific elements in scientific, professional and official translation: tips and tricks

This self-paced training course is meant to be the second part of a larger training course the first of which is a webinar. This second part is designed as a follow-up and an in-depth training course full of instructions how to actually handle culture-specific elements in scientific, professional and official translations (SPOTs) whereas the webinar would lay out the basics steps in the process of translating SPOTs in your everyday practice. Both training sessions will be based on a new approach in translation, the cogno-cultural approach. This approach relies heavily on the aspect of cognition and culture, the two most important elements in understanding and translating culture-specific elements in SPOTs. The most frequent culture-specific elements to be covered in this course are eponyms (words and phrases derived from personal names, geographical terms, etc.), cognates (words seemingly similar in various languages due to a common origin), false cognates (words seemingly similar in various languages but with different meanings), collocations (words and phrases that have to go together) and hypotyposis (a rhetoric device used to suggest visual effects by means of words).

The self-paced training course is designed as a clearly outlined set of instructions, or manual, which would help candidates develop the perfect skill to translate tricky areas known as rather demanding areas of culture-specific elements named above. These sets of words and/or phrases can rarely be translated without a thorough search for appropriate equivalents. The fact that they appear in SPOTs makes them even more difficult as in non-literary translation, footnotes and cumbersome additional translator's explanations are not recommended.

The cogno-cultural approach may be extremely helpful as it aids the identification of the closest possible corresponding term in the target language. The condense and very precise context of SPOTs sets the requirement that accuracy is achieved by means of an equivalent as close as possible to the original culture-specific element. In other words, the only tip & trick is to develop the skill of finding the perfect equivalent in the target language. This self-paced training course will show how to search the WWW for solutions to be applied in SPOTs.

The course leads candidates through the following steps:

1. Review of the most important aspects of the cogno-cultural approach and the phenomenon conceptual shift in translation.
2. Detailed description of how to apply the two most important techniques in the translation of culture-specific elements:
Localization and transposition
2. Definition of the most important culture-specific forms in the translation of SPOTs:

a) Eponyms
b) Cognates
c) False cognates
d) Collocations and
e) Hypotyposis.

Final test

- Freelancers starting in the translation industry.
- Freelancers who want to explore new approaches to scientific, professional and official translations.
- Professionals who want to develop new skills in order to increase their productivity.

- To learn how to handle the translation of culture-specific elements generally regarded as hurdles and obstacles in non-literary translation based on a new approach identified as the cogno-cultural approach to translation.
- To familiarise with the most common types of culture-specific segments within written discourse.
- To develop the skill to identify culture-specific elements in a source text.
- To establish and develop both the skill and the techniques needed for the handling of such difficult phrases.
- To learn how to use the WWW and the Internet efficiently when searching for corresponding equivalents.

Candidates should have solid knowledge of the English language as all the source language examples will be provided in English whereas the target language equivalents provided in the examples will be mainly in German but can be introduced in other languages as well depending on the candidates' language of translation.

1. MS Office Word
2. No previous knowledge needed
3. Have a printer ready for the learning material.

The course leads candidates through the following steps:

1. Review of the most important aspects of the cogno-cultural approach and the phenomenon conceptual shift in translation.
2. Detailed description of how to apply the two most important techniques in the translation of culture-specific elements:
Localization and transposition
2. Definition of the most important culture-specific forms in the translation of SPOTs:

a) Eponyms
b) Cognates
c) False cognates
d) Collocations and
e) Hypotyposis.

Final test

 Jasmina Djordjevic    View feedback | View all courses

Bio: Jasmina is an Assistant Professor with a PhD in Applied Linguistics (English Language) and an appointed and sworn translator, native in German and Serbian as well as close-to-native in English. She has taught Legal English, Translation Techniques, Consecutive Translation, Culture in Business Communication at the BA level and Intercultural Communication and Translation as well as Consecutive and Conference Interpreting at the MA level. Parallel to her academic career, she has been developing her translator and interpreter career for the last 23 years. Now she is trying to contribute to the profession by coaching students to become good translators, interpreters or teachers. She has written many articles and a few books, two of the most important ones being “Translation in Practice – Written and Consecutive” and "Scientific, Professional and Official Translation", which consists of two volumes, one is a theoretical overview and the other is a workbook. Her primary objective is to offer valid and tested teaching/ learning techniques for students training to be translators and interpreters. Jasmina's extensive and elaborate academic and professional record shows highly developed standards needed in the translation and interpreting business.