ETHNOLINGUISTIC NOTE 33

Links to pages: 485, 486, 488, 489

Comments Welcome

George W. Grace

University of Hawaii

October 5, 1988

ETHNOLINGUISTIC NOTES

Series 3, Number 33

THE IDEA OF A THEORY OF TRANSLATION:
ON SHARED AND UNSHARED CULTURAL BACKGROUNDS

My main purpose in writing this is to offer an alternative to what seems to be a widely-shared (at least in the United States) model of the distribution of cultural differences in the world. This model, like most of the models in terms of which we think, is very much oversimplified. But it seems to be quite influential in our interpretation of events. The reason for my particular interest in it here is the role it plays in our explanations of some kinds of misunderstanding and of translatability.

Anyway, the essentials of the model can be described as follows: humanity is divided up into various peoples (ethnic groups), and each people typically has its own language and its own culture.

About Idealized Models

Before discussing my alternative model, I need to say a few words in general about the nature and role of models of this kind--which I propose to call idealized models.(1)(2)

In Grace 1987b I talked about what I called "subject- matter views", i.e., sets of assumptions about a subject matter which, in their overall effect, provide a kind of model of the subject matter in question. I noted further that these models typically present a much oversimplified view. However, this oversimplification is often recognized, but regarded as a kind of "idealization" which scientific rigor is known often to require. I pointed out that the use of such idealized models is often justified by arguments of what I called the "close-enough-type". A close-enough-type argument was defined (Grace 1987b: 43) as "an argument that a particular model (or 'view') of a certain subject matter is justified because, even though it has not been possible to make the actual observations of the subject matter fit the model, some approximation of a fit has been achieved."

What I was primarily interested in there were subject matters that constituted the basis of established disciplines, and most particularly the discipline of linguistics and its view of language. Language, of course, is recognized as constituting the subject matter of linguistics--as being the object upon which the attention of the discipline is focused. However, phenomena which are not the focus of attention of any discipline--phenomena which habitually belong to the "ground" rather than to the "figure"--may also be organized in our thinking in terms of idealized models.

In fact, it seems to be necessary to rely on idealized models in our thinking. Reality in its full complexity--or even that part of its complexity of which we are aware--is regularly more than our minds can manipulate. Where we are faced with more complexities than we can successfully juggle, there may be no way for thought to proceed effectively except by resort to idealized models of some aspects of the total relevant reality.

However, there is a price to pay. The price is that we may easily lose track of the fact that the idealized models are in fact idealizations rather than reality and find ourselves dealing in stereotypes and simplisms.

An Alternative Model of Cultural Distribution

Anyway, it is my purpose here to offer an alternative to the model of the distribution of human cultural differences to which I referred at the outset--the model in which humanity is pictured as divided up into various peoples, each of which typically has its own language and its own culture.

My alternative model is equally simple-minded (as befits an idealized model). It depicts the world as already very largely under the dominion of a single culture (which I will call the modern-world monoculture) which is rapidly submerging the remaining traces of every other variety of culture and re-shaping all languages into transcodings of one another.

(To continue with the model) most, if not all, people in the world participate in at least a limited way in the monoculture. That is, few if any people in the world are able to live their lives in complete disregard of--i.e., without at least making some accommodation to--modern monoculture. In fact, it is a tenet of the monoculture that all people and habitable land areas of the earth are subject to "international law", and this means that they are subject to the rule of a political entity with all of the institutions required of a modern state--i.e., to a monoculture-type government. If any person or persons not under such rule exist today, it is only because they have not yet been caught and subjugated. And simply being brought under the rule of a monoculture-conforming state brings with it subjugation to an intricate package of cultural institutions.

At the same time, most, if not all people in the world, have some other cultural resources--i.e., they participate in some other culture (or exceptionally, more than one). I will follow a well-established (and ethnocentric) custom of the monoculture and refer to all other cultures as traditional cultures. Thus, we can say that most people participate to some extent in both the monoculture and some traditional culture. (The nearest thing to an exception is probably represented by those Americans who are referred to as "mainstream", but I suppose that sufficiently careful investigation would reveal some sort of other traditional cultural roots for most of these, even though they might be of only limited importance in the lives of the individuals.)

To keep the model simple, let us assume that all cultural functions (and this should probably be interpreted to include most, if not all, behavior) are performed under the sanction of a particular culture--i.e., of either the monoculture or a traditional culture. Thus, most people may be thought of as functioning part of the time in settings sanctioned by, or otherwise attributable to, a traditional culture and part of the time in settings sanctioned by, or otherwise attributable to, the monoculture. Or let us say simply, they function part of the time in the "world" of the monoculture and part of the time in the world of a traditional culture.

To extend this idealized model to languages, we may assume that each of the functions of a particular language can be attributed to one or another culture. The functions of a traditional culture surely are typically associated with a particular language (or possibly two or more, but always a very small number). However, the case of the monoculture is different. It was originally associated with a small number of European languages, but subsequently more and more languages have been adapted to accommodate some or all of its functions. Thus, there are many cases where many of a language's functions subserve the monoculture while others subserve a traditional culture.

We may refer to a language associated with a particular culture--i.e., adapted to express its concepts, values, etc., and to represent its idealized models--as dedicated to that culture.

In order to function in any culture (i.e., to perform functions that fall under its sanction), one is obliged to employ one of its dedicated languages (insofar as one speaks at all). In the case of a traditional culture, there may be only a single such dedicated language. However, for most functions of the monoculture many suitably dedicated languages are available (although of course on any particular occasion an individual's choice is practically limited to the languages which his/her interlocutors understand).

Now, the part of a person's functioning that falls under the sanction of the monoculture is easily translatable from whatever language was originally used into any other suitably-dedicated language, which is to say, any language regularly used by anyone anywhere for equivalent monoculture functions. Likewise, of course, the part of one's functioning that occurs within the context of a traditional culture is also easily translatable from whatever language was used for that functioning into any other language used for similar participation in the same traditional culture. However, there is the great difference that a large number of languages--in fact most of what are regarded as the most important languages of the world--are likely to be used for some or even most monoculture functions, whereas there will probably be very few, if any, other languages dedicated to those of the traditional culture.

Concluding Remarks

1. This idealized model is intended to provide a clearer perspective on differences in intertranslatability. Where the functions being performed by the source-language speech act are functions of a culture to which the target language is also suitably dedicated (i.e., where the target language is regularly used for equivalent functions of the same culture), it does not appear unrealistic to speak of "exact translation". These conditions are most likely to obtain where the culture in question is the monoculture. That is true both because the monoculture has many more dedicated languages than traditional cultures and because many of the kinds of translation which seem to be in frequent demand today involve monoculture functions. Perhaps the most conspicuous examples are scientific and technical translation. However, various other subject matters--for example, military matters, matters of diplomacy, matters of international business and finance--would also appear to belong to the world of the monoculture.

2. It is important to remember that the picture I have been drawing does represent an idealized model. In actual fact, individuals' actions do not consistently fall unambiguously into the domain of one or another culture. And the functions of one culture are not always so easily segregated from those of another. In fact, monoculture functions show various kinds and degrees of accommodation to the traditional cultures whose geographical domains they share. Therefore, the ideal situation projected by the model in which there is a particular source-language linguistic expression dedicated to a particular monoculture function and there is also a particular target-language linguistic expression dedicated to performing precisely the same function is less frequent than the model would suggest.

Nevertheless, I believe that the idealized model proposed here provides a much better starting point for discussing translation between languages than that which it is intended to replace.

3. I should probably not end this discussion without calling attention to the special status that the monoculture has among us--the very strong ethnocentrism that surrounds and supports it, and the high positive value which it, itself, places on ethnocentrism--i.e., ethnocentrism which invidiously views all other cultures from the perspective of the monoculture. Although cultural relativism is sometimes extended even to it by some, such cultural relativism is not often seen in the press or when institutions such as science (and among many others, religion) are discussed.

The monoculture considers its assumptions to represent nothing less than the truth--reality itself, and it is not at all tolerant of traditional cultures, except as adding nonessential touches of grace to the lifestyles of its adherents (that is, to the monoculture's adherents; to adherents of the traditional culture who do not accept the monoculture, its main contribution could be nothing but benightedness). Traditional cultures may provide traditional arts and crafts, ceremony, articles of cuisine, and the like--touches which are quaint or picturesque. But they can henceforth never have a significant place in the mainstream of human history.

It might be mentioned in passing that the monoculture even encourages an ethnocentric--disapproving or patronizing--attitude toward earlier (not up-to-date) stages of the monoculture itself. [The latter ethnocentrism plays a significant role in justifying and implementing the succession of generations in positions of authority].

NOTE

1. Holland and Quinn 1987 use the term "cultural models" for something quite similar. Lakoff's (1987) "idealized cognitive models" (ICM) also seem quite similar. Furthermore, Langacker in a review of Lakoff's book writes (1988: 385-86), "An ICM is roughly equivalent to what I prefer to call a COGNITIVE DOMAIN, Fillmore 1982 a FRAME, and Schank & Abelson 1977 a SCRIPT."

Thus, it is apparent that a number of people recently have become impressed with phenomena of the same general sort. However, it is also important to remember that the above-named concepts are all different precisely because each belongs to, and presupposes, a different idealized model! (Back up)

2. Although I have not used the term before, Grace 1987a was in fact a discussion of an idealized model used in historical linguistics, and Grace 1987b discusses idealized models of language. (Back up)