RE-DOMESTICATION, REPATRIATION , AND ADDITIONAL DOMESTICATION, IN CULTURAL BACK-TRANSLATION

Abstract

This paper describes the distinctive features of cultural back-translation. This term is employed here to refer to the translation of source texts into a target language from which most or all of the culture-specific elements of the source text were drawn. It makes an attempt to provide a systematic analysis of the distinctive features of this type of translation with special reference to the concepts of domestication and foreignization. The findings show that cultural back-translation is necessarily domesticating, or more precisely, re-domesticating. Re-domestication has several types: re-domestication proper, repatriation and additional domestication. Domesticating and foreignizing strategies work out differently in cultural back-translation: domestication does not mean adjustment to a different culture but restoring the original cultural context. In re-domestication the distribution of translation strategies used is different from those used in domestication and the purpose and effects of various strategies are different. The whole process from text composition to back-translation may be described as a process of double domestication. It is claimed that while domestication in general reduces readers’ processing effort by sacrificing some contextual effects, redomestication reduces processing effort and at the same time may increase contextual effects. It is concluded that the study of cultural back-translation is worthy of more serious attention and further lines of inquiry are suggested.