Translating Culture in Bilingual Dictionaries *

In addition to the act of translation, transculturalisation and strategies of textuality come into playas interacting factors in the compilation of interlingual dictionaries. In this article, some conclusions resulting from a comparative survey of some South African dictionaries are drawn, specifically with regard to biand trilingual dictionaries in which Afrikaans, English, Japanese, Xhosa and Zulu combine as macrostructural components. After relating the act of translating in the various dictionaries to equivalence-based and descriptive theories of translation, the phenomenon of cultural transposition between lemma and translation equivalent is investigated. Starting with a brief characterisation of the dictionaries, the different perspectives and cultural biases vis-A-vis the "other" culture as reflected in the selection of lemmas and editorial examples are highlighted. In situating each instance of lexicographical contact, certain text linguistic principles are considered and applied to dictionary articles as units of discourse.


Introduction
The focal point of this article is the interface between translation theory, metalexicography and cultural studies.There is, however, also a particular linguistic perspective which lies at the basis of such a topic.Because both translation and lexicography are applied linguistic fields, it is only natural that an empirical base is important.For this reason, the view of language will be text-based, sociolinguistic and pragmatic.
Dictionaries constitute a very specific text genre.This is borne out by the format in which they are produced, which entails, inter alia, that compilers follow a strict microstructural blueprint for the layout of each article.On this score at least, then, the field of text linguistics (as an extension of discourse studies) provides an obvious framework for the assessment of the work done by lexicographers.It can be indicated that De Beaugrande and Dressler's (1982) seven principles of textuality (as investigated and applied by many other authors, such as Carstens and Hubbard 1993, Van Dijk 1985, Renkema 1993, Pet6fi 1990, Du Plessis and Bosch 1999, etc.) are all, to a greater or lesser degree, applicable to dictionary articles by and large.It would be possible to devote an article to a discussion of the ways in which especially the microstructure of these dictionaries complies (or does not comply) with the principles of cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, contextuality, informativity and intertextuality.Within the framework of the present topic, it would be particularly useful to select two of these principles, viz.informativity and acceptability, and investigate the degree to which they are being applied, as cornerstones of effective discourse, in the dictionaries under discussion.I shall return to these principles in paragraph 3. 1  As far as translation theory is concerned, the realities of semantic and cultural differences, especially between languages and cultures which are not closely related, make it well-nigh impossible to accept the premise of lexicalsemantic equivalence as a primary criterion.The traditional distinction between a prescriptive and a descriptive approach is made by Toury (1980) who points out that the prescriptive approach attempts to answer the question whether there is semantic equivalence between the source text and the target text, whereas the descriptive approach, on the other hand, rather investigates the nature of the equivalence if text A is regarded as a translation of text B. In terms of the prescriptive approach, the point of departure for equivalence is (a) the source text and (b) the translation process, or put differently, the "translatability" of a text and the translation possibilities at the disposal of the transla-tor.This presupposes an abstract or ideal relation between the source text and the target text.Translating equivalence is thus a prerequisite for establishing any relation between the two texts, which in a particular instance is either achieved or not.Descriptive translation theory, on the other hand, is aimed at the target text and the relation between the two texts is analysed and described as an empirical phenomenon.It should be clear that the prescriptive approach must lead to a speculative theory, because it accepts (and expects) both semantic and grammatical equivalence.The nature of the equivalence relation between source text and target text is not considered.It is of course so that in genealogically related languages a fairly consistent correlation between semantic and grammatical equivalence is normally displayed.(A transitive verb in French or German is usually translated by means of a more or less semantically equivalent transitive verb of the same subcategory in, say, English.)In the case of genealogically unrelated, or typologically divergent languages, however, this correlation is often conspicuously absent and it is therefore important to explain systematic differences between the two languages on the grammatical level.For this reason the descriptive approach is the proper point of departure to investigate equivalence relations and to raise, in the case of a translating dictionary, the problem of equivalence as a function of lemmatic addressing, whether it be grammatical, semantic or pragmatic.
For the purpose of this article, therefore, the phenomenon of translation in bilingual dictionaries is investigated only in so far as it pertains to strategies of bringing about equivalence of whatever kind between lemmas denoting "cultural" items in the source language and the corresponding translating entry in the target language, or translating equivalent, as it is commonly known.What makes this investigation extremely interesting is that with the exception of the English/ Afrikaans dictionary, the languages dealt with in the publications discussed in this article represent both grammatically and culturally unrelated pairs.
A final point to be made regarding the theme of this discussion is the definition of what the term culture means in the context of translation in dictionaries.According to Gabriele Becher (1995: 294), culture is understood as "the sum total of a social community's behaviour patterns, including the 'rules' of behaviour and its (material and immaterial) 'results"'.She states further: "As we have already indicated that language is considered to be a cultural product, at the same time, language may be considered part of the manifestation of culture-specific behaviour."A complicating factor is that from the viewpoint of leXicography, particular linguistic forms (of whatever structural complexity) can be regarded as having the semantic feature [+ cultural], whereas others are culturally "neutral".By way of synopsis, then, it would seem that language as a phenomenon forms part of the cultural stock of a community (which implies that matters linguistic are "cultural" by definition), but that the lexis of a language in particular, in its signifying function, also contains elements which denote concepts (other than linguistic ones) representing manifestations of culture-specific behaviour.It would therefore be possible to simply discuss grammatical features of the relevant languages as "cultural" phenomena.However, I would then be ignoring a distinction that I suspect is tacitly assumed by linguists and anthropologists alike, namely that a distinction can be made on the basis of whether particular referents represent the cultural stock of a speech community or not.I will not attempt to clarify the fuzzy boundaries in the lexis of the languages under discussion in this article.Instead, I will confine myself to items about which there should be unanimity as representing culture-specific behaviour other than the use of language as such, such as references to lifestyle, attitudes to human conditions, socio~political references, etc.

Comparative description of macrostructural selection
I shall now provide a brief description of the dictionaries investigated with a view to comparing their macrostructures.In this way I hope to reveal different perspectives and cultural biases as reflected in the selection of lemmas and contextual examples.The dictionaries to which I want to restrict myself, are the following: AfrikaanslZoeloe-Woordeboek met Engelse Vertalings (Afrikaans/Zulu Dictionary with English Translations) -Kotze and Wela (1991), Afrikaans-Japannese Aanleerderswoordeboek met Engelse Vertalings (Afrikaans-Japanese Leamer's Dictionary with English Translations) -Sakurai and Kotze (in preparation), The Greater Dictionary of Xhosa (Xhosa!English/Afrikaans), Part 3: Q-Z - Pahl et al. (1989), and Bilingual Dictionary / Tiveetalige Woordeboek (English / Afrikaans, Afrikaans / English - Bosman, et al. (1984).
The selection might seem somewhat arbitrary, but it is the result of having applied two criteria: 1.
It should preferably be a dictionary that has been published recently (or is about to be published shortly), for a fair and valid assessment of cultural relevance to be made.

2.
It should, of course, be a translating, and not a descriptive dictionary.
Another comment needs to be made: Although the title of this article makes mention of bilingual dictionaries, the concept of bilingualism as interpreted in the South African context stems from the previous political dispensation in which only English and Afrikaans were recognised as official languages.It was generally accepted that to be bilingual, one had to be fluent in these two official languages.In the hendecaglossic situation in which we find ourselves after 1994, with eleven instead of two such languages, the new buzzword is multilingualism.An indication of the linguistic complexity of South African society can be obtained from the results of the 1990 census (d.Appendix A).To be confronted with such an overwhelming variety of languages, all official, seems a daunting task to anybody dealing with the public, who are entitled to be served in any of these eleven languages.In practice, however, to be optimally communicatively competent as a South African amounts to being trilingual in most instances, since general usage of the new official languages is restricted, at least as far as mother-tongue speakers are concerned, to geographically circumscribed areas in each of the nine provinces.So one would find in the Free State a policy of trilingualism, with Afrikaans, English and Sesotho, in Kwa-Zulu-Natal once again Afrikaans, English and Zulu this time, while in the Eastern, as well as in the Western Cape, Xhosa forms part of the triad instead of Sesotho and Zulu.This acceptance of and adaptation to the realities of province-specific demographics seems to have been practised by some translating dictionaries as well.And if one looks at the macrostructural layout of the dictionaries mentioned earlier, it is only the Bilingual Dictionary of Bosman et al. that does not employ a third language, at least for the purpose of semantic cross-referencing (d.Preface, Kotze and Wela 1991).This is understandable, given the fact that the respective source and target languages were the only two official languages recognised as such from the time the Bilingual Dictionary was compiled in 1931 until the last revision in 1984.

Afrikaans/Zulu Dictionary with English Translations
This is a pedagogical or leamer's dictionary, aiming at serving both school pupils and adult learners of two of the largest language communities in the country, with Zulu and Afrikaans being spoken as first language by, respectively, 22% and 15,9% of the population of South Africa in 1990 (d. Appendix A).A careful selection had to be made to arrive at a limited total of between 13 000 and 14000 lemmas.This limitation is compensated for in that illustrative examples of a large proportion of the macrostructural selection are provided.
While the primary purpose of the editorial examples is to contextualise lexical items and to demonstrate the practical application of the lemmas in language usage, an investigation of the contents reveals in many respects a description of current political affairs during the last years of the previous decade in South Africa (Appendix B).Although the two main languages, Afrikaans and Zulu (English serving the purpose of a semantic tertium comparationis, as mentioned earlier in this paragraph), represent different cultures, the translation of cultural concepts did not pose insurmountable problems given the long history of contact between the speech communities, so that translating equivalents had an informal pre-existence before being "reduced to writing" in many instances.

Afrikaans-Japanese Leamer's Dictionary
This dictionary, which is presently in preparation, represents a new concept in South African lexicography, where for the first time a foreign lexicographic tradition is introduced in adapting a local product to the exigencies of a market which has never been catered for before.Although this dictionary is roughly based on the macrostructure of the Afrikaans!Zulu Dictionary mentioned above, the target group in this case is quite different, consisting of business people, tourists and, to a limited extent, tertiary students.Coupled with the fact that a particular African and an Asian culture are juxtaposed through the medium of a Germanic language, it represents indeed an unusual combination.The cultural barriers, unlike in the case of Afrikaans and Zulu, called for much more drastic measures to achieve pragmatic equivalence, simply because no frame of reference existed to interpret certain lemmas for the Japanese user.Ostensive addressing, i.e. the use of graphic illustrations, which is common practice in Japanese translating dictionaries, is practically unknown in the South African context, and the available selection of lemmas had to be addressed exclusively in the textual mode.This entailed a much higher proportion of defining translations which is normally a feature of descriptive cultural dictionaries.The microstructure also makes provision for both the linguistic and orthographic distance between the two languages by providing a phonetic transcription of each lemma and a Romaji (i.e.Romanized) version of each translation equivalent and illustrative example (Appendix C).

2.3
The Greater Dictionary of Xhosa (Part This is a cultural dictionary in the full sense of the word.It is both a descriptive and a translating dictionary, in the sense that each lemma is addressed by a definition in Xhosa in the first column of each page, while two further columns are devoted to translating equivalents and/or translating definitions in both English and Afrikaans, respectively (Appendix D).Numerous editorial examples are provided which are also translated in the columns for English and Afrikaans.The dictionary section of this volume covers 681 pages, with 51 addenda containing grammatical commentaries and a description of a wide variety of customs and traditions typical of Xhosa culture.The foreword, for example, contains the following comment by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Fort Hare: The compilers of this Dictionary have succeeded in capturing much of the living breath and feel of the Xhosa world.Here is no mere cold analysis, but a work that breathes the life of the Xhosa peoples themselves.(1989: viii) The main purpose of the dictionary is to serve as a comprehensive Source of reference for students of Xhosa.

Bilingual Dictionary
This is a relatively comprehensive dictionary, containing some "300000 words and expressions" (according to the cover text).Because of its long history, the macrostructure contains several socio-political and other cultural references, some of which have disappeared from current usage, or have become stigmatised because of derogatory connotations.The majority of illustrative examples, however, are culturally unmarked, and, from a linguistic viewpoint, rarely extend beyond two-or three-word collocations and compounds, not providing much grammatical guidance as to pow the lemmas are to be used in larger constructions, such as independent phrases or sentences (Appendix E).The Bilingual Dictionary has been the subject of much metalexicographic analysis, and has gradually been adapted to reflect linguistic and social changes in the speech communities it serves, but the discussion is far from being exhausted.

Translating equivalents as textual items in the context of culture
Although general principles for the compilation of translating dictionaries have been proposed by some authors (d.Al-Kasimi 1983), hard and fast rules do not exist and would be unfair to apply to any such dictionary in an arbitrary way, given the variables pertaining to each case individually.However, it would be possible to investigate the dictionary articles in the light of certain standards of textuality to determine the pragmatic success of particular articles as texts.The success of any text depends, for instance, on the question whether the reader can identify the purpose for which the text was created (Le. the principle of intentionality), on the effectiveness with which the information is transmitted (i.e. the principle of informativity) and on the question whether the target user would interpret the text in the way in which it was intended by the author (i.e. the principle of acceptability).In the remainder of the article, these principles will be briefly applied to the category of dictionary identified above, and it will be shown, particularly with reference to the second and third principles, how they can apply to dictionary texts in practice.

Information on interlingual and intercultural problems stated in the foreword
The purpose for which a dictionary text has been compiled is normally explained in the explanatory notes, both for marketing purposes and to create a fair level of expectancy as to what could reasonably be achieved by using the text and what not.One of the most important objectives of this explanatory section is the description of the target user(s), because the dictionary compiler is thereby committing him-/herself to addressing the needs of the user and providing any would-be evaluator with a framework by means of which the value of the text can be assessed.In the case of the dictionaries involving target users from a different cultural background than that of the language from which the lemmas are selected, it could reasonably be expected that allowance should be made to bridge the gap in a strategically sound and possibly structured way.Of course, difficulties stemming from the way meaning is structured and presented in a particular grammatical form should also be considered in deciding on the format of dictionary articles where typologically divergent or anisomorphic languages are involved.This was the topic of another article (Kotze 1992) and the examples extensively quoted there will not be repeated here.What emerged from the investigation reported is the fact that a didactic function can be fulfilled by systematically alternating structurally different translating possibilities.For instance, when a copula plus adjective in Afrikaans can be translated by means of an intransitive verb or a relative construction in Zulu, the choice should be reflected in the proportion of examples offered.Similarly, phrasal verbs in Afrikaans are normally written as one word in conjunction with modal auxiliaries, but separated in different ways when used as the only verb in the sentence or in the past tense.The didactic purpose served by alternation should be evident in cases like these.

Principles of textuality and the translation of "cultural" items
The principle of intentionality is something that can be assumed to be adhered to when we consider the strict format according to which most dictionaries are compiled, whether implicitly or explicitly, because it relates directly to the level of informativity and acceptability.Consequently, these three factors codetermine the successfulness of the publication.We first tum to the principle of acceptability.Cultural differences between source text readers and target text readers playa role," according to Lukasz Bogucki (1996: 107), "and the notion of acceptability is central to the issue in question."Sometimes, acceptability does not depend on the cultural-semantic content conveyed by the translation equivalent, but rather on the register selected within the lexicon of the target language.In the Afrikaans-Japanese Dictionary mentioned above, for example, it would be inconceivable to supply a direct translation for the lemmas blind, doof and starn (blind, deaf and dumb), since in Japanese culture, reference to these conditions require euphemisms, mekura, tsumbo and oshi (Appendix C), roughly equivalent to "visually impaired", etc.
The question of register acceptability is not confined to interlingual translation of lexical items.In the Nguni cultures (d. the language groupings in Appendix A), the linguistic correlate reflecting the respect which a married woman is expected to demonstrate towards her male relatives-in-Iaw takes the form of a special alternative vocabulary called hlonipha.This word is defined in A Dictionary of South African English (Branford and Branford 1991): The system of reverence and taboos observed by the Nguni woman towards her male relatives-in-Iaw, involving ... a whole substitute vocabulary of hlonipha words enabling her to avoid speaking the radical syllable of anyone of their names [ ... ] An example from the Greater Dictionary of Xhosa is inteleko (pot) (Appendix F), which has to be translated in all three languages, together with a label to indicate its special use: (hlonipha, feminine).Even if the lexicographer is supplying a surrogate equivalent in the translating entries, the article has to contain an additional microstructural treatment of the lemma (in other words, additional lemma tic addressing) to ensure the retrieval of the correct information (Gouws 1996: 27).In this case it is a clear indication of the register to which the lemma is applicable.For a bilingual dictionary to function as a practical linguistic instrument (which could be regarded as one of the objectives of such a dictionary) in a multilingual and multicultural society, the information transfer has to be focused on pragmatiC aspects (Gouws 1996: 28) to ensure not only the informativity, but also the acceptability principle of the translation equivalent.There is a fundamental difference between the demands of foreign language users and those of native speakers, and this fact has to be recognised in the method of addressing, so as to render the information in the dictionary accessible to the intended user.Nonlemmatic addressing (by means of glosses, collocations, illustrative phrases and sentences, the explanation of meaning as well as ostensive addressing, i.e. pictorial illustrations) adds communicative value to the article.
Acceptability can, however, often also be hampered by incongruence problems between the culture-specific meanings of lexical items of different languages and the impossibility of establishing full or partial lexical equivalence between such culture-bound lexemes.Chaffey (1992: 147-153) uses the term degree of cultural loading to refer to the amount of culture-specific knowledge or information a language-user must have in order to be able to understand what we might loosely call the full meaning of a lexical item.One area of the lexicon of any given language that has an extremely high degree of cultural loading is that of legal terms.Even identical terms used by speech communities which do not belong to vastly different cultures might be interpreted differently and lead to fallacious deductions.One example from the dictionaries referred to earlier is the translation of the word ukuthwalwa in Xhosa, which has no other lexical equivalent in English than "to abduct" (Appendix G).In Xhosa culture (as in the Zulu context), abduction can be a perfectly legal action, agreed upon by both the parents of the young man and the girl involved.This semantic divergence can only be dealt with satisfactorily by means of a nonlemma tic address, so that the culture-specific meaning becomes clear.
Lastly, the acceptability of a translating equivalent is very often determined by associative or connotative meanings attached not only to translation equivalents, but also to the lemma itself.Lexicographers are often confronted with the question: Must I include this socio-politically or racially sensitive item or not?This is one of the most difficult areas in lexicographical practice, and dictionary compilers have reacted to the challenge in various ways.If one applies the standards of textuality, acceptability is here largely dependent on intentionality.If the intention of the lexicographer is not clearly spelled out, the mere inclusion of an offensive term will lead to a breakdown of the communication process.If the intended user is not likely to accept the objectivity of the author, no amount of nonlemmatic addressing will salvage the informativity of the article.This is probably the reason why, in the case of a publication aimed (albeit partially) at school-going users such as the Afrikaans/Zulu Dictionary, potentially offensive items have been left out, while in the case of a dictionary intended for adult users, the items are included, but with conspicuous labelling as can be illustrated by the lemma kaffer in Bilingual Dictionary (d.Appendix H).However, in the case of editorial examples instead of corpus quotations, these examples can be said to be the creations of the compiler, reflecting his/her thinking, and whether this is justified or not, the perlocutionary effect on the user will determine the way the intentionality of the text is assessed.If the inclusion of such examples causes offence, the acceptability of the text is jeopardised.TIris is probably one of the reasons why the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (Dictionary of the Afrikaans Language), a comprehensive descriptive dictionary, decided not to include potentially offensive illustrative examples, even though they are corpus quotations, in the hardcopy edition, but to retain them in the unpublished electronic manuscript exclusively for research purposes (Harteveld and Van Niekerk 1995: 249-266).

Conclusion
It seems then that the concept of translation in the context of lexicography comprises a variety of dimensions, more intricate than is normally assumed.This becomes evident as one analyses in translating dictionaries not only the process of interlingual transfer of meaning (lexical or pragmatic) and the allimportance of the cultural framework in which it is interpreted, but also the dictionary article as a unit of discourse which can be assessed as a text according to standards of textuality.In the process, the dictionary becomes the reflection of the compiler's view of social reality expressed in the format collectively laid down by the discipline at large, and thus a cultural artefact of the community concerned.Appendix G An Example from one of the Addenda to The Greater Dictionary of Xhosa

Ukutbwalwa kwentombi
Abduction of a girl This is one of the ways in which a girl is introduced to the wedded state.It is resorted to in certain circumstances, eg when an old man is in need of a wife, or a young man is afraid that he will lose the girl to another suitor, or the family of the young man is not in a position to afford the expenses of a formal marriage.
When the families concerned have agreed on the terms of the lobola.(bride price), the representatives of the suitor ask for permission to abduct the girl and if her family agree they indicate where and when the girl might be surprised and carried off.On the appointed day her family send her somewhere under a pretext.while young men from the prospective bridegroom's home lie in wait for her, pounce upon her and take her to her new home.
However, this may also be done without prior consultation with her family.In such a case the bridegroom's father sends a message to her home asking her parents not to search for their lost daughter as she has arrived at her new home as a daughter-inlaw, and to discuss the terms of lobola.Among the dowry cattle to be paid is one known as inkomo yamablulyi, the beast of the blankets, which is the one specially handed over to her family for her abduction.