Translation is an art that requires both a skill and a knowledge. It is not just the mere conveying of words from a source language to a target language. It is more of a complicated process. Translation is the transferring of a language as well as a culture. According to Bassnett (2002), translation does not only involve the replacement of lexical and grammatical elements between two languages, but also requires conveying the cultural settings of the texts. Lefevere and Bassnett view translation as a way of rewriting the original text to a certain extent to fulfil the readers’ expectations. They view rewriting as a means of manipulation to introduce new genres, devices, and new cultural concepts. The cultural aspect is of …show more content…
Moreover, the study will also determine the efficiency of the strategies mentioned in Bassnett’s theory in solving cultural translation problems. The cultural data provided in this study for investigating the effectiveness of Bassnett’s theory is taken from the UNESCO as it contains phrases of social class, status, age and gender in cultural texts. More importantly, this study will provide a solution to the most frequent cultural translation issue faced by translators and trainees of translation which is the cultural …show more content…
Bassnett and Lefevere (2004), in their book Translation Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary Fame have come up with the cultural rewriting theory presenting their view “translation is a rewriting of an original text”. According to Bassnett and Lefevere, “All rewritings, whatever their intention, reflect a certain ideology and a poetics and as such manipulate literature to function in a given society in a given way. Rewriting is manipulation, undertaken in the service of power... Rewriting can introduce new concepts, new genres, new devices” (2004a, p. vii).This indicates that the main aim of manipulating any text is to present new concepts and as Bassnett and Lefevere point out that all rewritings are “not innocent” they are shaped by certain factors among them are power, ideology, poetics and patronage. Bassnett is against the principles adopted by the linguistically oriented approach the equivalence or the faithfulness principles .Bassnett views translation as rewriting which is manipulation of the source text to certain extent. Bassnett further declares "the translator must tackle the SL text in such a way that the TL version will correspond to the SL version... To attempt to impose the value system of the SL culture onto the TL culture is dangerous ground" (Bassnett, 2002, P31- 32). Bassnett also argues that the process of translation