CULTURAL CHALLENGES IN SPECIALIZED TRANSLATIONS

Abstract

On today’s increasingly competitive market of specialized translations, there are more and more challenges that translators have to face. One of these is the cultural impact, which, due to globalization, has become self-evident in recent years. The implications that a translated text may have in a certain culture are to be considered, no matter if it is a user’s guide or a commercial brochure, an article or a manual. Both the linguistic aspects, such as the grammatical structures or the specialized vocabulary, and the stylistic ones, such as the word
order in a sentence, the length of sentences or the way of addressing the readers are essential when translating specialized texts. Consequently, it is necessary to adapt the form and the content of a text to the specificity of the culture it is translated for. In some countries, like the United Kingdom, conciseness and precision are highly valued, so sentences have to be short, with a well-established word order, whereas in others, like Romania, an elaborate style is seen as a proof of professionalism, so there are long, complex sentences and a very flexible word
order. Furthermore, an American reader would appreciate blunt speech, whereas a Japanese one would hardly accept a text that does not contain the usual marksof politeness. The aim of this paper is to present some significant aspects regarding the differences of expression from one culture to another, and to highlight the challenges that specialized translators face nowadays.