On Cultural Barriers to Translating Specialist Texts: on the example of translation of déclaration de porte-fort

Abstract

The complexity of the relationship between language and culture is reflected in the multifaceted interplay between a text model and a corresponding context model. As an intermediary between two texts and thereby two contexts, the translator is involved in a double intracultural and intercultural relationship revealing an array of cultural differences that the author divides into three categories. The author analysed a translation of a French legal text that has no textual equivalent in legal Polish; the translation was performed by people with varying translation experience. The author concludes that the real barrier to translating specialist text is not so much cultural differences as rather the inability to use them properly in translation.