Culture-based text analysis in translation.

A vision for comprehension

Abstract

Comprehension can be described as the ability to construct the meaning of a text, spoken or written. Such ability requires a complex mix of linguistic and world knowledge acquired through interactions with the global environment, transcending language, and cultural translation barriers. In addition, translation schools propose various models to address the difficulties inherent in comprehending the source text (ST) by using analysis from the linguistic, sociolinguistic, or cognitive perspectives. On the basis of translation schools’ models of text analysis, this study similarly attempts to provide a corpus-based analysis of culture-based texts from authentic sources (i. e. British online news). Results corroborate that the comprehension of culture- based texts can be attained through textual and lexical analyses. Further, the cultural, linguistic, sociolinguistic, and cognitive perspectives of translation can be employed to create a positive interaction between the internal and external components of a ST text on the one hand, and a translator on the other hand. Drawing on the multimodality of text analysis, this study attempts to offer a practical model for culture-based text analysis that can be applied at a translation class or course level.