Филологические науки.

Преподаватель английского языка Синчилина Н.П.

Национальный технический университет,Украина

«Киевский политехнический институт»

Globalization and Translation: What Hope For The Translator?

Globalization and translation both deal with languages and cultures. They attempt to remove cultural and language barriers but while translation targets better understanding among people and maintains cultural diversity, globalization moves towards reducing languages and cultures to the language and culture of the global village. It has been discovered that globalization is nothing but a death trap for translation. It looks at first as if it offers a helping hand to translation but is gradually making translators redundant with its process of making the language and culture of the global village uniform. But now a new tendency begins taking shape. It suggests that the present process of globalization, if not reversed, might lead to a cultural and language revolution. Why? Let's try to understand the reasons.

Introduction

Translation helps people to appreciate others and respect their ways of thinking as summed up in their cultures. It weakens barriers between languages and communicates messages, spreads cultures, and increases understanding among neighbors near and far. On the other hand, globalization deals with culture, language, and communication but on the contrary it narrows the understanding of people to just the language, norms and principles of the global village. At the very beginning, when there was no global village, translation had an unconditional mission to remove the languages and cultural barriers among people. Now that the "world village" is reduced to a global village or "glocal" village (Goswami, 2003), what becomes of translation? Now that the "glocal" village is adopting its own language, what becomes of other languages? Once globalized, can translators initiate the target-language reader into the sensibilities of the source-language culture? Let's try to answer these questions/

Cultural globalization versus translation

The first impression a vast majority of people had about globalization was that of a process forced by the powerful on the developing without choice, where the less privileged were subdued to unwanted norms not beneficial to them and where the rich become richer. Today we have better understanding of the concept. In fact, the world is fast growing and the old parameters are changing in the direction dictated by technological innovations. With the world dominated by technology, a global village is no longer a mystery and globalization is no longer an illusion. It is a fact not a fiction and it is all about a process. People all over the world are accepting the culture of the globalized village, dominated by global entertainment, the values and norms of the Western ideals of capitalism. With the breakthroughs in the Internet, satellites, and cable TV, the less technologically advanced languages had their cultural boundaries softened with much more influence on the children. Children all over the world, having been exposed to the same culture and norms of the global village, will look alike and think within the framework of the same culture. Foreign movies, television programs and music abound in almost all families across the world and younger ones are the most vulnerable. It helps the younger ones to lose more of their native culture to the benefit of the culture of the global village. This is a dangerous trend that will reduce the need for translation among people in the global village. David Brooks while describing rightly that globalization creates new pressure groups and converges global economies, did not comprehend that it is also a process that weakens or rather attempts to kill other cultures and languages and brings us all together into a small place called "glocal" village (David Brooks, 2005). He states that a lot of nations, for example Muslims and the Japanese, are skeptical on how to strike a balance between joining the process while maintaining their cultures and religious identity. But he agrees that the process of the globalization is irreversible with its well rooted strategies and influences. It means losing some part or all of one's identity which constitutes a strong point in translation and which globalization is trying to deny us.

Critics of globalization argue that this cultural invasion will lead to the disintegration of identity and the spirit of culture.In opposition,its cheerleaders consider the decline of cultural distinctions as a substantial sign of enhanced communication, a measure of integration of societies, and a scope toward unification of civilizations.

Enhancing communication in the way of streamlining cultural diversity are steps that negate the relevance of translation in societies so rich in culture. Globalization diminishes and marginalizes other languages at a stroke and exposes them to death. Many scientists (Brooks) stress the irreversible and^-inevitable fact of globalization, which has started a process that encloses everybody. Instead of transferring the message from a source-language to target-language taking into account the cultural implications, globalization would prefer to transfer the knowledge into the world in the language of the global village. While translation spread culture and people's identity, globalization disintegrates identity and the spirit of culture (Moussalli, 2003). Translation came out of the zeal of people to discover others, to have links with them, and to know what is going on in other parts of the world. Globalization, according to M. Miasami, is rather "..the spread and exchange of people, goods, and ideas across the globe. Characteristically, it is directly associated with change, or transformation, modernity, and an increasingly interdependent relationship between different regions of the world. Globalization is an aspect of human life that has always been there since the beginning of humanity....the process of globalization has been linked with concepts of comparative advantage, free trade, and an open economy, its origin can be traced to a time long before such ideas appeared...Globalization is a process in which "the whole world becomes like a small village...." (Miasami, 2003).

In contrast, other researchers, for example Nico Wiersema, have something different to offer. Wiersema is of the opinion that globalization has tremendously helped to facilitate the task of the translator by the way of foreignization. By so doing he says that "future translations need to be as foreignizing as possible within the limits of reasonable acceptability" instead of an explanatory translation. He looks at globalization as a process that allows cultures to collaborate and interact with flexibility while exotising is a helping hand to translation. He also remarks that in our globalized world, translation is the key to understanding and learning foreign cultures. However, as it supposed, this might not go down well in the global village, which is promoting the culture of the village and making irrelevant the profession of translation. But in the true face of things, isn't it globalization a killer of other languages and cultures?

The language of the global village

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the world faces many challenges, but one that strikes the mind most is the issue of the fast growing language of the global village, commonly called the language of business. Language is known to be the most important parameter in translation. With globalization reducing world languages gradually to the language of the global village, there will be no need for translating. In many developing countries today, English is seen as a means of easy access to good jobs and to progress and this preference for English is a great concern and one of the new millennium's greatest challenges in these countries. English is no longer a language which can be limited within the frontiers of its nation; it moves fast beyond expectations and at different level of society. It is being accepted, adopted, and adapted to business environments. Translation units have gradually disappeared in some international establishments partly because of the funding problems but mostly because of the monolingual tendency of workshops, seminars, and conferences. Most presentations are now done in English, the preferred language of communication in international establishments. Everyone seems to be acquainted with the new rules of the global village. In a survey carried and published by Pew Research Center in June 2003, most respondents agreed that children's success depends on their know-how in English and that the teaching of English should be emphasized, with English made compulsory in schools.

But some countries, especially Japan, are concerned about the fast spread of English which is called as a foreign linguistic superpower. The establishment of the Endangered Language Fund with a view to raising funds to preserve and revive disappearing languages is a testimony of the fast impact of cultural globalization on the weak languages, the vocabulary, the greetings, oral traditions, and poetry that are thesubstance of a culture. People would like to speak English, the potential killer language which remains the most successful lingua franca of modern times enabling speakers to communicate effectively and efficiently with neighbors and build powerful connections (Tuhus-Dubrow, 2002). Despite the establishment of the Endangered Language Fund, Daniel Nelson informs us of the likely threat of extinction to half of the 6000 languages of the world, which marks also the death of associated cultures (Nelson, 2002:1). Wiersema (2004) admitted that English is the global language and that globalization and English are linked, that English is a lingua franca with possible source-texts and target-texts going also global (source-texts likely to be the equal of target-texts). It is a trend that may gradually make translators redundant in the years ahead. The publishing houses are also complying with the norms of globalization thus publishing in a language with a wider audience because of profitable returns.

Conclusion

What conclusions can be made?

First of all, the process of globalization affects almost all the fields of research undertaken by human beings; translation has not been an exception. Everybody speaks the language of the innovations of technology. Everyone seems to agree to the universality of the language of the global village, which is English. It is the most accepted, adopted, and used means of communication, a lingua franca, the language of conferences, workshops, presentations, postal, and publishers. The process of making English the language of the global village looks as if it was a mankind's conspiracy to marginalize other languages. Making other cultures and languages irrelevant is simply gradually disengaging the translator, as translation is the act of transferring the culture and language of the source-text to the culture and language of the target-text. A time will come when the whole universe will be fully globalized, with English the sole language, and the culture attached to it the universal culture. Complete globalization may be prolonged to the century to come. But while we talk of the complete's globalized village, we should be prepared for a possible Cultural Revolution which might be a replay of history in some parts of the world just as we have had in Africa with Negretitude and Panafricanism and in the USSR's former countries . In this regard, an harmonious existence between the richness and diversity of cultures and languages should be maintained for the sake of creativity and invention while encouraging cross-cultural skills for a better understanding among people. This way translation as a profession will not die.

References:

Brooks, D., "All cultures are not equal" in New York Times, August 10, 2005.

Goswami, R., "Globalization erodes local languages, fuels "Glocal" English", in Inter Press Service, July 30, 2003.

Miasami, M., "Islam and globalization", in Fountain, August 2003.

Moussalli, M., "Impact of globalization" in Daily Star, August 25, 2003.

Nelson, D., "Last word looms for half the world"s languages" in One World, February 21, 2002.

Pew research Center, "Globalization with discontents", June 3, 2003. Balko, R., "Globalization and culture: Amiricanization or cultural diversity?" in a World connected, April 2003.

Tuhus-Dubrow, R., World"s languages are fast disappearing, Independent, April 25, 2002.

Wiersema, N., "Globalization and translation: A discussion of the effect of globalization on today"s translation" in Translation Journal, vol. 8, No. 1, January 2004.