To filter or not to filter? The translator’s decision when applying a cultural filter

Abstract

At a time in which one can easily access to textual and audiovisual contents originating in diverse languages-cultures, the question arises as to whether we will be more sensitive, aware and receptive to cultural differences and how these differences reflect themselves in the linguistic and textual conventions. Will our intercultural experience enable us to deal more easily with the foreign? Will we be able to dispense with filters that adapt these contents to our way of seeing the world? The focus of this paper is on translators’ decisions and justifications (in a translator training context) when rendering culture-specific items. Our aim is to account for translator training issues and to discuss the need to comply with the reader’s expectations and of considering target-language culture. Based on the notion of language awareness (Donmall, 1991; James / Garrett, 1991; Wolf 1993; Hecht, 1994; Alegre, 2001), on one hand, and on the concepts of cultural filter (House, 1997, 2015; Chesterman, 2000) as well as domestication (Venuti, 1995), on the other, we describe the difficult balance between faithfulness to cultural specificities of the source text and communication without obstacles, as part of translation awareness.