Language and Cultural Code: Translation between Literariness and Literality
Language and Cultural Code: Translation between Literariness and Literality

Summary/Abstract: Defined as cultural exchange, translation is a process of ”mediation” between the plurality of cultures and the unity of humanity. However, when translation concerns languages that are geographically rather remote and when there is an inevitable hiatus between the two cultures involved, connotations tend to raise major difficulties for the translator; faithfulness presupposes, in this case, not only an ”asymptotic” adjustment of the target-text to the source-text,through ”inventiveness” and ”creativity”, but also a corresponding hermeneutics, in the letter and the spirit of the text. This study examines translation as a bridge between two cultures, highlighting, on the basis of several examples of translations from and into Japanese, the intricate permutations occurring between the source language and culture, on the one hand, and the target language and culture, on the other.

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