Translation: A Flawed Yet Indispensable Tool for Intercultural Communication

This article deals with the problems of literary translations and their resolutions. The problems faced in literary translation are mostly due to variation of cultures behind the language. The original writer while writing comes across just one culture and the translator while translating has to wear at least two cultures, one of the source languages and the other of the target language. If the translator is translating through a filter language, then he is bound to face three cultures. In this article I have dealt with situations that are communicated or represented differently in different languages. Needless to say, that every language is evolved in its culture. Life itself is embedded in a particular style that is shaped or designed by its culture. The customs in one culture depicted through its language in its culture possibly cannot be the same in other language. Language basically is what you understand from its expressions. For example, take a marriage scene in European culture and the same situation in Indian culture and then move UP to Punjab and then to Ladakh, you will find a big difference between the two or three as well. I have chosen some examples to elaborate my views about the difficulties faced by the translators. In fact, translating interlingua and inter cultural texts become more difficult than the original writing. At the same time, I have mentioned that though translation is not only challenging but at times impossible too, yet it is a compulsion and we cannot do without it.