Artistic terms

The translation of artistic terms referring to movements, processes and organisations generally depends on the putative knowledge of the readership. For educated readers, 'opaque', names such as 'the Leipzig Gewandhaus' and 'the Amsterdam Concertgebouw'are transferred, 'the Dresden Staatskapelle'hovers between transference and 'state orchestra'; 'transparent' names ('the Berlin', 'the Vienna', 'the London' philharmonic orchestras, etc.) are translated. Names of buildings, museums, theatres, opera houses, are likely to be transferred as well as translated, since they form part of street plans and addresses. Many terms in art and music remain Italian, but French in ballet (e.g., fouette, pas de deux). Art nouveau in English and French becomes Jugendstil in German and stile liberty in Italian. The Bauhaus and Neue Sachlichkeit (sometimes 'New Objectivity'), being opaque, are transferred but the various -isms are naturalised, (but usually tachisme) even though 'Fauvism' is opaque. Such terms tend to transference when they are regarded as fails de civilisation, i.e., cultural features, and to naturalisation if their universality is accepted.

GESTURES AND HABITS

For 'gestures and habits' there is a distinction between description and function which can be made where necessary in ambiguous cases: thus, if people smile a little when someone dies, do a slow hand-clap to express warm appreciation, spit as a blessing, nod to dissent or shake their head to assent, kiss their finger tips to greet or to praise, give a thumbs-up to signal OK, all ofwhich occur in some cultures and not in others.

Summarising the translation of cultural words and institutional terms, I suggest that here, more than in any other translation problems, the most appropriate solution depends not so much on the collocations or the linguistic or situational context (though these have their place) as on the readership (of whom the three types - expert, educated generalist, and uninformed - will usually require three different translations) and on the setting. I have attempted to indicate the alternatives below.