ABSTRACT
Transculturality is a broad concept, and – perhaps because of this – there is often the problem of how to operationalize it. The concept of translation appears to be a very promising analytical tool to engage in transculturality, because it has a long history of both transfer of content and structure, as well as the negotiation of cultural difference. In recent years, ‘translation’ has almost become a buzzword. This ubiquity of the term ‘cultural translation’ has met with some criticism, primarily that it is more or less only used as a metaphor and that thereby the term is overly expanded (Trivedi 2007). Admittedly, the use of translation as metaphor has also led to some highly relevant results (Burke 2005; Županov 2005; Hsia and Burke 2007; Taneja 2012). However, to increase the analytical and methodological potential of ‘translation’, some further reflection is necessary. The aim of this chapter is to explore how concepts developed in translation studies can provide us with a methodological tool kit to analyse the dynamic processes of transculturation. In this chapter, the concepts of three central theoreticians were chosen to explore their analytical value in engaging with transcultural questions: André Lefevere’s textual and conceptual grids; Eugene Nida’s concept of dynamic equivalence; and Lawrence Venuti’s criticism of the complementary concepts of foreignization and domestication.
