| Trans | Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften | 15. Nr. | Juni 2004 | |
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7.2. Translation and Culture Buch: Das Verbindende der Kulturen | Book: The Unifying Aspects of Cultures | Livre: Les points communs des cultures |
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Lenka Kucírková
(Department of Languages, Faculty of Economics and Management,
Czech University of Agriculture, Praha)
[BIO]
Due to the processes like globalisation and European integration cultures are increasingly coming into contact with one another. These contacts are mainly mediated through languages. Culture and language are interrelated and language is the main medium through which culture is expressed. Every language takes sense in a certain context and culture belngs among the most important facets of context in which the language is used. The integration processes require intensive communication among single integrated wholes, their institutions, enterprisese and individuals. Language barrier is clear for everybody but to overcome it is not enough to save effective comunication among the representatives of different cultures. We need to overcome a cultural barrier too. Translation as an eminently important communicative activity is a means of conveying messages across linguistic and cultural barriers.
In the period of the preparation of our country to enter the European Union it is necessary to harmonise specialist terminology so that single terms and definitions could be comprehended in the same way in member states of the European Union. This is an important prerequisite of effective communication and understanding although it has to be taken into consideration that single countries may have their own problems. The Department of Languages is concerned with this issue and is a co-author of the research project of the Department of Agricultural Economics of the Faculty of Economics and Management at the Czech University of Agriculture in Prague under the title of "Effective integration of the Czech agrarian sector within European structures - the prerequisite of sustainable development." The objective of this cooperation will be specialist terminology dictionaries in English, French and German, both in paper and electronic forms.
Specialist departments of the Faculty of Economics and Management provide the Department of Languages with material containing specialist terms and their definitions in the Czech language in the following stages:
1st stage - Theoretical aspects of open economy functioning (provided by the Department of Economic Theories)
2nd stage - Modern management methods in an agrarian sector (provided by the Department of Management)
3rd stage - Economy of resources of an agrarian sector (provided by the Department of Agricultural Economics)
4th stage - Competitiveness of Czech agrifood products on domestic and international markets (provided by the Department of Trade and Finance)
5th stage - Legal regulation of the competitiveness of Czech agrifood products (provided by the Department of Law)
The members of the Department of Languages translate this material into English, French and German with the help of PhD students and up-to-date dictionaries available. The last important stage is the consultation of translated terms and definitions with specialists at foreign partner universities. They as native speakers and specialists in a given field judged whether the particular definition was the same in both languages or what differences there were. Within European Union Erasmus/Socrates programme we have concluded bilateral agreements on teachers' and students' mobilities with the following universities:
University of Plymouth
Humboldt Universitat zu Berlin
FH Niederrhein
ENSA Montpellier
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Universidad Politécnica de Valencia
Universidad de Sevilla
The EU partner universities participate in the teaching for the Programme of Extended Language Studies in English, French and German and for MSc Programmes taught in English:
MSc Programme of Agricultural Economics and Management
MSc Programme of Natural Resources and Environment
MSc Programme of Forestry , Water and Landscape Management
The lectures are provided by teachers from specialist departments and by visiting professors from partner universities who helped us with the specialist translation within their mobilities or within the mobilities of language teachers abroad.
Mobilities support mutual understanding among cultures, strengthens the European identity and understanding the European dimension of the fields of study. They help create a "global society" which is able to offer its experience, at the same time to accept the experience of other nations and understand their cultures.
By these mobilities and cooperation among universities intercultural relations are continuously being developed and strengthened. The teachers and of course students then realize the similarities and differences between the culture of a source language and the culture of a target language and in that way they raise cultural awareness and promote understanding of and respect for other cultures.
The last part of the project "Communicative harmonisation of integration processes" is being processed within the research work of our department, the result of which will be the following specialist terminology dictionaries comprising the terms and definitions of all previous stages:
English specialist terminology dictionary of European integration of an agrarian sector
French specialist terminology dictionary of European integration of an agrarian sector
German specialist terminology dictionary of European integration of an agrarian sector
At the present time the following stages have been processed:
1st stage - comprises 148 terms and their definitions
2nd stage - comprises 50 terms and their definitions
3rd stage - comprises 70 terms and their definitions
4th stage - comprises 112 terms and their definitions
5th stage with 70 terms is being processed
Legal regulation of the competitiveness of Czech agrifood products - extract
Specialist terminology dictionaries of European integration of an agrarian sector should be useful for the students of the extended language studies who work out their thesis in the relevant foreign language, for the students of MSc programmes in English. The dictionaries should facilitate the work with literature in the foreign languages and comunication among specialists from various countries in the given fields and more or less for a narrower specialist public. They could be able to make use of the terms and definitions which are not always a word -for-word translation of the Czech words and which were verified by experienced specialists from partner foreign universities. Thus both the language and specialist quality are quaranteed. However 100% harmonisation cannot be reached because every country has its specificities and problems.
© Lenka Kucírková (Department of Languages, Faculty of Economics and Management, Czech University of Agriculture, Praha)
LITERATURE
Sektionsgruppen | Section Groups | Groupes de sections
Inhalt | Table of Contents | Contenu 15 Nr.
For quotation purposes:
Lenka Kucírková (Praha): Developing Intercultural
Relations in Connection with the Specialist Translation within
the European Integration Research Project. In: TRANS. Internet-Zeitschrift
für Kulturwissenschaften. No. 15/2003. WWW: http://www.inst.at/trans/15Nr/07_2/kurcikova15.htm
