Cultural Aspects and Terminology : A Translation Study of three Political Articles

Abstract: This study focuses on the translation from English to Swedish of three political articles published in The Economist. The aim was to analyze problems that can occur, and strategies that can be used when translating cultural aspects in the form of proper nouns and political correctness as well as political terminology. The study began by translating the texts mentioned above. The potential areas of special interest in the analysis were also identified. During the translation process, dictionaries, parallel texts and Statsvetenskapligt Lexikon proved particularly helpful along with various Internet searches. Theoretical strategies were also consulted and Vinay and Darbelnet’s (V & D in Munday 2008) theories and procedures proved useful. The strategies discussed by Ingo (1991 and 2007) were also applied to a great extent. The results showed that Vinay and Darbelnet’s procedure of borrowing along with Ingo’s strategy of adaption were most useful for translating proper nouns and political terminology. To use parallel texts as well as Ingo’s strategy of adaption proved to be the best way to deal with political correctness when translating the particular texts used for this study.