Translating American food culture from English to Swedish : A study of cultural references in translation

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyze the different solutions used when translating cultural references. The source text is an extract from The Omnivore’s Dilemma. A Natural History of Four Meals (2006), written by Michael Pollan, and the material that this study is based on is taken from that text, as well as from my translation of that extract. The theme of the book is American food culture from various perspectives, which results in a culturally specific text. The cultural references in this study regard phenomena such as food-related items, geographical places and names, etc. In the translation of these cultural references, I used a combination of methods. The strategies used were Ingo’s complementary addition, Vinay and Darbelnet’s equivalence and adaptation, as well as Newmark’s transference. The analysis of the translation showed that the most used strategy was transference, which was expected considering that the purpose of the text is to present American food culture and the ambition and aim of the translation was to keep as many cultural references as possible in the target text. One conclusion that could be drawn from the study was that the purpose of the text and the intended TT reader are main factors when deciding how to translate cultural references.