More than words : Different strategies to remedy culturally prompted translation difficulties

Abstract: This paper sets out to investigate how different kinds of adaption strategies can work in synergy to overcome culturally prompted translation difficulties. The strategies used were analysed in the translation of a text from a tourist guide containing references to local phenomena. It was found that the different strategies combine when overcoming the translation difficulties, but that not all of them turn out useful. It is suggested that source texts that are bound to a physical location as regards contents are likely to be culturally adaptable intranslation mainly by means of addition, omission and generalization.