The refugee that has come to your church, the pastor of the immigrant church in your town, and you yourself all come before the same Bible, even the same verse, and walk away with completely different understandings and applications. In an increasingly globalized and multicultural world, how can we learn to see beyond our own cultural influences, understand those of others, and learn from each other in order to better understand and apply the word of God? How do we stay faithful to the text when our contemporary cultural perspective is so different from the original author's? This book will enable you to understand the common pitfalls and dangers related to cross-cultural hermeneutics while also equipping you with principles and real-life examples for how to interpret Scripture in such situations. Additionally, given the fact that our world is increasingly digitized and people are less and less likely to read, we will consider the issue of oral hermeneutics and how those who can't read or choose not to read can interpret Scripture faithfully.

When healthcare providers and patients do not speak the same language, medical interpreters are called in to help. In this book - the first ever ethnographic study of a bilingual hospital - Claudia Angelelli explores the role of medical interpreters, drawing on data from over 300 medical encounters and interviewing the interpreters themselves about the people for whom they interpret, their challenges, and how they characterize their role. Traditionally the interpreter has been viewed as a language conduit, with little power over the medical encounter or the relationship between patient and provider. This book presents an alternative view, considering the interpreter's agency and contextualizing the practice within an institution that is part of a larger society. Bringing together literature from social theory, social psychology and linguistic anthropology, this book will be welcomed by anyone who wants to discover the intricacies of medical interpreting firsthand; particularly researchers, communication specialists, policy makers and practitioners.

Clifford Geertz has been called ‘the most original anthropologist of his generation’ – and this reputation rests largely on the huge contributions to the methodology and approaches of anthropological interpretation that he outlined in The Interpretation of Cultures. The centrality of interpretative skills to anthropology is uncontested: in a subject that is all about understanding mankind, and which seeks to outline the differences and the common ground that exists between cultures, interpretation is the crucial skillset. For Geertz, however, standard interpretative approaches did not go deep enough, and his life’s work concentrated on deepening and perfecting his subject’s interpretative skills. Geertz is best known for his definition of ‘culture,’ and his theory of ‘thick description,’ an influential technique that depends on fresh interpretative approaches. For Geertz, ‘cultures’ are ‘webs of meaning’ in which everyone is suspended. Understanding culture, therefore, is not so much a matter of going in search of law, but of setting out an interpretative framework for meaning that focuses directly on attempts to define the real meaning of things within a given culture. The best way to do this, for Geertz, is via ‘thick description:’ a way of recording things that explores context and surroundings, and articulates meaning within the web of culture. Ambitious and bold, Geertz’s greatest creation is a method all critical thinkers can learn from.

The contributors to this collection approach the subject of the translation of cultures from various angles. Translation refers to the rendering of texts from one language into another and the shift between languages under precolonial (retelling/transcreation), colonial (domestication), and postcolonial (multilingual trafficking) conditions.

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Culture collects into a single volume thirty-two state-of-the-art chapters written by international specialists, overviewing the ways in which translation studies has both informed, and been informed by, interdisciplinary approaches to culture. The book's five sections provide a wealth of resources, covering both core issues and topics in the first part. The second part considers the relationship between translation and cultural narratives, drawing on both historical and religious case studies. The third part covers translation and social contexts, including the issues of cultural resistance, indigenous cultures and cultural representation. The fourth part addresses translation and cultural creativity, citing both popular fiction and graphic novels as examples. The final part covers translation and culture in professional settings, including cultures of science, legal settings and intercultural businesses. This handbook offers a wealth of information for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers working in translation and interpreting studies.

What Is Cultural Translation? In this book, Sarah Maitland uncovers processes of negotiation and adaptation closely associated with the translation of languages behind the cultural phenomena of everyday life. For globalized societies confronted increasingly with the presence of difference in all its forms, translation has become both a metaphor for thoughtful encounter and a touchstone act for what we see, do and say, and who we are. Drawing on examples from across cultural domains (theatre, film, TV and literature) this work illuminates the elusive concept of 'cultural translation'. Focusing on the built environment, current affairs, international relations and online media, this book arrives at a view of translation in its broadest sense. It is a means for decoding how we shape the cultural realm and serves as a vehicle for new ways of seeing and being that question the received ideas that structure the communities in which we live. Written in a clear and engaging style, this is the first book-length study of cultural translation. It builds a powerful case for expanding the remit of translation to cover the experience of living and working in a globalized, multicultural world, and is of interest to all involved in the academic study of representation and contestation in contemporary cultural practice.

Translation and Cultural Identity: Selected Essays on Translation and Cross-Cultural Communication tackles the complexity of the concepts mentioned in its title through seven essays, written by most highly regarded experts in the field of Translation Studies: José Lambert (Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium), Raquel Merino (University of the Basque Country, Spain), Rosa Rabadán (University of Leon, Spain), Julio-César Santoyo (University of Leon, Spain), Christina Schäffner (Aston University, Birmingham, United Kingdom), Gideon Toury (Tel-Aviv University, Israel) and Patrick Zabalbeascoa (Pompeu Fabra University, Spain). The essays are varied and innovative. Their common feature is that they deal with various aspects of translation and cultural identity and that they contribute to the enrichment of the study of communication across cultures. These major readings in translation studies will give readers food for thought and reflection and will promote research on translation, cultural identity and cross-cultural communication.

The past few years have witnessed a growing academic interest in Italian Studies and an increasing number of symposia and scholarly activities. This volume originates from the Society for Italian Studies Postgraduate Colloquia that took place at the University of Leicester and Cambridge in June 2004 and April 2005 respectively. It gathers together articles by young researchers working on various aspects of Italian Studies. It well illustrates current trends in both typical areas of research, like literature and 'high culture', and in those which have gained momentum in recent years, like translation and language studies. The volume offers a taste of the dynamic outlook of current research in Italian Studies: the interdisciplinary approach of the essays in translation and gender studies, and the innovative methodological perspectives and findings offered by the new fields of Italian L2 and ethnography. The book is divided into three sections, each grouping contributions by broad subject areas: literature and culture, translation and gender studies, language and linguistics. Cross-fertilizations and interdisciplinary research emerge from several essays and the coherent ensemble constitutes an example of the far-reaching results achieved by current research.

Translation is intercultural communication in its purest form. Its power in forming and/or deforming cultural identities has only recently been acknowledged, given the attention it deserves. The chapters in this unique volume assess translation from Arabic into other languages from different perspectives: the politics, economics, ethics, and poetics of translating from Arabic; a language often neglected in western mainstream translation studies.

Given that the dissemination of enlightened thought in Europe was mostly effected through translations, the present collection of essays focuses on how its cultural adaptation took place in various national contexts. For the first time, the theoretical model of ‘cultural transfer’ (Espagne/Werner) is applied to the eighteenth century: The intercultural dynamics of the Enlightenment become manifest in the transformation process between the original and target cultures, be it by way of acculturation, creative enhancement, or misunderstanding. Resulting in shifts of meaning, translations offer a key not just to contemporary translation practice but to the discursive network of the European Enlightenment in general. The case studies united here explore both how translations contributed to the transnational standardisation of certain key concepts, values and texts, and how they reflect national specifications of enlightened discourses. Hence, the volume contributes to Enlightenment studies, at least as much as to historical translation studies.