Translating english and romanian proverbs

Abstract

In a globalised world, international communication across various cultures effaces language barriers and cultural differences. In this context, translation builds bridges of comprehension and appreciation across various societies by bringing closer people of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Without translation, the swift exchange of information of today’s world would be almost unattainable. This might be one reason for the rapid development of translation studies over the last forty years, in which its proponents have been striving to establish it as an academic discipline. Among the many approaches to translation favoured by scholars, to be further outlined in this thesis, one of the most recent ones involves cultural exchange, and focuses on an element that has become a focal point in all recent studies in the humanities, namely identity. At a suprasegmental level, above the identity of an individual or an in-group, lays the national identity, connected with the language and culture of the respective nation. From the multitude of aspects concerning language and culture, this thesis focuses on proverbs, as elements of tightening the relation between the two, and (or rather especially) on their translation, which may - and usually does - produce hindrance in the target reader/ audience’s understanding of the source text, lest it be done with respect to the aforementioned interrelation.