On Cultural Memory in Translation (Theoretical Perspective)

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the category of cultural memory in translation, which has a major influence on decisions made by translators. The author highlights that the theoretical positions of foreign researchers, and especially of Jan Assmann and Maurice Halbwachs, have an important contribution to the understanding of the problems that the translator is confronted with. In the article there are also noticed identification and compensatory functions of cultural memory, as they are most prominent in national myths and other important narratives of the cultures of the original and translation.

The author has considered as necessary to incorporate the concepts of cultural memory into the already existing statements of prominent theorists of Translation Studies, due to the achievements in the field of the translation studies. Significant for the present research were the works of Krzysztof Hejwowski, Roman Lewicki, Anna Bednarczyk, Fritz Paepcke and several others. This article points out that achieving associations similar to those of the original culture in the culture of translation, due to the specific cultural memory of the recipients, can be a very difficult or sometimes impossible task.

The paper formulates the conclusion about the necessity to create translation competence in the area of cultural memory. Additionally, the author provides a classification of potential problems, which are motivated by cultural memory. The article identifies objective, that is, ontological, difficulties and subjective ones, which are determined by the human factor.