Language, Culture and Translation

This course critically explores the relationship between language and culture, and its implications for translation. Special attention will be given to recent debates on the nature of language, culture and social life, to the interplay between diversity and universals, and to the issues of ‘translatability’ across languages and cultures. Topics discussed will include language universals and ‘human nature’; translating political and emotion concepts across languages and cultures; different ways of thinking about space and the environment; folk taxonomies and principles of human categorization; the conceptualization of colours, and different ways of ‘seeing the world’ linked with different languages and cultures; and culture reflected in grammar. In particular, the course will deal with the issue of the hidden cultural legacy of English and critically examine its implications for translation from and into English in the era of ‘global English’.