About the Untranslatable in Intercultural Contact

Authors:

Pages: 317-330
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54664/JWLL7113

Abstract:

In verbal communication, there is a sort of hierarchy of the thematic areas for communication, ranging from neutrality to expressiveness. Native speakers of different languages, who are also carriers of different cultural stereotypes, face one another, both in predictable and in unexpected communicative situations. To perform an effective communicative act with the “other”, it is necessary to have a specific “translation” of the linguistic expressions containing cultural codes with unique information about historical, interethnic, social, cultural, domestic, and similar processes and phenomena. The interpretation of stereotypical texts (anecdotes, jokes, adages, proverbs), as well as some sustainable comparisons from this rank, usually relies on the unique decoding by a teller and a listener, on the context and the background knowledge about it. Interesting comparisons can be made within the Balkan Slavic area, which is distinguished by languages with a high degree of kinship on the one hand, and by linguacultural reflections of differing stereotypes on the other hand, for whose formation there are objective prerequisites.

Keywords:

verbal communication, intercultural contacts, stereotypes, cultural code, language expressions, translation, untranslatable, Balkan Slavic languages

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