El concepto de movimiento indígena y la acción colectiva indígena.

The notion of culture has been understood in different ways in the literature, and it is beyond the scope of this chapter to go through a detailed discussion of it. However, culture is commonly understood as a system of beliefs, values, customs and behaviours that a group of people share and use to cope with the world and to evaluate reality. These beliefs, values, customs and behaviour that characterize a given community are “associated with a given language community” and “provides added meaning to the basic linguistic, referential meaning of words” (Palumbo, ibid: 31). Thus, although the dictionary meaning of the English word ‘Sunday’ is “the day that comes after Saturday”, the word ‘Sunday’ carries religious connotations that are specific to Christians but not, for example, to Muslims.

Language and culture are closely related to each other as the definition outlined previously indicates. This is because language is considered as the mirror of culture and its expression. As Ivir points out, the reason for this is that “the integration of one element into a culture and into the conceptual framework of its members and individuals cannot be said to have been achieved unless and until the linguistic expression of that element has been integrated into the language of that culture” (quoted in Branco, 2001: 145). Languages express what is common to cultures and

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what is distinctive to each culture, and can thus be considered as the best evidence of the reality of culture.

A given language may contain words and expressions that refer to things peculiar to culture X but unknown to culture Y. In English, for example, the expressions “10 Downing Street” or “St. Valentine” refer to things that have no direct equivalents in Arabic or Persian. But this is not the only dimension through which cultural differences express themselves in language. Sometimes, two words or two phrases in two languages may be used to refer to the same thing, but still differ significantly because of the added cultural meaning these words and phrases have in these two languages. This is the case, for example, with words such as “owl” or “pig” in English and Arabic. Owl in Arabic is a symbol of death, whereas in English it is a symbol of ‘wisdom’. The same can be said about the word ‘pig’ which in Arabic and Muslim culture is seen as ‘filthy, ‘unclean’ and is ‘prohibited animal’ whereas in the West it is not seen in the same way. Words and expressions that belong to these two categories are usually referred to as being CSIs, which is the term adopted by this study. Thus, Schwarz (2003) defines CSIs as “concepts in any language that are unique to that language or to the culture associated with that language” and which “create a cultural gap between speakers of different languages” (quoted in Pirnajmuddin, 2012: 73). Along similar lines, Palumbo defines CSIs as those terms that refer to “elements or concepts that are closely associated with a certain language and culture, i.e. sarong in Malay, tortilla or siesta in Spain, five o’clock tea in English and other terms referring to geography, traditions, institutions and technologies […]” (ibid: 31). However, it is important to take into account that the conception of CSIs is better understood with reference to the languages and cultures involved in communication. It is for this reason that Aixelá (1996) emphasizes that a CSI can be considered so only in relation to another language, in which that item is unknown or has a different value, and that CSIs can also change their status over time because objects, habits or values once restricted to one community can come to be shared by others (in Pirnajmuddin ibid: 58).

CSIs can take the form of common nouns or terms (for example, single mum or open park market in English), proper names of persons or things (Romeo and Juliet and Hyde Park in English) or more complex phrases that take the form of proverbs, idioms, metaphors, puns, and

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the like. For the purposes of this study, CSIs will be taken to mean common nouns and proper names only. These CSIs can be categorized into several categories. Newmark, for example, categorized them into:

1- Ecology: flora, fauna, hills, winds, and plains (for example, honeysuckles and savanna). 2- Material Culture such as food and clothes (for example, apple sauce and gumbaz (a

traditional Arab cloth).

3- Social Culture: work and leisure (for example, dabka (a popular dance in the Levant). ).

4- Organizations, Customs, Activities, Procedures, and concepts (for example, Gulf Cooperation Council, Christmas).

5- Political institutions and religious concepts (for example, duma and Ramadan).

6- Gestures and Habits (for example, Cock a snook).

Although CSIs contained and expressed in a given culture and language are part of the cultural identity of a single community, they are not on the same level in terms of familiarity in source and target culture.

Pederson (2005) categorized CSIs into three categories: 1) trans-cultural references known to many cultures, though originally emerging from a certain culture; 2) mono-cultural references known to the translating language and culture; and 3) micro-cultural references which are so specific that only a small proportion of people in the source culture are aware of them (in Laurea, 2012: 55)

Finally, it is important to point out that religion constitutes an integral part of culture, and that the cultural differences in terms of religious thought and practices that can be found in two different cultures are a rich source of CSIs. Arabic as a language is often seen as a language that is fundamentally shaped by religion, mainly Islam, and this is not without justification. Islam plays an important role in shaping the culture of Arabs, and dozens of the concepts or practices that are found in Arabic, and a variety of Islamic languages, do not have direct equivalents in other languages such as English. It is true that Christianity and Islam have common elements in terms of beliefs, traditions, values, and rituals, but they have also significant differences that express themselves in Arabic and English. On this point, Al-Saidi (2013) states that:

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It is beyond dispute that Arab culture is basically reshaped by Islamic religion, while English speaking world is dominated by Christianity. This difference in culture has its impact on the peoples' spoken as well as written language. Consequently,

vocabulary used in Arabic and English will be affected according to the principles of culture and religion in these two languages. Thus, religious culture-specific words and expressions are used to express feelings and moral tradition that manifest the socio-religious system of the Arab and English culture. (33)

Islam is a rich source of CSIs, and this fact is reflected in Arabic as a language. There are dozens of examples of CSIs that can be attributed to Islam. One example is the word روحس (suḥūr) which refers to “a meal that is eaten before the dawn for fasting”. A second example is the word مميت

(tayammum) which refers to “the use of sand for ablution when water is unavailable”, and a third

example is the term ءاقستسلاا ةلاص (ṣalāt al-ʽistisqāʽ) which refers to “a special prayer in Islam that consists of two cycles (rak’ah) performed during the times of drought to ask God for rain”. These expressions and other similar ones refer to religious concepts and practices that are specific to Islam and, generally speaking, unknown to the West. These and similar items pose problems in translation given the fact that the designated concepts and practices have no direct counterparts in the target language. However, translators and translation scholars have developed particular procedures to deal with the problems the translation of CSIs pose for translators as will be seen in the following section.