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French, Italian, German in Translation Services

What a culture believes about itself can override any evidence to the contrary. "French individualists" are not so individual when you can see during a trip to Paris how conformist the French can be in dress and fashion. And yet, everyone believes that "il n'y a pas plus individualiste que le Francais. It's a myth.

This example of self-created and self-perpetuating myths, could equally apply to the Italians. They also believe in their creativity and individual taste - and in particular when it comes to fashion. However, a Sunday Times fashion report suggests that (seen through British eyes) the Italians are even more collectivist and conservative than their French cousins: "The Italian look is the most classic and easy to wear. The Milanese are smart but never outrageous, more relaxed than the French, although they do all wear the same thing".

After having distorted perceptions of our own culture, for example through the media and the collective memory, we then compound the distortion by perceiving a second culture through the distorted perception of ourselves. Intercultural dialogue doubles the myfh-creating potential. Interpreters, in particular, mediating these two levels of distortion will need, in turn, to correct some of the distortion to allow the communication to develop as intended.

The German image of America is partly an anti-image of itself: desolation and alienation, as seen for example in Wim Wender's vision of America. This is a particularly important point for translation. According to one author "all translation is fundamentally domestication and is really initiated in the domestic culture, there is, therefore, a fundamental ethnocentric impulse in all translation". Translations are commissioned according to whether they fit in to the target culture's (distorted, generalized and deleted) perception of the source culture. In this way, the ethnocentric perception of the other culture is strengthened, and further domesticized.

It is extremely difficult, as we have already mentioned, to perceive another culture, except through our own ethnocentric map of the world. Bromhead's view of Britain, which can only perceive other cultures in terms of British dominant values is a case in point. If we move to continental Europe and the United States, there is still the myth of the Englishman with his bowler and umbrella, tea at four, and so on. England is a place of nobility and tradition.

This is not surprising, as most day-to-day news about the country abroad is in terms of the Royal Family, nobility, and prestige events. The worldwide concern over the death of Princess Diana was a perfect example. It would be difficult to imagine a Theodore Dalrymple type article attracting any space at all in a foreign newspaper.

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