Challenge of Translation

Even though English is the common language at Raha, what may be some potential issues caused by connotations or different cultural understandings of words?

 

First off, it is important to know that each culture shapes the idioms of each individual. As we have studied it is proved that some sentences or some words can have a meaning in one language, and a different one in another language.

 For example, while some individuals coming from one culture understand that the word dog is a word that  expresses friendship, different individuals coming from a different culture will interpret this word as an insult. This statement basically portrays how people from different countries, as in the case of Raha International School, sometimes would not understand each other, misunderstanding the meaning of a word or sentence. This problem is due to the idioms that each culture have in its language. Once the idioms are translated to the English, they do not mean the same thing since the idioms are understood just by people of the same culture. 

This phenomenon is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which points out that the structure of the language affects the way in which an individual conceptualize its own world. This theory presents two versions, the strong, and the weak version. In my personal opinion I think that language can affect thought, and non-linguistic behavior, but it does not limit or determine cognitive categories.

 

Understanding a little more about the challenge of communication, how might Raha communicate more effectively to such a diverse cultural group?

 

The best way Raha students and teachers can understand each other better, is to know that each person uses his or her own idioms depending on the culture and mother tongue, and that sometimes some words or sentences have a different meaning depending on the cultural background of the person who says the words or sentences, so we should not misunderstand some idioms, and ask for the meaning of them if it is not clear.