Notions of Culture Culture and Culture-Specific Terms

and alien to another. Florin categorizes realia thematically, according to the material or logical groups they belong to; geographically, according to the locations in which they are used; and temporally, according to the historical period they belong to. However, Florin considers that realia can be problem that quite difficult to overcome because realia requires the reader to have background knowledge on the objects to which they relate. Florin also considers that realia are untranslatable because other languages lack exact equivalent for them. According to Leppihalme in Kylä-Harakka, 2008: 16, realia can also cause “culture bumps,” which is problems in communication between representatives of different cultural backgrounds. Culture bumps may prevent the target to understand the meaning of the source text, because it is unclear and strange for the target audience. In the end, the target audience may fail to understand the text. Nedergaard-Larsen in Kylä- Harakka, 2008: 15 defines “culture-bound element” as the term that is often used to refer to “the non-linguistic sphere, to different phenomena or events that exist in the source language culture.” Larsen categ orizes “culture-bound element” into four main categories of geography, history, society, and culture, as well as a number of subcategories as presented in Table 1. From the explanation above, it can be concluded that culture-specific terms are words, phrases or expression used by members of a certain culture to express their concepts about something closely related to their culture. Culture- specific terms are not easy to be translated because of the culture of the source and target texts are different. Furthermore, not all culture-specific terms have equal substitution in the target language. To solve this problem, the translator has to comprehend the meaning of the culture-specific terms and use the appropriate translation strategy to realize the culture-specific terms into target text. Table 1. Classification of Culture-Specific Terms Nedergaard-Larsen, in Kylä-Harakka, 2008: 20 Extralinguistic culture-bound problem types Geography etc geography meteorology biology mountains, rivers weather, climate flora, fauna cultural geography regions, towns roads, streets, etc History buildings monuments, castles, etc events wars, revolutions, flag days people well-known historical persons Society industry level economy trade and industry energy supply etc social organization defence, judicial system police, prisons local and central authorities politics state management, ministries electoral system, political parties politicians, political organizations social condition groups, subcultures living conditions, problems ways of life, customs housing, transport, food, meals clothing, articles for everyday use, family relations Culture religion churches, rituals, morals ministers, bishops religious holidays, saints education schools, colleges, universities lines of education, exams media TV, radio, newspapers, magazines culture, leisure activities museums, work of art literature, authors