Relationship between Cultural Intelligence and Translation of Culture-Bound Texts

Abstract

Cultural intelligence is supposed to be influential to the development of intercultural competence as individuals with a higher cultural intelligence can more easily navigate and understand unfamiliar cultures and adjust their behaviors to perform effectively in culturally diverse situations (Earley & Ang, 2003; Earley & Mosakowski, 2004; Rosen et al., 2000). Development of intercultural competence for translators, in turn, is of significance value because in translation not only two languages but also two cultures invariably come into contact. In this sense, then, translation is a form of intercultural communication (House, 2015). To investigate the relationship between cultural intelligence and quality of translation of culture-bound texts, the current study was conducted over 88 Iranian postgraduate students of English translation at universities in Britain. The Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS), developed by Ang et al. (2007), was adopted to evaluate participants’ level of cultural intelligence. The article from The Observer featuring a significant number of British cultural references used in the studies by Olk (2003) and Elyildirim (2008) was also used to evaluate participants’ ability to translate culture-bound texts. The analysis of spearman rank order correlation (rho) revealed a significant positive relationship between cultural intelligence and quality of translation of culture-bound texts. The pedagogical implications of the findings suggested incorporating cultural components of source language community into every translation course.