Cultural Implications in Translation employing Hofstede's Sub-culture Dimensions : Focusing on Appeal-focused Texts

At large, translation is an act of communication and possesses cultural relevance. As mentioned by Hofstede, it can be rightfully stated that the larger the difference in culture, the bigger the difference in the language use. Many prior researches on cultural implication in translation focused on identification of the link between culture and translation, often limited to literary texts. To this end, the present study aims to initiate a study in search for the causal principle behind the shift process in the context of culture focusing on appeal-focused texts. In this regard, Hofstede's four culture dimensions were referenced, namely power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity (87-616). Using the identified key characteristics for the four culture dimensions, ST and TT samples from South Korea and U.S. were selected amongst appeal-focused texts. Once the causal principle behind the shift process is identified to reside at sub-cultural levels, one may suggest that a translator shall take this under consideration and choose TT set of words bearing in mind key characteristics of the target culture dimensions in order to make the translation more attractive to the target audience especially when it comes to translating appeal-focused texts.