On the translation of culinary terms in Malaga province restaurant menus into English. A corpus-based study

Abstract

The main objective of the present paper involves analysing the translation solutions adopted to render the names of dishes and drinks in a Spanish-English bilingual corpus of eighty restaurant menus from four localities of Malaga province. All in all, 1436 culinary terms and their English translations have been analysed. The results reflect a tendency to resort to translation solutions oriented towards the source culture, which apart from linking the target texts to the culture with which the dishes are associated, may make them more appealing to the target audience. Together with this tendency, translators tried to make sure that the English menus were understandable and informative. The culture-specificity variable has also been found to have an effect on the choice of translation solutions.