Latin America and the Caribbean

This chapter presents the process of the Christian theological inculturation of Christmas in Latin America and the Caribbean: the celebration of the birth of Christ—of God Incarnate. To this end, selected Catholic Christmas celebrations are examined, including the liturgy of the Mass and extra-liturgical observances such as dance, that manifest the influence of three distinct cultural traditions: European—principally Spanish and Portuguese—as well as the diverse and complex Indigenous and African expressions. These observances are first contextualized with the earliest instances of the celebration of the Christmas Mass and season in the so-called New World. Discernible components in Christmas festivities are then presented to demonstrate the presence of cultural blending and the pervasiveness of cultural accommodations. This chapter highlights the diversity of the inculturated celebrations of Christmas and the feast’s liturgical manifestations, and contends that these differences are rooted in the fact that enslaved Africans came from different regions of their continent, and that the Indigenous reflected a wide range of pre-contact American hemispheric populations. Indeed, a tremendous religio-cultural-linguistic compression resulted as various groups encountered and appropriated Christianity and its celebrations in distinctive ways. This study concludes by considering the impact of globalization, pluralization, secularization, and commercialization in Latin America and the Caribbean on the celebration of Christmas—an observance of the eternal and unchanging divine message of the Incarnation that continues to capture the imagination of many in this part of the globe, as they participate in traditional expressions of the theological meaning of the birth of Jesus Christ.

Translation as Accommodation: Influences of Contextual Factors on a Translator

The present study attempts to investigate how contextual factors with ideology as the major component affect the process of translation and influence translators to adopt accommodations in translated text because all translations are ideological in one way or the other because preference of definite terms is motivated by the aims and interests of target society. For this purpose the researcher selected short story ‘Overcoat’ written by renowned Pakistani writer Ghulam Abbas and its English version included in syllabus of intermediate class. The author is a professional Urdu writer whose text is translated by PTB Lahore for academic purpose. The translated text was analyzed and compared and contrasted with the original text to trace the accommodation patterns which are adjustments to adjust target text in new context. The source context is informal, free and wide with a variety of readerships whereas target context is formal, restricted and with a specific type of readerships. Analytical framework is a fusion of Van Dijk (2005) approach of text analysis and Shi’s (2004) model of translation as accommodation. The analytical framework demonstrates that the analysis of the texts starts individually and then after analyzing macro and micro structures of the texts comparatively, draws the conclusion. The findings show that there are significant ideological and cultural accommodations in the target text.

Culture and Diversity in John Stuart Mill's Civic Nation

In this article, I develop a conception of multiculturalism that is compatible with Mill's liberal framework. I argue, drawing from Mill's conception of the nation-state, that he would expect cultural minorities to assimilate fully into the political sphere of the dominant culture, but to assimilate only minimally, if at all, into the cultural sphere. I also argue that while Mill cannot permit cultural accommodations in the form of self-government rights, he would allow for certain accommodation rights (construed as individual rights) which assist cultural minorities in preserving their cultural particularity. While this is indeed a modest multiculturalism, it helps to demonstrate that Mill was not as hostile towards custom or minority groups as certain passages may appear to suggest.