Brazilian cultural markers in translation: A model for a corpus-based glossary

Translations in the Brazilian culinary domain are often characterized by the use of inaccurate equivalents, a lack of fluency, and adaptations that lead to a mischaracterization of cultural references. This is due to a lack of reliable reference materials in that area which usually only offer a translation, without any context or explanation. To address these issues, this paper draws upon a corpus-informed methodology to devise a three-level entry – term/equivalent, appositive explanation and encyclopedic information – for Brazilian cooking terms in a Portuguese-English glossary aimed at translators and writers of culinary texts.


INTRODUCTION
Why should a word in a recipe be less important than a word in a novel? One can lead to physical indigestion, the other to mental. (Barnes 2003: 7) As well as being one of the fundamental elements of human existence, food is a distinctive cultural constituent of every nation. Despite being a popular topic, it is rarely regarded as a theme worthy of serious academic study (Brien 2007). Fortunately, this picture has changed over the past few years, with a considerable amount of literature on the culinary arts being recently published. Academic research has resulted in monographs, book chapters and papers (see, for example, Jurafsky 2014;Temmerman and Dubois 2017;Tigner and Carruth 2018), and the connection between food and translation has given rise to scholarly events, such as the International Conference on Montanari 1999), few reference materials have been published in the area, at least as far as the Portuguese-English language pair is concerned, and this paucity has had negative consequences for translation studies.
Food items "wander around the globe" (Gerhardt 2013: 17) in such a way that the cuisine of any given nation can be accessed by anyone and anywhere. Brazilian cooking is no exception. Driven by both international sports events held in the country -2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games-and the worldwide renown of chefs who privilege local products, Brazilian cooking has received special attention from foreign audiences, judging by the number of Brazilian cookbooks published in English. 1 Unfortunately, these publications also reveal misunderstandings regarding Brazilian cuisine.
A melting pot basically influenced by Portuguese colonizers, Native Indians, and African slaves, typical Brazilian cooking is very rich in native, endemic and exotic ingredients and local preparations. Nevertheless, it is commonly reduced to a few items in general cooking dictionaries and bilingual glossaries, which often fail to define and/or translate them accurately and consistently. Through an examination of the few existing bilingual cookery dictionaries and glossaries, in addition to general monolingual and bilingual dictionaries available on the Brazilian market, Rebechi (2015aRebechi ( , 2015b demonstrated that most of them are ineffective in providing equivalents and/or appropriate definitions for many typical Brazilian products. Contextualized examples, which could enhance comprehension, are also absent. As a consequence, texts related to Brazilian cooking often display mistranslations, inaccurate definitions of terms and substitution of ingredients, generating products and dishes that are not representative of our national cuisine. We believe that these problems might have been easily addressed if reliable lexicographical references were available.
One of the greatest challenges of compiling a reference material in the area is ensuring that the distinctive cultural characteristics of Brazilian cooking are maintained.
Thus, we believe that a representative reference work aimed at translators in the area should not only provide equivalents for terms -whenever they have an equivalent-but also offer other key information which could be used in the translation. The main purpose of this article is to offer a model of a glossary entry which has been customized specifically for Brazilian culinary items, based on a corpus of authentic texts containing cooking recipes. The entries are meant to provide translators and writers of culinary texts 1 The combination of the search words Brazilian and cooking resulted in 240 titles available on the Amazon online store. (9 January, 2020.) with terms -along with their English equivalents-, appositive explanations, and encyclopedic information about typical Brazilian food items. Examples of use and phraseological units are included as additional data. To achieve our goal, we rely on Corpus Linguistics (CL) procedures which allow for an analysis of the term in context (see Pearson 1998).

CULTURAL MARKERS IN TRANSLATION
According to Newmark (1988: 94), culture refers to "the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language and its means of expression." He emphasizes that words which are characteristic of a certain culture (what we call cultural markers) will pose problems to the translator, unless source and target languages overlap. Cultural markers are here understood as textual, lexical, and discursive elements relating to specific cultures (Zavaglia et al. 2011), which can be found in any text type, either general, literary or specialized. Also called identity markers, they refer to various elements used to display preferences towards other cultures. As an important expression of a culture, food-related items demand a number of decisions when they are translated from one culture to another (Newmark 1988).
Still according to Newmark (1988: 97), "[f]ood is for many the most sensitive and important expression of national culture." Hence, when shared with other cultures, food items are subject to a number of procedures, depending on the purpose of the translation.
Regarding the translation of Brazilian cultural markers, we observe recurrent choices for functional equivalents (see Nord 2001Nord , 2012. By rendering cultural words with culturefree words, the translator or writer neutralizes or generalizes a term (Newmark 1988 rum', it loses its culture-specific character and fails to convey a sense of foreignness (Rebechi 2012). Although 'cultural filtering' (Chesterman 1997)  culinary translation is usually relegated to laypersons, since it is traditionally considered an easy task (Teixeira 2004). Although some may believe that recipes can be easily translated, they are now recognized as texts which can reveal important aspects of the source culture, thus demanding more than just terminological expertise and a search for equivalence in order to be appropriately translated. In other words, cooking recipes may demand that the translator be somehow acquainted with the source culture.
Another strategy frequently used in translating Brazilian food terms into English regards the titles of recipes. Based on the traditional narrative framework proposed by Labov (1972), Cotter (1997)  As should be clear by now, we believe that identifying and rendering cultural markers appropriately in the target language should be a major concern of translators so as to maintain the specificities of the culture represented in the text. Specialized reference works can help to achieve this goal as they are meant to be a more focused source of terminology retrieval for specific areas, besides contributing with terminology consistency and conventionality.

BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE-ENGLISH CULINARY REFERENCE WORKS
Translation studies are frequently divided into two large -and supposedly differing- as well as in texts originally written in English. We believe that one of the reasons for this problem is directly linked to the reference works available.
We looked into some of the (few) Portuguese-English reference works addressing cookery in order to analyze the extent to which they would help translators and writers.
The works we examined were the Dicionário de Termos Gastronômicos em 6 Idiomas  (Carli and Klotz 2007). A summary of the content of the aforementioned works is shown in   printed cookbooks which had to be digitalized, and this time-consuming task could not be repeated in the construction of the reference corpus. Therefore, we used a corpus from a different source, but which is made up of the same genre, that is, cooking recipes.

Dicionário Gastronômico: Português-Espanhol-Inglês-Alemão-Francês-Italiano
The Portuguese comparable subcorpus revealed a list of single and compound keywords, that is, words which appear statistically more often in the texts analyzed than in the reference corpus. We then proceeded to retrieve key-keywords, or words which are key in two or more texts or corpora (Scott and Tribble 2006). In order to extract terms related to Brazilian cooking, we only considered keywords which recurred in a minimum of two books. This setting was established as a way of discarding elements which appeared systematically in just one cookbook, which could indicate idiosyncrasy.
From the Portuguese subcorpus with a total of eleven texts, we selected one-word and multi-word terms, which constitute the glossary headwords. appositive explanation, and encyclopedic information), we customized the tool so that fields for word class, scientific name (to be used for Brazilian flora and fauna terms), example(s), phraseological unit(s), reference(s), and image(s) were also available. The elements which are judged to be most relevant to the translator and writer of culinary texts are detailed below.

Translation equivalent
In terminology, two terms are considered equivalent when they possess full correspondence of meaning and use within the same area of expertise. However, full correspondence is not a very common phenomenon. Often, a given term in the target language will only partly cover the meaning of the term in the source language (Dubuc 1999). When dealing with an area which is rich in cultural references like cooking, the non-equivalence problem becomes even more evident. However, the translator or writer needs to render concepts from one language to the other as appropriately as possible.
As Newmark (1988: 45)  Many Brazilian cooking terms are derived from native Indian and African words. As such, they may sound foreign even to Brazilians, who do not necessarily know their primary meaning. One example is tapioca, from Tupi tipioca, which means 'clot'. The analysis of this keyword in context showed that it is used mainly to refer to (i) a dish (see Figure 1) and (ii) a type of flour derived from manioc, which is the base for this dish. The analysis of the English subcorpus revealed that, as a dish, the term is usually transferred to the target text; as an ingredient, a number of equivalents were used: tapioca, tapioca flour, tapioca starch, manioc flour, manioc starch, and cassava flour. Due to space constraints, we cannot discuss the adequacy of each translation. For the glossary, we opted for keeping the word in its original form, thus allowing some foreignness to shine through the text, as shown in Figure 1.

. Literal translation
The list of key-keywords in English revealed highly frequent items, such as coconut milk, shrimp and coriander, which can literally translate as leite de coco, camarão and coentro.
Even native items, such as castanha de caju and castanha-do-pará, have been frequently rendered respectively as cashew nut (or simply cashews) and Brazil nut, words with high keyness in the English subcorpus. Figure 2 shows the entry for leite de coco, with the equivalent highlighted.  Newmark (1988) explains that choosing a functional equivalent is a common procedure usually applied to cultural words by rendering them with culture-free words, combined or not with transference. A close examination of the keywords in both languages shows that the recipes in North-American English tend to be more technical than the ones in Portuguese.
An example is the term cortador de legumes 'vegetable slicer', frequently rendered in the English subcorpus as mandoline, which does have a prima facie equivalent in Portuguese, namely mandolina. However, this term seems to be restricted to professional cooks. The Portuguese subcorpus has no occurrence of mandolina, while the term is described in the book Chef Profissional (2011) as an important kitchen utensil.
Considering that the degree of technicity may vary from one language and culture to another, the translator and writer must be very careful about using literal translation to render culture-bound elements. After all, when a term is translated literally, it is often possible to confound the concept referred to with a similar one. Let us take as an example farinha de milho, a type of coarse meal made from corn and used basically in the preparation of two recipes: cuscuz and farofa. If literally translated as corn meal, cornmeal or corn flour, as identified in the English subcorpus, it might be confused with fubá, the main ingredient used in the preparation of polenta, for instance, as if they were interchangeable in recipes. And the reference works available are not helpful in avoiding misunderstandings either. 5 A search in the parallel corpus revealed the translators' strategy of adding a descriptor as a way of distinguishing these products, which have different characteristics and are used in distinct recipes. Resorting to this procedure, we have added a descriptor, the adjective flaked, to account for the coarse texture of this ingredient. 6 Figure 3 highlights the equivalent proposed to render farinha de milho in English.

Appositive explanation
Total equivalence is hardly ever achieved when we deal with cultural markers.
Adaptations incur loss of the foreignness which characterizes culture-specific items, whereas transference may result in misunderstandings. Newmark (1988) explains that descriptive equivalents combine description and function, essential elements in explanation and translation. Here, instead of adopting this concept as a translation procedure, we argue that such a strategy can be combined with transference, literal translation, or functional equivalent to provide translators with a definition which combines both description and function.
The type of information included in any definition depends essentially on the purpose of the work of reference. Except for Teixeira and Tagnin (2008), the Portuguese-English reference works available do not provide any kind of definition, only translation equivalents. To aid translators and writers, we propose a purpose-specific sentence which allows them to include an elucidation of the cultural term without greatly affecting the fluency of the text. To that end, this appositive explanation consists of a concise phrase, which can either follow the equivalent or be used as a footnote, as a way of providing important information about the term.
The English comparable subcorpus, especially the introductory texts which comprise it, have proved to be excellent sources for the retrieval of relevant information to construct this appositive explanation. Figure 4 shows concordance lines of dendê retrieved from these texts. As can be seen, the word dendê is used to refer to the tree, to the seeds, and to the oil (azeite de dendê), the latter being used in cooking. Besides, the titles of the recipes which feature dendê also guided us in building the definitions. The concordance lines of dendê showed that it is usually present in Bahian dishes, such as bobó, moqueca, vatapá and acarajé. All this information can be used to build an appositive explanation (see Figure   5). Because azeite de dendê is a typical Brazilian ingredient, its explanation will privilege texture, color, flavor and culinary uses. When a term may be familiar to other cultures the explanation will highlight its use in the Brazilian cuisine. The explanation for amendoim 'peanut', for example, reads 'seed used roasted in the preparation of savory Bahian dishes such as caruru, vatapá and xinxim, and also in sweet recipes such as pé-de-moleque'.

Encyclopedic information
Occasionally the appositive explanation may not be sufficient for a broad understanding of the term in its cooking context. The feature 'encyclopedic information' aims at giving the reader extra information about the term, but strictly related to its use in cooking. For example, in the entry azeite de dendê, it is important to provide basic nutritional data, such as the fact that the ingredient is rich in vitamin A, and high in calories but not in cholesterol, as many believe. In some cases, we include historical information and links to other reference sources and even to recipes. Figure 7 highlights this element in the entry azeite de dendê.  which is not a recurring combination in English. A quantitative analysis will provide us with patterns such as onion, quartered; onion, diced; onion, finely chopped, etc., from which the translator can select the most suitable one (onion, quartered in this case).
In addition to the fields mentioned, the Glossary of Brazilian Cooking also features cross-references to indicate the semantic-conceptual relations between terminological units. For example, in the entry for camarão, a reference such as "Compare with pitu" helps to distinguish the term camarão 'shrimp' with a type of freshwater shrimp, whereas the reference "See also abará, acarajé, etc." will refer the reader to dishes in which the term is a key ingredient.
Images may also be helpful in clarifying the meaning of cultural markers.
Therefore, this aid has been included whenever deemed relevant. Figure 8 shows a complete entry, using the term camarão as an illustration.

CONCLUDING REMARKS
Given that texts about Brazilian cuisine, written in or translated into English, often suffer from misleading or distorting lexical choices when it comes to ethnic food terms, and assuming these issues could be minimized if professionals had access to more comprehensive and reliable terminological resources, this paper proposes the compilation of a Portuguese-English Glossary of Brazilian Cooking aimed at translators and specialized writers. To accomplish our aims, we have relied on a CL approach.
In addition to appropriate equivalents, we propose a few features aimed at facilitating the translation of cultural terms. The main one, which represents an innovation in Brazilian culinary reference materials, is an appositive explanation, a short text which can be inserted in the translation without affecting its fluency or, if the writer so chooses, used as a footnote. Next, authentic examples taken from our corpora are provided. In addition, we offer extra information for the term, in case the translator or reader is interested in learning more about it. Therefore, we propose the inclusion of encyclopedic information, which may give historical details of the ingredient or dish, add a recipe or links to other reference sources. Phraseology is also addressed showing the appropriate use of a term in relation to its most frequently occurring collocates so as to add fluency to the text.
We believe that a carefully compiled reference source with cultural information would help not only to prevent mistakes but also to recover cultural markers in the target text, whether predominantly literary or specialized. Besides, we hope that our proposal for a three-level entry in a specialized glossary will find application in other terminological areas, especially those focused on the compilation of reference works which address cultural items.