Culture, being a sense-making, viewpoint-forming and behaviourdetermining system, can be defined as "a set of internalized understandings and ways of interacting with the world" (LeBaron 2003: 42). Snell-Hornby has rightfully contended that
The concept of culture as a totality of knowledge, proficiency and perception is fundamental in our approach to translation. If language is an integral part of culture, the translator needs not only proficiency in two languages, he must also be at home in two cultures. In other words, he must be bilingual and bicultural. (Snell-Hornby 2001: 42)
In this sense, translation is regarded as a process offering "a means of studying cultural interaction" (Lefevere and Bassnett 2001: 6), and a translator is regarded as a mediator or communicator between cultures, which means that the translator must manipulate differences, whether they concern fusion, infiltration, recognition, understanding, acculturation or tension, constraints, hatred and hostility. Said (1993: xxv) has noted that in our age, "all cultures are involved in one another; none is single and pure, all are hybrid, heterogeneous, extraordinarily differentiated, and unmonolithic". This is the natural outcome of the accumulative influences of countless translated versions on their respective target cultures, the drive for which comes from no other than the conflicts in translation because paradoxically, it is conflicts that upset the conceit of a culture in most cases. Being confronted with conflicts, a closed culture may be jolted out of its former narcissistic illusion or purposeful isolation in the end. In this respect, translators and translations play an indispensable role in manipulating conflicts and bringing about deeper understanding between cultures.
The word conflict conjures up negative associations - displeasure, discomfort, hurt feelings, loss of face, hostility and violence, etc. In the cultural arena "Conflict need not be openly acknowledged or named to be real", "but it must be felt and experienced before it takes on form" (LeBaron 2003: 28).
Though cultural conflict derives from cultural differences, it "does not emerge from every difference "[…] Only when some aspect of our differences becomes salient and nudges the way we hold our identity or meaning does difference translate into conflict" (ibid.). Once a potential cultural conflict becomes apparent then it cannot be ignored.
According to LeBaron (ibid.: 117-134), the management of cultural conflict involves four steps: naming, framing, blaming and taming. Naming will determine whether a conflict can be labeled as such, whether or not it is acknowledged. Framing refers to delimitation of the form, site and those parties involved in a conflict. Blaming includes all the approaches and decision processes that help to resolve the problems caused by such a conflict. Taming indicates the settlement or removing of a conflict. This fourstep method is helpful in the sense that it reminds us to check the source of a conflict before we decide to do something about it when cross-cultural transmission in translation is concerned.
As LeBaron has suggested, in this global age, our world needs more than goodwill and well-meaning intentions to deal with the many kinds of conflicts which can arise. These can stem from differences in cultural tradition, system of values, ideological tendencies, and the like. Because of the cultural specificity of translation as cross-cultural communication, shapes and forms taken on by conflicts in a translational context must be analysed separately.
A variety of types of cross-cultural conflicts such as cultural, social and ideological ones can be found in a translational context. These conflicts form a continuum, ranging from a minimum of inner tension of an individual involved in the process of translation to a war or an outbreak of violence. In this sense, conflicts in translation are not always explicit and conspicuous.
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