Erbil as Translation Zone: Cross-cultural Communication in the Urban Area

— Over the centuries, translation has been regarded as communication across borders and nations. Emphasizing translation as cross-cultural communication, the present study depicts that translation makes communication possible between people of different languages and cultures in an urban area. It describes how Erbil, the capital city of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, is a translation zone. In doing so, it exemplifies the prevalent translation practice inside the city and explains how translation lets the city`s inhabitants experience cultural differences. The study reveals that, due to Erbil`s multilingual context, translation between Kurdish, Arabic, and English is a key factor of communication through the city`s sensory landscape, translation spaces, cultural mediators, and digital connectivity. In sum, translation serves the city`s multiculturalism and exploits existing cultural resources for dealing with the current and future challenges in the city


I. INTRODUCTION
This document is a template for Microsoft Word versions 2003 or later. The field of Translation Studies has embarked on studying translation within the cultural context. According to Bassnett, Translation Studies need to enter cultural studies (1998, pp. 132-3). Such an entrance to cultural studies has brought a change in Translation Studies` perspectives since the 1990s. This change is generally known as the "Cultural Turn", a move from translation as text to translation as culture (Hornby, 1990). For Bassnett and Lefever (1990), the cultural turn is the rupture from analyzing the textual factors-e.g. faithfulness, equivalence, etc.-to extra-textual factors-i.e., culture and ideology as translation takes place within a specific cultural context whose communicative factors affect the way translation is produced and received.
Translational communication is not only common between nations, but also it is necessary within metropolitan areas because of their multicultural context. In cities, people of different nationalities and religions usually rely on translationfrom or into their mother tongue-to communicate and interact with people of other cultures. When we talk about "translation as communication between cultures", our mind automatically draws a border between two geographical settings with heterogeneous cultural backgrounds across which translation streams. However, in the modern-day, translation happens among inhabitants of metropolises which are the home of a nation's people as well as enclaves of other nations and cultures.
Erbil, a metropolitan area and the capital city of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, contains numerous ethnic groups, consulates, international organizations, religious groups, and educational and academic centers. In addition, because of its economic potential and inhabitants' high hospitality, Erbil has been receiving many people from neighboring countries and southern Iraq for the last two decades. All of these lead to the development of Erbil as a multicultural area in which cultural communication between inhabitants entails translation.
Recognizing this importance, the present study investigates how transition contributes to the communication and interaction between Erbil`s polyglot people. It also shows how translation serves the Kurdish language and culture amid the megatrends and hegemony of Arabization, Englishization, etc. Elaborating on the city`s translation-provoking elements, the present study implements the model of "translational city" (Cronin and Simon, 2014). Cronin and Simon state that "translation proposes an active, directional and interactional model of language relations. Translation becomes a key to understanding the cultural life of cities" (2014, p. 119). According to them, in a translational city, there are elements through which translation is practiced across languages and cultures to make communication and understanding of differences possible for the inhabitants of the city. The key terms and concepts are explained in the following session and a brief review of the relevant literature is presented.

II. TRANSLATION
AS CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION Culture is one of the central concepts of the present study. One of the earliest comprehensive definitions of the term was proposed by Krober and Kluckolm, recording 165 definitions and claiming that it refers to ideas and the attached values of human groups embodied in their behaviors (1952, p. 181). Hall introduced the cultural iceberg model which stratifies culture into technical, formal, and informal culture (Brake, 1995 According to the above triad model, technical culture (the visible part of the iceberg) includes arts, dress, foods, etc.; formal culture (the sea level) is semi-visible, referring to daily life, norms, and routines in society; and informal culture (inside the water) is completely invisible, encompassing the thoughts, ideas, and values of society. The informal level is the basis of the first two levels, and it is the main concern of cultural studies. All of these levels are shared among members of a social group and hold a historical background. At the same time, as culture has to do with a set of values and beliefs, it is ideological. In simple words, according to Hatim and Manson, ideology is "the tacit assumptions, beliefs and value systems which are shared collectively by social groups" (1997, p, 144). It is ideology-or a set of ideas-which determines and normalizes the way people of society view, feel, evaluate, and react to the things around them. Wierzbicka attributes such an ideological function to what he calls cultural grammars which he defines as a "set of subconscious rules that shape people's ways of thinking, feeling, speaking, and interacting" (1996, p. 527); similarly, Katan uses the cultural filter which, according to him, entails the orientation and modeling of people`s perception, interpretation, and evaluation of the realities around themselves (Katan, 2004).
Through cross-cultural communication, parties negotiate and interact at technical, formal, and informal levels of culture, which entails the manipulative application of translation across cultures. According to Carey (1988), there are two views on the concept of communication: the ritual and the transmission views. In the transmission view, communication leads to the domination of one side`s ideology; while in the ritual view, communication aims to conservatively keep society on the customary track of shared beliefs and attitudes (J. W. Carey, 1988, pp. 15-18). Translation is instrumental in both views, depending on the agenda of communication. In the present study, translation is shown as a tool of Kurdish cultural survival, which is more compatible with the ritual view.
As shown in the iceberg model, language is an indispensable part of the culture, which facilitates communication between cultures. Usually, people inside a society communicate through a common spoken or written language with or without technology and media; and if they belong to two separate sociocultural contexts, due to their different languages, they rely on translation to communicate. In this sense, translation is regarded as cross-cultural communication in which people of different cultures communicate their knowledge, customs, worldview, beliefs, etc. Therefore, translation burdens something more than lingua-textual meanings. Indeed, it bridges different languages and cultures to reconcile their differences, clashes, and quarrels, without which such reconciliation may not be accessible.
This culture-bound analysis of translation originated from the paradigm shift called the "cultural turn" (Bassnett and Lefevere, 1990). According to Lefevere and Bassnett, "neither the word, nor the text, but the culture becomes the operational 'unit' of translation" (1990, p. 8). They define this term as "a metaphor that has been adopted by cultural studies-oriented translation theorists to refer to the analysis of translation in its cultural, political, ideological context." (ibid, p. 4). The paradigm shift, from translation as a linguistic task to translation as a cultural transaction, has led to the emergence  (Brake, 1995, p.39) of many culture-bound issues in translation studies (e.g., Polysystem theory (Even Zohar, 1978; DTS (Toury, 1995(Toury, /2012); Translator`s invisibility (Venuti, 1995(Venuti, /2008; Gender in Translation (Simon, 1996); Translation and narrativity (Baker, 2006);etc.).
In all of these studies, translation takes place within a certain sociocultural context with a clear agenda and function, whose cultural aspect is of equal -if not more-significance as its lingua-textual features. For example, the Polysystem theory was developed in the 1970s by Itamar Even-Zohar. He discusses the interaction between languages, literature, societies, and cultures, while considering their heterogeneity and dynamics, and sees translation as a particular kind of communication between societies and cultures. In the dictionary of translation studies, Shuttleworth and Cowie define Polysystem as "a heterogeneous, hierarchical conglomerate of systems which interact to bring about an ongoing, dynamic process of evolution within the polysystem as a whole" (1997, p.176). According to this theory, translation is part of the cultural system of the Target Language (TL). In other words, when a text is translated into the target culture, it should be produced, transmitted, and received in consensus with its cultural system. Within the cultural system of the target society, there is a collection of systems, a system-of-systems-or polysystem in which translation is placed. All of these systems-whit diverse genres and schools-compete in a hierarchical mood with each other for leadership, prestige, and power.
What cultural turn emphasizes is the ideological-oriented approach to translation. Accordingly, translation is an ideological affair that is emerged from one culture and is placed in another culture. Based on this claim, translation is a communication between cultures with different ideological orientations and a site in which these orientations meet each other (Niranjana, 1992). Such cultural communications result in the domination of one culture and subordination of another one.
In today's global interactions, cultures need to communicate with others to make their position outstanding in the face of other cultures need to communicate with others. In such a global competition, the role of translation has been known as vital between-local and international domains. Although Venuti sees translation as a tool of oppression that is used by dominant cultures against the dominated ones (1998, pp. 158-189), translation helps the target community to survive its cultural heritage and to localize the foreign cultural elements.

A. City as Translation Zone
In the last two decades, numerous translation theories have been formed based on the cultural turn and the notion of translation as cross-culture communication, emphasizing the function of translation in the flourishing of postcolonialism, social activism, identity studies, etc. One of the recent endeavors that embed translation within the social context and introduces translation as a tool of communication within society is Cronin and Simon (2014). In their recent paper, they assimilate cities as translation zones which are "areas of intense interaction across languages, spaces defined by an acute consciousness of cultural negotiations and often host to the kinds of polymorphous translation practices" (2014, pp. 119-120). They emphasize the application of translation in public spaces to make communication viable between people of different nations and religions. At the same time, they distinguish between multilingual and translational cities as follows: Multilingualism calls to mind a space of plurality and diversity, with no particular idea of hierarchy or organization. Translation proposes an active, directional, and interactional model of language relations. Translation becomes a key to understanding the cultural life of cities when it is used to map out movements across language, and to reveal the passages created among communities at specific times. (2014, p. 119) Although cities are more or less translational, the rate of availability of translation zones and areas of resistance to translation determines how much a city is translational or multilingual. The authors set four elements through which translation can facilitate civic communication and make a city translational: the sensory landscape of the city, translation spaces, cultural mediators, and digital connectivity (ibid, p. 120). Through these elements, the cultural layers (i.e. technical, formal, and informal) are manifested, and they are subject to communication and understanding by the involved parties.
1. The sensory landscape of the city: Getting translation involved in the city`s linguistic transactions, lifestyle, transportation, and whatever is seen or heard in the outdoors, streets and markets, movements, etc.
2. Translation spaces: the polyglot spaces in society, where people of different cultures meet and use translation to communicate. Translation is practiced in, for example, the intellectual, academic, religious, judiciary, administrative, media, and healthcare contexts.
3. Cultural mediators: Active agents in the translation zones, "gathering information and making connections, moving across language zones, putting languages and texts into circulation" (ibid, p. 123). Translatorsand those who do the task of translation in the zones-mediate between cultures to increase social tolerance and cultural juxtaposition, and bridge the cultural gaps in the urban area.
4. Digital connectivity: Technological network coverage of the city, which relies on translation to distribute knowledge and let virtual communication between peoples of different linguacultural groups of society. This includes, for instance, social media, film dubbing, and subtitling, website localization, digital libraries, government and organizational websites, personal blogs, etc.
Moreover, Cronin and Simon draw an analogy between city and university, claiming that universities hold all the above elements and they enjoy practicing translation therein (ibid). At universities, students of different cultural backgrounds congregate to acquire knowledge and skills in different disciplines, socialize themselves to tolerate their mates` otherness, and connect with their fellows and teachers on campus and online. Translation is traceable in all corners of university life, being practiced by students and professors in the buildings indoors and outdoors, within the circle of discussions and lectures, and through digital networks. Therefore, via translation, academic people get lived experience of differences that originate from the enclaves beyond the university`s walls. The outcome of these translation-based communications is to build knowledgeable students and educated citizens who eventually settle down in the city with the presumption that they need to utilize translation to communicate with enclaves. Concerning the role of translation, Cronin and Simon insert Translation as an interdisciplinary formation stands to benefit from this emerging city/university structural dedifferentiation in that translation as practice permits a dialogue with the surrounding polylingual city, and as reflection, it has the conceptual tools to understand and analyze endlessly hybridized cultural and political realities. (ibid, p. 127) In their study, the authors introduce five translational cities (Antwerp, Lviv, Istanbul, Tampere, and New Orleans) that hold the above-mentioned elements and translation practice. According to Demirkol-Ertürk and Paker, in Istanbul (especially the area called Beyoğlu/Pera), in the last three decades, translation has been practiced from Modern Turkish into other vernaculars (like Kurdish and Armenian) by translators in different social spaces (2014).
The historical cosmopolitan site of Beyoğlu/Pera stands today as not just a multilingual interaction zone, but a cultural network that is inherently hybrid, which is closer to what we mean by "interculture" (an overlap of diverse domestic cultures and languages, which may not be easily described as "source" and "target" in translations produced from one into the other by a network of cultural agents). [it is] a new space of resistance, challenge, as well as mediation, intended for the voices of "minorities" to be heard and, hopefully, understood. … translators and publishers as agents of interculture resist and challenge social structures and sociocultural power relations which they had internalized. (Demirkol-Ertürk & Paker, 2014, p. 7) These translation zones within the studied cities in Cronin and Simon (2014) and other cosmopolitan areas contribute to the development of understanding and coexistence of differences among enclaves and the discovery of new cultural resources and innovations to tackle the cities` current and future challenges.
III. METHODOLOGY Presenting Erbil as a translation zone, this study is descriptive research that describes the application of translation in Erbil and its assistance in the cultural survival of involved inhabitants through cross-cultural communication. For this purpose, Cronin and Simon`s model of the translational city (2014) is adopted as the theoretical framework, and the recurrence of translation through the city`s sensory landscape, translation spaces, cultural mediators, and digital connectivity is exemplified with a special focus on the academic area (Cihan University-Erbil) as a miniature version of the city. Before applying Cronin and Simon`s model, it is needed to present a brief history of Erbil.
Erbil is one of the world's oldest cities and the capital and most populated city of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The history of Erbil (in Kurdish Language, Hewlêr) goes back to the fifth millennium BC, experiencing several empires (from Median to Sassanid) through time, and housing the pre and post-Islamic artifacts. As a result, UNESCO ascribed the city`s citadel as a World Heritage Site in 2014. Throughout Islamic history, the city was successively taken and ruled by the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Buwayhids, the Seljuks, etc. In the Middle Age, the local Soran emirate (1514-1851) governed the city. Later, it became a part of Mosul Vilayet in the Ottoman Empire until WWI. In the contemporary era, the city is home to Kurdish, Turkmen, and some Arabic immigrants from surrounding areas. By the second half of the last century, after an unstoppable battle of Peshmergas of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) with the Iraqi central governments in Baghdad, the Parliament of Iraqi Kurdistan was founded in Erbil in 1970. The Region achieved its autonomy in 1992. After the invasion of the United States-led coalition in 2003, and the deposition of the Baath regime in Iraq, the Kurdish language along with the Arabic language became the country`s formal language. Due to the Region`s foreign policy, 33 consulates and countless international organizations are based in Erbil. Moreover, because of high security and job vacancy availability, in the last two decades, people from surrounding regions and countries have immigrated to Erbil.
These movements have encouraged the city`s inhabitants to get used to speaking other languages than Kurdish, and sometimes to feel needing translation to make communication with them. As a result, the city has realized the application of English, as the international language, and Arabic, as the Iraqi formal language, along with the Kurdish language in different discourses. Moreover, from the academic point of view, undergraduate translation programs have been established as academic departments at public and private universities, including Cihan University-Erbil, in Erbil (Aminzadeh, 2021, p. 289). In the next session, it is explained how translation is Erbil`s vitality for keeping communication between colorful cultures inside it.

IV. DISCUSSION
Erbil is turning into a cosmopolis with polyglot people. There, inhabitants get unavoidably accustomed to translating to communicate with people of other languages and cultures. The application of translation discloses the city`s inclination for using translation in all and every corner of the urban area. Impulses behind this tendency are anthropological, geopolitical, educational, religious, economic, etc. Here, due to space limitations, investigating these factors is outside the scope of the present study. Rather, the de facto status of translation in the above-mentioned elements of the urban area (i.e. sensory landscape, translation spaces, cultural mediators, and digital connectivity) in the city and its outcomes are presented. DOI: http://doi.org/10.24086/ICLANGEDU2023/paper.933

A. The Sensory Landscape
The city`s landscape includes the streets, vehicles, shops, buildings, etc. When going down through Erbil`s streets and looking at the shops` facias, signposts, bulletin boards, direction boards, and billboards you will find out writings are written in two or three languages (i.e. English, Kurdish, and Arabic).

Fig. 2. Erbil`s Sensory Landscapes
Translation is abundantly used in naming shops, services, and public places, as they indeed belong to and are at the service of-the city`s inhabitants. Recognition of linguacultural diversity and respecting the social rights of the minorities by original inhabitants are reflected in using translation in the community. This social understanding is so widespread that tens of hundreds of translational instances are detected in the city`s historical, recreational, industrial, healthcare, and educational sites. This high frequency of vivid translation practice also confirms the resilient reliance of the residents` urban life on translation as they found translation an effective way to overcome multilingualism and different cultural backgrounds daily coming across each other.
Another instance of a sensory landscape in which translation is plentifully used is the academic area. Here, Cihan University-Erbil (CUE), one of the private universities in Erbil is exemplified, at which translation is playing a crucial role in documentation, communication, and education. There, in addition to the Kurdish language as the Region`s formal language, English and Arabic languages are used in labeling the departments and colleges, centers, modules and majors, employees and faculties, and events and actions (for example, look at the above-mentioned letter`s header of an academic department). CUE is an English-based education center in lectures are mainly given in that language.
However, letters and correspondence are written in both English and Kurdish, and addresses and directions are given in Kurdish and Arabic.

B. Translation Spaces
As it is previously mentioned, translation spaces are social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination. In Erbil, translation between Kurdish, Arabic, and English is frequently used at schools and universities, hospitals, police stations, markets, banks, etc.
For example, in a seminar, which has been presented by the board of Bologna Process at CUE, the university`s academic staff of different languages (e.g., Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Indian) attended. The presenter was an Arab, and he presented the slides first in Arabic and then in English translation to the audience. In the conference intervals, some discussions are prompted in any one of the vernacular languages with some partial translation into the English language. Such a translation practice is so common in conferences, workshops, and seminars being held in Erbil. Another social space in which translation is practiced in the mosques. The majority of people in Erbil are Muslims and they congregate in mosques for practicing Jumu'ah on Fridays. The congregation is polyglot (Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish, Bengali, etc.). As the language of Islam is Arabic, people say prayers in Arabic. However, the mullahs, who are usually Kurdish, pray or deliver sermons in Kurdish, and sometimes they cite a hadith or pray in Arabic and translate it into Kurdish. Moreover, the Islamic missionary channels broadcast Quranic chanting with subscription in English and Kurdish. In all of these cases, translation gives two functions: first, it facilitates communicating Islamic morals and subjects to non-Arabic people in a more understandable way to persuade them to follow their religion; second, it lets indigenes feel dignified by their religion and it makes them more affiliated to their religion. Therefore, religious translation from Arabic into English is one of the most widespread translation activities in the Region and Erbil.
Another translation space in the city is libraries and

C. Cultural Mediators
Within the translation spaces, some active agents are gathering and appropriating information for specific communicative purposes and mediating between languages and cultures to make communication between them. Translators are the most obvious cultural mediators in the society. At the same time, other agents such as editors, reporters, columnists, researchers, teachers, preachers, and clergy conduct the task of translation by practicing their profession. Due to the polyglot context of Erbil, as a translation zone, cultural mediators need to rely on translation to communicate what they want to present to their addresses. One of these mediators is reporters and columnists. For instance, Kurdistan 24 Net based in Erbil, holds a TV channel and a website broadcasting news in five languages (Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and English). On TV news coverage and talk shows, normally guests and commentators` Arabic and English speaking is interpreted into Kurdish. Likewise, on its website, news columns are disseminated in five languages (in the above images, due to the space limit, the news piece is shown in four languages). Therefore, translation is an indispensable part of journalism when the recipients are multilingual. At the same time, the reporters and columnists need to at least know at least two languages to prepare and appropriate their reports with the polyglot society of Kurdistan.
Teachers and mullahs are other popular cultural mediators in Kurdistan who usually resort to translation for teaching lessons. At universities, teachers are asked to bring English coursebooks to the class although students are not good enough in English to understand either the book or their teacher`s lecture in English. Consequently, teachers have to translate some parts of their presentation as well as some important paragraphs of the book into either Kurdish or Arabic, or both. Similarly, in sermons, mullahs have to translate Arabic religious scripts into Kurdish as the city`s majority does not know Arabic. Preaching in Kurdish, Mullahs quote hadiths in Arabic first, and then they translate them into Kurdish.

D. Digital Connectivity
For the last two decades, digital network coverage has been developed throughout the Kurdistan Region, and the inhabitants have gotten accustomed to applying it in their daily life. This includes social media, film dubbing, and subtitling, website localization, digital libraries, websites, etc. Nowadays, people communicate via social media to get updates on their community. In the urban area, virtual communication is not limited to a special social class or age range. In most cases, face-to-face communication is replaced with virtual communication, and people accentuate their status and popularity online. As they receive messages and posts in different languages, they rely on the automatic translation provided by the application. Another social group that frequently uses online communication platforms is students. They are encouraged to use email to contact their professors, and to visit the university`s website and Facebook account to get announcements and updates. For example, an email about job vacancies is sent from CUE to the university`s students in Kurdish and Arabic translation, giving an equal chance to both Kurdish and Arabic applicants to apply for the job offer. This fairness is shown and secured by including the Arabic translation in the email. Likewise, all the news and announcements are disseminated in Kurdish, Arabic, and English on the university`s websites to let students be informed about the updates.
In the Kurdish media, English movies are either subtitled or dubbed before being broadcast. Determining which kind of audiovisual translation has been more popular in the Region and seeking the reasons behind that trend need a statistical survey. What is crystal clear is that very few English movies are broadcast without translation on the local TV channels in the Region. Similarly, online translation and website localization are prevalent, especially from European languages into Kurdish and Arabic. One of the recent achievements in the Kurdish translation practice is the development of Kurdish Sorani on the Google Translate engine, due to which automatic translation is offered to Kurdish users to have access to international websites` contents in their language. Moreover, offline bilingual dictionaries have been developed for Kurdish students to facilitate translating English texts into Kurdish.
Throughout the above elaboration on the contribution of translation in the effective viability of communication inside Erbil, a few notes are worth attention.
First, as suggested by Cronin and Simon (2014), Cihan University is a miniature of the city, in which all translationprovoking elements (sensory landscape, translation spaces, cultural mediators, digital connectivity). For each element, some exemplar cases can be presented as some of them have been mentioned in this paper. Likewise, the integration translation into daily tasks and interactions is prevailing in the city`s other social services and organizations (e.g. airports, hotels, banks, hospitals, etc.).
Second, it seems unbearable to find another alternative instead of translation to let the city`s residents communicate. One may think of monolingual communication (what is common in cities like Baghdad, Istanbul, and Tehran) in which all residents speak the Region`s formal language (i.e. Kurdish). For the time being, it is impossible as the majority of non-Kurdish residents do not know Kurdish. This problem is aggravated by realizing the fact that the ruling system has no plan to teach Kurdish to non-Kurdish people, and its language policy does not support the sole application of the Kurdish language in the city`s public area. With this consideration, living without translation in Erbil will not be that easy for immigrants and visitors.
Third, Erbil is a prototypical translation zone with its prevalent translation practice, and there is no other city like Erbil in the Region and Iraq, in this regard. Translation has brought changes in the actual and virtual structures of the city so that it negotiates with people of other cultures and it receives new ideas, customs, and attitudes.
All in all, for the last two decades, Erbil`s development in all aspects has been backed up with translation. At the same time, it helps the Kurdish language and culture bond with other existing languages and cultures in Iraq. In Erbil, as shown in the above examples, translation is not only peracted inside the class or interpreting booth but is an inseparable part of inhabitants` life within the social context. Indeed, this originality of translation makes the city a translation zone.

CONCLUSION
Translation lets Erbil`s inhabitants tolerate-and communicate with-other languages and cultures inside the city. Translation has pierced the city to its all layers. Here, a few translational instances have been mentioned, which depict the routine translation practice through the city`s sensory landscape, social spaces, cultural mediators, and digital connectivity. The application of translation in communication through these civic elements proves the fact that Erbil is a translational city, and Kurdish residents heavily rely on translation to get knowledge and interact with non-Kurdish people. Furthermore, translation feeds the Kurdish language and culture by importing new cultural resources, attitudes, and enlightenment. In the meantime, translation boosts the chance of mutual understanding, coexistence, cooperation, and brotherhood between the city`s ethnicities and religions. It is recommended that other metropolitan cities, in which the communication is monolingual and the languages of minorities are suppressed, adopt Erbil`s model of the translational city to respect the enclaves` social rights and to exploit their cultural resources for urban progress in all aspects.