Othman Introduction Having recognized that culture-specific material in a text can be more troublesome for the translator than the linguistic difficulties, that translation is a cultural rather than a linguistic transfer, and that successful communication depends on shared associations of terms, scholars of translation have now shifted their attention towards intercultural translation problems. This is a well-justified trend as words and expressions are not usually uttered in vacuum, nor are they only part of language, but of the culture they are anchored in as well. Words and expressions, in other words, are meant for a certain audience in a certain place and time (i.e. culture). Words and expressions are put in a text to mean something that should be preserved when rendered into a different language. However, when such a meaning is peculiar to a certain language, hence culture, the implicit associations surrounding expressions prove painstaking for a translator unaware of such specificity. It is from this fact that our interest in this matter springs. In an attempt to verbalize some advice for student-translators when tackling such culture bumps, and to help them confidently face such obstacles and minimize (if not overcome) distortions of both message and content of text, the researcher has examined, as his study corpus, a part of an Arabic novel (namely, Naguib Mahfouzs Qasr el-Shawq) and its translated version, The Palace of Desire (translated by William Maynard Hutchins, Lorne M. Kenny and Olive E. Kenny and published by the reputable Black Swan). The novel has been selected for its richness in culture-specific material peculiar to the Arab Egyptian setting. Its English version, translated by professional translators and published by a reputable house, makes it a good corpus for the purpose of the present study. The research procedure is thus based on examining the two versions of the novel to see how cultural material in the source text ST (the Arabic novel) is rendered into the target text TT version of the novel. The main focus is given to Realia. By Realia we mean words (and collocations) of a national language which denote objects, concepts and phenomena characteristic of the geographical surroundings, culture, everyday realities or socio-historical specifics of a people, nation, country or tribe, and which thus convey national, local or historical color; such
words have no exact equivalents in other languages (Vlakhov & Florin 1970; in Shuttleworth, 1997, 139-40). For reasons of space, the researcher has limited his concern to three major problematic types of Realia (or culture-specific material). These are: - Mythology and Religion - Proper Nouns - Figurative Language Through the course of the study, reference will be made, where necessary, to theoretical translation approaches such as cultural borrowing, substitution, transposition, exoticism, among others, in order to come up with solutions, recommendations and teaching methodology that could be of help to the translation trainee. Mythology and Religion Religion, as well as myth, makes one of the domains of human behavior where language is an important component. For different speech communities, these are spoken of in a manner peculiar to each community, thus making them fields of considerable cultural significance. It is this localization of religion and myth that adds to the difficulty of the translators job, since what is considered normal in the denotative sense of one language may turn out to be meaningless in other languages. Lets consider the following examples from the corpus:
.( 1)
For a speaker of English, or any other language, the meaning would never be clear by means of a literal translation of this example. Another example is: Only for a reader well aware of the cultural association of such a situation will the following rendering be of any meaning: Khadija spread her fingers apart and held her hand with he palm facing Yasin, reciting. And from the evil of the envious in his envy (Quran, 113:5) For another recipient who is ignorant of the cultural significance of the text, it would by no means be easy to recreate an equivalent response in his/her language while maintaining such a cultural load of the ST. Is it wise then to erase the cultural difference and have such a vague literal translation as the one above? The answer is simply no. Lets now return to the corpus and see the way the translators dealt with such material regarding religious and mythical data. After examining the
. - :( 2)
relevant examples, the researcher has noticed that the translators adopted the following methodology: a- When dealing with Quranic verses, the translators tend to opt for a literal translation, e.g.
.( 3)
God doesnt change people until they change themselves (Quran, 13:11). As can be seen, the translated verse has been documented; i.e. the ordinal number of both the Surah (chapter) and the verse, as they appear in the Holy Quran, are given in parentheses. b- When literal translation does not read fluently, the translators coupled it with a paraphrase, which could give the target text a foreign appearance and make it more attractive to its audience (a method of cultural translation labeled as Exoticism by Hervey & Higgins, 1992). The following examples make things clear: The Night of Destiny, at the end of Ramadan when prayers are sure to be answered
( 4)
. ( 5)
the prophets words when he would feel a revelation coming and cry out for help: Wrap me up! Cover me with my cloak! The same would apply for examples (1,2) above, translated thus: (6) Its time for you to think about getting married, if only to comply with the teachings of religion. (7) To ward off the evil eye, Khadija spread her fingers apart and held her hand with he palm facing Yasin, reciting. And from the evil of the envious in his envy (Quran, 113:5). In short, when faced with materiel from religion or myth, a literal translation is often coupled with a paraphrase. This helps maintain that foreign sense while still have a fluent and readable translation, and consequently avoid reconstitut[ing} the foreign text in accordance with the values, beliefs and representations that pre-exist it in the target language (Venuti, 1993 in Harker 1999,28). Proper Nouns (People & Places) Names, whether real or fictional, make a good portion of culture-specific materials in almost any piece of writing, particularly in literature and history. Such names are usually those of people who made themselves, or
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have been made, memorable by writers of fiction and historians. Most noticeable of those are leaders and artists (painters, TV and movie stars and celebrities). Related to these figures are places and events. Other proper nouns may have their origin in holy books or mythology, of which works of literature are rich sources. Consider the names Antara, Qais and Laila, Hatim, Hittin, etc. Names like these have their associations in the ST culture only, sometimes in various cultures- through translations of famous works and classics (Sinbad is a good example). The name, Hatim, would recall the quality of generosity for an Arab readership. In English, on the other hand, it would prove void. To consider yet another example, this time from English, take Robin Hood. It is also worth remembering that such names of cultural connotations are to be found in proverbs and idiomatic expressions. In Arabic, when someones attempts end up in failure and loss, it is said,
( 8)
echoing a famous tale in the culture of the Arabs. For a translator who is after both triggering a response in the TT reader equivalent to that of the ST reader and after maintaining the communicative act realized by a certain expression, this is not easy. What, then, is the ideal way to deal with proper nouns as the ones aforementioned? Would a dictionary be the authority that would help the translator unpack the meaning of such nouns? So many instances of proper nouns referring both to people and places have been cited in the corpus of this study. Examples include: Ezbekia entertainment district The needy around al-Husayn Mosque The summer resort of Ras al-Barr The star, Munira al-Mahdiya Al-Hamasa, a medieval anthology of poetry
( 13) ( 14) ( 11) ( 12) ( 9) ( 10)
The important politicians, Adli Yeken Pasha and Abdel khaliq Sarwat Pasha Miss Mamba Kashar, the seductive songstress the folk epic about Antar- the heroic black poet of ancient Arabia
( 17) ( 15) ( 16)
the statue of the national leader Ibrahim Pasha with his finger in the air As can be noticed from the examples above, all proper nouns (whether of people or locations) have been transferred, rather than translated, into English, and coupled with the appropriate generic name in each case for purposes of educating the TT audience. This strategy is to be followed when the denotation of the name is not known or obscure to the reader (Newmark, 1981,71). Even when some names (as Bamba Kashar, Adli and Sarwat, and Ibrahim Pasha) are used connotatively, they have not been culturally transplanted i.e., replaced by target culture elements, but transferred verbatim. In addition to transliterating such names; the translators have also brought out their connotations so that the reader would, by extra help from the adjacent context, be able to figure out their relevance to the overall situation. By so doing, rather than by opting for a translated or an adapted rendering, the translators seem to say that message and culture are equally important and should be reproduced in the TT. The translators have also managed, by not adapting the proper names (e.g. Abraham for Ibrahim) but by following the Exoticism approach to preserve the foreign appearance of the text and to make it more yielding to its audience. Megrab (1999) considers this technique of foreignization justifiable if faithfulness to the ST is to be achieved, provided that the communicative goal for the TT reader is not impaired. Figurative Expressions Literary works, for some reason or another, abound in figurative expressions. Whatever this reason might be, its the translators role to find equivalents every time he is faced with a figurative occurrence. Is this an easy thing to do? Figurative language is expressed by means of several vehicles, including similes, metaphors, hyperboles, metonymys, among others; each of these can give the translator a hard time since they are usually based on culturespecific concepts, notions, beliefs, images, etc. Metaphors, for example, depict images associated with something current in a given culture while absent in others. Where these images exist, there are surely lexical items to express them; where they dont, no means of verbalizing them are found. The corpus of this study is laden with figurative expressions, most of which, if not all, are peculiar to the Arab culture. Following are some
examples together with their translations as given by the translators of the novel at hand: Similes
.( 18)
Youre as ugly as a water buffalo. She was as pretty as a gazelle. I beheld a young woman as beautiful as a flower. each of them as massively beautiful as the ceremonial camel when it sets off from Mecca with the pilgrims. Hyperbole Even if the minaret of al-Hussayn Mosque started shaking. I become the slave of anyone who teaches me a single syllable Metonymy
.( 23) .( 21) ( 19) .( 20)
.( 22)
.( 24)
Its devastating when a heart speaks out and finds no one who will respond. Al-Sayyid Ahmad was deeply moved Metaphor
.( 25)
.( 26)
I act as though one of my ears was made of clay and the other of dough. God didnt place two hearts in a mans breast (Quran, 33:4) There was a mountain separating him from Fuad. You, bitch. O God have mercy! I dont envy you!