If so, how can the quality of the English translation of Alem's The Dove's Necklace be judged? What strategies did the translators of Alem's The Dove's Necklace use to convey the meaning and effect of culture-specific expressions, especially the untranslatable glossaries and proverbs?
Literary Translation
ST is different from that of TT, the problem of finding the language expressing the highest level of fidelity arises (Ghazala, p. 19). Therefore, the most important thing in literary translation is to find the right equivalents that convey the same meaning, meaning and effect from the ST to the TT.
Cultural Turn
This problem arises when translating puns and metaphors, as it is difficult to find an appropriate equivalent in the target language, which can lead to ambiguity in the TT.
Cultural Translation
Newmark (1988a) argues that language is not one of the constituents of culture (p. 95); he adds that culture cannot be translated. Bennett also claims that some cultural words are sophisticated and do not have equivalents in the target language.
Problems in Cultural Translation
According to Gill Paul (pp some of the translation problems that literary translators face when translating literary works are titles, stylized language, regional dialects, strong language, colloquialisms, humor, untranslatable words and culture-specific references. Thriveni says that literary translators face problems in the process of conveying cultural elements in the target text.
Critical Analysis of Translation from Arabic to English
- House’s (2015) Approach to Translation Quality Assessment
- Ghazala’s (2014) Strategies of Translating Cultural-specific Expressions
- Jan Pedersen’s Taxonomy Extralinguistic Culture-bound References (2007)
- Newmark’s Taxonomies of Cultural categories (1988)
Although it focuses on subtitling, the model can be applied to literary translation to preserve cultural expressions in the translation. It also includes a specification: the interpretation of SL elements so that the translation covers the spelling of acronyms or abbreviations elements to maintain consistency in TT and eliminate ambiguity. 2 Replacing the image in SL with a standard TL image that does not conflict with the TL culture.
The objectives are to discuss the problems of cultural translation, examine how the translators of Alem's Pigeon's Necklace solved these problems, and identify the most effective strategies used in TT.
Research Approach: Cultural
The aim of this chapter is to set up the research plan of the methods applied in this thesis to achieve the objectives and answer the research questions based on the hypotheses. I also analyzed the strategies the novel's translators used to deal with specific cultural concepts. In other words, it familiarizes the intended reader with the food, clothes, jobs, dialect, and other elements of ST culture.
Second, the translation of culture reflects the ethics, religion and way of thinking of people in ST society.
House’s (2015) Approach to Translation Quality Assessment
في المثال الثالث ، تُرجمت مقامة داغوسلا توتيخ على أنها "الصفوف الأنيقة لسجاد الصلاة". في المثال رقم 6 Amlab Ahtdkr Nam Ahlchtna Amneeb ، تضيف الترجمة في TT مرة أخرى "عندما مررت ، التقطتها من الماء" (ص 52). في المثال الثالث ، يغير المترجمون الفعلَين.
The table below shows the strategies used to translate idioms and sayings in Alem's The Dove's Necklace. This thesis applied House's Model of Translation Quality Assessment to evaluate the English translation of Alem's The Dove's Necklace, translated by Katherine Halls and Adam Talib. Based on House's model, it can be concluded that the English translation of Alem's (2012) The Dove's Necklace by Katharine Halls and Adam Talib is effective.
The second finding is that the translators of Alem's The Dove's Necklace used cultural correspondence to convey the meaning and effect of culture-specific expressions. The final result is that two strategies had been used to translate the dress and clothing in Alem's Duen's necklace.
Ghazala’s (2014) Strategies of Translating Cultural-specific Expressions
Assessing the translation of Cultural Specific Expressions
The Dove’s Necklace
It begins with the discovery of a naked body of a young woman in many heads in Mecca. The novel reveals the culture of Mecca along with a world of crime, religious extremism, exploitation of foreign workers and women. Therefore, the novel contains terms and expressions related to Mecca and its people, and the transfer of these terms to the TT can help the target reader to understand the culture of the place.
The Dove’s Necklace Translators
House’s Model of Translation Quality Assessment
- Not Translated
- Slight Change in Meaning
- Significant Change in Meaning
- Distortion of Meaning
- Breach of the TL System
Jechi يتاوخأ jedhu TT keessatti ibsamuu qaba, sababiin isaas isaan obboleettii dhugaa osoo hin taane, warra ishee waliin "mana warra rakkatan" keessa jiraatan. Basil Hatim fi Jeremy Munday hiikkaa jechuun "adeemsa barreeffama barreeffamaa afaan madda (SL) irraa gara afaan galma (TL)tti dabarsuu" (fuula 6) jechuun hiiku. Fakkeenyaaf, gaaleen سدقملا محرلا jedhu gadameessa qulqulluu jedhamee hiikama, سيلبإ ةينابز “ergamaa si’ool” (fuula 34) ta’ee, دلولا ازه دسج يف نكاط عاط يف نكال seexanni qaama mucaa abaaramaa kanaa dhuunfateera” ( fuula 34) ( fuula 33).
For example, قيلامعلاو مهرج becomes "The tribe of Jurhum and the Amalekites" (p. 11) and لآ ةبيش becomes "The Shayba tribe" (p. 13). In conclusion, the translation of names in Alem's The Dove's Necklace requires the application of different strategies such as transliteration and clarification. This thesis assumed that novels as literary works are covertly translated and it applied House's model to evaluate the English translation of Alem's The Dove's Necklace.
However, I think that the revised version of the model is a reliable guide to judge the English translation of Alem's (2012) The Dove's Necklace, as the model takes into account the textual and contextual elements, answering the second question of the thesis. This dissertation examines the English translation of Alem's The Dove's Necklace to identify the strategies employed by the translators to solve the problem of translating culture-specific words and expressions such as idioms, proverbs, names, and materials.
Assessing the Strategies Applied in translating Cultural Specific Expressions
Ghazala’s Strategies of Translating Cultural-specific Expressions
Idioms and Proverbs
They have a special meaning that cannot be understood from the direct, surface meaning of their words, nor from their common meaning. He adds that indirect idioms are funny or rather strange when translated literally. Baker states that many idioms and proverbs are part of figurative language and should not be taken literally and directly, but rather non-literally and indirectly.
Baker defines idioms as frozen patterns whose meaning cannot be deduced from the words, while those proverbs have quite transparent meanings.
Assessing the Translation of Religious Expressions
It can be concluded that the translators applied different methods to convey the meaning and effect of the cultural terms that have no equivalent in the TL, therefore they used the common sense and paraphrase to give an approximate meaning . Alem's The Dove's Necklace is all about Mecca, the city considered the symbol of Islam, which Muslims from all over the world visit to perform the pilgrimage. Paraphrase comes in the third rank to compensate for the untranslatable religious terms and expressions.
It can be concluded that the translators applied different methods to convey the meaning and effect of religious terms that have no equivalent in the TL, so they used the cultural correspondence to give an almost approximate meaning.
Lexis
Material Culture
- Dress and Clothes
- Drinks and Foods
- Furniture
Rakkoon kan uumamu yeroo maqaan dhugaatii fi nyaataa tokko tokko aadaa ta’ee fi hunda osoo hin taane dha. Gama biraatiin dhugaatii fi nyaatni Makkaa wajjin walqabatu kan addunyaa irratti beekamtii hin qabne hiikkamaniiru. Fakkeenyaaf, Mob Mob, Mahl Amrwashla, Bus'amla, ةولاقبلا fi ايارسلا AYulhare "Boom boom" jedhamee hiikameera (fuula 27).
The word ديجاجسلا, which is understood from the context as mats used by Muslims when they pray, is translated as "Prayer mat" (p. 27).
Names
Other phrases are condensed into a word or words in the TL that convey the same meaning. Applying the Application House Translation Quality Assessment Model to examine the translation of various types of culturally and religiously specific expressions proves that the translation is of good quality. The comparison between the language of the source text (ST) and that of the target text (TT) shows that the translation is classified as covert: natural language oriented, rather free translation.
Identifying the strategies applied in the TT shows that the effective strategies for translating the same expressions based on Ghazala's strategies (2014) are "cultural equivalent", "cultural correspondence", "transliteration" and "paraphrase" .
Findings of the Study
Findings Based on the Research Questions
Literary translators are therefore expected to be familiar with the culture of the ST and that of the TT (Huis, pp. 9-20). Even the breakthrough of the language system did not affect the transfer of meaning and effect from the ST to the TT. Thus, the translators used different methods to convey the meaning and effect of the cultural terms that have no equivalent in the TL.
Translators used deletion even when the omission of a word or phrase did not affect the meaning.
The Research Limitations
Also, translating drinks and foods like "coffee" and "tea" was easy because they are universal words, so their equivalents in the TL were used. Similarly, universal furniture such as bed and chair were translated, but the specific words used only in Arabic culture were naturalized or paraphrased.
Recommendations
Consequently, certain models can be used to evaluate one text to focus not only on grammar, lexis and structure, but also on style and imagery. There is also a need to produce more assessment models to the market to evaluate all types of translations.
Further Research
The thesis also used House's Translation Quality Assessment Model to assess the effectiveness of the translation. Therefore, the subjectivity of the criticism can interfere in the final assessment of the quality of the translation. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/safwanaziz2/criticisms-of-jullianne houses-model-of-translation-quality-assessment.
Buesa-Gomez (ed.), Translation and Cultural Identity: Selected Essays on Translation and Intercultural Communication.
