A comparative study of literary translation from Arabic into English and French

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Date
2006
Authors
Moindjie, Mohamed Abdou
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Abstract
This study is a comparative study on literary translation which aims at describing differences and similarities between three languages – Arabic, English and French – to establish a translation modelling. More specifically, it examines occurrences of three aspects of text – macrostructure, microstructure and systemic context – in translations from Arabic to English and Arabic to French. Two novels and their English and French translations- زقاق المدق (Midaq Alley, Passage des Miracles) by Nagib Mahfouz, and موسم الحجرة إلى الشمال (Season of Migration to the North, Saison de la Migration Vers Le Nord) by Taleb Saleh - form its corpora and Lambert and van Gorp’s Descriptive Systems Theory provides the theoretical framework for this comparative study. From the study, it is found that there are substantial relations among the metatexts, macrostructures and microstructures. The macrostructures are universals accommodated by language register. The microstructures, however, do not reflect systematic correspondence; they are often determined by language peculiarities and translators’ preference and choice. English is more diverse with its peculiarities allowing many microstructure elements to surface. French and Arabic, on the other hand, show moderate usage and less distinctive usage of microstructure elements. The French and Arabic have similar microstructures due to the quasi-similarity of their peculiarities. In general, it is found that there are substantial intertextual and intersystemic relations as proposed by Lambert’s and van Gorp’s theory. Nevertheless, the significance of language peculiarities and universals in achieving readership acceptability should be given due consideration.
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PhD
Keywords
Language , Literary translation , Arabic language
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