Sohag University

Faculty of Arts
English department

Theories, Methods and Strategies of Literary Translation

By

Sara Amin Mohammed Gaballah

Teaching assistant , English department, Faculty of Arts, Sohag University

Supervised by
DR. Amany Abdel-Kahhar Al-Dardeery

2024
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ABSTRACT

This paper aims to discuss the different theories, methods and strategies

that are involved with literary translation. These theories were basically attempts

to understand and analyze translations of literary texts. Some texts lend

themselves easily to the process of translation. However, this is not the case with

literary texts that demand high proficiency in rendering each piece of the text.

What distinguishes literary texts from other texts might appear in the style of

writing that is unique to every writer. Also , the form of text such as in poetry

where a poet can write in blank verse or rhymed verse with the latter being of

much dilemma when translating. Other features might include those connected

to prose such as point of view , plot climax and again style of presentation of the

prose text. All these issues are tackled by different theorists who put strategies

and methods that analyze the literary text and attempts to offer a solution

suitable to the text that might lend it easily to the process of translation.
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Introduction

The field of translation which particularly deals with texts of poetry, prose

and drama is usually defined as “literary translation”. Literary translation is the

translation of literary works such as short stories, novels, poems, plays along with

songs. This sort of translation has usually and by necessity of the texts it deals

with exhibited much difficulty. This is due to the fact that the genres involved are

made with great craft which in itself results in a fine and aesthetic language.

Literary translation is the sort of translation (having fiction as its source

document) involves the translation of fictional novels, poems, plays and short

stories. It is basically different from the other types of translation. This is because

the language of literature is much more specific, poetic and different from the

ordinary language in its figures of speech and poetic forms, etc. It is also difficult

to translate literature because its language carries certain intentions and

characteristics of the writer that carry certain meanings and certain ways of

expression. This means that literary translation does not simply carry information

but rather carries aesthetic features and the writer’s personality within its lines.

The reader perceives the literary text with its meaning, emotions and characters.
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Literary translation and studies of literature used to be dismissed as if they

were irrelevant to the theory of translation. Some scholars used to view them as

too eccentric, highly specialized and may be even too precious to be taken

seriously as the basis for more general theoretical inquiries about translation, for

developing translation theory, and for teaching practice of translation to those

preparing for careers in the marketplace (Tymoczko, 2014, p. 11).

The main aim of translating literature is that it could reach out for wider

audience not only to another language but perhaps it might reach another

continent outside where it has been first introduced. By reaching out, it changes

and affects a civilization that was monoglot and monocultural into one that is

possibly more open to other cultures. However, the question has always

remained : How to translate literature? Books have been written, research

papers have been conducted and multiple theories have been formulated to

discuss the means, strategies, procedures, and the methods that might help attain

the knowledge and hopefully fulfill the quest. Attempts were to direct the literary

translators to introduce the literature –ancient or modern- of a people to

different ones who necessarily speak a completely different language and

perform in a culture of non-similarity to that carried within the original text.

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The field of literary translation as an academic discipline and a subfield of

translation studies is believed to have been formalized in James S. Holmes’ 1972

paper. It was Holmes (1972) and Mona Baker (2018) who first stated that literary

translation as a field of study must be an interdisciplinary one that draws from

and adds to other fields of study (Boise-Beier et al, 2014).

Style is the major characteristic of every piece of writing: the outcome of

the writer’s personality and his/her emotions at the moment. A single paragraph

wouldn’t be formulated without revealing to a certain degree the personality of the

author. Each writer has a literary style and his/her style which is reflected in his/her

writings. A translation should consider the style of the original text. A good

translator should have a deep knowledge of the source and target languages, be

able to identify with the author of the book or poem, understand his culture and

country, and employ a good method for translating literary texts.

(Subaşi, 2020) states that to write is to indulge in the process of self-expression,

and in doing so, the medium of expression is language. Whether it is a gendered

one like English or a binary one like Arabic, one has to decide upon the strategies

and the word usage in which they might express themselves (p. 43).

Culture and language are closely connected to each other. Language carries

the culture of people and is the major vehicle through which the members of a
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society communicate. Each nation has its own culture and different nations enjoy

variant cultures. Hence, what is culture?

In his “A Brief Analysis of Culture and Translation”, Hui Guo defines culture

as follows: “culture refers to the entire ways of people, the patterns of customs,

traditions, social habits, values, beliefs, and language of society” (2012, p.343).

Thus, language and culture are connected to each other. Since there are different

cultures, there are different languages. To understand a foreign language with its

complicated semantic systems is never an easy task. Words usually carry cultural

connotations and reveal cultural characteristics which make them difficult to

translate properly or correctly.

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Literature Review

2.1. Literary translation

The translation that is concerned with texts of poetry, prose and drama is

usually defined as ‘literary translation.’ This type of translation has always

included much difficulty, mainly because the genres involved are made with great

craft that results in a fine, aesthetic language. The main aim of translating

literature is that it might reach for wider audience, but the question has always

remained ‘how?’. Books have been written, research papers have been

conducted and multiple theories have been formulated to discuss the means

(strategies and procedures) and the methods that might help attain the

knowledge and hopefully fulfill the quest. Attempts were to direct the literary

translators to introduce the literature –ancient or modern- of a people to

different ones who necessarily speak a completely different language and

perform in a culture of non-similarity to that carried within the original text.

In their book Literary Translation: Redrawing the Boundaries (2014), Jean

Boise-Beier, Antoinette Fawcett and Philip Wilson edit a collection of researches

concerning literary translation, its features and its interdisciplinarity with other

fields of study. The book aims at investigating and analyzing how literary
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translation, having been dealt with as a sub-discipline of translation studies, can

cross disciplinary boundaries. Through the redrawing of boundaries of literary

translation, the editors are able to prove that it overlaps with other areas of

academic research, including linguistics, history, philosophy and cultural studies.

Literary translation, according to them, simply draws from other areas and it can

also provide insights for them.

According to several of who added to such volume including Jean Boase-

Beier and Maria Tymoczko (2014) , ‘literary translation’ can mean two things. It

might refer to the translation of texts that are proven to hold literary features.

The term literary translation can also be used in order to mean the translation of

texts in a literary way. For example, Rocío Sumillera (2014) examines how

teaching literary texts and manuals were so close to each other in sixteenth-

century England, particularly in the realm of language teaching, which, using

bilingual translation methods, presented insights into other cultures, mainly in

dialogue form. Therefore, translation in a literary manner helped to reshape what

otherwise could have been a monoglot, monocultural nation into one that

became more considerably open to influences from the continent, even in the

realm of pedagogics, let alone through more obvious forms of belles-lettres.

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The field of literary translation as an academic discipline part of translation

studies is believed to have been formalized in James S. Holmes’ 1972 paper. It

was Holmes (1972) and Mona Baker (2018) who first stated that literary

translation as a field of study must be an interdisciplinary one that draws from

and adds to other fields of study (Boise-Beier et al, 2014).

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3. Methods and Approaches to Literary Translation

A suggestion to the question of whether to render literature in form or in

content, arriving at the solution that adopting the notion of creativity would

simply include both. (Mohamed, 2016) discusses how Creativity is what could

figure out a harmonious balance between the two, and the whole process

becomes more art than science. It aims to replace creativity of the original text

with a close enough creativity in translation rendered and aimed towards the

readers of the target language. This approach is the closest to the question of

equivalence.

Eugene Nida (1969) was amongst the first theorists to speak of the notion,

even though at its start it was his aim to establish clear ,almost scientific, rules

towards the translation of the bible. Researchers further discussed the

applicability of the theory of equivalence further developed by Mona Baker

(2018) to concern itself with equivalence at word level and equivalence at

collocation level.

3.1. Linguistic approaches to translation studies

3.1.1. Roman Jakobson (1959): ‘Equivalence ’

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According to Jakobson, there are three types of translation: intralingual

(rewording) which means within one language, interlingual: between two

languages , and intersemiotic :between sign systems. The main area of focus

in translation studies is on interlingual translation (Beddari, 2021). The

concept of equivalence can be said to hold a central position in translation

studies. It has become an essential feature of translation theories in the 1960s

and 1970s, and continued to be so even nowadays theories. Equivalence has

been meant to indicate that source text and target text share some kind of

sameness. The notion of equivalence is undoubtedly one of the most

problematic and controversial areas in the field of translation theory. The

term has caused, and it seems quite probable that it will continue to cause,

heated debates among theorists/translators as to its nature, definition and

applicability. This term has been analyzed, evaluated and extensively

discussed from different points of view and has been approached from many

different perspectives. It has been of particular concern to translation

scholars since it has been inextricably linked with both definitional and

practical aspects of translating. It has been a rather controversial one,

causing many heated debates among theorists/translators as to its nature,

definition and applicability.

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Jakobson claims that, in the case of interlingual translation, the translator

makes use of synonyms in order to get the ST message across. This means

that in interlingual translations there is no full equivalence between code

units. According to his theory, 'translation involves two equivalent messages

in two different codes' (1959, p. 233). Jakobson goes on to say that from a

grammatical point of view languages may differ from one another to a

greater or lesser degree, but this does not mean that a translation cannot be

possible, in other words, that the translator may face the problem of not

finding a translation equivalent. He acknowledges that 'whenever there is

deficiency, terminology may be qualified and amplified by loanwords or

loan-translations, neologisms or semantic shifts, and finally, by

circumlocutions' (1959, p. 234). Jakobson provides a number of examples by

comparing English and Russian language structures and explains that in such

cases where there is no a literal equivalent for a particular ST word or

sentence, then it is up to the translator to choose the most suitable way to

render it in the TT.

Examples from Hemingway’s include:

Source text Target text

--Everything about him was old --‫ يطل منهما‬،‫عيناه كانتا في صفاء مياه البحر‬

except his eyes and they were the

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same color as the sea and were ‫المرح وعدم االعتراف بالهزيمة‬

cheerful and undefeated.

---You're with a lucky boat. --‫انك تعمل في مركب حسن الطالع‬

--He hasn't much faith ‫انه قليل الثقة‬--

--Others, of the older fishermen, ‫اء‬mmm‫ى ورث‬mmm‫ه في أس‬mmm‫ون الي‬mmm‫وا يتطلع‬mmm‫د راح‬mmm‫فق‬

looked at him and were sad. ‫واشفاق‬--

when I brought the fish in too green ‫عندما أخرجت حبالي سمكة هائلة‬

He is very thoughtful for us. ‫إنه يهتم بنا كثيرا‬

3.1.2. Eugine Nida: Formal correspondence and dynamic equivalence

Nida(1964) argued that there are two different types of equivalence,

namely formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence. Formal equivalence 'focuses

attention on the message itself, in both form and content', unlike dynamic

equivalence which is based upon 'the principle of equivalent effect' (1964, p.159).

Nida and Taber make it clear that there are not always formal equivalents between

language pairs. They therefore suggest that these formal equivalents should be

used wherever possible if the translation aims at achieving formal rather than
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dynamic equivalence. The use of formal equivalents might at times have serious

implications in the TT since the translation will not be easily understood by the

target audience.

3.1.3. Peter Newmark: semantic and communicative translation.

Newmark’s Approaches to Translation in his book titled Approaches to

Translation, first published in 1981(republished in 2001), Peter Newmark sets to

examine various problems of the process of translation aiming at providing his

propsed approaches to solve them. Having Nida’s equivalence theories in mind and

Buhler’s three distinctions of the functions of language , mainly the informative,

the vocative and the expressive function, Newmark set out to form his own theory

of translation in the shape of two main concepts: communicative and semantic

translation. Newmark first adopts Napokov’s definition of semantic translation as

“an attempt to render, as closely as the semantic and the syntactic structures of the

target language allow , the exact contextual meaning of the original(Newmark,

2001). Then, he continues to add his own definitions of the same concept as being

both “interlinear”, that is to translate all the primary senses of all the words in the

original as though out of context and thus the word order of the original is retained;

and also as “literal”, that is to translate the primary senses of the lexical words of

the original as though out of context yet preserving the syntactic structure of the
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target language, with the clear distinction between literal and semantic translation

in the sense that the latter respects context yet the former does not.(ibid.) This is as

if Newmark is aiming at achieving equivalence at a word and a grammatical level,

that is semantic translation, and equivalence at meaning level, that is

communicative translation.

On the other hand, Newmark continues to investigate the rendering of a text,

especially one that is poetic in particular and imaginative writing in general, and

how to develop translations of these texts in a way that “communicates” the

meaning intended by the author to the target language receivers rather than merely

paying attention to grammatical structures. That is to say that translation becomes

more “creative” in process rather than being only transference of structure from

one language to the other. The translator, then, holds as much responsibility of the

creation of a text towards the target culture reader(tc R) as closely as possible to

that of the author’s towards the source culture reader (sc R). Newmark(2001)

stands on the point that “if the text is not modern, the translation has to be put into

modern language, which in itself moves it nearer to the reader.” (p. 64) That it is to

say the aim of the translation is to create a text readable in a culture that is too

modern and too sophisticated to the old text. Newmark finally defines

communicative translation as an attempt “to produce on its readers an effect as

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close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original.”(ibid.) That is to

reach,as close as possible, to the senses and the feelings of target readers what the

original author has produced on the source ones.

Although Newmark’s theory marks a clear distinction between the two notions of

semantic and communicative translation, yet he emphasizes the fact that the two

approaches do not oppose each other but rather “coalesce” in the rendering of a

text. In other words, the need for one does not disqualify the other, or as Newmark

puts it “there is no one communicative nor one semantic method of translating a

text-these are in fact widely overlapping bands of methods” (p. 40). Thus, a good

translator is one capable of knowing when to use one and when to use the other in

a text. No text is ever need of mere transformation of its structure from one

language to another, and no text should be manipulated enough to ruin the

aesthetic features of its original structure.

That being said, it does not refer to the fact that they are one approach but rather

the fact that communicative translation and semantic translation form two

approaches but one theory. That in turn means that each has its own features and

draws its own distinction. The following table is an attempt to define and

distinguish each approach as explained in Newmark (2001):

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Semantic Translation Communicative translation

Complex, awkward, detailed , Smother, simpler, clearer,

concentrated conventional and more direct

pursuits thought processes rather Depends on the use of more generic,

than the intention of the transmitter hold-all terms in difficult passages

Tends to be more specific than the Tends to produce an equivalent

original, includes more meanings effect

Overtranslate Undertranslate

Source-text bias Target-text bias

Thus when applied to the analysis and the study of a text as the one at hand, the

researcher figured out these examples featuring remarks of a semantic translation:

1-‫ وأنه تالق يوما في تاريخ القاهرة‬,‫تنطق شواهد كثيرة بان زقاق المدق كان من تحف العهود الغابرة‬
‫د‬mm‫ علم ذلك عند هللا وعن‬, ‫المماليك؟ السالطين؟‬..‫الفاطمية؟‬..‫ أي قاهرة أعني؟‬.‫المعزية كالكوكب الدري‬
‫در‬mm‫ارة ينح‬mm‫ كيف ال وطريقه المبلط بصفائح الحج‬.‫ واثر نفيس‬, ‫ ولكنه علي اية حال اثر‬, ‫علماء اآلثار‬
‫درانها‬m‫زدان ج‬m‫ة ت‬m‫وة كرش‬m‫ة بقه‬mm‫ه المعروف‬m‫ وقهون‬, ‫ة‬m‫ة التاريخي‬m‫ك العطف‬m‫ تل‬, ‫ناديقية‬mm‫رة الي الص‬m‫مباش‬
‫ة من‬mmm‫ وروائح طيب‬, ‫ل‬mmm‫دم وتخلخ‬mmm‫ وته‬, ‫اد‬mmm‫دم ب‬mmm‫ذا الي ق‬mmm‫ ه‬, ‫ك‬mmm‫ل األرابيس‬mmm‫( بتهاوي‬Mahfouz,
1947) !‫طب الزمان القديم الذي صار مع كرور الزمن عطارة اليوم والغد‬..

1-Many things combine to show that Midaq Alley is one of the gems of
times gone by and that it once shone forth like a flashing star in the history
of Cairo. Which Cairo do I mean? That of the Fatimids, the Mamlukes, or
the Sultans? Only God and the archeologists know the answer to that, but in
any cases, the alley is certainely an ancient relic and a precious one. How
could it be otherwise with its stone-paved surface leading directly to the
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historic Sanadiqiya Street. And then there is its cafe known as Kirsha’s. Its
walls decorated with multicolored arabesques, now crumbling, give off
strong odors from the medicines of olden times, smells which have now
become the spices and folk cures of today and tomorrow… (Midaq Alley, p.
1)
Analysis:

The previous passages are two extracts of the first chapter of the novel by Naguib

Mahfouz, but one from the source text while the other is from the translation by Le

Gassick. The very title of the novel has witnessed transformation and was biased to

the target language reader to be “Alley” which is the English synonym for

Mahfouz’s word “Zuqaq- ‫”زقاق‬. The choice of the title reveals the intention of the

author to both preserve the source text’s (ST’s) flavor by reusing and

translitrataing the word “Midaq-‫ ”مدق‬which is the name of a very famous street in

Cairo. And yet still translating the word Zuqaq into Alley and combine both

methods in the title. The lines to follow, the translator seems to tend more into the

communicative approach rather than the semantic. This proves true in

thetranslation of the word "‫ "كوكب‬which means planet in English and replace it

with “star”. That is perhaps due to the fact that the western culture are only

accustomed with a star being shiny and not a planet being distinguished as the

Arabic culture insists. This also shows in the omission of the Arabic expression “

‫ة‬m‫ة التاريخي‬m‫ "تلك العطف‬which translates to “that historical turn”. It is not clear why
 19

would the translator omit such an expression except for the fact that the Arabic

language is one that is fond with expressions; one that is based on the repletion of

meaning and the listing of so many different terms that genuinely add to one

meaning, which in this case that history stands as a witness to the magnificence of

the Midaq Ally and the different currents that it has lived through. The English

language, on the other hand, is more precise, more direct and more simple in

expression.

3.1.4. Vinay and Darbelnet

Vinay and Darbelnet in 1950 prposed seven procedures of translation as ways to

achieve equivalence. These are : borrowing, calque, literal translation,

transposition , modulation, equivalence, and adaptation.

-Borrowing

Borrowing refers to the idea of taking a word from (SL) and maintaining it

in the (TL). It is considered the simplest of the procedures and is most

commonly used for one of two reasons; either when discussing a new

technical process in the (TL) for which no terms exist, or when maintaining

a word from the (SL) for stylistic purposes, in which the translator uses the

foreign term to enrich the target text (TT). There are some well-established,

mainly older borrowings that have become so widely used that they are no
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longer considered to be borrowings and are part of the (TL). Some examples

are " hijab, kebab, and jehad which are taken from Arabic culture ،‫حجاب‬

‫اد‬mm‫جه‬، ‫اب‬mm‫ كب‬and words such as ،‫ترنت‬mm‫بيوتر ان‬mm‫كم‬، ‫تر‬mm‫ توي‬computer, internet, and

twitter are borrowed from English culture"(Al-hubaishi, 2023).

- Calque

A calque is a type of borrowing in which one language takes an expression

from another and then literally translates each of its constituents. Vinay and

Darbelnet mentioned two types of calques: lexical claques and structural

calques. A lexical claque "respects the syntactic structure of the TL, though

introducing a new mode of expression", whereas the structural calque

"introduces a new construction into the language" (p.32). Examples of

calques can mainly be seen in the translation of common collocation and

names of organizations like "Skyscrapers / ‫حاب‬mmm‫ات الس‬mmm‫ ناطح‬Fast-food

restaurants / ‫ مطاعم الوجبات السريعة‬Organization Health World ‫منظمةالصحة العالمية‬

‫ (منظمة التجارة العالمية‬,"World Trade ‫ عطلة نهاية األسبوع‬/ Weekend. (Al-hubaishi,

2023)

Literal translation

The literal translation is a word-for-word translation with no lexical word or

structure alterations. To put it another way, when using this method, the

translator neglects the context of the source language words and phrases
 21

while adhering to the target language's syntactic structure. For example

"Ahmed is a student‫ " أحمد يكون طالب‬is a literal translation that can be used

for a didactic purpose only. However, a literal translation is sometimes

possible at the lower level of language. For example, translating " I love

Rabiaa as ‫ أنا أحب ربيعة‬is an acceptable literal translation.

Transposition

Transposition is labeled as a change in word-class without a change in

meaning. This method can be used when translators (often without thinking)

alter the word form, such as from nouns to verbs. (p.36). The following two

translations of the English sentences below, for example, have simply

employed different word classes. (Al-hubaishi, 2023). (a) uses a noun ((‫عودته‬

instead of a verb (‫( يعود‬while (b) uses a verb and an adverb instead of an

adjective and a noun to express the same message. a. He called us before he

came back. ‫ اتصل بنا قبل عودته‬b. She is a creative painter. ‫ترسم بابداع‬. The

previous two sentences are examples of optional transposition because we

can simply translate them as follows without making any changes to their

word classes. c. He called us before he came back. .‫ اتصل بنا قبل أن يعود‬d. She

is a creative painter .‫إنها رسامة مبدعة‬

Modulation
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Modulation according to Vinay and Darbelnet is defined as " a variation of

the form of the message, obtained by a change in the point of view".

Modulation allows the translator to achieve a degree of naturalness in their

(TT) while maintaining the meaning and accuracy of the (ST) (p.36).

Examples are found in the translation of the following English sentence

There are no vacancies at the hotel ‫ الحجز مكتمل في الفندق لدينا‬/) (Al-hubaishi,

2023). The Scarlet Letter‫ الشارة‬/ ‫) القرمزية‬

Equivalence

Vinay and Darbelnet (1995) stressed the idea that "one and the same

situation can be rendered by two texts using completely different stylistic

and structural methods" In this procedure, the translator describes the same

situation using another structural or stylistic meaning. Vinay and Darbelnet

(1995) viewed equivalence-oriented translation as a procedure that

'replicates the same situation as in the original, whilst using completely

different wording' (p.342). The simple examples illustrate a particular

feature of equivalences such as

It is raining cats and dogs ‫ تمطر بغزارة‬/) p. 38).

Adaptation

Adaptation is considered one of Vinay and Darbelnet's most complex

translation procedures. "Adaptation is used in those cases where the type of

 23

situation being referred to by the (SL) message is unknown in the (TL)

culture"(Vinay & Darbelnet 1995, p.39). Adaptation is similar to the former

procedures in the way that the translator seeks to render the source language

into the target language as accurately and as meaningfully as the original.

Shakespeare’s play King Lear into ‫ الشيخ الغني األعمي وبناته الثالثة‬is considered a

good example of this method. I am frightened into ‫ ابق معنا‬which literally

means stay with us. (Al-hubaishi, 2023).

3.1.5. Catford and textual equivalence:

Catford distinguishes between formal correspondence and textual

equivalence. Formal correspondence exists where the position occupied by a

certain category in the source language corresponds to the position occupied

by that same category in the target language. For example, prepositions

function in the same way in most European languages. As long as we can

translate preposition by preposition across these languages, formal

correspondence results in textual equivalence. When this is not the case,

textual equivalence can be achieved by what Catford calls translation shifts,

which include structure shifts, class shifts, unit shifts and intra-system shifts.

He explains that textual equivalence is achieved when the source and target

items are interchangeable in a given situation.

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3.2. Functional Theories

3.2.1. Skopos theory. In 1984, Katharina Reiss and Hans J. Vermeer

coauthored a book titled Grundlegung einer allgemeinen Translationstheorie

(‘Groundwork for a General Theory of Translation’). As the title suggests,

their aim is to develop a general theory of translation. In the first part of the

book, Vermeer explains his Skopos theory (Skopos is a Latin word meaning

aim or purpose), which focuses on the purpose of translation, rather than the

form or content of the text, as the main factor to consider in determining

which translation strategy to use. This purpose is usually specified by the

initiator of the translation and may be completely different from the purpose

or function of the original text (Munday, 2008). For example, a

Shakespearean play could be translated for theatrical performance or for

publication in a series for youngsters, and the translation strategy would be

different in each case.

Examples of the Skopos theory in the translation of death of a sales’ man

from English into Arabic include the following:

Source text Target text

 25

They should‟ve arrested the builder ‫جرتين‬mm‫كان عليهم اعتقال البناء لقطعه هاتين الش‬

for cutting those down. They ‫ألنه أجرم في حق الحي‬

massacred the neighbourhood.

The competition is maddening! ‫والتنافس أصبح علي أشده‬

You‟re my foundation and my ‫أنت سند داعم لي يا ليندا‬

support

you've got too much on the ball to ‫لديك عمل كثير عليك االهتمام به‬

worry about

I'll put money on Biff. ‫سأراهن علي بيف‬

You make mountains out of ‫أنت تهول األمر‬

molehills

s, the cultureoriented approach suggested by Vermeer and followed by the

translator to render the correct meaning of the source texts is of much help.

As the Arabic translations in the above table show that the translator relied

on his linguistic knowledge and cultural knowledge of Arabic, his native

language, to convoy and preserves the intended meanings expressed by the

corresponding English sentences. This means that linguistic competence in

the target language and adherence to providing translation based solely on

lexical meaning do not help much in literary translation.

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3.3. The Cultural Turn in Translation Studies

One of the major breakthroughs in the research of translation studies is the

cultural turn introduced by Bassnett and Lefevere in 1990. Before this stage of

research, translation studies and translation practice were limited to the linguistic

and literal rendering of the original texts. This type of research provided immense

changes in the way scholars investigated Translations and offered a new

perspective for the practice of translation. Even the definition of translation

changed to be “a more complex negotiation between tow cultures” (Munday,

2009, p. 179). This means that translation has become more of a negotiation or a

conversation between two cultures and not only a transformation of words from

one language to another. Culture here is the biggest keyword that according to

which the translator decides what approach would he\she adopt. For example,

the translator would need to decide whether to adopt domestication which is “a

reduction of the foreign text to target-language cultural values, bring the author

back home” (Venuti, 1995, p.20) or whether to adopt foreignization which is

“pressure on those (cultural) values to register the linguistic and cultural

difference of the foreign text, sending the reader abroad” (Venuti, 1995, p.20).
 27

André Lefevere and Susan Bassnett (1990) wrote an introductory chapter to

a number of essays collected under the title Translation, History and Culture.

What they aimed at doing was that to draw attention to the changes that were

increasingly underpinning research in translation studies. These changes marked a

shift from a more formalist approach to translation to one that laid more

emphasis on extra-textual factors.

The focus of attention in the study of translation has had the need to be on

broader issues of context, history and convention not just on discussing the

meaning of faithfulness in translation or what the term ‘equivalence’ might

possibly mean. Even the type of questions that were asked had a major change.
 28

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Baker, M. (2018). In Other Words. 3rd edition. London. Routledge.

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Beddari, H. (2021). Exploring Theories of Equivalence: A Critical Review. International

Journal of Sciences: Basic and Applied Research (IJSBAR). 60(2). Pp. 49-56.
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Boise-beier, J., Fawcett, A. Wilson, P. (Eds.). 2014. Literary Translation: Redrawing

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