An analytical study of some problems of literary translation : a study of two Arabic translations of K. Gibran's The Prophet

Boushaba, S

Abstract

This thesis deals with the problems of Literary
translation nameLy: subjectivity in the interpretation of
the original message, the question of stylistic faithfulness
and flexibility as regards the form of the original text
I
and the extreme notion of the impossibility of an adequate
translation. It also approaches the problem of equivalence
and that of translation units which are raised by the
translation process itself and are therefore reLevant to the
probLems of literary translation.
The beginning of the thesis entitled 'A Brief and General
Review of Translation Theory' gives a brief account of the
history of. translation theory. It also considers the
ambiguity of the process of translation and presents a brief
description of the different types of translation.
The first chapter, is devoted to the problem of
equivalence. Equivalence is approached in terms of. the
dichotomy sty1lstic vs. communicative equivalence. This
bipartite division is investigated to see whether it can be
applied in the transLatioh process. The second chapter is devoted to the problem of
translation units. Special emphasis is put on the
difficulty of defining translation units because of the
subjective nature of the translation process. A possible
solution to this problem is suggested. -
The third chapter deals with the question of subjectivity
in the interpretation of the meaning of a source language
literary text. Special emphasis is put on the relationship
between the meaning of the source language text and the
author's concepts which condition it. Such relationship is
investigated in order to see whether it can help the
translator to avoid a speculative and subjective
interpretation of the original message.
The fourth chapter discusses the questiorr of faithfulness
and flexibility as regards the form of a source language
literary text. In this study, the translator's dynamic role
in reading the original text is highlighted. The
consequence of such dynamic role, as regards faithfulness
and unfaithfulness to the form of the original version, is
analysed. The fifth chapter considers the extreme notion of the
impossibility of an adequate translation'. The quality of
a literary translation is assessed not in terms of its
identity to the stylistic effect of the original text but in
terms of its approximate correspondence to it. Such
criterion is suggested as an appropriate means of assessing
the adequacy of a literary translation and consequently the
extreme notion of the impossibility of an adequate
translation' is found to be irrelevant. -
A comparison between the original English version of Gibran
KahliL Gibran's The Prophet and its two Arabic translations
is given as an illustration to most of the views and
suggestions made in this study.

Citation

Boushaba, S. An analytical study of some problems of literary translation : a study of two Arabic translations of K. Gibran's The Prophet. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Sep 26, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 26, 2011
• Award Date: Jan 1, 1988