Maintaining Cultural Identity in Translated Literary Texts: Strategies of Translating Culture-Specific Items in two Arabic plays

Abstract

This article focusses on the translator's task as a cultural mediator who has to transfer the nuances of the literary text faithfully. The translation of culture-specific items, such as proverbs, figurative language, reference to religion, mythology or literature, and stylistics, are at the core of the discussion. This paper discusses generally recommended strategies used in translating culture specific items (CSIs), and further analyses and evaluates such strategies as used in two translated Arabic plays; Sa'dallah Wannous's The Glass Café (1978Café ( /2004 and Mamdouh 'Udwan's Reflections of a Garbage Collector (1987Collector ( /2006. The translation strategies used in these two plays are recognized and rationalized in terms of giving a domesticated or a foreignized effect. Besides transferring meaning, the cultural identity of the text is highlighted as a mainstay of the translation process

Understanding How They Work: The Agents’ Strategies in Producing Indonesian-English Literary Translation

“…Besides studies that focus on motive or purpose that tend to be various (Yu, 2010;Abdolmaleki, 2018;Al-Mahrooqi & Denman, 2016;Ashcroft, 2014), that literary practice, in general, can also show certain cultural conditions. They can be seen from studies on translators' role, translation institutions, government policy, also strategies and impacts given by literary agents' practice (Tekgül, 2016;Harding, 2014;Zahrawi, 2018;Saito, 2015;Hadley & Akashi, 2015;Xu, 2012;Yuan, 2018;Bai, 2009;Solum, 2018;Haroon, 2017;Lygo, 2016;Daldeniz, 2010;Milani, 2017;Hanna, 2005Hanna, & 2009.…”

“…In her study, Dewi shows that most translation studies developed in Indonesia only focus on the text, and the investigation of the literary translation process and its agents have not attracted the Some scholars have conducted studies on agents' strategies in translated literary production. Among many of them, there are Daldeniz (2010), Xu (2012), Hadley and Akashi (2015), and Zahrawi (2018). Each study focuses on agents such as the translator, publisher, and literary man.…”