AN INVESTIGATION OF TRANSLATION PROCEDURES TO TRANSLATE CULTURAL - COLLOCATIONS IN LITERARY TEXTS

Abstract

Purpose of the study: The purpose of this study was to investigate the procedures that translators employ to translate cultural collocations from Arabic into English,.It is considered a challenge for translators since the components of such collocations must be translated as one meaningful unit. Methodology: The methodology of this study is a descriptive-interpretive analysis of the source text (ST) and target texts (TTs). The authors applied Newmark's culture categorizations and translation theory to categorize the collocations in this study and investigate their Translation, which was collected from the Arabic novel "Awlad Hartna" by Naguib Mahfouz, and its two translations in English, "Children of Gebelawi" by Philip Stewart (1981) and "Children of the Alley" by Peter Theroux (1988). Main Findings: The results of the study revealed that the source text is a rich source of cultural signs. Analysis of the data indicated that translators apply only 10 procedures, which include cultural equivalent, functional equivalent, descriptive equivalent, through-translation, shifts, modulation, paraphrasing, couplet, reduction and omission, and literal Translation. Procedures of transference, naturalization, and synonymy have been avoided since they are usually used to translate single cultural words. The findings further revealed that literal Translation is the most frequently used procedure and shifts are the least frequently used. Application of the study: Findings of the study have pedagogical implications for translators in general, translators of literature, student translators, and teacher translators. Findings of the cultural analysis of collocations are an essential resource for researchers of cultural studies to translate between Arabic and English. The novelty of this study: The scientific novelty of the present study lies in discussing the functional procedures that are used to translate cultural signs in the form of collocations. The cultural aspects of collocations and the meaning of cultural collocations are also presented in a detailed and comprehensive manner.