The Translation of Shakespearean Legal Puns into Standard Arabic: Macbeth and Hamlet as a Case Study

Abstract

Translation can be impacted by metalinguistic factors that lead translators either to render literal meanings or try their best to communicate what they believe is the intended message of the author of the source text (ST). One of the cases that can best illustrate this situation of the translator is the translation of puns. This study scrutinizes legal puns in Khalil Mutran’s Arabic translations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, translated in 1950 and Hamlet, translated in 1974. This study aims to investigate how Mutran manipulates the occurrences of puns in the source text when he translates them into Standard Arabic. The study examines puns in the source texts by referring to Shakespeare’s Legal Language: A Dictionary (2004) and Mahood’s Shakespeare's Wordplay (2003), and in the Arabic translations by referring to Faruqi’s English-Arabic Law Dictionary (2008). Results show that Mutran opts for either a literal translation of puns using Standard Arabic terms, a literal translation using legal terms or omission of puns in his translation. Results also indicate that Mutran adopts stage-worthy translation rather than law-worthy one.