Cultural and Stylistic Challenges in the Translation of Naguib Mahfouz into English The Examples of Ziqaq el-Madaq, Palace Walk and The Harafish | ||
| مجلة وادي النيل للدراسات والبحوث الإنسانية والاجتماعية والتربويه | ||
| Article 11, Volume 1, Issue 1, January 2014, Pages 1-32 PDF (574.85 K) | ||
| Document Type: المقالة الأصلية | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/jwadi.2014.84696 | ||
| Author | ||
| Ahmad Abdellah Elsheemi | ||
| Assistant Professor Department of English Beni-Suef University | ||
| Abstract | ||
| The writer of this paper (also a translator) is interested in the translation of Naguib Mahfouz into English. This paper is an attempt to show some of the shortcomings in the translation of some of Mahfouz's novels into English. The paper takes the AUC translation of three Mahfouzian novels: Ziqaq el-Maddaq (Midaq Alley), Palace Walk, and El-Harafish, as samples of the study. There are examples of failures in the translations of the three novels. The stylistic and cultural defects in the translation of these three novels have been referred to by such prominent critics as Edward Said and Rashid el-Enani. The paper tries to put our hands on these shortcomings related to style and culture. The paper comes up with the following conclusions: 1- Most of the mistranslations are cultural, due to the inability of the translators to understand Arabic culture on one hand, and the Egyptian culture on the other. 2- That most of the stylistic mistakes in translation are metaphorical, due also to the inability of the translator to understand the rhetorical nature of Arabic. 3- That the inability to understand Arabic culture entails a similar inability to understand the metaphor. This means that language and culture go together.: | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Naguib Mahfouz; el-Harafish; Palace Walk; Midaq Alley; mistranslations; metaphor; style; culture; AUC; trilogy | ||
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