Translation in Arabic language and literature
Reza Nazemian; Nasir Maleki; Sadegh Khorsha
Abstract
"Other" is the basis of knowing "Self" and the introduction of self-knowledge. The way to self-knowledge is communication with others. The deforming tendencies of the French theorist Antoine Berman are based on respect for the "other" and avoidance of domestication in translation. He believes that the ...
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"Other" is the basis of knowing "Self" and the introduction of self-knowledge. The way to self-knowledge is communication with others. The deforming tendencies of the French theorist Antoine Berman are based on respect for the "other" and avoidance of domestication in translation. He believes that the source text should be accepted and transferred as it is, and one should not seek to simulate it with one's own culture. The focus of Berman's cognitive translation point of view is respect for the foreign text, acceptance of the other, and recognition of his culture. Berman's theory, in which he believes that the structure of the source text should not be changed and equivalents should not be found according to structural and grammatical aspects, is the result of the extreme formation of the target-oriented movement in translation in his era. In order to criticize the issue of accepting Other based on the tendency of rationalization, we have examined Majedeh Al-Anani’s translation of the story Nūn wa al-Qalam by Jalāl Āl-e-Ahmad, and during the discussion and examination of the examples, we came to the conclusion that the translator in the translation of cultural terms tried to show her faithfulness to the original text, but in some cases, she was not successful and she was only able to replace the word without paying attention to its semantic load and rhetoric.Keywords: Nūn wa al-Qalam, Jalāl Āl-e-Ahmad, Antoine Berman, Majedeh Al-Anani, acceptance of Other.IntroductionSince the issue of "acceptance of Other" necessarily requires the translator to go beyond the body of the cultural and literary system of his society and pay more attention to the source than the target, and his priority should be the writer and not the reader, we found it appropriate to base our investigations and critiques on a theory whose foundation is respect for the author and the original language of the work. Therefore, we found Antoine Berman's Deforming Theory appropriate. Among the most important works of the Persian language, which is considered to be a view of the culture, political, cultural, scientific, and religious approach of Iranian society, is the book "Nūn wa al-Qalam" written by Jalāl Āl-e-Ahmad. This story has been translated into various languages, including Arabic. In the present article, we intend to investigate Majedeh Al-Anani's Arabic translation of Āl-e-Ahmad's "Nūn wa al-Qalam" based on the theory of Antoine Berman and see how the translator translated this work in the face of examples of the component of rationalization - out of the total of 13 components of Berman's theory? And to what extent has he accepted the original text and culture of the source language as "Other"?Literature ReviewBy searching various sources, we found that there are many articles and researches on the application of Antoine Berman's theory in various texts, but in connection with the story of Nūn wa al-Qalam and Berman's theory, there are several sources that we consider:- Reflection of Majedeh Al-Anani's Translation in the Characters of Jalāl Āl-e-Ahmad's Story Nūn wa al-Qalam (based on the elements of Berman's impoverishment) (2022) by Ahmad Lamei Giv. In this article, it has been shown that Al-Anani often intends to preserve the syntactic structure of the source language in the translation of character traits, but this has caused the quality of the translation to drop and has undermined the high meaning of the source text.- Equivalence of Iranian Folklore Categories; Case Study: Arabic Translation of Jalāl Āl-e-Ahmad’s Nūn wa al-Qalam (2018) Marzieh Rabiei and colleagues. This article examines Al-Anani's method of finding equivalents in translation and concludes that the translator has used the cultural equivalent or descriptive equivalent method above all else in finding equivalents that have a cultural connotation. In finding equivalents of material categories, Al-Anani also used various methods of transfer, transformation, etc., and performed weakly and inadequately in translating some terms.- Examination of Majedeh Al-Anani's Translation of Jalāl Āl-e-Ahmad's Nun wa Al-Qalam based on Baker's Idiomatic Equivalence Theory (2018) by Zohreh Ghorbani. This research has examined and analyzed the translation of the terms in the story of Nun wa Al-Qalam, and it is believed that Al-Anani, among the various methods that Mona Baker expresses in her Idiomatic Equivalence Theory, mostly used the method of translating terms into the form of similarity of meaning and change of form. Ghorbani believes that although Al-Anani is an Arabic speaker, she has a relatively correct understanding of Persian terms and proverbs, and this is the reason why she translated some Persian terms correctly.- The relationship between linguistic functions and personality types in the story of Nun wa Al-Qalam (2012) by Seyed Ahmed Parsa and Sa’di Haji, was conducted to examine the compatibility between the linguistic functions of the characters in the story and their personality types, which are important principles of story writing. The result is that in the story of Nun wa Al-Qalam, there is not much compatibility between the linguistic functions of people and their personality types.MethodologyIn the search conducted on the researches on this topic, we did not find an example that examined the rationalization component of Antoine Berman's theory in Majedeh Al-Anani's translation of Nun wa Al-Qalam based on the acceptance of "Other".In order to investigate the deforming tendency of Berman's rationalization in Majedeh Al-Anani's translation of Jalāl Āl-e-Ahmad’s story Nun wa Al-Qalam, the researcher first collected some theoretical foundations around keywords and then selected some samples from the original text and their translation and analyzed the samples with a descriptive-analytical method. After examining the samples, the researcher reached the following results:ConclusionIt can be said that Berman's theory should be applied in texts such as holy texts, literary texts, and scientific texts in which form and structure are important. However, in texts in which the message and effect are more important than the form, one cannot insist on accepting the Other and criticize the rationalization tendency, but the expressive possibilities of the target language should be taken into account so that it can leave the same message and impact on the target audience.In general, by examining the selected samples from the book, it can be concluded that according to Antoine Berman's theory, the foundation of which is the acceptance of the Other, respect for the original text, accompanying the author and his culture, and ignoring himself, the translator did not have acceptable performance and in most cases, intentionally or unintentionally, transferred the same words, phrases, and expressions, and considered the words, phrases, and expressions more than the meaning of the text.Al-Anani has forgotten the "Other" by transferring the same words, terms, combinations, and expressions and not paying attention to how to transfer the meaning and concept of the original text. This means that the audience as "Other" cannot accept the translated text, which has no semantic load in the target language, and refuses to accept it due to the feeling of alienation from the translation.
