The Little Prince
A study of its translations into Hebrew and Arabic
This paper studies translations of Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s The Little Prince into Hebrew and
Arabic, genealogically related Semitic languages. The discussion in the paper focuses on three questions related to subjects
already raised in the translation literature: What does the word count of any translated text contribute to translation study? How does comparing different translations of the same text into the same language contribute to translation research? Will translating one text into
genealogically related languages reveal similarities between the translations? The research hypothesizes that (1) similarities and
differences will be found between the translations, but (2) they will not affect target language rules. The main findings are that
(1) total word sums were smaller in the translations than word sums in the source text. (2) The differences reflect the style and
register considerations (formal versus daily lexical and structural elements) rather than grammatical issues. The research
hypotheses appear to be correct, at least for these languages.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background features of translation studies of literary works
- 3.Method
- 4.Translation examples
- 5.Analysis
- 6.Findings: Answers to the research questions
- 6.1What do Word Count Studies of the Source Text and Its Translation(s) Contribute to Translation Science?
- 6.2How Does Comparing Different Translations of the Same Text into the Same Language Contribute to Translation Research?
- 6.3Does the Translation of One Text into Two (or More) Genealogically Related Languages Reveal Similar Features in Both
Translations?
- 7.Summary and conclusion
- Notes
-
References