Article published In:
Babel: Online-First Articles

Translating Arabic allusions into English

For a hermeneutic approach

 | University of SharjahSharjah
ORCID logo | University of SharjahSharjah | The University of Jordan
 | University of SharjahSharjah
This article analyzes the translation of Key-Phrase (KP) allusions in the short story collection “al-‘Abarāt” by Al-Manfaluti from Arabic to English. More specifically, it looks into how the translator handled the complexity that arises from the highly intertextual and dialogical nature of Al-Manfaluti’s work. Drawing on Leppihalme’s (1997) categorization of allusions and Venuti’s (2009) approach to the translation of intertextuality, this research maps the translation strategies that the translator employed and their effectiveness in the course of reconstituting source text intertextuality in the target language. The results showed that, by and large, the translator very often employed a literal translation strategy by focusing on semantic correspondence. Such an approach produced a translation that failed to capture the rich intertextual relations in Al-Manfaluti’s original, leading to much cultural and thematic loss. The article concludes that a hermeneutic rather than an instrumental approach would be more effective at preserving the intertextual richness of source texts.
Keywords: key-phrase allusions, hermeneutic approach, intertextuality, translation of allusion
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Intertextuality
    • 2.2Allusion
    • 2.3Intertextuality in translation
  • 3.Conceptual framework
  • 4.Method
  • 5.Findings
    • 5.1Sources of allusion
    • 5.2Translation strategies used to render KP allusions
    • 5.2.1Minimum change
      • 5.2.2Reduction to sense
      • 5.2.3Omission
      • 5.2.4Recreation
      • 5.2.5Internal marking
  • 6.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 22 November 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.24091.bur
References (42)
References
Abdel Haleem, M. A. S. 2014. “The Qur’an in the Novels of Naguib Mahfouz (in Arabic).” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 16 (3): 104–126. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Abdullah, Abdul-Samad. 2009. “Intertextuality and West African Arabic Poetry: Reading Nigerian Arabic Poetry of the 19th and 20th Centuries.” Journal of Arabic Literature 40 (3): 335–361. [URL] DOI logo
AbouSowa, Samira Yousef Mohamed, and Zamri Arifin. 2021. “Al-Tanass Al-Qur’ani Fi Shi‘R ‘Amr Al-Nami” [Quranic Intertextuality in ‘Amr Al-Nami Poetry]. Jurnal Islam dan Masyarakat Kontemporari 22 (1): 160–175. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ahmadgoli, Kamran, and Serveh Menbari. 2011. “T.S. Eliot’s Poetry in Persian: A Case of Translating Allusions.” Research in Contemporary World Literature 16 (63): 5–23. [URL]Google Scholar
Ahmed, Mashaer Bashir Ali. 2020. “al-khusrān fī ḍawʾ al-Qurān al-karīm” [Loss in the light of the Holy Quran]. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Studies 2 (2): 57–80. [URL]
Ahmed, Sara S., and Essam T. Muhammed. 2022. “An Assessment of Translating English Allusive Expressions in ‘Othello’ into Arabic.” Journal of Positive School Psychology 6 (8): 4802–4823.Google Scholar
Aldeeb, Najlaa R. 2020. “Qur’anic Allusions in Naguib Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley: Comparing Two Arabic-English Translations.” AWEJ for Translation and Literary Studies 4 (2): 129–142. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Al-Khawaldeh, Sami, Nisreen N. Al-Khawaldeh, and Imad Khawaldeh. 2017. “A Linguistic Analysis of the Aesthetics of Intertextuality in Habib Al-Zyoudi’s Poetry.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature 6 (5): 263–272. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Al-Ma’ani Al-Jami’, “al-nīb,” accessed 27 February 2024. [URL]
, “ʿanā,” accessed 24 February 2024. [URL]
, “faṣīl,” accessed 24 February 2024. [URL]
Al-Manfaluti, Mustafa Lutfi. 1993. al-‘Abarāt [The tears]. Cairo: Maktabat Misr.Google Scholar
. 2017. The Tears: The English Translation of Al-Abarat. Translated by Majid Khan Malik Saddiqui. Bradford, West Yorkshire: Noor Alam Publications.Google Scholar
Arslan, C. Ceyhun. 2017. “Ambivalences of Ottoman Modernity: Nahda, Tanzimat, and World Literature.” PhD diss., Harvard University.
Assayyed, Muhammad K. 2020. “Religious Intertextuality as Translation Challenge: Explicitness, Recognisability, and the Case of Naguib Mahfouz’s ‘Sugar Street’.” Bulletin of The Faculty of Arts 56 (2): 25–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aubed, Maan M. 2019. “Translatability of Religious Intertextuality in Literary Texts.” Kufa Journal of Arts 1 (40): 763–778. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bakhtin, M. M. 1986. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Edited by Michael Holquist and Caryl Emerson. Translated by Vern McGee. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. 1977. “The Death of the Author.” In Image Music Text, edited and translated by Stephen Heath, 142–148. London: Fontana Press.Google Scholar
Booth, Marilyn, ed. 2019. Migrating Texts: Circulating Translations Around the Ottoman Mediterranean. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. EBSCOhost. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
El-Nour, Eiman. 1997. “The Development of Contemporary Literature in Sudan.” Research in African Literatures 28 (3): 150–162.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1992. Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
. 2003. Analyzing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frye, Northrop, Sheridan Baker, and George Perkins. 1985. The Harper Handbook to Literature. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Garget, Jacqueline. 2020. “What’s Your Beef?.” University of Cambridge, January. [URL]
Geertz, Clifford. 2008. Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Hamza, WafaMoulay, and Maroua Abdallah. 2022. “Intertextual Allusions and Evaluation of Their Translation: Case Study the Catcher in The Rye By J.D Salinger.” PhD diss., Kasdi Merbah Ouargla University.
Hatim, Basil, and Ian Mason. 1990. Discourse and the Translator. London and New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Himood, Ziyad Fadhil. 2010. “The Translatability of Allusive Expressions in Najuib Mahfouz’s Novel “Midaq Alley” into English.” College of Basic Education Researchers Journal 9 (4): 564–588.Google Scholar
Hogan, Patrick Colm. 2014. “Intertextuality and Allusion.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Stylistics, edited by Peter Stockwell and Sara Whiteley, 117–131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Juvan, Marko. 2008. History and Poetics of Intertextuality. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.Google Scholar
Khadem, Akram, and Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi. 2012. “Key-Phrase Allusions and Their Translations: A Focus on Mathnawi.” Asian Social Science 8 (11): 178–185. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kilito, Abdelfattah. 2008. Thou Shalt Not Speak My Language. Translated by Waïl S. Hassan. New York: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia. 1986. The Kristeva Reader. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Leppihalme, Ritva. 1997. Culture Bumps: An Empirical Approach to the Translation of Allusions. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Neubert, Albrecht, and Gregory M. Shreve. 1992. Translation as Text. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press.Google Scholar
Omri, Mohamed-Salah. 2008. “Local Narrative Form and Constructions of the Arabic Novel.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 41 (2/3): 244–263. [URL] DOI logo
Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, “Grace,” accessed 24 February 2024. [URL]
Pema, Alketa. 2012. “Strategies Used in the Translation into Albanian of Allusions in Walt Whitman’s Poetry.” Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 3 (8): 297–302. [URL]
Rahimkhani, Masoumeh, and Salmani Bahloul. 2013. “Lexical Gaps in Translation of Qur’anic Allusions in Hafez’s Poetry: Strategies and Difficulties.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies 3 (5): 781–789. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Salama-Carr, Myriam. 2022. “The Tale of Qubul and Ward Jinna (1912): Muhammad ’Uthman Jalal .” In Anthology of Arabic Discourse on Translation, edited by Tarek Shamma and Myriam Salama-Carr, 255–256. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shamma, Tarek. 2022. ““Aribization” (1895): Khalil Baidas, Jurji Zaidan .” In Anthology of Arabic Discourse on Translation, edited by Tarek Shamma and Myriam Salama-Carr, 258–259. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Venuti, Lawrence. 2009. “Translation, Intertextuality, Interpretation.” Romance Studies 27 (3): 157–173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar