Jordanian Folkloric Songs in Translation

Mousa's Song They Have Passed by Without a Company as a Case Study

Bibliographic Data

ID4786591
AuthorsBakri Al-Azzam (The Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan), Bakri H Al-Azzam (0000-0003-3981-2594, Hashemite University), Aladdin Al-Kharabsheh (King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)
Year2012
Volume56
Issue3
Pages557-578
Publication date2012-03-06
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMeta Journal des traducteurs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0026-0452 • E-ISSN: 1492-1421
PublisherConsortium Erudit (PUBLISHER • CA)
DOI10.7202/1008333ar
OpenAlexW2061874894
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited30

Folkloric song-translation is a research area that diverges acutely from the centre of interest of interlingual-intercultural transfer in general, and Arabic-English translation studies in particular. This paper attempts to shed light into Abdu Mousa's culture-bound songmarren wa ma ma'hin hada(they have passed by without a company), as an instance of the challenges that folkloric songs may pose in translation, and how, when translating between cultures with different discursive properties, the translator has a certainleewaywhen reformulating the lingual-cultural import of the source text for target readers. Drawing on Low's (2005a)Pentathlon Approach, and placing a strong emphasis oncontent, the study highlights the problems and difficulties involved in translating this type of song, and demonstrates a number of unique aspects of translating folkloric songs, which involve elements of sense, naturalness, cultural references, and how these elements are interconnected and entangled with each other. These insurmountable difficulties are accounted for by the existing sharp linguistic and cultural differences between Arabic and English, and, the incompatibilities between the two workingconcept systemsof the two languages, which add to the intricacy of translating this type of literature. On a less formal level, colloquialism has been found to have had its way to the source language text, a factor which further complicates the abridgement process

Arabic · Art · Folklore · Linguistics · Literature · Naturalness · Sociology · Source text · Computer Science · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Philosophy · Swearing, Euphemism, Multilingualism · Translation Studies and Practices

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