Otherness in Translation: Postcolonial Arabic Novel Translated into English

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to examine the role of translation as a manipulative tool in the distortion/ celebration of Otherness in the Source Text. It adopts a descriptive analytical approach. Taking Tayyeb Salih’sMawsim al-Hijra ila al-Shamal (1966) and its translation Seasonof Migration to the North (1969) as its practical corpora, the dissertation draws on the postcolonial literary criticism as it draws on cultural and postcolonial approaches to translation. Accordingly, the first part of the analysis is a postcolonial reading of the novel. It tackles the theme of the encounter between the East and the West and that of identity construction. The second part, however, is a descriptive analysis of the strategies and procedures used to translate culture-bound references defining Otherness in Season of Migration to the North. Through the examination of several passages, it is found out that the translator, Denys Johnson-Davies, uses domesticating strategies of translation, thus emphasizing the hegemony of the English language and the subsequent superiority of the Western culture. The dissertation concludes that in spite of introducing new models based on foreignizing the TT and retaining the heterogeneities of the ST, many of the practice of translation in the Center is still attached to notions of self- confirmation.