Translation of Irony in Literary Texts from English into Arabic

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of translation as a means of communication in transferring the meaning of irony of the source text. It adopts a descriptive analytical approach. Taking Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899) and its translation Kalb Dallam (2004) as its practical corpora. The dissertation draws on the use of irony in literature and its translation techniques as it examines the difficulties in translating stylistic features in general and irony in specific. Accordingly, the first part of the analysis is about the concept of irony as a term and as a means of style in literature. The second part, however, is a descriptive analysis of the strategies and procedures used to translate irony in Kalb Dallam. Through the examination of several passages, it is found out that the translator Harb Mouhamed Chahine, succeeded in offering the reader the same ironic impact in most ironic passages. The dissertation concludes that in spite of the efforts of the translator to convey the same ironic impact from the ST to TT sometimes he finds himself obliged to make slight changes in the ironic passages, in order to reinforce the ironic impact in the TT. Also, sometimes he changes some cultural items that cannot be used on the TT