The Translational Treatment of Social Culture and Social Organization items in Orwell’s 1984

Abstract

The translation of culture-specific items (CSIs) in literary texts is problematic and challenging. They hold a critical position in the process of translation as they are bound to their source culture and language. Translators tend to render these items using specific translation techniques. These techniques influence and in turn are influenced by the two translation strategies: foreignization and domestication. These CSIs could be divided according to Newmark (1988) into five categories. However, the present study aims to reveal, discuss, and compare the techniques used along with the strategies followed in treating two categories namely social culture and social organization in George Orwell’s ‘1984’ from English into two Arabic translations. The Novel is translated by two translators Anwar Achami (2006) and Alharith Nabhan (2014). To achieve trustworthiness, Toury’s (1995) descriptive translation methodology and Creswell’s (2012) mixed methods research is adopted to describe, analyse, and interpret how, when, and why Pederson’s (2005) translation techniques are used and to take out clear data about the Venutian’s (1995) domestication and foreignization. The study follows the explanatory design. First, the quantitative data is collected manually and uploaded into an Excel sheet format for analysis. It is followed by qualitative data collection and analyses. 162 coupled pairs were identified. The results show that the translators use different translation techniques to produce different translations. Besides, there are various factors influencing translators’ choices and orientations.