Explicitation as a Universal Translation Technique in an Arabic Translation of Gibran Khalil Gibran’s “The Prophet”

Ali, Ayatalla

doi:10.21608/buhuth.2021.79251.1120

Explicitation as a Universal Translation Technique in an Arabic Translation of Gibran Khalil Gibran’s “The Prophet”

Document Type : Academic research papers

Author

Ayatalla Ali

Linguistics and Translation Department, College of Language and Communication, Arab Academy for Science, Technology &amp; Maritime Transport

10.21608/buhuth.2021.79251.1120

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the occurrences of explicitation as a universal translation technique. This technique has been investigated thoroughly it became known in the field of translation as one of the translation universals as discussed in Routledge (Baker, 1998/2005, p.289). Explicitation has different techniques and they occur with different frequencies. As a result, the paper seeks to investigate the reasons behind these different frequencies and introduce them. Concerning the analysis, El-Nashar’s (2016) framework is used as the tool of the analysis. The paper analyses an English literary text that is translated into Arabic which is “The Prophet” by Gibran Khalil Gibran and translated by Tharwat Okasha. The number of words in the source text is 1,202 words while the number of words in the target text is 930 words which reveals that explicitation occurrence is not a condition to have a longer translated text. The aim of the paper is to find corroborate evidence through analyzing and comparing the English text and its Arabic translation. The comparison between the two texts highlights the aspects of similarities and differences. These aspects reveal the reasons behind using explicitation as universal translation technique.

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