A Critical Analysis of the English Translation of Raja Alem’s Novel, The Dove’s Necklace

Abstract

It is commonly perceived that the language people use is the product of their culture. The focus on culture is reflected in the field of literary translation, so cultural translation is recommended for full understanding of a literary source text (ST). Dealing with the problems related to cultural translation, Lawrence Venuti (1992) emphasizes the importance of linking the culture and ideology of the ST to the target text (TT). The researcher hypothesizes that the translators face difficulties in finding cultural equivalence based on the fact that no two languages are identical to each other. This conflict raises the question of what strategies translators should apply when they interpret cultural terms. This research aims at examining the English translation of Raja Alem’s Novel, The Dove’s Necklace (2012) based House’s (2015) Model of Translation Quality Assessment and Ghazala’s (2014) strategies of translating culture-specific concepts in order to identify the strategies that the translators applied in order to overcome the problems of untranslatability and culture-specific expressions.