Linguistic and Cultural Norms in Translating Fairy Tales : “Beauty and the Beast” as a Case Study

Abstract

“Beauty and the Beast”, “Cinderella, "and "Little Red Riding Hood” are famous fairy tales all over the world. Fairy tales are one of the most well-known, most loved, and most influential genres of literature. They are collections of stories from different cultures. Reading them is important in the early stages for children to develop their sense of creativity, critical thinking, and reading skills. The focus of the present study is to investigate linguistic and cultural norms in translating fairy tales from English into Arabic, as these norms play an important role in the translation process. To achieve this purpose, the original English version of “Beauty and the Beast” by The Brothers Grimm (1812), one of the most popular fairy tales, is chosen as a corpus to compare with Ladybird and Disney versions. The comparison is for extracting categories of linguistic and cultural norms, and the procedures used to translate them. Moreover, the research uses the qualitative method to analyze such categories and practically apply translation procedures to linguistic and cultural norms. The findings of this research showed that the most used procedures according Vinay and Darbelnet (1958) are: modulation, equivalence, literal translation, calque, and adaptation. This study answers the following questions: what are linguistic norms for translating fairy tales from English into Arabic? What are cultural norms in translating fairy tales from English into Arabic? What are the best procedures that should translators use? What is the role of a translator in translating fairy tales regarding linguistic and cultural norms?