أثر الموروث الثقافيّ في ترجمة الرواية

Abstract

This research, titled ""The Impact of Cultural Heritage on the Translation of the Novel, the Trilogy of Mohammed Dib as a Model,"" studies the problem of translating cultural heritage as a difficult process that evokes many points and questions, at the same time. In general, the translation of cultural aspects in any literary work requires that the translator have a thorough knowledge of the culture of the original text, as the local culture does not appear in its smallest detail in the dictionaries. Thus, the translator's positon on translation is either to domesticate the text and subject it to the target culture, or to let its original culture pass the boundaries of the target culture as part of foreignization, which makes the source text travel, bearing its exoticism as well as its mother culture. It also allows the target reader to embrace or at least discover the “Other”, who certainly has a rather different worldview. Dib's trilogy is charged with aspects of Algerian culture, while it is written in the language of the “Other”, the adversary, the enemy: the French colonizer. It should be noted that the text of Dib itself can be considered as a first translation, because the writer has transmitted in French his ideas that come from his original culture. In addition, the mind is invaded by questions, since it has been translated twice, one by Sami al-Darubi, a Syrian translator, and the other by Ahmed ben Mohammed Bkelli, an Algerian translator. The first thing to notice, then, is that one of them (the two translators) has the same culture of origine as the writer, since both of them are Algerians. So, what is the impact of this fact on translation? And what is the purpose of the re-translation of the text, especially since the second translation is supposed to be different from the first one, and to express itself aloud so as not to be a repetition. The translation of culturally chaged texts evokes discussions, especially since translation builds bridges to the dialogue between civilizations, and opens the wide onto acculturation: it is the guarantee of the diversity that globalization attempts to eliminate by replacing it with a unique culture as a form of cultural invasion that masks identities and eliminates differences. In this sense, translation becomes a very dangerous process that can lead to conflict. This explains the appeal of some specialists to ethics of translation, raising issues such as: quality standards, fidelity, betrayal, and so on. The use of cultural heritage in Dib’s trilogy was made for an explicit purpose, being a text written during the colonial era. It is therefore a pillar of the text, used by the writer to avenge on the enemy, in his fight to claim identity. As a result, both translators translated the text while they tried to keep this heritage illustrated by names, places, food, clothing, etc. However, there were big differences between their translations. In sum, the comparative analytical study I have followed in this research has shown that the imprint of each translator's cultural heritage had been left on his translation.