Abstract:
Self – translation is an exceptional translation activity which is defined as being the
translation made by the author of the original text.
A linguistic phenomenon which is Translingualism has given birth to this kind of
translation activity, after the colonisation movement that affected some countries
in the modern world; a new generation of bilingual writers appeared who wrote
their works using two different languages reflecting two far cultures.
The Maghreb Literature is known for being a French literature, and if we take the
Algerian literature as an example, we notice that majority of authors wrote their
works in French, a language that has been imposed on them by the French
occupation which made all its efforts to prohibit the use of Arabic as a language of
education in schools, aiming at the eradication of the basis of the Algerian people
identity. Hence, the Algerian authors wrote in French and tried to transmit the
sufferings and the bitter real- life of the Algerians using the language of Voltaire,
that language was of such a perfection that seemed to be their mother tongue, the
fact that incited them to use it as a means enabling them to confirm their
belonging and to prove their identity.
Starting from their Bilingualism, many authors have chosen the translation of their
works into Arabic for their Arab readers in the scope of self-translation that raises
many problems in the field of translation studies because “ Me” and the “Other”
are the same person the fact that involves social, cultural and psychological features
that intervene while achieving the self-translation act.
Incontestably, the self-translator is a privileged translator enjoying of an absolute
freedom being the Owner of the original text and the best interpreter of the
author’s intentions ( himself ), this authority gives him the right to make some
modifications to his original text (additions, omissions, substitutions,
transpositions…) notably while translating cultural facts by which his society is
distinguished.
As we all know, the transfer of the cultural specificities imposes many challenges
for all the translators – either ordinary ones or self-translators -mainly when the
source text is historically and culturally far from the target one. In self-translation,
the problem becomes more important since the spirit of the self-translator
balances between two different worlds and two distinct cultures, the fact that
obliges him to pursue divers translation methods: sometimes he adopts
domesticating strategies and other times he uses foreignizing ones, having as an
only objective the production of a clear text and easy to understand in the target
language for the reader.