Babel - Volume 71, Issue 2, 2025

Abstract

Since the launch of Vision2030, 2023 has marked significant transformations in Saudi Arabia, particularly in sports, culture, and technology. This has significantly increased the reporting of international news agencies on such events, which is, however, absent in the literature of translation studies. There is a notable gap in the literature regarding the role of mediated paratexts in news trans-editing within the Saudi context. This paper examines how recontextualized paratexts from Saudi sources contribute to gatekeeping and reframing the perception of Saudi Arabia in global media, focusing on the comparative case studies on the BBC and the Xinhua. The paper draws on Baker’s (2006) narrative strategies of selective appropriation and labeling as a methodological framework. The dataset involves a parallel corpus of 304 reports in English and Arabic from the BBC and the Xinhua published between January and December 2023. The findings reveal that paratextual frames play a crucial role in shaping how each news agency perceives the transformations in Saudi Arabia through remarkable reframing in the thematic selections.

Abstract

This article analyzes the translation of Key-Phrase (KP) allusions in the short story collection “al-‘Abarāt” by Al-Manfaluti from Arabic to English. More specifically, it looks into how the translator handled the complexity that arises from the highly intertextual and dialogical nature of Al-Manfaluti’s work. Drawing on Leppihalme’s (1997) categorization of allusions and Venuti’s (2009) approach to the translation of intertextuality, this research maps the translation strategies that the translator employed and their effectiveness in the course of reconstituting source text intertextuality in the target language. The results showed that, by and large, the translator very often employed a literal translation strategy by focusing on semantic correspondence. Such an approach produced a translation that failed to capture the rich intertextual relations in Al-Manfaluti’s original, leading to much cultural and thematic loss. The article concludes that a hermeneutic rather than an instrumental approach would be more effective at preserving the intertextual richness of source texts.

Abstract

French translations of Nigerian literature have evolved since its introduction in France in 1953. Previous research documented periodic gaps and accounted for an ongoing translation of Nigerian literary texts in France. Since Nigerian literature has emerged as one of France’s most translated Anglophone African works, this study pursues this field by investigating how the French target culture receives and legitimizes this new literature. Consequently, it discusses several zones for the reception of Nigerian literature translated in France. Through a case study of the translation of a Nigerian writer, a general analysis of a mainstream French magazine and review platforms, and information garnered from interviews and fieldwork in France, this study shows that the prestige of a publisher, an author’s literary status, and thematic and political leanings contribute to successful reception and visibility in the target literary system. Critical and popular reception analyses from this study indicate progress in the domain of translated Nigerian literature, such as that translated Nigerian literature is featured in a mainstream French magazine. However, they show a lack of more comprehensive and systematic representation crucial for literary legitimization and visibility of translated Nigerian literature.

Abstract

The imperative significance of translation and translators, the existence of multiple synchronic translations of the same literary works, and the stringent censorship enforced by a totalitarian theocratic regime on translators are among numerous facets that render the Iranian context a promising subject for translational research, transcending its geographical boundaries. However, despite the distinct peculiarities of this domain, the matter of translation censorship in Iran has not garnered the scholarly attention it warrants. In contrast to academic literature, the issue of censorship in translation has received relatively more substantial coverage in non-academic Persian-speaking journals and newspapers within Iran, wherein interviews with professional translators are frequently featured. This discrepancy highlights a disconnect between academia and the practical realities concerning the plight of translation censorship in Iran, necessitating reconciliation. Accordingly, this paper addresses this disparity by elucidating the enigma of translation censorship in Iran, meticulously expounding its operative mechanisms and the primary actors involved.

Abstract

This paper draws on the conception of rhizome in Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia ([1980] 1987), to (re)define Chineseness as a cultural phenomenon of identification in a postmodern assemblage. The author argues that the postmodern reading of (diasporic) Chineseness is rhizomatic without an authentic arboreal essence. The conclusions will be borne on Douglas Robinson’s theoretical explorations of interepistemic translation between China and the West, based on the premise that transculturation and enculturation can be seen as a process of interepistemic translation with translationality at their core.

This article reviews Narratives of Mistranslation. Fictional Translators in Latin American Literature

This article reviews The Transculturation of Judge Dee Stories: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

This article reviews Using Technologies for Creative-Text Translation

This article reviews The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Memory

This article reviews Translation Ethics