Problems of Literary Translation

(An epistemological study on translating some Persian novels into Arabic)

Abstract

We rarely encounter a literary text that is not directly linked to the personality and influence of its writer. This has been a cause for many discussions and debates among researchers and those interested in it for nearly a century, without their efforts achieving a specific definition of the nature and essence of this text. Every literary work is a complex and intertwined unit, formed by a group of linguistic and cognitive practices, which is impossible to understand or treat as a rigid unit that stopped at a specific time. We must address it as a creative text in the context of a language formulated according to literary, social, historical, and psychological characteristics that are independent and isolated from other languages ​​surrounding it. In light of the stakes of the literary text and its challenges that confront the translator during the process of reproducing it in the target language; Especially its aesthetic features, comparing the translation of this text with other texts containing expected information often seems impossible. As a result of these two characteristics, many problems and challenges appeared before the translator of the literary text, the most prominent of which are: the cognitive and non-cognitive tools that are related to conveying the hidden contents of the literary text, including aphorisms, idiomatic expressions, linguistic habits, and humorous or sarcastic allusions inspired from within. Society, in addition to the capabilities of his translator, which enable him to convey styles, cultures, and history in a manner consistent with the intentions of his writer. Not to mention that this type of text is characterized by phonetic, lexical, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic features, which make the process of translating it a complex and thorny process. In the end, the study expects to include the two Arabic versions of the novels “Shahnaza, The Return of the Father,” written by Omar Safar, and translated by Dr. Karamatullah Usmanov, and “I Will Turn Off the Lamps,” written by the Iranian writer Zoya Pirzad, and translated by Dr. Howaida Ezzat Muhammad and Dr. Mona Ahmed. Hamid, presented many problems facing translators, especially the implications of idiomatic expressions and linguistic habits, in addition to some implications specific to some Persian dialects.