CULTURAL TRANSFER BETWEEN DOMESTICATION AND FOREIGNIZATION: LITERARY TRANSLATIONS FROM ENGLISH INTO ARABIC

Abstract

Our intention in this article is to connect the two techniques of translation as defined by Lawrence Venuti as domestication and foreignization with the principle of translation as a form of cultural transfer. If the concept of foreignization leads the reader to the source text through a foreign cultural contribution to the target culture, domestication brings the source text closer to the reader’s culture. We apply Venuti’s theory to literary translation from English into Arabic to demonstrate the translator’s involvement in this form of cultural transfer by providing relevant examples: Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, and Alan Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams (from English into Arabic), and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (from English into Arabic, Romanian, and Polish).