Allusion: A Functional Evaluation of Peter Theroux’s Translation Dongola: A Novel of Nubia with Reference to Idris Ali’s Original Novel Dunqulah: Riwayah Nubiyah

Abstract

This study addresses the translation of allusion in Arabic into English from a qualitative functional perspective. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the functional adequacy of Peter Theroux’s English translation of the allusions employed by Idris Ali in his Arabic novel Dunqulah: Riwayah Nubiyah (1993), via implementing Nord’s functional model of translation-oriented text analysis (1991). The study entails two initial hypotheses. First, Theroux, as a non-native speaker of Arabic, would encounter linguistic, cultural, and pragmatic translation difficulties. Second, the anticipated translation difficulties are expected to affect the functional adequacy of Theroux’s translation of allusion into English. The findings indicate that: Peter Theroux, as an American translator whose mother tongue is English, encountered linguistic, cultural, and pragmatic translation difficulties, which affected, to varying degrees, the functional adequacy of his English translation of allusion. Additionally, Theroux’s rendering of the allusions using the literal sub-strategy into English has negatively affected their functional adequacy due to the linguistic and cultural gaps between the two languages. The study concludes that adopting the literal sub-strategy has led to a functionally inadequate English translation of the Arabic allusions. Furthermore, Nord’s model (1991) would be a useful top-down problem-solving tool for translation between linguistically and culturally distant languages as it would aid the translator in identifying the anticipated linguistic, cultural, and pragmatic divergences between the languages. The produced translation would be based on a problem-solution process conducted by the translator rather than a discursive method of translation.