Positioning the Autobiographer in the Arabic Translation of Eat, pray, love: A Study of the (re)Framing Techniques

Abstract

A narrative is a means through which people can experience the worldwhich Mona Baker (2006) defines as the stories people tell themselves aboutthe world to construct reality and guide people’s behaviors. There are variousforms of narratives, and the genre of autobiography in which the writer decidesto share his/her experience with others is just an example of the ontologicalnarrative where the writer narrates his/her story. The significance ofautobiographies as an ontological narrative coincides with the rise of femaleautobiographers who chronicle their lives to guide other women towardsleading a better life. Autobiographers give themselves a certain position in thenarrative world which can be subjected to change and alteration when theautobiography is translated into another language. Retaining theautobiographer’s position is one of the challenges facing translators,especially, if the autobiography and its translation do not belong to the sameculture. Baker’s (2006) Narrative Theory is one of the theories which canaccount for the changes occurring to the autobiographer’s position whentranslated. The paper uses Baker’s (re)framing scheme to examine therepositioning of the autobiographer, Elizabeth Gilbert, in the Arabictranslation of Eat, pray, love: One woman’s search for everything across Italy,India and Indonesia. The study attempts to identify the (re)framing techniquescapable of changing the autobiographer’s. It also highlights the importance ofthe integration between the Narrative Theory (Baker, 2006) and thePositioning Theory (Davies & Harre, 1990), especially, that the narrative typecan change in the translation