The Position and Status of Translated Manga in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Manga translations offer a valuable opportunity for studying the complex interactions and dialogues between different cultures and modes of communication. This study takes a multimodal approach and a comparative qualitative analysis to explore the translation of manga in the Saudi market, which started recently in 2021. The emphasis is on illustrating how the link between the verbal and visual modes may be used in the translation process and how much input translators, and perhaps publishers, have in it. The research also seeks to explore the status of this new genre in Saudi literary systems, employing Evan Zohar’s division between central and peripheral strata based on the degree of intervention made to the target text and the tactics employed. The article includes instances of the Japanese manga Attack on Titan as well as its Arabic translation by the Saudi publisher Manga Arabia. The findings indicate that translation intervention was kept to a minimum, most likely because the translated manga is in a central position and no previous patterns were used to introduce this genre to the Saudi market. KEYWORDS comics, Japanese manga, multimodality, Saudi manga, translation, translator’s intervention