The Translation of English Proverbs into Albanian Language in the Religious Genre

Abstract

Proverbs are short culturally-bound expressions that give practical advice or a moral based on real life experience; they constitute a source of folk wisdom. The translation of proverbs has long been recognized as a critical issue in the field of translation due to their cultural peculiarities and semantic properties. The meaning of a proverb cannot be understood by the individual words it is composed of. This study explores how proverbs are translated in the religious genre, from English to Albanian language. 100 proverbs have been selected from “KJV’S Holy Bible”’s chapter entitled “Proverbs” in order to collect data. The corpus of proverbs has been thoroughly analyzed; each of the proverbs has been individually analyzed in order to identify the translation strategy that has been employed. Mona Baker’s model of translation for idioms and fixed expressions is used as the theoretical framework of this research for the analysis of translation strategies. The study concluded that the majority of the proverbs are translated by using a proverb with a similar meaning but a different form. Nevertheless, a considerable number of proverbs have been translated by means of a proverb with a similar meaning and form. Additionally, the study demonstrates whether domesticating or foreignizing translation strategies are more suitable for the translation of the proverbs in question. The results of the study have concluded that domestication is a more suitable translation strategy for the proverbs of the religious genre. Received: 6 June 2024 / Accepted: 25 July 2024 / Published: 29 July 2024