Translation Strategies of Book Titles from English into Arabic and Vice Versa

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the strategies for translating book titles from English into Arabic and vice versa. To achieve the goal of the study, one hundred English book titles and one hundred Arabic book titles were collected and compared to their translations. The collected data were analyzed and investigated. The results revealed that the translators applied several strategies for translating book titles from English into Arabic and vice versa. In titles translated from Arabic to English, translators applied seven strategies: literal translation, translation plus transliteration, translation plus addition, translation plus modifications, transliteration alone, transliteration plus addition and adaptation. However,, in the titles translated from English to Arabic, translators applied eight strategies; seven of them were the same as in the translation of titles from Arabic into English. The strategy that differed is keeping the original title. The analysis also indicates that the highest percentage goes for the literal translation strategy from Arabic book titles to English (62%) and (51%) from English book titles to Arabic. The percentages of the other strategies ranged between 1% to 18%. Keywords: Translation, Functions of book titles, translation strategies, English book titles, Arabic book titles