Translation Analysis of Grief Expressions in Literature: Selected Arabic-English Literary Works as a Model

Abstract

Grief is experienced every day, regardless culture, geographic location, personality, age differences. It affects people differently, and each individual expresses their grief uniquely. However, some people chose to express their grief by literature. Among all the difference ways of expressions, literature is one of the significant medium through which grief is conveyed. Literary writing is not merely for those who write to express their feeling, but also for the individuals who are unable to openly express their feelings and whose grief remains unacknowledged. The theoretical framework of this research introduces the relation between grief and modern Arab authors, outlines the process of translating literary texts, and introduces translation strategies proposed by vinay and darbelnet (1995) in translation. To illustrate the literary representation of grief, three modern Arabic literary works are selected for analysis: Death of Bed No. 12 (موت سرير رقم 12) by Ghassan Kanafani, Bringing Back a Melted Person استعادة شخص ذائب)) and The Beauty of the One Passing on (جمال العابر) by Wadih Saadeh. The analysis demonstrates that literary works can be effectively translated to deliver and convey the intended meaning; however the translator has to pay attention to the cultural connotation. The results show that the most used translation strategy in rendering these works is equivalence, whereas paraphrasing is the least used strategy.