Investigating Explicitation in Literary Translation from English into Arabic

Abstract

The present paper tests the general tendency in translation studies that translated texts are more explicit than source texts or non-translated texts in the same language. It is basically based on Blum-Kulka's (1986) hypothesis which argues that explicitness is a translation universal. The hypothesis has been tested with reference to a considerable number of languages such as German, English, Persian, etc. The present paper attempts to find out the validity of Blum-Kulka's (1986) hypothesis in English-Arabic translation. The translation of Gibran's The Garden of the Prophet has been taken as a case study and the recurrence of explicitation is investigated at the lexico-grammatical, pragmatic and translation-inherent levels. Using an eclectic approach based on Blum-Kulka's (1986) hypothesis and the refinements of the hypothesis as suggested by Klaudy (2008), Pym (2005), Heltai (2005) and Schmied and Schäffler (1997), the paper suggests that explicitness is reflected in the Arabic translated texts at the grammatical, lexical, pragmatic and translation-inherent levels.