Dealing with Dialects in Literary Translation: Problems and Strategies

Abstract

In reviewing the literature on dialect translation, we have noticed that there is a serious lack of translation studies in this important aspect of language variety. Translating dialects in literary genres is important for various reasons. The major one, among others, is that translating a dialect, from a language into another one, is crucial in reflecting a character's social personality, his/her educational background as well as the actual speech. In fact, playwrights attempt to describe certain geographical or regional features that are important in portraying life and characters of actors as should be in a literary work. The aim of the present study is to discuss some problems facing translators in translating dialects between English and Arabic. The proposed study also offers some suggestions to deal with such problems. Various types of English-Arabic and Arabic-English data will be used for illustration and for proposing some types of strategies to deal with dialect translation. The study expands on few previous studies related to dialect translation such as Hatim and Mason (1990 & 1997), Aziz (2002), Asfour (2007), and Farghal (2019). It also discusses the nature of dialect translation controversy between the proponents and opponents of the spoken and written forms of Arabic.