The application of venuti's translational strategies to the translation of Conrad's novel heart of darkness from English into Arabic

Abstract EN

One of the most essential goals of translation is to bridge the gap between two cultures in two different languages since the misunderstanding of the SL culture may cause mistranslation especially in translating the literary text.

In the light of that culture and literary language are elements that should be taken into consideration.

The current study aims at applying Venuti's strategies of translation (1995) in Joseph Conrad's novel “Heart of Darkness” from English into Arabic.

The main aims of this study are to identify the most common strategies adopted by the translators of the above novel according to Venuti's strategies of translation and explore the basic problems found in the translation of the novel to indicate whether the translations are appropriate or not.

One of the problematic issues that may appear is the difference between English and Arabic that makes translation between them challenging.

Also, the aesthetic function of literary language could be problematic to the translation, in which it might cause ambiguity.

To grasp the above-mentioned aims and produce a well-translated literary work, the study hypothesizes that translating the literary texts especially the figurative images make problems for translators.

So, translators need to investigate the expressions of figurative language that relate to the literary language carefully such as simile, metaphor, irony.

etc.

To achieve the validity of those hypotheses, applying Venuti's strategies which comprise two opposing concepts: domestication and foreignization seem suitable strategies to present almost appropriate rendering.

The study concludes that due to the differences in culture and language between the English and Arabic languages, especially in the field of literature, many problems may appear in the translation process.

Hence the translator has to decide on which strategy or method he should adopt to bridge this gap and transfer the message effectively.