Translation and empathy: a habitus-based study of Lina Mounzer’s English translation of Syrian women’s trauma narratives

Abstract EN

The present paper aims to provide a habitus-oriented analysis of Lebanese writer and translator Lina Mounzer’s English translation of Syrian women’s trauma narratives of the Syrian civil war.

these narratives are published by the Syria stories platform.

it is a project launched by the institute for war and peace reporting to provide a space for Syrian women to narrate their stories of struggle in the thick of the war.

the paper is based on the argument that the Bourdieusian concept of habitus can be employed as an analytical tool to reveal how Mounzer’s translation strategies are imbued with her empathy which originates from a homology of painful war experiences.

Mounzer’s voice as a translator and the narrators’ voices are argued to have coalesced due to the confluence of Mounzer’s traumatic lebanese civil war memories and the Syrian women’s narratives that depict their oppression in their war-ravaged country.

the analysis is divided into two parts: macro-paratextual analysis and micro-textual analysis.

the macro paratextual analysis outlines Mounzer’s life trajectory to scrutinize the conditions that structured her habitus and informed her perception of translation.

the micro-textual analysis comprises an examination of extracts from the narratives Mounzer translated in order to highlight the strategies that mark her habitus-driven emotional engagement in and empathetic approach to the translation of Syrian women’s trauma narratives.