Examining Cultural Equivalence used in the Translation of Dammaj's Novel "Al-Rahinah"

Abstract

This research paper examines the type of cultural equivalence used in translating Dammaj's novel "Al-Rahinah" into English by May Jayyusi and Christopher Tingley. Using Nida's ideas about formal and dynamic equivalence, this study looks into whether the cultural aspects of Yemen in "Al-Rahinah" were communicated in a formal or an adaptive way. During the analysis, the type of equivalence used was identified and quantified. In this case, formal equivalence was rarely used, although dynamic equivalence seemed to be mainly employed to transfer the Yemeni cultural items into English. Generally, it appeared that the translators relied on the dynamic equivalence to add, explain, replace, or omit source linguistic terms that may have resulted in a significant loss and misrepresentation of Yemeni culture. Besides, the formal equivalence approach was inefficient because it presupposed a word-for-word translation of cultural items, which led to their ineffective conveyance in the target language. As the research findings showed, none of the dynamic and formal equivalency in translation contributed to the better translation outcome because both approaches concealed a significant number of cultural notions present in the source text.

Keywords: "Al-Rahinah", cultural and dynamic equivalence,  word-for-word translation