Literary Style in the Arabic Translation of Charlotte Bronte’s The Professor

Abstract

This article deals with the translation of stylistic features in Charlotte Bronte’s The Professor into Arabic. Aspects of Bronte’s versatile style include the French air (French words, expressions and stretches of French language), figurative language, and lexis with intellectual and social significance. Bronte’s text is compared with a published Arabic translation by Basil Saleem. The researchers highlight the translator’s attempts to make the text flow smoothly to engage Arab readers in Bronte’s universally appealing novel. The target text (TT) intimates modifications in author-text-reader relationships. The novelist’s bilingualism, which is noticed in using French language at several junctures in the novel, is mostly dispensed with in the TT. In addition, imagery embedded in Bronte’s figurative language is modified. Shifts can also be noticed in lexis conveying various associations. It is highlighted that translation is a sort of creative linguistic and cultural mediation.