The cognate accusative (CA) in Arabic grammar is a unique structure that has no direct equivalent in English. This paper analyses the various strategies that can be used to translate CA instances and assesses the success of these strategies. The research particularly looks into The Call of the Curlew, the English translation of Taha Hussein’s novel Doa’a Al-Karawn, which serves as a model to analyse the Arabic CAs and their English counterparts. To evaluate the naturalness and acceptability of the renditions, a questionnaire is disseminated to 91 translation experts and 18 native English speakers. The results show the difficulties surrounding the translation of the CA as indicated by the translator, who states in the introduction to his translation that Hussein’s literary production has been labelled “untranslatable” by some scholars because of the literary language of the novel. The study, therefore, concludes with the main strategies used to render this Arabic-specific structure into English based on the analysis of the selected work of literature and the quantitative results of the questionnaire.

Authors:
Mohd Nour Al Salem, The University of Jordan, Jordan

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Mohd Nour Al Salem is a University Assistant Professor/Lecturer at The University of Jordan in Jordan

See this presentation on the full schedule – Saturday Schedule

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