Al-Shaye, Shatha Abdullah Abdulrahman; (2018) The Retranslation Phenomenon: A Sociological Approach to the English Translations of Dickens' Great Expectations into Arabic. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The thesis aims to examine the phenomenon of retranslation as a socially situated activity. It provides an evidence-based approach to the practice of literary retranslation in Arabic-speaking countries, a cultural space that has not been examined thoroughly and systematically. This thesis goes beyond established research and compelements existing studies by highlighting the importance of ascertaining the details beyond theoretical issues related to retranslation using the support of textual, paratextual and contextual evidence from a comparative analysis of a number of translations. Through a text-based analysis of the translations and a reassessment of the recent literature on retranslation, the thesis scrutinizes how the motivation for retranslation can be explained by adopting multiple sociological perspectives. The main theoretical framework is premised on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory and the sociology of Paratranslation. These perceptions of translational activities combine together thus providing a solid theoretical framework for analysing and understanding the phenomenon of retranslation. Four translations of the novel Great Expectations (1861), written by Charles Dickens, acknowledged as the most accomplished, celebrated, and successful novelist of the prolific 19th-century English literature, have been selected as a case study of retranslation for Arabic-speaking audiences. The study provides textual and paratextual analysis of the retranslations in question and describes the influence of the socio-cultural conditions on translation in Arabic-speaking countries. The study tests the validity of the Retranslation Hypothesis to explain the phenomenon of retranslation and demonstrates that both linguistic factors and sociological influences play a key role in motivating the repetitive act of retranslation. This research proposes a new interpretation of the phenomenon in the light of multiple sociological theories. Such theories are revisited to provide a sociological understanding of the phenomenon, as a way of providing an alternative interpretation to existing views on retranslation.

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