Culture and the Translation of Self-Help Discourse

Abstract

The discourse of self-help books has gained popularity during the last decade or so. Cross-culturally, however, this discourse incorporates different cultural beliefs that might cause problems for the "other" and for translators. Within this context, the aim of this thesis is to assess the translation of Elizabeth Gilbert's 2006 book, Eat, Pray, Love, translated to Arabic in 2009 by Zeina Idris, under the title "ٛؼب ،َ لٕاح ، ؽت " (Ta'aam, Salaah, Hub). Due to the importance of culture in this era of globalization, cross-cultural communication tends to raise issues and pose problems that affect text receivers, including translators. This is particularly the case with a book such as Eat, Pray, Love-as one of the bestselling self-help books-containing elements from four cultures (English, Italian, Indian, Indonesian), that become five when considering the Arabic translation. The Arabic translation shows an aggressively interventionist approach by the translator in dealing with elements that are not compatible with Arab/Islamic culture. This methodology raises larger questions about fidelity and the ethics of translation. Search Terms: Translation, Culture, Elizabeth Gilbert, Zeina Idris, cross-cultural communication, self-help books, Arabic