The paper titled Intrinsic Managing and the English-Arabic Translation of Fictional Registers by Hadeel Saed, Ahmad S. Haider, Sausan Abu Tair, and Eisa Asiri focuses on the process of translating fictional registers from English to Arabic, using both literary works and audiovisual media as data. The study examines the challenges of intrinsic managing, a method used to make translations cohesive and coherent without altering the source material's meaning. However, this method can sometimes lead to translation losses, particularly in works where language plays a stylistic role.
In the introduction, the authors explain that many fictional characters speak in distinct registers or dialects created by linguistic manipulation, blending real-world and fictional languages. Audiovisual media and novels like A Clockwork Orange, 1984, The Smurfs, and Young Justice serve as case studies. Translators often opt for naturalization to make the target text more accessible but risk losing the unique stylistic features of the source text.
The literature review highlights different theoretical perspectives on translation, such as domestication and foreignization, and emphasizes the complexity of achieving equivalence between the source and target languages. The review also discusses the limitations of current translation strategies, which often prioritize the target text over the source text's stylistic and linguistic features.
The methodology section explains that the study adopts a descriptive-qualitative approach, analyzing selected texts for their use of fictional registers and comparing the translation strategies employed. Works like A Clockwork Orange use fictional slang, while 1984 employs Newspeak, a controlled language designed to limit thought.
The findings reveal that intrinsic managing frequently leads to naturalization in translation, where translators replace unfamiliar terms with functional equivalents. This results in a loss of stylistic features, as seen in the translation of A Clockwork Orange, where Russian-English slang is simplified in Arabic. Similarly, Newspeak in 1984 loses its rigid, simplified nature in the Arabic translation. The study also explores the translation of humor in The Amazing World of Gumball and Young Justice, where backformations and linguistic jokes are often lost in the translation process.
In the discussion, the authors argue that intrinsic managing should be seen as a process of decoding and recoding both the sense and form of the source text. They emphasize the importance of preserving the stylistic features of the original work, particularly in translations involving fictional registers.
The conclusion highlights that while intrinsic managing often aims to create a natural flow in the target text, this approach can result in significant losses when translating intentionally unnatural language. The authors call for more attention to the stylistic features of the source text in future translations. The paper ends with a discussion of the limitations of the study and suggests areas for future research, such as examining translations in other language pairs and using a corpus-based approach to enrich the data.