Translator subjectivity in the translation of cultural guidebook: “Don’t They Know It's Friday?”

Abstract

The Middle East, or the Arab countries, the preferred name by the locals, has this mystical veil to it and not much is known about the lives and way things are done in this part of the world. “Don’t They Know It’s Friday?” is a culturally-loaded guidebook written by a British with decades of experience in the Arab world. The translator for this project is an ethnic Chinese Singaporean servicing an Asian Chinese target audience. Clearly, Western lenses differ from Asian lenses; and the same is true of western receivers’ expectations from Asian receivers. In the translation process, the translator has to actively select and decide on what and how to convey the information, striking a dynamic balance between being faithful to the author and the reader. This exercising of translator subjectivity impacts the translation outcome and its communicative effectiveness. However, exertion is not without constraints. This paper seeks to examine the extent and expression of translator subjectivity that can be applied to the translation of a culturally loaded piece of work with content foreign to both the author and the translator. In the process, translation strategies such as adapted cultural translation, chunking, interference, translator preface, among others, are used to illustrate cultural and language nuances, catering to the target reader’s reception aesthetics.