Negotiating Meaning Across Cultures: A Functional Analysis of Translation Strategies in Rendering of Arabic Cultural and Ideological Expressions into English

Abstract

Translation is one of the most challenging fields of intercultural communication because of the differences between Arabic and English in language, culture, history, and ideology. The present study focuses on the strategies of translators in translating Arabic cultural and ideological expressions into English, and it particularly examines how translators negotiate meanings, preserve cultural identity, and communicate effectively in the target language. Based on the functional paradigm of translation studies, especially Skopos theory and functional equivalence, the study explores the relationship between the intentions of the source text and the functions of the target text. The selected Arabic expressions from literary and media discourse and their English equivalents are analyzed in relation to ways in which the translators used foreignizing, domesticating, adaptive, or explicatory strategies. The study claims that translating from Arabic to English is not just a linguistic substitution process, but a cultural mediation process that requires interpretation, negotiation, and decision-making. The results indicate that the translation must be balanced between the semantic level and the pragmatic and cultural level. This work makes a significant contribution to the field of Arabic – English translation studies and emphasizes the function of translator agency in transferring a culturally embedded meaning across linguistic boundaries