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Article published In:
Babel
Vol. 66:6 (2020) ► pp.902–927

Does culture translate?

Evidence from translating proverbs

| Ibb University

This study strives to answer one major question: Does culture translate?, employing the translation of English proverbs into Arabic by senior students majoring in English. The study involves 30 English proverbs collected from different sources, based on three criteria, namely complete Arabic equivalence, partial Arabic equivalence and zero Arabic equivalence. These 30 proverbs were distributed to 20 randomly selected senior students as participants. The participants translated the 30 proverbs in the form of a translation test in two phases. The results of the study show that teaching the cultural aspects of the proverbs has developed and improved the participants’ translations considerably, thus providing empirical evidence that culture translates.

Keywords: culture, proverb, Arabic, proverbial equivalence, culture acquisition
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Culture
    • 2.1Culture and proverbs
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Data collection
    • 3.3Instrument
    • 3.4Procedure
    • 3.5Teaching of proverbs’ cultural aspects
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Phase one
      • 4.1.1Complete Arabic equivalence
      • 4.1.2Partial Arabic equivalent
      • 4.1.3Zero Arabic equivalent
    • 4.2Phase two
      • 4.2.1Complete Arabic equivalence
      • 4.2.2Partial Arabic equivalence
      • 4.2.3Zero Arabic equivalence
  • 5.Conclusions and further issues
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
Published online: 4 December 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00201.sho
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