Analyzing Translation Strategies and Procedures for Culture-Specific Items in Morning and Evening Talk by Naguib Mahfouz

Authors

  • Safaa Muhammad Rababah

    School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang 11800, Malaysia
  • Mohamed Abdou Moindjie

    School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang 11800, Malaysia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i9.10810
Received: 30 June 2025 | Revised: 7 July 2025 | Accepted: 18 July 2025 | Published Online: 8 September 2025

Abstract

This study explores the translation of Culture-Specific Items (CSIs) in the English version of Naguib Mahfouz's novel, Morning and Evening Talk. The study follows Newmark's (1988) classification of cultural categories and translation procedures, Venuti's (1995) concepts of domestication and foreignization, and Toury's (2012) norms of adequacy versus acceptability. A total of 340 CSIs were identified and categorized. A quantitative analysis was conducted to highlight the distribution and frequency of the translation procedures and strategies. For the qualitative analysis, a purposive sample of 50 CSIs was selected to represent the religious, social, material, historical, and idiomatic aspects. These cultural items were analyzed considering the translator's strategic approach and the procedures used. The findings reveal that there is a consistent preference for foreignization and adequacy—particularly in the rendering of religious and material elements—highlighting the translator's orientation toward preserving cultural authenticity. Unlike the dominant trend of domestication in Arabic–English literary translation, this study provides functional insights into the translation of cultural aspects in literature and examines the translator's role in shaping the representation of culture-specific items through specific strategies and procedures. The results show that direct translation, foreignization, and adequacy prevail over indirect translation, domestication and acceptability. The study not only contributes to the expanding field of CSI translation research but also offers a micro-level account of translation strategies in one of Mahfouz's most ideological novels.

Keywords:

CSIs; Translation Procedures; Translation Strategies; Adequacy and Acceptability Norms

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How to Cite

Rababah, S. M., & Moindjie, M. A. (2025). Analyzing Translation Strategies and Procedures for Culture-Specific Items in Morning and Evening Talk by Naguib Mahfouz. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(9), 421–432. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i9.10810

Issue

Vol. 7 , Iss. 9 (September 2025): In progress

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Article

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Copyright © 2025 Safaa Muhammad Rababah, Mohamed Abdou Moindjie

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This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.