Lexical Ideological Manipulations in Translation: George Orwell’s Animal Farm in Arabic

Abstract

Investigating ideological manipulations is a continuing concern within the field of translation study. Owing to the fact that George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm has been growing in popularity among Arab readers since the advent of the so-called Arab Spring, this project aims to explore the ideological manipulations and interventions in the translations of Orwell’s novel Animal Farm into Arabic in the context of different political periods. It aims to determine the extent to which political conflicts in the target culture affect the translator’s lexical choices. Moreover, it explores the translators’ personal ideological manipulations in the target texts (TTs). Also, it aims to identify the strategies adopted by translators that led to ideological manipulations. The study uses three translations of Animal Farm into Arabic by three different translators and publishers. The translators and publishers are from Egypt, which was one of the countries that was affected by events of the Arab Spring. One translation was published in 2008, slightly before the advent of the Arab spring and the other two translations were published several years before that in 1997 and 1951. Through adopting the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis, the study aims to investigate at a lexical level the ideological shifts that occurred in the translations and how these shifts resulted in a manipulation of the target text. It goes further to investigate how these shifts are related to the political context of the target culture and of the translators. Lastly, it will explore the strategies used by translators that resulted in ideological manipulation. Far too little attention has been paid to investigating ideology in the translation of political novels into Arabic. In most cases, recent investigators have examined the ideology in political speeches and discourses. This study will contribute to other studies concerned with ideology in translating political novels.