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Would translating a work of literature cause it to lose some of its stylistic characteristics?

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Question added by Sarah Ali , Senior Evaluation Specialist , United Nations
Date Posted: 2016/12/22
Magdi Ahmed
by Magdi Ahmed , Associate Consultant , Partners in Development Services 'PDS'

Of course, the translator should at least be familiar with the style of art language, otherwise the translation will not reflect the spirit of the source text

If the translator does not have an ability to make the text as stylish as in the original, then yes, his work will lose its flavor, sadly!

Amir Ageeb
by Amir Ageeb , Content Senior Specialist , Elm Company

 This might occur because of the nature of literature works; however, I believe, an excellent translator, who knows his craft well, can defy such an issue and come out with a valid translation.

Muzammil  ali
by Muzammil ali , Arabic Language Teacher , Taleb Trading Co.

Yes, really, because the literature in any language related to the culture of the area where that language is spoken.

hamdan alzyod
by hamdan alzyod , Middle School English Teacher , Ministry Of Education - Jordan

In my opinion, in translation usually there must be some loss in the meaning even 1% but in translating literature the loss will be a lot more than that.  

Kamran Khan
by Kamran Khan , Assistant Head of Translation Department , Ras Al-Khaimah Court

Yes.But if the translator has the knowledge and sense of the subject. it won't be lost

It depends but mostly yes because the original source would have a soul and feel that would not be transferred into the translation, however that issue can be avoided as much as possible if the translator finds the best possible replacement and takes care of word flow.

Ahmad Taha
by Ahmad Taha , Creative Copywriter/ Translator/ Transcreator , Unisono

Literature work is authentic and genuine by nature and has its own features no matter what the language is. This is precisely what makes a language unique. In his capacity, a translator can only retain the meaning of that piece of work to another language while stylistics will mostly remain unretained. If the translator is lucky enough, he'd be able to reflect the interest, passion, and tonality of the text with his subtle wording skills, but the core stylistic features will stay exclusive to that source language.

Normally, clients would require Literature works translation for the sake of content explanation and not for the reflection of stylistics on the target language. With all due respect to all translators, I'd personally be offended when seeing one of our glorious Arabic piece of literature being poorly translated into English with desperate attempts to reflect Arabic's unique stylistics. 

Of course I would try as possible to maintain the text stylistic characteristics ,but if I couldn't , I will use the characteristics suitable from the target language .l believe that the style of the text is very important as it carries the soul of the writer ,and the good translator should be able to convey it successfully.

Deleted user
by Deleted user

Well, translating a literature work is so much different from translating legal, business or other kinds of documents that relies on terms and phrases which by time a translator will be familiar with, thus; the translation process will become easier. Literature translation depends mainly on having an artistic touch and a good sense of language. It also requires the person who is doing the translation to be a good reader and this I think is what will distinguish him/her from the rest. Yes, I believe in general it might lose some of its stylistic characteristic unless the translator posses excellent language skills on both languages that he is working with.

Sara Sakr
by Sara Sakr , Artist , N/A

That depends on how authentic the original work is! If the author managed to infuse life into the characters and setting, then it's going to lose some of that in the process of translation. Example on that is when a character has an accent or speaks in a certain way , that gets lost (Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, Hagrid in Harry Potter, etc.).

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