Challenges of Translating Qatari Culture – Specific References: The Case of Folktales in Qatar as a Source Text

This translation and commentary thesis investigates the translatability of culture-specific words and expressions and code-switching in Qatari folktales. In this study, the source text (ST) is a collection of seven folktales from Folktales in Qatar by Mohamed Duwayk (1984). These stories explore the theme of conflict between good and evil in different ways. In order to introduce the target audience to the Qatari culture, the primary translation approach utilized in this study was foreignization. However, in some lines related to Qatari local expressions, domestication was deemed to be the only effective technique to make the text accessible and avoid ambiguity. Venuti’s (2008) notions of domestication and foreignization are investigated in terms of their usability in this study for achieving two key purposes: foreignizing the aspects related to Qatari culture, and finding equivalents for cultural and idiomatic expressions in the target language. To analyze the frequent stylistic changes in the target text (TT), Vinay and Darbelnet’s translation strategies (1995), oblique and direct, are used. The study concludes that using foreignization and domestication strategies in translating these seven folktales help in conserving culture-specific words and transferring the intended meaning of local expressions in the ST. This shows that these strategies complement each other, and help to produce clear and accessible text that transfers the Qatari culture.