A Stylistic Analysis of Manto’s Urdu Short Stories and their English Translations

The study conducts an SFL-based stylistic analysis of Urdu short stories written by Manto – an icon in Urdu short story writing – and their corresponding English translations by Tahira Naqvi, Jai Ratan, and Khalid Hasan. Specifically speaking, stylistic profiles are made for the selected literary texts and their English translations, based on which a comparative analysis is drawn to (1) describe how and how successfully the translators render the source text style, and (2) compare the translations with each other to assess the relative success of each translation (i.e. the success of each translation in comparison to other translations) based on the similarities and differences in the translators’ approaches towards reproducing the source text style. For this evaluative study, SFL, especially the register analysis, is used as an analytical model. Under this approach, the context of culture is explored by conducting a field-and-habitus-based exploration of Manto and his style and the selected short stories, as well as that of the translators and their translations, as far as possible. Results show that, overall, Naqvi follows the ST style closely, whereas Ratan demonstrates a mixed approach by sometimes deviating and sometimes following the ST style and Hasan deviates it from a great extent. Owing to these rasons, we can call Naqvi’s translation comparatively most successful, Ratan’s translation less successful than that of Naqvi, and Hasan’s translation least successful.