The treatment of cultural items in the translation of children's literature : the case of Harry Potter in Arabic

The present study is located within the framework of descriptive translation studies proposed by Toury (1995). Its main concern is the investigation of the treatment of cultural references, names and wordplay in the translation of children's literature into Arabic. The subject of the analysis covers three books from the famous series of Harry Potter by the English author J.K. Rowling and their published Arabic translations. Detailed analysis of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince which are translated into Arabic by different translators is performed with the aim of uncovering the translation norms of each translator. The third book Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was also translated by fans of Harry Potter in the Arab world. Comparisons between the official and fan TTs are also made. The analysis in Chapters five, six and seven shows that there is no clear coordination among the three official translators despite being commissioned by the same publishing House. While both of the translators of the Philosopher's Stone and the Goblet of Fire norms fluctuate between 'adequacy' and 'acceptability', the latter undertakes a distorting unstated abridgment of the original. The official translator of the Half- Blood Prince has the strongest norms among all with a clear tendency towards 'adequacy', while the fans lean more towards the pole of 'acceptability'.