Identity contradiction: a sociocultural investigation of Saudis’ translations of Orientalists’ writings about Saudi Arabia

Notwithstanding the recent interest in the impact of identities on translation products as part of the social turn in Translation Studies, very little is known in the field about the Saudi identity from a Saudi perspective. The majority of the research in Translation Studies examines the representation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Euromerican discourse. This thesis is hence proposed to be an insider research. It offers insights into how Saudis collectively perceive their national identity through an exploration of their translations of Orientalists’ writings about Saudi Arabia. The research is also conducted by a Saudi researcher. This research aims to examine the impact of the Saudi collective habitus on Saudi representations of their own national identity in translations of Orientalists’ writings about Saudi Arabia, drawing mainly upon the sociological work of the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.
Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological concepts, and Lefevere’s notion of translation as ‘rewriting’, are adopted to provide analytical tools for analysing and understanding the dynamics and practices of a hypothesised field of activity here called ‘the field of translating Orientalists’ books about Saudi Arabia’. In particular, the thesis primarily takes four Saudi translators in this hypothesised field as a case study, namely; Abdullah Al-Askar, Abdullah Al-‘Uthaymīn, Mansūr Al Khuraījī, and Uwaidah Al Juhany. The thesis provides a detailed analysis of textual, paratextual and contextual aspects of the translations.
Contrary to the previous sociological studies in the Saudi field of translation, which marginalise the translators’ role, this thesis reinstates the Saudi translators’ various forms of agency in the translation process and product in the field. The yielded data reveals that the image of Saudi Arabia represented in Saudi translations is not always the same as that presented by Orientalists in their source texts. Through a detailed discussion of the impact of the Saudi’s realisation of their national identity, this thesis makes a significant contribution to both the sociology of translation and the field of Saudi Arabian studies.