Studying Strategies Employed to Minimize Cultural Differences in Translating Umera Ahmed’s “Pir-e-Kamil” into English

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate which translation procedures have been preferably followed in the translation of cultural–bound words in Umera Ahmad’s “Pir-e- Kamil” (2003) translated as “The Perfect Mentor” (2010). The study has attempted to identify i) cultural elements translated in the target text of the English version of Pir-e-Kamil and ii) procedures employed in translating Urdu cultural elements into the English language. For the present research, a sample of 22 cultural codes categorized by Newmark’s (1988) was selected randomly. Moreover, Venuti’s (1995) domestication and foreignization as a macro/broader model were applied to identify cultural words. Taxonomy for transferring culture-related codes suggested by Davies (2003), Aixelá (1996), and Newmark (1988) was employed in the present research. The frequency of domesticating and foreignizing strategies in transferring the cultural related codes was calculated through SPSS. The study concludes that material and religious cultural terms based on  Newmark’s (1988) are the most prominent. “Preservation”, “naturalization”, “synonym” and “addition” strategies have been used preferably and predominantly by the translator. Based on the applied strategies, the translation has been foreignized.