Rhetorical Analysis and Translation of Arabic Mobile Prank Messages into English

Abstract

This study is an attempt to analyze and translate the Arabic rhetorical devices used in mobile prank messages into the English language. As it is bidirectional, this study is hopefully fruitful for translation teachers, contrastive analysts and students of translation since it highlights the problems translators undergo once dealing with languages of different origins and cultures in their daily life. To realize the study aims, the researchers selected data of 10 humorous messages from different hilarious resources retrieved from the web to be translated by five M.A. candidates at the Department of Translation, College of Arts, University of Mosul. The method of the study is painstakingly realized by rhetorically analyzing and translating the messages to fathom the factors affecting the untranslatability of such phenomena. As Arabic and English are distant from each other, it is hypothesized that different rhetorical devices can be used to attain an entertainment differently. The study comes up with the fact that the untranslatability of the humorous expressions are essentially due to word formation, thematic structures and rhyming for they demand linguistic rather than cultural substitution.