Audio-Visual Translation between Domestication and Foreignisation Case of English into Arabic National Geographic Abu Dhabi Documentaries

Abstract

For centuries, translation has been a means of cross-cultural communication. It has played a significant role in facilitating interaction between people who speak different languages and belong to different cultures. This difference in culture often poses problems for translators. Therefore, researchers have been developing a set of strategies to overcome cultural obstacles of translation. Domestication and foreignisation are the two main strategies to deal with such obstacles. This study aims to explore the use of these strategies in audio-visual translation. It examines a number of documentaries from the National Geographic channel that were translated into Arabic and identifies the forms of domestication and foreignisation in their translations. The study seeks to reveal to what extent these strategies have been used, and which strategy has been applied more. The study concluded that translators in National Geographic Abu Dhabi tend to mingle domestication and foreignisation strategies and shift from one to another on purpose. The choice of the appropriate strategy depends on whether the translator plans to defend his own cultural and social identity against all that is foreign and strange through domesticating, or he accepts the other and welcomes his foreignness.