The Role of Sociolinguistics in Translating Algerian Dialect and Cultural References

Abstract

Both sociolinguistics and translation are branches of applied linguistics to create solutions for language problems. The relationship that combines them is that translation is considered to be a social practice for sociolinguistic. This research aims to clarify the role of sociolinguistics in translating Algerian dialect and cultural references in the audio-visual translation of the Algerian movie “Rachida” directed by Bachir Yamina (2003), we tried to find who translated it but the translator is anonymous. In order to simplify this relationship we adopted certain procedures in translating dialects and cultural references, as well as the sociolinguistic analysis of dialect. The above steps helps in overcoming difficulties that translators might face during the process of translating languages especially colloquial speech. Methods that are used in this research are sociolinguistic analysis of the movie’s dialogue, then the analysis of English subtitles and Arabic speech, also suggesting a better translation if needed.