Investigating Berman’s model of deforming tendencies in the translation of modern Iraqi literature

Abstract

Many translation specialists argue that the quality of English translations of modern Arabic literature is low for several reasons, such as the rapid growth of translated novels which exceeds the availability of qualified translators, funding issues, and insufficient pay for the translator.
This study aims to establish a method for assessing the quality of English translations of Iraqi Arabic novels from an ethical perspective by analysing the translations of five extracts from five Iraqi novels using Antoine Berman’s model of Deforming Tendencies. The study is guided by one central question and four sub-questions. Three of these questions investigate translation quality, while the fourth explores the applicability of Berman’s model to the Arabic–English language pair and its potential global relevance.
Translation quality is measured through three stages; each is addressed by a sub-question. The first reveals the overall quality of each translation based on three criteria: the kinds, numbers, and weights of deformations. The second assesses quality more precisely by revealing the justification status of the identified deformations. The third explores how target readers perceive the source culture. The final stage evaluates the adaptability of Berman’s model to the Arabic–English context.
The study employs a mixed method approach to analyse the data and identify the deformations contributing to poor translation quality. While the first, second, and fourth sub-questions are addressed quantitatively, the third integrates both quantitative and qualitative analyses.
The findings show that both the quantitative and qualitative analyses confirm the low quality claimed by specialists of Arabic-English translation. Through two proposed grading scales, the quantitative analysis identifies three translations that exhibit significant quality issues and distort cultural representation. The qualitative analysis further demonstrates how textual and cultural deformations influence readers’ perceptions of the source text.
The findings concludes that Berman’s model of Deforming Tendencies is highly effective in assessing the quality of English translations of Arabic literary texts due to its adaptability to the Arabic-English pair. It therefore recommends that translators adopt the adapted model to produce ethical, high-quality translations that respect the identity of the source text.

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ORCID for Sattar Hussein Abbood Khattawi: orcid.org/0009-0001-6846-6136

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