Abstract:

Untranslatability, or translation fails, takes place when it is impossible to build functionally relevant features of the situation into the contextual meaning of the target language text. Scholars in the field of translation studies distinguish between linguistic and cultural untranslatability: linguistic untranslatability is the failure to find a target language equivalent of the source language item. This translation void is due entirely to the differences between the two languages in question in our case English and Arabic. For cultural untranslatability what appears to be a quite different problem arises, however, when a situational feature, functionally relevant for the source language text, is completely absent in the culture of which the target language is a part. Taboo, on the other hand, can be defined as a cultural or religious custom that forbids people to do, touch, use or talk about a certain thing. Differences between cultures may cause more severe complications for the translator than do differences in language structure. Drawing on the actual translation between English as a lingua franca and a religiously oriented language like Arabic, this paper examines cultural untranslatability especially when dealing with taboo words and expressions. The paper also suggests certain strategies to be adopted when translating English taboo words into Arabic.