Manipulating Titles in Translation

Abstract

This study investigates the ways in which book titles are manipulated when translated from English into Arabic. One hundred English book titles from various genres whose Arabic translations are manipulated are meticulously studied and analysed against Viezzi’s (2013) model of manipulating translated book titles. The findings show that although Viezzi’s model fits literary works and movies better, it can be useful in analysing the translated titles of different books coming from various genres. Statistically, the findings reveal the following descending order of the most manipulated aspects of English-Arabic translated titles: being more/less explicit (35%), offering different keys to the interpretation of the text (20%), adding/removing genre information (15%), presenting different viewpoints (10%), seducing the target readers (8%), highlighting different characters’ aspects (5%), adding/removing names of characters (3%), adding/removing allusions to other works (3%) and suggesting/removing moral lessons (1%). It is argued that no matter what aspects of translated titles are manipulated, the whole process is done to attract the potential readers in the target market and this involves multiple players, such as translators, editors and publishers.