Cultural and Audience Considerations in the Translation of Children and Family Shows into Arabic

This thesis depicts the issue of translating children and family animated cartoons from English into Arabic in relation to cultural and audience factors. It points out the translation strategies used in this process by examining a number of animated cartoons. It also focuses on the barriers and problems that face Arab translators when translating such shows. A descriptive and analytic approach is followed to examine the corpus of the study. Examples from English animated cartoons and their translated versions in Arabic are collected, classified and analyzed depending on factors like institutional policy, cultural factor and audience age. In some cases, more suitable translations are suggested. The analysis shows that literal translation, for example, is the main translation strategy which is employed while dubbing Disney animated cartoons whereas; adaptation is mainly adopted by Venus (Al-Zuhra). Furthermore, translators tend to utilize two compensation strategies in translating family animated cartoons: adaptation and substitution to bridge the gap between the source text (ST) and the target audience. The findings show that translators always paraphrase, add or even omit specific source text terms and references from the original family cartoon to achieve the intended meaning in a way that does not hurt the cultural and religious background of the target audience and their feelings.