Neither Domesticated nor Foreignized: Translation Strategy Failure and Pragmatic Loss in the Helping Book Translations of "The End of the Beginning"

Abstract

The present research aims to explore the Urdu translations of the English short story "The End of the Beginning" in the helping books "Rawalpindi Board" (Rawalpindi) of 1st year students of the Rawalpindi Board (BISE Rawalpindi). Based on the qualitative analysis of the text and its translation, the researcher finds that there are systematic translational variations that can be found in the source and target texts, namely literal translation, transliteration instead of translation, context inaccuracy, semantic inconsistency, and significant pragmatic loss. The study uses an integrated theoretical model including Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1986), Gutt's (2000) translation relevance model, and Venuti's (1995) domestication–foreignization model. The results show that the translations do not show interpretable similarity, are not faithful to the context and background of the source text, and lack a principled use of any translation strategies. The study concludes that, in order to have a pedagogical effect, the translations of helping books in Pakistan should have the following quality standards theoretically.