Critical Discourse Analysis of Animal Farm Characters: A Comparative Study of Two Arabic Translations

Abstract

This research paper is a descriptive and comparative study. It is descriptive as it presents the ideology of the three main characters in George Orwell's novel "Animal Farm": Old Major, Snowball, and Napoleon, as depicted through their statements. The study is comparative as it compares two translations of the novel into Arabic. The first translation, titled "The Rebellious Animals," was translated by Abbas Hafiz (1952). It is the first Arabic translation of "Animal Farm". The second translation, by Mahmoud Abdul-Ghani (2014), is widely regarded as one of the best. The novel Animal Farm by George Orwell is a political satire that symbolizes the Russian Revolution. The ideologies of the three leading figures, Old Major, Snowball, and Napoleon, represent revolutionary thought and the stages of its transformation. Old Major, the founder of revolutionary philosophy, was a dreamer and the first theoretician, inspired by the doctrine of Animalism. He symbolizes the combination of the characters of Karl Marx, the founder of communism, and Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution. Snowball, the ideal revolutionary reformer, is a brilliant planner and a true believer in Major's principles, dedicated to educating the animals and improving their living conditions. He symbolizes Leon Trotsky, a revolutionary thinker who was exiled for his ideological beliefs. Napoleon, the pragmatic dictator, represents the opportunist who uses coercion and intimidation to advance his interests, justifying his rise to power by manipulating the laws and altering the Seven Commandments. He symbolizes Joseph Stalin. Discourse includes both structural and conceptual patterns. Most of these patterns vary across languages. Moreover, the characters' positive and negative sides were discussed. The findings indicated that the translators’ ideological beliefs affect their lexical choices in translation, which in turn influences their success in recognizing and transmitting the ST's implicit ideologies into the TT. Two Arabic translations are compared in terms of the three characters' ideologies as represented by excerpts of their statements.