Linguistic Analysis of Translating Food Product Labels from English to Arabic in Saudi Arabian Market

Abstract

The current study examines the interpretations of eight English-Arabic labels for food products found in the Saudi market. The study of translations is examined with regard to the translation techniques utilized under Venuti's concepts of domestication and foreignization. Specifically, the study focuses on analyzing the common translation techniques employed for food product labels and aims to assess if these methods align with Venuti's favored approach of foreignization. Furthermore, it investigates whether these techniques have led to the original message being altered or not. This study conducts a quantitative analysis that compares various aspects. Calculations are conducted on the frequencies and percentages of techniques identified to obtain accurate statistical results. The findings reveal that foreignization is emphasized by the extensive use of literal translation, with transliteration, borrowing, and non-translation being comparatively less frequent in the translation of the studies' food product labels. Techniques under the domestication strategy include transposition as the most frequently used, followed by adaptation, and addition and omission are both used equally, with the least frequently used techniques falling under domestication. The study also determines that the effectiveness of techniques categorized as foreignization and domestication varies in the corpus analyzed.