Cahiers de Traduction
Volume 32, Numéro 2, Pages 194-205
2026-06-10
Translating The Use Of Arabic As An Integration Tool
Authors : Bouanika Ibtissam .
Abstract
The literature of the Arab diaspora in the early twentieth century constitutes a unique site of linguistic and cultural negotiation, in which Arabic and English — the language of origin and the language of adoption — intersect, collide, and ultimately fuse into hybrid literary forms. This article examines the mechanisms through which Ameen Rihani (1876–1940), one of the founding figures of Arab American literature, employs Arabic as a deliberate acculturative tool in his pioneering English-language novel, The Book of Khalid (1911). Drawing on theoretical frameworks of acculturation, code-switching, and translation studies — particularly the concepts of foreignization, exoticism, and compensation — the article argues that Rihani's bilingualism is not incidental but constitutive: Arabic functions in his prose as an instrument of identity assertion, cultural resistance, and cross-civilizational dialogue. Through close analysis of three primary linguistic mechanisms — lexical borrowing, code-switching, and morphological adaptation — the article demonstrates how Rihani deliberately exoticizes the East for his Western readership while simultaneously anchoring his narrative in an Arab philosophical and spiritual tradition. The article further addresses the specific challenges that these mechanisms pose for the translation of the novel into Arabic, arguing that the translator's primary obligation is to preserve the hybrid, translinguistic texture of the original rather than domesticating it for Arab readers. Compensation strategies — particularly the deliberate retention or amplification of English and American cultural markers in the voices of Western characters — are proposed as the most adequate means of reproducing in the target language the acculturative dynamic that defines Rihani's literary project.
Keywords
Ameen Rihani ; English Arab diaspora ; acculturation ; integration ; the use of Arabic literary translation cultural hybridity
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