A linguistic analytical critique of the translated text of Dickens' Oliver Twist

Abstract

This dissertation deals with an analytical linguistic critique of the Arabic translation by Munir Ba'albaki of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. Thus the main objective of this research is to demonstrate whether the Arabic version conveys the original text writer's message or not. In addition to the introduction and the conclusions, this study consists of four main chapters. The first one is mainly an introductory chapter which gives the reader an overview about the three elements of this work, namely: the novelist Charles Dickens, the novel Oliver Twist, and the translator Munir Ba 'albaki. The second chapter deals with the stylistic level in which some areas of style are discussed including: redundancy, repetition and collocation taking into account the native speaker's intuitions. The feature of artificiality, especially in dialogue, is also discussed. Attention is also given to all such stylistic features as are reflected in the translation process by giving some stylistic variants. The third chapter examines the grammatical level and touches upon some areas of grammar such as word order, number (singular-dual-plural), gender (masculine - feminine), negation and prepositions.