Research article | Open Access
International Journal of Language and Education Research 2026, Vol. 8(1) 19-45
Navigating Taboo: the Arab Translator’s Dilemma in Adapting Comics for a Wider Audience The Case of the English Version of “The City Hunter”
pp. 19 - 45
Publish Date: April 30, 2026 | Single/Total View: 0/0 | Single/Total Download: 0/0
Abstract
This paper examines the constraints encountering translators upon attempting to transfer taboo words from the English comics into Arabic by maintaining optimal equivalence. Added to the linguistic challenges confronted when approaching a different genre of texts such as literary, the translator deals with the profoundly cultural-laden material of taboos that translatability becomes an enduring task. With a wide spectrum of strategies to select from, the translator delves into a variety of confounding alternatives in order to cater for the requirements of original text content against fidelity in the target language. In the present research, four translation strategies were selected and evaluated in terms of their suitability regarding guarding meaning in translating English taboo words of comics into Arabic: euphemism, omission, taboo-for-taboo and grawlix. In order to assess their efficiency, these strategies were applied in translating extracted taboo words from the English version of The City Hunter into Arabic. Overall, taking account of religious considerations in the first place, in the Arabic context, with differing degrees of appropriateness among the chosen strategies at issue, euphemism proves as the most useful mode of expressing foreign taboos.
Keywords: Comics, culture, english-arabic translation, taboo words, translation strategies
APA 7th edition
Merabet, M.H. (2026). Navigating Taboo: the Arab Translator’s Dilemma in Adapting Comics for a Wider Audience The Case of the English Version of “The City Hunter”. International Journal of Language and Education Research, 8(1), 19-45.
Harvard
Merabet, M. (2026). Navigating Taboo: the Arab Translator’s Dilemma in Adapting Comics for a Wider Audience The Case of the English Version of “The City Hunter”. International Journal of Language and Education Research, 8(1), pp. 19-45.
Chicago 16th edition
Merabet, Mohamed Hamza (2026). "Navigating Taboo: the Arab Translator’s Dilemma in Adapting Comics for a Wider Audience The Case of the English Version of “The City Hunter”". International Journal of Language and Education Research 8 (1):19-45.
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