Translation as a Tool for Acculturation: Language and the Question of Identity Modern and Contemporary Literary Criticism

Abstract

This study seeks to shed light on the relationship between language and identity, focusing specifically on the role that the Arabic language plays as a vehicle of resistance and a means of preserving identity. It further examines translation as a mediator between language and identity—one that performs the function assigned to it: either highlighting and safeguarding identity, or erasing and distorting its features.

Accordingly, this research paper addresses the concepts of language, identity, and, in particular, cultural identity, concentrating on translation as a fundamental factor in either consolidating and clarifying identity or obliterating and dissipating it.

Through this inquiry, we seek to answer a set of questions that frame the study: What is the relationship that binds language to identity? What is the nature of the relationship that links translation to language, identity, and culture? How does linguistic translation perform its role in presenting and consolidating cultural identity on the one hand, or erasing and deforming it on the other, within the framework of acculturation between the Self and the Other?