A Communication Accommodation Approach To Translation of Style Variants

Style variants in literary texts refer to the purposeful use of different linguistic varieties by writers in order to imply certain social and ideological concepts to the reader. Translators should be scrupulous with rendering such varieties of language into the target reader. The study examines style variation according to the perspective of the Russian literary critic Michael Bakhtin. The relationship between literary texts and the relevance theory is reviewed in order to shed light on this process. The study also shows the importance of the concept of communication accommodation theory in translating the literary style varieties. It underlines that the translation of these variants largely depends on the principle of convergence to the target language style. In other words, translators automatically converge to the expectations of the target readers. The study has concentrated on how different style variants in James Joyces novel of Ulysses are translated into Arabic. The study aims to pay attention to the role of language variations in literary texts and in the way these variations are translated into Arabic style. The scope of study is confined to the style variants in English literary texts and to the translations of such variants into Arabic.The study concludes that translators are inclined to converge to the style and expectations of the target language and the use of nonstandard Arabic varieties in translation is not encouraged in general.