Translating Nouzha Fassi Fihri's La Baroudeuse: A Case Study in ...

meaning and connotations of class belonging and informality to the British reader,
indicating that the translator was writing for a British audience. On the whole, in
these two works, the use of transcription and footnotes is discrete and does not
unnecessarily interrupt the narrative.
Translating Abouzeid’s Year of the Elephant from Arabic, Barbara
Parmenter uses footnotes somewhat more extensively. The thirteen notes in this
translation explain cultural significance that would be implicitly available to
readers of the original language but not to readers of the second language. For
example, the translator explains the religious significance of the phrase "the night
of al-Qadr" ("the night of power, a night during Ramadan" [5]), and the historical
import of the name "Moulay Idris the Second" ("ruler of Morocco towards the end
of the ninth century. By the end of his reign virtually the entire population
professed the Islamic religion and spoke Arabic" [18]). These notes indicate the
translator sees her audience as people unfamiliar with and expecting explanations
for references to Islamic traditions and the history of Morocco. The translator
assumed that these readers would be willing to distance themselves briefly from
aesthetic involvement in the literary experience to learn more about the cultural
and historical context.
Translators' glossaries often reflect the same tension between the author’s
and the translator’s non-identical audiences and purposes. The glossary in Year of
the Elephant explains the cultural, social, historical, geographical, or illocutionary
significance of twenty transcribed and italicized Arabic words. Unlike Denys
Johnson-Davies who did not further explain words listed in English dictionaries,
the translator and publisher of this book included eight words that appeared in the
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