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

One reader indicated that the word "kohl" should not be italicized because
this word has been adopted into English. Even foreign words need not always be
italicized. One reader underlined the word riad in the following sentence and
commented that it should be in italics at least the first time.
le riad, ensemble de salons et de galeries s'ordonnant sur un patio à ciel
ouvert, tout en marbre blanc, qui se prolongeiait par un jardin où des
orangers et des citronniers très âgés se ramifiaient audessus d'un fouillis
d'herbes sauvages, de rosiers, de giroflées et de jasmins qui embaumaient
et crépitaient sous l'implacable soleil (. . . ) (44-45)
There was the riad where the guests were received, a group of sitting
rooms and arcades arranged around an open-air patio, all in white marble,
and prolonged by a garden where very old orange and lemon trees
branched out above a jumble of weeds, roses, carnations and jasmine that
perfumed the air and crackled under the relentless sun.
Italicizing the transcribed word the first time it appears acknowledges that the
reader is not expected to know what it means and alerts the reader to look for the
meaning, in this case, in the same sentence. Italicizing this word only the first
time implies that the writer expects the reader to treat this word as an acquired
rather than foreign element in its subsequent appearances.
These professional readers made few comments in passages that complied
with their expectations, but called for revisions when they felt the choice of
words, sentence structures or techniques called attention to the language and
therefore distanced the reader from the narrative. The three pages describing
Kenza's flight across the rooftop terraces and the dialogue with her aunt and
uncle, for example, elicited little editorial comment. As the following excerpt
illustrates, this passage presented reasonable levels of information specific to the
original culture and used few defamiliarizing techniques.
47