The Impact of Image on Translation Decision-Making in Dubbing into Arabic – Premeditated Manipulation par Excellence: The Exodus Song as a Case Study

Appraisal Theory

The Appraisal theory is situated within the parameters of Halliday’s systemic-functional linguistics, a multi-faceted model describing the social semiotic system of language as “a resource for meaning making” and text as “a process of meaning making in context” (Halliday and Matthiessen 3). Linguistic functionality enabled systematising language on the levels of phonology and graphology, lexicogrammar, and discourse semantics – this indicates that the meaning of individual words has to do with the manner by which individual words are constructed in a stretch of discourse with the intention to achieve a particular purpose in a particular context. At heart, systemic-functional linguistics primarily looks at the social context in relation to the notion of register and its contextual varieties realised through the three variables of field, tenor, and mode:

field – what’s going on in the situation: (i) the nature of the social and semiotic activity; and (ii) the domain of experience this activity relates to (the ‘subject matter’ or ‘topic’); tenor – who is taking part in the situation: (i) the roles played by those taking part in the socio-semiotic activity […] and (ii) the values that the interactants imbue the domain with (either neutral or loaded, positively or negatively); mode – what role is being played by language and other semiotic systems in the situation. (Halliday and Matthiessen 33–34)

Register corresponds with metafunctions (ideational, interpersonal, textual), and how they, respectively, “represent experience,” “enact relationships,” and “organize text[s]” (Martin and Rose 7). As far as the Appraisal Theory is concerned, Martin and White define appraisal “as an interpersonal system at the level of discourse semantics” (33). Appraisal, in its basic sense, lays stress on the attitudinal positioning of participants, and how participants dialogically construe evaluative judgements intended to communicate particular values and emotions. Yet, participants’ attitude depends on the respondents’ ideological and axiological stance. In the case of translation, the translator’s reading position, also termed “reaction,” constitutes the formation of the target text. In this regard, Martin and White propose three types of reading positions: compliant readings (which “accommodate the reading position naturalised by a text”); resistant readings (which “work against the grain of [the] naturalisation process”); and tactical reading (“which take some aspect of the evaluation a text affords, and respond to it in an interested way that neither accepts nor rejects communion with the text as a whole”) (206).

Appraisal’s lexicalised evaluation is a composite of three co-existing systems: attitude (related to the construction of feelings), engagement (related to dialogistic distancing of participants vis-à-vis respondents), and graduation (related to the gradable continuum of investment where feelings are heightened or softened). Despite the equal significance of all three, attitude is the most fundamental system by which written/spoken discourse gains more granularity in terms of comprehending emotional reactions, behavioural patterns, and ethical standards, in addition to the evaluation of semiotic phenomena and processes which is “instilled in us by the educational, legal, cultural and other institutions in which we are formed” (Munday 24). Such notions are encompassed within the sub-systems of affect, judgment, and appreciation.

Narrative Theory

Narrative theory was imported from the social and communication theory to become later a developed instrument for analysing language and translation process in the field of translation studies. Baker (152) eschews using Toury’s polysystem theory and his pervasive notion of norms, claiming it contributes in the reproduction of repeated and systematic patterns of socialisation; consequently, disregarding individuals’ variations and their socio-political identities and their reframing of political reality by means of resisting dominant patterns of behaviour and social dogmas. Furthermore, she rejects Venuti’s theory on the basis of its normalisation practice and compartmentalisation of translational behaviour into two dichotomous strategies, that is domestication and foreignisation. In lieu of Toury’s norms and Venuti’s binaries, and without undermining the importance of either, Baker believes narrative theory to be the most appropriate framework to apply, in which case she provides the following four rationales:

1. Narrative theory does not establish a diminutive classification for individuals and entities, “instead, it acknowledges the ongoingly negotiable nature of our positioning in relation to social and political reality.” This means the theory recognises the unpredictability of behaviour and the type of influence the socio-cultural context exerts on individuals/translators (152–153).

2. Narrative theory provides dimensionality to translators “as real-life individuals rather than theoretical abstractions” (153). Baker quotes Whitebrook who provides an interesting argument about theories’ depersonalisation of political agents stating that “[t]heory frequently fails to make the political agent concrete” (15). Hence, “narratives allow for the de-personalized persons of theory, the bearers of a representative or typified identity, to be understood as separate persons – characters – with singular sets of characteristics, including but not confined to their political context and/or group identity” (15).

3. Narrative theory identifies the dynamism of the diverse tapestry of relationships and “the complexity of [behaviour] being embedded in crisscrossing, even competing, narratives” (154). Thus, narrative theory recognises attitudes perpetuating dominant narratives or resisting established norms through framing and re-framing techniques, and the positioning and repositioning of participants.

4. Narrative theory establishes a connection between “the power of social structures and the workings of the ‘system’ but does not preclude active resistance on a personal or group level” (154). In other words, narrative theory highlights individualistic translational behaviours as microscopic representation contextualised within the macroscopic social setting, but not necessarily adherent to its doctrines.

Further comprising the system of narratology, Somers and Gibson (59–60) delineate four narrative features: temporality (events are sequentially placed in a particular spatiotemporal order to convey a particular reality); relationality of parts (deriving meanings from discursive constituents cannot be done unless viewed in relation to a larger narrative landscape); causal emplotment (stories are rationally constructed “constellations of relationships” serving an intentional function; and selective appropriation (the evaluative criteria by which events or experiences are configured and thematised). These features are reminiscent of Hayden White’s notion of “historical emplotment” which, according to him, “produces not so much another, more comprehensive and synthetic factual statement as, rather, an interpretation of the facts” whose validity can be contested (39).

Image Construction in This Land is Mine

Before proceeding with our analytical discussion, it is necessary to elaborate briefly on the ideological and political-cum-religious issues found in the animation from the prism of narrative and appraisal perspectives. As stated earlier, the notion of framing and re-framing is a narrative strategy designed to bring forward a version of reality. Such process, Baker elucidates, “can draw on practically any linguistic or non-linguistic resource to set up an interpretive context for the reader or hearer. This may include exploiting paralinguistic devices such as intonation and typography, visual resources such as colour, image and layout” (5). That being said, the animator’s biased narration is overtly visible from the first sequence in which the title “This Land is Mine” is written in a bold blue and white Hebrew-style font. The selection of this typeface and colour scheme connotes the animator’s endorsement of “Israel’s claim to Palestine” and provides justification for Israel’s occupation. If we examine the succession of representative entities, apropos of the guide provided by Paley, we can see how the narrative is ad nauseam plotted so that Ottoman Turks are killed by Arabs, something which aims at promoting ‘the Arabs’ quasi-secular liberation from Islamic rule.” In addition, the Palestinian appears to willfully surrender to the British and their mandate, which, Paley mentions, was the result of the British alliance with Arabs. Such implicit framing devices represent Ottoman Turks, Arabs, and Palestinians as separate dichotomous entities in order to portray a schismatic interpersonal reality. Further exploitations can be detected when looking at the relationship between image and lyrics. For instance, the verses “Then I see a land/Where children can run free” are symbolically connected with the visuals depicting “the children of Israel” running as the Star of David – represented as the illuminating sun – is fading in the background. In a similar fashion, the verses “If I must fight/I’ll fight” (sung in high intonation) are heard in conjunction with the Israeli soldier raising his rifle. In this instance, the use of the modal auxiliary “must” conveys high subjectivity and monoglossic imperativeness in that it does not allow for any alternative action (Martin and White 111). As far as attitude is concerned, combining “must” with “fight” is intended to evoke a positive judgement, particularly when the visuals present the Israeli “fighting” terrorists (according to Paley’s dysphemism for modern-day Palestinians). Religiously speaking, the diverse forms of theism and visual references made to different deities do not allow for a straight-forward interpretation of the word “God;” it propels the translator to come up with creative solutions to differentiate and signal each religion, especially since the animator’s objective is to highlight how this colonial struggle is part of an on-going holy war. In translation, these patterns of causal emplotment have been cumulatively changed into Arabic in order to “lend a different weighting to the elements of the original narrative” (Baker 70). Such translational shifts are explored in the following section.

Translating the Verbal Code as a Separate Source of Information

The translations in this category prioritise the linguistic mode over the visual, and although they are first and foremost literal translations, they reflect a spectrum of minor shifts that indicate ideological positioning when it comes to religious or cultural references. Table 1 contours an array of manipulations designed to manoeuvre or correct linguistic elements in the source text.

The rendering of these three excerpts illustrates the magnitude of manipulation of religio-cultural references in which the translators clearly manifest their Islamic affinities and their support of the Palestinian cause. F1 in Example 1 exclusively opted for modulation to explicate the ambiguity surrounding the expression “this land is mine” and translate it as “أرض القدس هي أرضي ” (The land of Al-Quds is mine) to move, as the translator expressed, from the abstract source text to the more concrete target text and “make clear which geographical place is meant.” Thus, the translator’s choice of modulation in this context can be construed politically as a means to confront the Zionist dememorisation of Palestine and Judaisation of the land. As mentioned earlier, visual references made to different deities do not allow for a straight-forward interpretation of the word “God,” therefore, in translating “with the help of God” few translators in this category (F1, F2, and F3) selected all-inclusive terms such as “وبعون إلهي“ ,”وبعون رب الكون” and “وبعون رب العالمين” (With the help of the Sustainer of the Universe; With the help of my God; With the help of the Sustainer of the Worlds), which, as F3 posits, leaves the term open for interpretation and “goes with the abstract concept of deity and [is] not specific to one religion.” In fact, the term’s abstractness was the most common justification shared by translators, especially because closely following the more general English rendition conveys the translators’ avoidance of imposing any religious partiality and be possibly accountable for any sacrilege.

Likewise, one translator was aware of the song’s ideological positioning when it comes to translating religio-cultural terms. Because the expression “with the help of God” is repeated twice, F4 decided to render the term “God” differently each time. In the first instance, it was substituted with the hypernym “religion” as in “بالدين سأنتصر” (With religion we will triumph) to expose that “religion is [exploited] by the Israelis as a [moral] justification to colonize Palestine” and re-write history. In the second instance, it was translated as “بالسلاح سأنتصر” (With weapons we will triumph) to highlight the political aspect of colonialism in terms of “survival of the fittest.” She also remarked on the title’s problematic political indications and the way it influences the decision-making process, “[t]he fact that the line “this land is mine” was taken up by many peoples in the video-clip gave us a breach to position ourselves and show that colonialism uses religion and weapons to legitimize its presence in Palestine.”

On the contrary, most translators (F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, F10, and M1) decided to display their cultural identification and orient the translation towards Muslim audience, thereby they translated the phrase as “وبعون الله” or “وبمساعدة الله/ الله بيساعدنا” (With the help of Allah/Allah will help us). Owing to the fact that evaluating language directly engages with ideology and axiology with the outside world and inner world of the individual, the translators’ choices evince how “[w]hen a new version of a text is produced for a new cultural context […] the basis of evaluation also shifts” (Munday 40). From this majority, F5 mentioned that the word Allah was used with the purpose of “switch[ing] the narrative being built in the video.” Paley’s objective, as noted earlier, is to highlight how this colonial struggle is part of a historical “holy war.” In doing so, the meaning of Jihad and its Islamic connotations are lost in the original animation and replaced rather implicitly with the notion of colonial conquest to devalue Islam. However, as Baker comments, narratives can trigger different mental images: “histories can release different associations and details in the minds of one’s immediate audience as well as the opponents that the evoked meta-narrative is meant to subdue or discredit. The Judeo-Christian vs Muslim war narrative, including the narrative of the Crusades, inevitably revives narratives of ‘jihad’” (47). If we follow Baker’s line of thought, some viewers can interpret the translators’ manifestation of Islamic values as a potential proselytisation, and the translators might run the risk of incongruity because the visuals display a poly-religious tapestry rather than one monolithic religion.

In Example 3, the animation ends climactically when the “Angel of Death” appears, “[t]he real hero of the Old Testament” as Paley asserts, and claims the land for “himself.” Although the Angel of Death is represented as the incarnation of death and cumulative destruction, Arab audience will likely consider this episode blasphemous and contradictory to Islamic doctrines. Therefore, the majority of translators managed to manoeuvre over this visual symbol by other manipulative means. For instance, F1 translated “Until I die this land is mine” with the more literary and idiomatic expression “وليحلق شبح الموت دوماً في الأرجاء” (Let the shadow of death always hover around) which “is relevant to […] Arabic speaking community.” In contrast, F4 substituted the religious symbol – associated with the inscribed pronoun “I” – with the term “death” as in “إلى الممات هذي أرضي” (Until death, this land is mine). This shift from the explicit to the implicit qualifies for an attitudinal token in which “death” conveys an evaluative realisation that is neither positive nor negative but still invites a form of opinionated evaluation. Likewise, translating the phrase as “هذه الأرض، هذه الأرض لي” (This land, this land is mine) by F3 indicates attempts at establishing neutrality in translation. Here, the translator removed the symbolic significance of the Angel of Death and emphasised in turn the colonial setting. However, the majority of translators (F6, F7, F8, and F10) chose the phrase “وفي النهاية المُلك لله” (Eventually, to Allah belongs [all] sovereignty), which is intertextually connected to the Quranic text (Surah 32, verse 11 [Say: “The Angel of Death, put in charge of you, will (duly) take your souls: then shall ye be brought back to your Lord.”]; and Surah 40, verse 16 [The Day whereon they will (all) come forth: not a single thing concerning them is hidden from Allah. Whose will be the dominion that Day?” That of Allah, the One the Irresistible!]) and which negates the Angel of Death’s portrayal as an autonomous entity. Thereby, the translators’ rendition immediately signals their narrative location in the context of Islamic society and its alignment with the expectations of that society.

Translating the Verbal and Visual Codes as One Interconnected Entity

Munday maintains, “shifting reading position is almost inevitable because of the translator’s position at the ‘interstices’ of intersubjective communication” (158). Because the verbal–visual signs propagate anti-Arab sentiments and misrepresent reality, such as making “Israeli occupation[al] forces and Palestinian opposition (e.g. Hamas) equal in terms of power” as one translator proposed. Hence, translators in category B “overturned” the ideology of the source text and presented instead resistant translations coloured by the translators’ own cultural identity.

As Table 2 exemplifies, the graduation of manipulation is heightened and the translators’ interference is made more visible as a mean of “correction.” It is interesting to note that all four translators unanimously translated the text poetically using rhyme schemes and three translators focused simultaneously on lip-synchrony “to ensure immersive viewing experience for the target audience.” In the first translation in Example 4, M2 decided to keep the values of religious symbols latent in the translation and preferred to use “[Arabic] words that have religious and archaic register to match the original song.” The removal of Jewish attributions in his translation “فأرى عندها أرضاً/ مباركة طولاً وعرضاً” (Then, I see a land Blessed in length and breadth) combines elements of appreciation and judgement. The code “blessed land” is an inscribed appreciation echoing the Muslims’ veneration of the land, and the expression “in length and breadth” adds a judgemental value that presupposes a shared basis with the target culture’s ethics. In the second translation made by M3 “عندها أرى أرضي/ يدّعي المحتل أنه أتى إليها بالسلام” (Then, I see a land the occupier claims he brought peace to), it is clear how the reclamation of the land is semantically amplified. The possessive pronoun in “my land” marks the emergence of the “translator voice” in order to transform the meaning textually and narratively. The translator uses the term “occupier” to inscribe a negative judgement towards Israelis and vindicate the illegitimacy of their Zionist agenda. Moreover, M3 in Example 5 represents precisely how the positive appreciation of the original (i.e. “take my hand” and “lovely”) is reversed in translation, within scope of the translator’s affectual response to the original lyrics, to underline the tragic reality of Palestine – the translator’s negative judgement is confirmed by inscriptions such as “كم من دماءٍ أٌريقت” (How much blood has been shed) and “معركة تلو معركة” (Battle after battle).

More important is perhaps how the translators in this category resist the animator’s narrative, which can be said it “create[s] the intellectual and moral environment for violent conflict” via cartoon entertainment (Baker 2). That said, Arabic translations in Example 6 expose the Zionist exploitation of religion (Judaism and Hebrew scriptures) for political purposes. The combination of “Allah’s gift to me” and “aggressors” in “هذه الأرض هي هدية الله لي/ ألن يرحل عنها المعتدون” (This land is Allah’s gift to me/Wouldn’t the transgressors leave) reflects F11’s condemnation of Israeli practices that deconsecrate Palestine’s sanctity. The reactionary evaluation of visuals in the other translation by M3 is more forceful. First, he makes the contextual cues explicit by identifying the “Hebrew priest[s]” who controlled the “Maccabees” and chooses a negative tonality, as in “حتى الكاهن يكشّر عن أنيابه/ يظن نفسه ملك زمانه” (Even the priest bares his teeth/Thinking he is the king of his time) to capture the Zionist hidden agenda that extols the superiority of Judaism (and which implicitly encourages the promotion of the mythological Hebrew Übermensch). Second, associating religion with politics in the subsequent line “يمشي بالدّين والجيش من خلفه” ([armed] with religion [while] the army follows from behind) enforces the politicisation of religion.

Translations in Example 7 demonstrate the translators’ engagement (F12, M2, and M3) with the text’s narrative space frame; their supportive stance is made clear by allocating the verb “fight” to the Palestinian resistance. The third translation is of particular interest, namely, because M3’s additional inclusion of the following lines “أكذوبة السلام ماضية منذ القدم/ والمذابح تتوالى بين الأمم/ فما جنينا من هذا السلام غير القتل والدم” (The fable of peace persists since the beginning of time/Massacres recur amongst nations/We reaped from this peace nothing but murder and blood) conveys negative attitudinal response, which includes an affectual reaction to meaningless peace treaties and the two-state delusion that resulted in “massacres,” “killings,” and “blood.” Again, the use of “الطغاة” (tyrants) and “الغزاة” (invaders) opposite to “لاسترجاع أرضي” (to reclaim my land) makes the distinction between the occupier and the occupied.

Translating the Visual Code as a Separate Source of Information

Findings in this category reveal substantial transformations that qualify for premeditated manipulations par excellence vis-à-vis evaluative positioning and the impact of visuals on decision-making in dubbing. Because the translations are idiosyncratic, we will look at each of the four translations in this category separately, and although the translations do not have direct equivalents in the source text, we align correspondent lyrics for purposes of comparison. For example, F13 disregarded the significance of the lyrics and instead rendered the visual signs – characters and religious symbols – explicit, she writes:

I opted to introduce a different interpretation as I believe that the clip, as it is, denies the Palestinians their rightful ownership of the land. So, I decided to come up with a new rendering which is compatible with my view that Palestine is for Palestinians not Zionists; therefore I was keen to attain the “false spontaneous” or the “prefabricated orality” to deliver my message.

The three examples found in Table 3 are internally linked – they all explicitly chronicle the various entities and their respective deities. As her post-reflections indicate, she segmented the animation into two parts: the first echoes how “[e]ach nation believed that this land was given to them by their own ‘God’” by focusing on the violence theme to portray how each religion provided a moral justification for warfare. In the second more contemporary part, the events were translated according to her beliefs by reflecting her attitude towards historical events and the opposing political entities. As a way of illustration, she writes: “[T]he British army and European Jewish migrants settled in Palestine as a result of Balfour Deceleration which led to an influx of Jewish migrants, which in turn became a flood with the rise of fascism in Europe. Also, I decided to present the view that Hamas and Hezbollah are part of the Islamic resistance and not terrorists.” Signalling each entity by its own religion gives the viewer a sense of realism to the actual political upheaval and antagonism and as expressed, the translator’s goal was to “weave a tapestry that carries the burden of both ancient and modern history of a land claimed to be holy by all invaders.”

F14 follows an approach similar to the previous one, except that the translator clarifies the ambiguity of the characters but from “a Palestinian viewpoint [that takes] into consideration an Arab ideology” to form a coherent narrative that follows the scene depicted and to imitate political disintegration. She summarises her approach in the following terms: “My translation was based on the source text’s main idea and images. In other words, I relied on the visual images in the clip and tried to come up with a poem that summarizes the history of Palestine which synchronizes the visual scene.”

In Example 11, the explicit recognition of the land and the supplementary mention of Hittin (which alludes to Saladin’s victory at the Battle of Hittin) are evaluative epithets that express, on the one hand, direct positive attitudes celebrating Islamic patrimony, and, on the other, the translator siding with the Palestinians. These attitudinal realisations of interpersonal meanings or inscriptions, as Martin and White attest, “tend to colour more of a text than their local grammatical environment circumscribes. The inscriptions act as signposts, in other words, telling us how to read the ideational selections that surround them” (63). The use of terms such as “للاستيطان” (to settle) and “باحتلال الأرض” (occupation of the land) reiterate the grievances of the “Early Man” who at the same time embodies the translator who, in turn, condemns the continuous violent transgressions on Palestine. Moreover, in Example 12, the visuals portray various nations fighting each other which culminates into endless bloodshed, hence, the translator relied on the images to describe the scenic aftermath by adding expressions such as “إلى الآن فبلدي حمراء مليئة بالشر والدماء” (To date, my country is [painted in] red/full of evil and blood) and “كل من عليها من الأعداء، قلوبهم سوداء بالقتل وسفك الدماء” (All the enemies in it/Their hearts are black, [filled] with murder and bloodshed). Such nuances of colour-coding signify interpersonal meaning, mainly negative appreciation and affect. For example, black is associated with feelings of hatred and enmity, while red is mainly associated with blood and violence. In Example 13, the translator removed the Angel of Death symbol and maintained the tonality of the evaluation by repeating the terms “احتلال“, ”فلسطين” and “مستوطنين” (Palestine, occupation, and settlers).

As Table 5 illustrates, F15 used oblique translation to modulate the original text and translate “the word (land) several times in different ways to indicate that it is not just a land, but an entity [claimed by different nations].” Therefore, as Example 14 in Table 5 indicates, she added words like “جنتي” (my paradise) and “كوكبتي” (my star) which semantically shift meaning, yet reproduce the effect of how each nation eulogises the land. In addition, she included the verse “وتتهادى في سيرها بانشراح” (and sways delightfully in its march) from the epic poem The System of the Universe, which gives a panoramic view of Islamic society and culture within Sharia law. Furthermore, the translator’s intention was to furnish the translation with poetic elements the Arab audience would recognise.

Example 15 begins with a reference to Tamim Barghouti’s poem Bayyan ‘Askari and continues to imbue Islamic qualities using the expressions “!اغزوا بسم الله، في سبيل الله! اضربوا! الله أكبر” (Conquer in the name of Allah, in the path of Allah! Smite ye! Allah is great!) and “كلمات بداياتها ثورة، وأوسطها ملحمة، وآخرها نصر وتمكين” (Words whose beginning is a revolution, their middle an epic fight, and their end victory and enablement). From a narrative perspective, the translator re-framed the text within an Islamic context in an attempt to “decolonise” Israeli values and exhibit a positive attitude in terms of emotion, ethics, and aesthetics.

The fourth and last translation in this category is perhaps the most anomalous rendition because the entirety of the Arabic translation is built on loose interpretation of the internal structure of the images. Accordingly, M4 quoted verses from Mahmoud Darwish’s poem Those Who Pass between Fleeting Words on account of “the close proximity of meaning between the animation and the poem” as the translator warrants. He elucidates further that the animation seeks to make the right to land ownership “a transient right well deserved for the powerful, without reference to any ethical standards, in contrast to Darwish’s poem which establishes the legitimacy of land ownership according to societal and historical standards.” As a way of illustration, the beginning verses “أيها المارون بين الكلمات العابرة/ احملوا أسماءكم وانصرفوا/ واسحبوا ساعاتكم من وقتنا، وانصرفوا” (O those who pass between fleeting words/Carry your names, and be gone/Rid our time of your hours, and be gone) and the ending verses “أيها المارون بين الكلمات العابرة/ آن أن تنصرفوا/ ولتموتوا أينما شئتم ولكن لا تموتوا بيننا” (O those who pass between fleeting words/It is time for you to be gone/Die wherever you like, but do not die among us) touch on the Palestinian–Israeli political spectrum – especially the intifada – and the Palestinians’ refusal of a compromise with Israelis. In terms of narrativity and evaluation, the poem viscerally champions the Palestinian resistance and loyalty to its cause, and this translational intervention pinpoints a political–ideological orientation which aims at showcasing the truth – as the translator mentions, his right as a translator is to be loyal to what he believes in and his principles.