Centripetal Translation

Abstract

Translation becomes through the transportation of texts across languages and cultures. This becoming is largely dictated by the Bakhtinian notion of centripetal forces (CF) of translation (CFT) that stands-for an established socio-cultural system of representation with its norms for knowledge production and consumption. Translation from Arabic into English, for example, is a case in point of how targets (translations) are influenced by the underlying CF that regulates what gets translated, how and molds target texts to fit preexisting representations in the receiving culture. Drawing on examples of literary translation from Arabic, mostly into English, this article interpretatively applies Mikhail Bakhtin’s centripetal forces to explore how they tailor translation to serve the requirements of a specific system of representation through text selection, discursive strategies, and other translational matters.