Traduction des toponymes : Outils lexico-narratifs ou obligation sociopolitique ? Le cas de la traduction des toponymes dans The Times of Israël et WAFA
Authors: Afaf Said 
Published: September 2023

Translation of Toponyms: Lexico-narrative tools or sociopolitical obligation? Translations of place names in The Times of Israel and WAFA as a case study   

Why is the city of al-Qods called « al-Qods » for the Palestinians and « Yerushalaim » for the Israelis, why is a street crossing this city called « Saladin Street » by the Palestinians and « Tsahal Street » by the Israelis, what happened at the top of the Temple Mount, or on the Esplanade of the Mosques/ al-Haram Ash Sharif? For more than 100 years, toponymy has become one of the criteria specific to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Through Mona Baker's narrative approach, the article investigates the specificity of the translation of conflicting designations and examines the consciousness of translators in relation to the narrative role of toponyms in the construction and circulation of Palestinian culture and identity and their legitimation on an international scale. We have therefore chosen the Israeli newspaper the Times of Israel and the Palestinian news agency WAFA to highlight these issues. Toponymy serves to preserve the collective memory, since a name contains information about the past of the place, about the people who live there, and its reputation. It is a springboard that takes us beyond the name itself as a linguistic sign. In this spirit and based on deep historical and religious links that link designations to a particular culture, place names serve to legitimize and/or delegitimize the stories that surround them. Translation is therefore far from being an apolitical act, which is why we will try to highlight the treatment given to conflicting toponyms in translation through the analysis of some examples taken from the media mentioned. We will adopt Mona Baker's approach to the analysis of translated passages. In other words, this article is an attempt to understand the narrative role of media translation when it comes to place names. The methodology is based on the potential relation between space, conflict and ideology. Multiple reflections are discussed, but we opted for the one that gives justice to the role of translators as resistants. We particularly mobilized Mona Baker’s strategy « framing by labeling » in an attempt to explain the initial narratives and the contribution of their translations whether to guarantee their continuity and/or repression beyond the linguistic borders. This is to finally try to bring answers to our main research question: What is the status of the translator / narrator specialized in media translation? Does he opt for domestication or foreignization in his translations of place names? Based on the observation of some selected passages and their respective translations in English and Arabic, the objective of our work of research is to highlight the semantic charge of the disputed double designations related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Through a comparative analysis of the strategies adopted in two different media outlets, we have demonstrated their preferences in their translations of place names, while explaining the narrative impact of these names on their readers according to the initial discourses they mobilize. In this spirit, we started with a brief introduction to explain the specificity of names translation then explained our research question accompanied with its source of inspiration. Then, we demonstrated the specificity of our case of study from a historical and political point of view, before we moved to a deeper explanation from a narrative point of view. To guarantee a better understanding of this aspect, we found it appropriate to represent the editorial line of each media as well as the identity issues behind place names. Finally, we moved to a thorough analysis of place names and their translations in The Times of Israel and WAFA before we represent our comparative analysis and the answers to our research question.