Emotiveness in Palestinian Revolutionary Songs: An Eye on Their Translation

Rafat Al Rousan, Hala Yousef Hassan

Abstract


This study investigates the translatability of emotiveness in Palestinian revolutionary songs in terms of hyperbole, personification, colloquial terms, tone and mood, and alliteration. To this end, two Palestinian revolutionary songs were chosen, yamma mawil al-hawa and min sijn ʕakka, as they are highly emotive and very popular in the Palestinian culture. The English translation of the two songs was taken from My Voice is My Weapon, a book by David A. McDonald (2013). This study is qualitative and draws upon two theoretical frameworks: (1) Reiss's (1989) text typology theory and (2) Newmark's (1988) communicative theory. The English translations of the randomly chosen verses were carefully compared against the original Arabic verses. The findings show that the translator mostly failed to convey the emotive meaning and effect intended by the authors of the original text, especially concerning the aspects mentioned above of emotiveness. This study emphasizes culture's importance in understanding a literary text's intended meaning.

 

Keywords: Translation; Emotiveness; Palestine; Revolutionary song


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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/3L-2025-3102-01

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