Negotiating Cultural Difference in English–Urdu Nursery Rhyme Translation

Abstract

The translation of nursery rhymes is not just about transfer of words from one language into the other, it also includes the ways to handle differences between the source and target culture. In English nursery rhymes there are elements that are specific to the source text’s culture and they can be strange for the Urdu speaking kids. This study examines change appearing in the cultural elements when they are translated from English to Urdu nursery rhymes by using Lawrence Venuti’s ideas of domestication and foreignization. This research uses a qualitative approach and   a descriptive method to examines six chosen extracts from nursery rhymes having cultural elements including as animals, social roles, pictures in the text and everyday situations. Translators mainly domesticate the text by simplifying ideas, excluding, and restructuring sentences to make the rhyme easier for the target audience. Some cultural elements stay same but the way to present them changes to fit target context. This study shows that the translator acts as a mediator to balance culture of the original text and also to meet the needs of young readers in the new language. This study contributes to the translations done for children by pointing out how important cultural adaptation is for making English nursery rhymes accessible, to Urdu speaking children.