إعادة الترجمة أو الثبات الممنوع

Abstract

This article deals with retranslation, its causes and characteristics. The analysis is illustrated by an English text taken from the “Prophet” (a book by Gibran Kahlil Gibran) translated into Arabic several times. Five different translations will be studied. This book was chosen because the writer approved the first translation. Why was it retranslated then? Some of the translators, in their introduction, justified their new approach and all of them agreed that the older versions were not faithful to Gibran’s spirit and had some major errors. The article further discusses the different versions in Arabic while trying to define the concept of retranslation and the role played by the temporal dimension in this process. Finally, a new definition to the retranslation concept will be suggested.