A Study of Translator’s In/visibility in Manto’s Short Stories

Abstract

The current study is aimed to find out the use of domestication and foreignization strategies in Manto’s short stories. Venuti (1995) states that the domestication strategy makes a translator invisible in the process of translation by confirming to target culture values through the extensive use of target text terms for cultural items. On the other hand, the foreignization strategy makes the translator visible by promoting the source culture values by rendering source text terms for cultural items. The current study explores the two short stories i.e. Toba Tek Singh and Khol Do written by Manto and translated into English. The study highlights the issues of cultural translation. The study aims to provide significant insight into the existing literature about the use of domestication and foreignization to promote the translator’s visibility in Urdu-English translation. A detailed comparative textual analysis of the aforementioned short stories suggests that the translator uses both strategies for the translation of cultural items. A thorough reading of the short stories suggests that the translator finds cultural equivalents in the target text for less culturally loaded words and employs the domestication strategy, making the translator invisible. However, the translator opts for the foreignization strategy for certain culture-specific terms that are peculiar to the source culture and have no cultural equivalent in the target culture, making himself visible through the rendering of source text items into the target text. The study concludes that the most dominant strategy used for the translation of culture-specific items in Manto’s short stories is foreignization which is in line with the framework given by Venuti (1995) promoting the translator’s visibility by maintaining the source culture values and rendering source text lexical items into the target text.