The Cultural Alterity in Translated Media Discourse: A Critical Analysis of Translating the Term ‘LGBT’ Into Arabic

• Published in: Journal of language teaching and research Vol. 16; no. 3; pp. 911 - 923
• Main Author: Otaif, Fahad Ahmed
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Academy Publication Co., LTD 01.05.2025; Academy Publication Co., Ltd
• Subjects: Analysis; Arabic language; Cognitive models; Corpus analysis; Critical discourse analysis; Cultural differences; Culture; Discourse analysis; Domestication; Gays & lesbians; Gender identity; Intercultural communication; Interpreters; Language; LGBTQ linguistics; Methods; Otherness; Sexual minorities; Sociocultural factors; Terminology; Transgender persons; Translation methods and strategies; Translations; Translations and translating; Translators; Saudi Arabia; Egypt
• ISSN: 1798-4769; 2053-0684
• DOI: 10.17507/jltr.1603.21

In today's world, many foreign concepts and terms travel through news discourse from one nation to another before they become topics of daily discussion, cultural debate, and information exchange. The current paper is a cognitive corpus-based critical discourse analysis that investigates how translating culture-specific terms such as the so-called ‘LGBT’ is made into Arabic. It was found that Arabic cultural and descriptive equivalents of the term ‘LGBT’ were regularly excluded (rarely used) and did not appear except a few times in the old public Arabic discourse, such as that of the UN before 2006. The findings revealed that whether the used translation strategy was linguistically a domestication or foreignization one, there was not much difference found, as there was always room for foreign concepts and their Extralinguistic Cultural References (ECR) to penetrate the target discourse and culture through various conceptual structures and cognitive mechanisms that underlie the mostly used translations. The study concluded with a call for translators translating into Arabic to critically deal with foreign narratives when they translate and shed further light on the importance of translation as an area of intercultural communication and socio-cultural practice.