TRANSLATING “AICHA RMADA” INTO ENGLISH: UNIVERSALITY AND CULTURAL SPECIFICITY IN THE MOROCCAN VARIANT OF “CINDERELLA”

Abstract

The collective consciousness of societies, and the similarity of external factors such as religion and language, justify the universality of folktales. Yet the cultural and social background of each social group leads to the emergence of a variant of the folktale. When documenting folktales as a genre of orality, translators and researchers encounter different variants of the same folktale, as is the case with the folktale of “Cinderella”. The present article investigates the English translation of the Moroccan variant of Cinderella’s story, “Aicha Rmada”, by Richard Hamilton. This article sheds light on the translation procedures adopted to transmit the universality and cultural specificity of the translated folktale. Thus, a narrative and cultural analysis will be conducted under the Propp morphology of folktales and the cultural iceberg theory. The findings reveal that addition and elaboration are two translation procedures used in Hamilton’s translation to rewrite and familiarize the folktale's plot for the receiving audience, and to highlight Moroccan cultural aspects.