Research Ethics in Translating Literary Texts into Arabic

Are translation ethics in the Arab world adopted and properly applied to ensure full faithfulness to the source text? What is that really matters the most? Being faithful to the source text or the target culture? What if the source text promotes practices that are deemed “unethical” in the target culture? Should the translator remain faithful to his or her own target culture? By being loyal to his/her target culture, is the translator not then betraying the source text? Should literary translation be subject to censorship? Can a translator succeed without a formal education in translation? And if so, how can one determine that he/she has the required linguistic and extralinguistic knowledge of both the source and the target languages? The chapter presents a brief literature review of the translation movements in the Arab world. It then explores the ethical dilemmas that arise from the functional approach being used in translating literary works into Arabic by focusing on two moral imperatives–integrity and competence.