Variation between the Arab and Western worlds regarding degree of sensitivity to topics and the impact of this variation on English-Arabic translation

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2018 in the subject Communications - Intercultural Communication, Al-Baath University, language: English, abstract: This research discusses the discrepancies between the Arab and the Western societies concerning their sensitivity to certain topics; among which religious, political and social topics are the most prominent. First, Arab and Western societies have different attitudes towards religion. Criticism of religion and highly-esteemed religious figures is a taboo in the Arab world. References that give offence to God, messengers, holy figures or religious beliefs are probably omitted or rendered with some kind of euphemism that takes into consideration the anticipated reaction of the Arab reader to such an offence.In addition to religious issues, sexual references are still a taboo in the Arab world. Concepts related to sexual intercourses, genitals, women's breasts and gay relationships are usually euphemized or deleted in English-Arabic translation. Similarly, the impact of swear words which imply sexual references varies among cultures. They are more a taboo in the Arab world than they are in the Western world. In this research, we shall see, through the many given examples, how the instances pertaining to all these cultural taboos-religious and social-are mostly either euphemized or emitted when rendered into Arabic.