Berman’s Model of Deforming Tendencies in the English Translation of Mahfouz’s Novel Children of Gabalaawi

This research aims to study Berman's deformation tendencies toward Arabic literary texts in the process of translation into English, using novel translation as a case study. The paper will explain the twelve deforming tendencies and their recurrence in the translation. Then it will present these tendencies sequentially. The task is accomplished through applying the negative analytical model proposed by the French translator and critic Antoine Berman (1985), which he calls "deformation tendencies," to the revised English translation of Naguib Mahfouz's novel “Children of Gabalaawi” by the British writer and translator Philip Stewart (1996). The selected examples will be analyzed and discussed to determine the practice of deformation in the analyzed examples. To achieve this subjectively the researchers have selected the first two hundred sentences in the first chapter of the novel. The selected texts were read thoroughly to identify the examples covered by these deformations, and then the sentences were analyzed sequentially and comprehensively. Finally, comparing the examples under study and presenting the proposed translation in accordance with Berman's model, the researchers have found results that support Berman's theory of deformation tendencies. The data selected found nearly 330 cases relating to Berman’s model, a large number in 200 sentences.