College of Arts discusses “Translation, Cultural Sustainability and Promoting Cultural Diversity”

The College of Arts at the University of Bahrain concluded its cultural season for the current semester with a seminar on “Translation, Cultural Sustainability and Promoting Cultural Diversity”, coinciding with the world’s celebration of Cultural Diversity Day, which falls on May 11 of every year.

The seminar, which was held on Tuesday (May 21, 2024), was attended by Mohammed Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Mubarak, Bahraini writer and translator, Aisha Yousef Al-Sada, Head of the Cultural Awareness and Programs Department at the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities, and Dr. Amr Noureddine Hassan, Assistant Professor of Translation at the Department of English Language and Literature, College of Arts at the University of Bahrain, while the seminar was moderated by Dr. Ghada Ahmed Jassim, Head of the Department of English Language and Literature.

Dr. Amr Noureddine Hassan, Assistant Professor of Translation, stressed the importance of correcting cultural differences when translating from foreign languages into Arabic and vice versa, to preserve the spirit of the original text, and the meaning intended to be delivered, pointing out that some translations – especially media ones – fall into the trap of literal translation, which may deviate from the meaning, due to their association with cultures that differ from the Arab culture and environment.

Aisha Yousef Al-Sada, Head of the Cultural Awareness and Programs Department at the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities, pointed to projecting sustainability on culture, and facing the challenge of openness and cultural diversity, mentioning the human richness resulting from cultural and religious diversity in the Kingdom of Bahrain, pointing to the knowledge transfer project, through which 50 books were translated in 2014, as an initiative for the sustainability of culture.

For his part, Mohammed Sheikh Ibrahim Al Mubarak, a Bahraini writer and translator, pointed to the unfolding of meanings and facts after translating some texts from other cultures, underlining the dissolution of differences between cultures after overcoming the language barrier. “Machine translation does not mean perfection in translation or the end of the road,” he said, wondering what happened or happens when translators try to dissolve cultures through translation, stressing that the goal of translation should not be to completely dissolve culture, as it is an injustice to translation and an injustice to cultural richness.