Abstract:
Conflicts over identity are old and they emerged explicitly during the European
colonial expansion in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries and they accelerated
remarkably with a recent globalization wave that started in the early1990s. Philosophers,
psychologists, mathematicians, logicians, politicians, among others, have found in the
term "identity" a vivid niche where they can approach and research the issue. The
relationship between identity, globalization, language and translation is so steadfast that
a fresh perspective on the role of translation in this respect is urgently required. Hence
comes the present research. It hypothesizes that there is a conflict between Arab identity
and globalization and this is manifested in the role played by translation.
This paper is an interdisciplinary examination of the role of translation in shaping the
Arab identity in a post-colonial, globalized world, taking concepts from post-colonial
translation studies, pragmatics, post-colonial theory of international relations and
Samuel Huntington's theory of the Clash of Civilizations. It employs a dual methodology
of content analysis and comparative study between English texts and their Arabic
translations. It aims to reveal the nature of this role. Through the analysis of data, it
concludes that translation has played a 'shameful' role in shaping the identity of the Arab World in the post-colonial era and that globalization is a new form of Western
colonialism which targets the identities of other nations.
