Positioning the Autobiographer in the Arabic Translation of Eat, pray, love: A Study of the (re)Framing Techniques

A narrative is a means through which people can experience the world
which Mona Baker (2006) defines as the stories people tell themselves about
the world to construct reality and guide people’s behaviors. There are various
forms of narratives, and the genre of autobiography in which the writer decides
to share his/her experience with others is just an example of the ontological
narrative where the writer narrates his/her story. The significance of
autobiographies as an ontological narrative coincides with the rise of female
autobiographers who chronicle their lives to guide other women towards
leading a better life. Autobiographers give themselves a certain position in the
narrative world which can be subjected to change and alteration when the
autobiography is translated into another language. Retaining the
autobiographer’s position is one of the challenges facing translators,
especially, if the autobiography and its translation do not belong to the same
culture. Baker’s (2006) Narrative Theory is one of the theories which can
account for the changes occurring to the autobiographer’s position when
translated. The paper uses Baker’s (re)framing scheme to examine the
repositioning of the autobiographer, Elizabeth Gilbert, in the Arabic
translation of Eat, pray, love: One woman’s search for everything across Italy,
India and Indonesia. The study attempts to identify the (re)framing techniques
capable of changing the autobiographer’s. It also highlights the importance of
the integration between the Narrative Theory (Baker, 2006) and the
Positioning Theory (Davies & Harre, 1990), especially, that the narrative type
can change in the translation