Investigating the Arabic translation of cultural elements in the story Modir-e Madrese based on Newmark's theory

Literary texts and more particularly, "the narrative text", assume pivotal roles in expressing culture. Therefore, the translation of these texts demands accurate conversion of any language’s cultural elements. The study at hand, through a descriptive-analytic approach, intends to analyze the Arabic version of Jalal Ale-Ahmad’s Modir-e Madrese based on Newmark’s cultural theory, in order to derive the most important cultural elements of the story and the challenges in their translation. Also addressed by the study, is presenting practical methods of accurately translating and transforming the cultural parts and parcels according to Newmark’s theory. The story of Modir-e Madrese helps the manifestation of a lucid view in the social, cultural, and administrative institutions of the author’s temporal and local milieu. Evaluation of the quality of transmitting local and cultural elements in lieu of translation, indicates the entanglement of cultural and linguistic elements which has impelled the translator to utilize diverse strategies of translating them in Arabic. A number of the untranslatable cultural elements have been conceptually translated. Functional equivalents and the explanation of the cultural elements’ conceptualization in the translation of the story, is the dominant and challenging concern of the translator. He has undertaken efforts to assimilate the story appropriately to the target language in his translation.