RECONSIDERING CULTURAL TRANSFER: AN ANALYSIS OF ALLAMA IQBAL’S TARANA-E-MILLI
Keywords:
Bang-e Dara, Cultural Exchange, Cultural Transfer, Iqbal, Nida, Tarana-e-MilliAbstract
The present study aims at identifying the cultural elements in Urdu language with purpose to evaluate the success of conveying nuanced culture from Urdu to English language. Various researchers in this field have investigated the idea of cultural transfer from the source language to the target language through translation focusing on the challenges in finding equivalence. This study contributes to the broader understanding of cultural transfer utilizing Nida’s (1975) theory of cultural exchange. Following a qualitative research method a poem of Iqbal titled “Tarana-e-Milli” from his book Bang-e Dara is considered as a semantic and linguistic whole in order to find out cultural transfer through translated text in target language. The analysis focuses on identifying cultural elements such as religious references, historical allusions, ecological and traditional symbols specific to the source culture. The extent to which they retain their original cultural significance is explored. The study reveals that some concepts which are deeply rooted in Urdu language and culture could not be effectively conveyed in English language as their idea does not resonate with the English-speaking audience. In the process of gaining functional equivalence, the true religious, historical, emotional essence of the source culture lost in the translated product.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Syeda Ammara Kaleem, Sanniya Sara Batool (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
