An Analysis of the Arabic-English Translation of Culture-Specific Items in Al Shehhi ’s 'Uncle Sam & Myself'

: People speak different languages across the globe and belong to different cultures, but they still need to communicate. People of discrete cultures think differently and use various concepts and expressions across languages. Such differences appear in literature and are expresse d through culture-specific items (CSIs). This study analyzes the CSIs in Al Shehhi’s ماس معلا و انأ ? na: wa l؟am sa:m/ (2016) and its English translation, ‘Uncle Sam & Myself’ (2017). The book was translated by Renaissance Translation and Businessmen Serv ices. The analysis provides a comparison between the CSIs in the ST (Arabic) and their TT (English) translations. The analysis was theoretically tethered to Newmark’s (1988) classification of CSIs and the translation procedures he postulated. Throughout the analysis, it has been found that some CSIs are inaccurately translated due to the cultural differences between Arabic and English, the use of specific local Emirati expressions in the ST, and the misuse of some translation techniques, as represented in the overuse of invalid literal translations.


Introduction
Literature is the product of human experience, knowledge, values, and ideology through which writers express their views in an artistic form.Literary translation may be defined as "an original subjective activity at the centre of a complex network of social and cultural practices" (Bush, 1998: 127).Many societies privilege and mandate literary translations over other types of translation and text typologies.An obvious difficulty results in the translation of literary texts from cultural differences.The cultural items embedded in a specific literary work cannot easily be recognized because people view phenomena from different perspectives.Consequently, what is evident for one culture could be unclear and ambiguous for another.Thus, translators find it difficult to apply appropriate translation procedures to transfer such items from the source text to the target language because of these differences.
Such CSI variations pose difficulties in translating literary works from one language to another because of potential misinterpretations.Danytė (2006: 203) stated that "translators face not only the problem of correctly interpreting such evocations but also transmitting them in a meaningful way to readers." Newmark (1988) proposed several translation procedures for the translation of CSIs, which will be listed later in this paper.
Emirati author and publisher Al Shehhi (2016) wrote ‫سام‬ ‫العم‬ ‫و‬ ‫أنا‬ /?na: wa l‫؟‬am sa:m/, a literary work in the genre of travel literature that was translated by Renaissance Translation and Businessmen Services as Uncle Sam & Myself (2017).The book reveals the writer's journey to study in the US and encompasses 28 short chapters amounting to 235 small-sized pages.Every chapter narrates a different but related story.The author summarizes his ten-year journey (1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004) as a student in the US.
The author of this literary work employs numerous Islamic, Arabic, and local Emirati CSIs that reflect the society and environment to which he belongs and indicate his childhood surroundings.The present study involves three main questions.
First, what CSIs does the aforementioned book contain according to Newmark's (1988) classifications?Second, which of Newmark's proposed translation procedures are used to translate these CSIs into English?Third, to what extent did the translators succeed in translating Arabic CSIs into English?The study takes a comparative approach in seeking to answer the above questions.In so doing, it compares the Arabic source text (ST) and English target text (TT) to examine how CSIs are rendered using Newmark's proposed procedures.The present investigation thus aims to: 1. Analyze the translation of CSIs by comparing the ST with the TT 5.
Suggest alternative translations whenever a mismatch is found.

Translation of CSIs
The translation of cultural and literary expressions denotes a valuable area of investigation for translation researchers.Numerous studies have investigated and analyzed translations and identified the translation procedures utilized in them.In the present context, Dweik ( 2013) conducted a study on translating cultural and literary expressions from English to Arabic, in which he employed different perspectives to examine culture and translation.Dweik's study was conducted at the Middle East University in Jordan and investigated problems confronting some graduate and undergraduate English majors in translating cultural and lexical expressions into Arabic, for instance, idioms, collocations, metaphors, proverbs, and some proper nouns.An aggregate of 20 students was selected to accomplish a translation test.Participants were asked to convert some culture-bound items within a given time.The test aimed to collect precise data on difficulties faced in translating cultural and lexical expressions.Dweik (2013) tabulated the ST items and noted their translations in the TT to analyze the data and evaluate the performance of the participating students.He also interviewed some participants to explore their problems during the translation process.Dweik (2013) discovered that the students performed poorly in translating cultural and lexical expressions and attributed their deficiencies to the paucity of their knowledge of the target language and target language culture.Farahani and Mokhtari (2016) investigated CSIs in the English Translation of Hedayat's Blind Owl.Their study began by defining translation and discussing its transformation from a linguistic-oriented operation to a more culturally oriented task.Farahani and Mokhtari (2016) employed theories and examples to highlight the importance of culture in translation and its relationship to language, subsequently introducing their methodology by overviewing the selected corpus, Sadegh Hedayat's Blind Owl, and discussing the literary significance of this text.They collected data by listing the CSIs and identifying the utilized translation techniques.They analyzed the data using tables and pie charts to categorize and analyze every CSI example they discovered in the book.Farahani and Mokhtari (2016) reported that "the translator restored extensively to domestication as the major strategy in dealing with translating CSIs." Aldawood (2017) studied the translation of CSIs in literary texts, examining how translators represent the target language culture in their translations, specifically Arabic into English, and noting the stereotypes with which Westerners associate Arabs.She examined a book rich with CSIs, Saudi author Yousef Al-Mohaimeed's ‫فخاخ‬ ‫الرائحة‬ /fixa:xu rra:?iɦa/(translated by Anthony Calderbank as Wolves of the Crescent Moon) as a case study.Aldawood (2017) collected data by selecting 20 CSI examples from the original Arabic text, compared the examples to the translated version, and discussed the translation strategies that were used.Aldawood (2017) found that literal translation and transliteration were widely used strategies and that foreignization was favoured over domestication.She also discovered that the translator used a glossary to explain CSIs that the TT reader might not understand and to afford such readers more insight into Saudi culture.

Travel Literature
People have travelled throughout history for numerous and varied reasons, such as tourism (curiosity), immigration, exile, trade, diplomacy, and educational purposes.Travel writing eventually became a form of literature through which people documented their journeys for others.Travel literature has a long history and has been read through the ages.For instance, "travellers' tales were probably the most popular form of reading in seventeenth-century France" (Warwick, 2009: 53).Anjum (2014) asserted that travel writing was a very broad domain and described it as "fluid and versatile" stating that its complexity made its definition difficult.Anjum (2014) also mentioned the different forms of travel writing, including guidebooks, itineraries, routes, maps, accounts of journeys accomplished via land or water, and mere descriptions of experiences (Al Shehhi's Uncle Sam & Myself is a good example of this type).Anjum (2014) further explained that travel writing could be inscribed as prose or poetry and encompass historical or (auto-) biographical works.Anjum (2014) and Borm (2004) disagreed on the notion that travel writing should be non-fictional, with Anjum (2014, p. 193) claiming that travel writing is "a collective term for a variety of texts both predominantly fictional and non-fictional whose main theme is travel."Venu (2018: 67) defined travel writing as "one of the interesting mediums to translate culture, as the writer travels, makes observations and translates the observation based on real experience verbally through the travelogue."Travel writing essentially involves writing about one's own country or traveling to other lands to document foreign cultural practices such as religions, food habits, traditions, politics, and customary practices.Travel writing also concerns translating the identity of a foreign culture for another society by transferring a culture's ideas and its linguistic and lexical terms to another.Travel writing can additionally incorporate precise illustrations, descriptions, and historical contexts through means such as maps.Venu (2018: 67) stated that "the traveler uses the work as a mouthpiece to take the readers to new destinations and exposes the culture of that place in a detailed manner through vivid descriptions."She (2018: 72) added that "it is appropriate to state that travel writers record their expeditions for someone else to relive and recapitulate the moments that they have experienced."Hence, travel writers experience different cultures and customs for the sake of the reader's enjoyment and attempt their best to deliver their experienced realities to their readers.

Al Shehhi's ‫سام‬ ‫والعم‬ ‫أنا‬ /?na: wa l‫؟‬am sa:m/ (Uncle Sam & Myself)
Jamal Ibrahim Al Shehhi is a notable publishing and writing personality in the United Arab Emirates.He founded the Kuttab Publishing House in 2010 and served as the Executive Director of the Arab Children's Programme at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Knowledge Foundation.He is also Secretary General of the Emirates Award for Fiction.In addition to founding the Kuttab Café, a cultural café-cum-bookshop in Dubai, Al Shehhi has published several texts, including the book Uncle Sam & My Self and a children's story series titled The Dairy of Moshagheb, which was also featured in newspapers such as Al Etihad and Gulf News.Al Shehhi holds a bachelor's degree in Human Sciences from a university in the United States and also earned his master's degree from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in the US.
Emirati author and publisher Jamal Al Shehhi (2016) wrote ‫سام‬ ‫العم‬ ‫و‬ ‫أنا‬ /? na: wa l‫؟‬am sa:m/, which was translated as Uncle Sam & Myself by Renaissance Translation & Businessmen Services in 2017 (no specific translator(s) is named).This autobiographical account comprises short stories and may be defined as travel literature combined with Al Shehhi's amusing writing and narrative skills.In this book, Al Shehhi recounts his journeys as a foreign student in the land of Uncle Sam (US), where he was confronted with numerous obstacles as a scholarship student because of expensive lifestyles, unusual weather, and new friendships.Therefore, he moved from one state to another until he found an affordable and convenient place to live and study.The author narrates his daily life in the US, the celebrations, visits to different states, the nostalgia from which he suffered, and scholarship students who struggle to stay in the US and strive not to return to their homelands empty-handed.Al Shehhi also conveys the mixed feelings of many scholarship students experience, recounting stories about his friends and their emotional relationships.

Newmark's Classification of Cultural Items
Culture is an immensely complex term that combines varied phenomena within its meaning.It manifests in diverse forms and may be distinctively described from one region to another.Newmark (1988, p. 94) defined culture as "the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression."Newmark (1988) asserted that culture was a focal facet of the ways of life of a people, influencing how they communicate within their communities, including their use of language to express themselves based on their cultural practices.Culture is, therefore, a significant factor in shaping one's way of life.Newmark (1988, p. 94) distinguished between the universal, cultural, and personal use of language.Universal words such as sun and moon in English cause no problems in translation.They are translated into Arabic as ‫الشمس‬ /aʃams/ and ‫القمر‬ /alqamar/.Most universal words are usually translatable, but they can connote different meanings depending on their SL and TL cultures and how specific cultures define and use them.Cultural terms cause some translation problems if a difficult-to-bridge cultural gap exists between the SL and TL.For example, translation problems occur in the process of converting certain culturally related religious concepts to target readers belonging to a different religion with different expectations and taboos.Newmark (1988) described personal language as an idiolect that normally leads to translation problems because of a personal usage of a certain word to express or refer to something.Newmark (1988) argued that translation problems occur when language becomes increasingly specific and, therefore, more culturally focused.In such instances, literal translations affect the meaning, and a descriptive-functional equivalent must be included in the translation.According to Newmark (1988), there are four general considerations governing the translation of cultural terminology: 1-[The] ultimate consideration should be recognition of the cultural achievements referred to in the SL text and respect for all foreign countries and their cultures… 2-Translation procedures which are at opposite ends of the scale are normally available; transference, which, usually in literary texts, offers local colour and atmosphere, and in specialist, texts enables the readership … to identify the referent in other texts … without difficulty… (p.96).

3-
Componential analysis, the most accurate translation procedure, which excludes the culture and highlights the message… 4- The translator of a cultural word … has to bear in mind both the motivation and cultural specialist … and linguistic level of the readership.Newmark (1988) classified cultural items as 1.
Gestures and habits: Often described in non-cultural language

Newmark's (1988) Proposed Translation Procedures
The paragraphs that follow present translation procedures posited by Newmark (1988), along with English-Arabic or Arabic-English examples that exhibit how such procedures are used in English/Arabic translations.

Literal Translation
As a technique, literal translation has always been controversial because it is sometimes viewed as a necessary and valid method but can often cause funny and unacceptable conversions.Newmark (1988: 68-69) stated that "the prevailing orthodoxy is leading to the rejection of literal translation as a legitimate translation procedure… However,… literal translation is correct and must not be avoided if it secures referential and pragmatic equivalence to the original."Consider the following example and its Arabic translation in which every English content word except powdered has an Arabic lexical counterpart: Troops went by the house and down the road, and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees.The trunks of the trees too were dusty, and the leaves fell early that year.
‫أيضا‬ ‫مغبرة‬ ‫األشجار‬ ‫جذوع‬ ‫كانت‬ ‫و‬ ‫األشجار.‬‫أوراق‬ ‫يغطي‬ ‫تثيره‬ ‫الذي‬ ‫الغبار‬ ‫وكان‬ ‫الطريق،‬ ‫تهبط‬ ‫ثم‬ ‫بالمنزل‬ ‫تمر‬ ‫المسلحة‬ ‫القوات‬ ‫كانت‬ ‫و‬ ‫العام‬ ‫ذلك‬ ، ‫باكرا‬ ‫أوراقها‬ ‫تساقطت‬ ‫قد‬ ‫.و‬ /wa ka:nati lquwa:tu lmusallaɦatu tamurru bilmanzili Ɵumma tahbițu țțari:q wa ka:na lɣuba:ru juɣați ?awra:qa l?ʃɜa:r wa ka:nat ɜuðu:‫؟‬u l?ʃɜa:r muɣbaratun ?ajḍan wa qad tasa:qațat ?awra:quha ba:kiran ðalika l‫؟‬a:m/ The adoption of literal translation in the abovementioned example proves that this method is sometimes valid and that it represents an important technique.According to Newmark (1988), literal translation can be tested using the back-translation test in which the TL sentence is translated back into the SL.If the translation was satisfactory, it would pass the back-translation test.For example, a black frame is translated into ‫األسود‬ ‫اإلطار‬ /al?ița:ru l?aswad/ in Arabic.The back translation in English is correct.However, it should be noted that this test does not work with languages that display lexical gaps (Newmark, 1988).

Transference
Transference involves borrowing and is "the process of transferring an SL word to a TL text" (Newmark, 1988: 81).It is generally employed in the conveyance of proper names, names of countries, or untranslated titles of literary works such as plays, films, and other types (Newmark, 1988: 82).For instance, Arabic has borrowed many English words and phrases like cricket ‫كريكت‬ /krikit/ Likewise, English has borrowed numerous Arabic words such as Intifada ‫إنتفاضة‬ / ?intifa:ḍa/

Naturalization
This process "adapts the SL word first to the normal pronunciation, then to the normal morphology … of the TL" (Newmark, 1988: 82).Taking Arabic into consideration, Ghazala (1995: 193) defined naturalization as "the attempt to adopt the English terms to the morphology of Arabic word structure and can be seen as the evolution of the transcription method."For example, Alexander the Great is translated as ‫األكبر‬ ‫االسكندر‬ /aliskandaru l? akbar/ in Arabic.

Cultural Equivalent
A cultural equivalent is utilized when an SL cultural word or phrase is translated through a TL cultural word or phrase (Newmark, 1988: 83).The cultural differences between English and Arabic require cultural equivalents to be widely used in the translation of non-literal expressions between the two languages as in the conversion of it rains cats and dogs to ‫القرب‬ ‫كأفواه‬ ‫تمطر‬ ‫إنها‬ /? innaha: tumțiru ka? fwa:hi lqirab/

Functional Equivalent
Newmark (1988: 83) defined functional equivalence as a procedure that "requires the use of [a] culture-free word."A translator may employ a TL word or phrase that discharges the same function as the SL word or phrase, even if the literal meaning differs.‫عليكم‬ ‫/السالم‬ assala:mu ‫؟‬alajkum/ in Arabic is translated into Hello in English despite the difference in the literal meanings of the two terms because both discharge the same function and serve the same purpose.

Descriptive Equivalent
The descriptive equivalent paraphrases the SL term in the TL without the presence of the SL word (Ghazala, 1995: 204).Kremlin in the SL is translated using descriptive equivalent as ‫الروسي‬ ‫النواب‬ ‫مجلس‬ /maɜlisu nuwa:bi rru:si:/ in Arabic.

Synonymy
This technique utilizes "a near TL equivalent to an SL word in the context, where a precise equivalent may or may not exist" (Newmark, 1988: 84).This procedure is often used when the translator cannot find a one-to-one substitute in the TL.The English term sword is a synonymy for many words in Arabic, including ‫سيف‬ /sajf/, ‫مهند‬ /muhannad/, ‫حسام‬ /ɦusa:m/.

Through-Translation
Through-translation "is the literal translation of common collocations, names of organisations, the components of compounds… and perhaps phrases" (Newmark, 1988: 84).It is also called calque or loan translation (Newmark, 1988).‫دورا‬ ‫يلعب‬ /jal‫؟‬abu dawran/ in Arabic is a through-translation for playing a role in English.

Shift or Transposition
Newmark (1988: 85) defined shift or transposition as "a translation procedure involving a change in the grammar from SL to TL." Some examples in which a grammatical change is necessary are inscribed below: • Singular to Plural: Book publishing ‫الكتب‬ ‫نشر‬ /naʃru lkutub/.

Modulation
Modulation may be defined as translation through a "change in the viewpoint, of perspective… and very often of [the] category of thought" (Newmark, 1988: 88).The following examples illustrate such modifications: • Active for Passive: The killer was punished ‫عقابه‬ ‫المجرم‬ ‫نال‬ /na:la lmuɜrimu ‫؟‬iqa:bah/.

Recognized Translation
The process of recognized translation is employed to "normally use the official or the generally accepted translation of any institutional term" (Newmark, 1988: 89).However, Newmark suggests that if a translator is skeptical of the official translation of a certain word, they should gloss it to register disagreement with the official version.For example, the term environment-friendly bags is officially translated into the Arabic ‫للبيئة‬ ‫صديقة‬ ‫حقائب‬ /ɦaqa:?ibu ṣadi:qatun lilbi:?a/ even though it is inapt.It would be impossible to translate the phrase into a more acceptable term because this translation is generally accepted and widely used in Arabic.However, a translator could gloss it to register disagreement with such a rendering.

Compensation
This process occurs "when loss of meaning, sound-effect, metaphor or pragmatic effect in one part of a sentence is compensated in another part or contiguous sentence" (Newmark, 1988: 90).This technique is used to make up for the loss of a certain ST effect by creating a similar effect in the TL.For example, the English pun Try a blue moon in a blue moon is a Beer ad that employed a pun (once every blue moon) to advertise a product.This phrase is used to express something rare and extraordinary (every blue moon).An Arabic translation could be ‫جرب‬ ‫دائما‬ ‫المستحيل‬ /ɜarribi lmustaɦi:la da:?iman/.The compensation here is within the meaning of the pun.

Componential Analysis
Newmark (1988: 90) described the componential analysis as "the splitting up of a lexical unit into its sense components, often one-to-two, three or four translations."A comparison is performed between "an SL word with a TL word which has a similar meaning, but is not an obvious one-to-one equivalent, by demonstrating first their common and then their differing sense components."(Newmark, 1988: 114).Unfortunately, no clear example is found in English-Arabic translations.

Reduction and Expansion
Newmark (1988: 90) defined reduction and expansion as "imprecise translation procedures" that were usually used in translating poorly written texts when the translator was required to adjust the TT.Reduction occurs when translating a phrase using fewer words; for example, ‫رسمي‬ ‫غير‬ /ɣajur rasmi:/ in Arabic is translated to Informal in English by reducing the number of words to produce a more suitable translation.Expansion is the complete opposite; BBC is translated into ‫البريطانية‬ ‫سي‬ ‫بي‬ ‫البي‬ ‫قناة‬ /qana:tu lbi: bi: si: lbirița:nija/ in Arabic adding ‫قناة‬ /qana:tu/ and ‫البريطانية‬ /albirița:nija/ in the interests of clarification.

Translation Label
This process involves "the provisional translation, usually of a new institutional term, which should be made in inverted commas, which can later be discreetly withdrawn.It could be done through literal translation" (Newmark, 1988: 90).For example, Kremlin is translated into ‫الروسي‬ ‫النواب‬ ‫مجلس‬ ‫الكريملين:‬ /alkrimlin majlisu nnuwa:bi rru:si:/.Vinay andDarbelnet (1958/1995) postulated other procedural possibilities, including equivalence which is "an unfortunately named term implying approximate equivalence, accounting for the same situation in different terms."(Newmark, 1988: 90).It concerns the similarity between two words from two different languages.For example, the word Apple in English is translated into its direct equivalent, ‫تفاحة‬ /tuffa:ɦa/, in Arabic.Adaptation is the "use of recognised equivalent between two situations.This is a matter of cultural equivalence" (Newmark, 1988: 91).For example, the English saying as rich as Croesus is translated into ‫قارون‬ ‫مال‬ ‫يملك‬ /jamliku ma:la qa:ru:n/ in Arabic.

Couplet
A translator may combine two or more translation procedures to tackle a single problem.This technique is particularly common for the translation of cultural words (Newmark, 1988: 91) when two different procedures are combined in one translation (couplets) or three or four processes are applied to a single translation (triplets/quadruplets).For example, the popular American dessert apple pie is translated into ‫التفاح‬ ‫فطيرة‬ ‫باي‬ ‫االبل‬ /al?abil ba:j fați:ratu ttufa:ɦ/ using two translation procedures: borrowing and literal translation.

Notes, Additions, and Glosses
These translation procedures allow translators to provide additional information within a text, at the bottom of a page, end of a chapter, or in a glossary at the end of a book (Newmark, 1988: 91-92).They are usually used to bolster the translation with more information for clarification.The additional information offered by a translator is primarily cultural and seeks to bridge the gap between the SL and TL.Such information can also be technical and/or linguistic.For example, the Arabic Islamic cultural term ‫المسحراتي‬ /almusaɦara:ti/ is translated into the Musahharati, and the translator describes the term at the bottom of the page as a man walking the streets at night during the holy month of Ramadan singing and drumming to arouse people for their late-night meal in preparation for fasting.Williams and Chesterman (2002: 6) stated that "the analysis of translated texts involves the textual comparison of a translation with its original."Of course, every possible aspect of a translation cannot be compared to the original text.Therefore, the comparison between the Arabic ST and the English TT was limited in this study to the CSIs found in the selected corpus.The data collection for the present study entailed collecting the CSIs in the original Arabic text, compiling their counterparts in the translated English text, and identifying the translation procedures posited by Newmark (1988).Other classifications of CSIs exist (c.f.Katan, 2004;and Zagood et al., 2022), and other scholars have postulated other translation procedures (c.f.Vinay andDarbelnet, 1958/1995;and Giaber, 2019); however, this study employed Newmark's (1988) classification of CSIs and utilized the translation procedures he proposed.

Research Methodology and Data Collection
The current study used both quantitative and qualitative methodologies.The quantitative approach was applied to determine the number and percentage of acceptable and unacceptable translations of CSIs and to ascertain the number and percentage of Newmark's (1988) translation procedures applied in translating Arabic CSIs found in Al Shehhi's‫سام‬ ‫العم‬ ‫و‬ ‫أنا‬ /?na: wa l‫؟‬am sa:m/ into English.The qualitative approach was utilized to discover how Arabic CSIs were transferred into English and to identify the extent to which Newmark 's (1988) proposed procedures were used.
‫سام‬ ‫العم‬ ‫و‬ ‫أنا‬ /?na: wa l‫؟‬am sa:m/ was selected for this study because of the abundance of CSIs in the book, which thus represents a valuable data source.A sample of 20 exemplars of varied cultural categories was selected because of time and space constraints, and the study purposed to examine how they were translated into English and to identify Newmark 's (1988) translation procedures deployed during their translation.Williams and Chesterman (2002: 48-57) asserted the existence of three research models: comparative, process, and casual.The present study adopted the comparative model, which is product-oriented and concerns the relationship between the ST and the TT.In so doing, it compared the ST and TT to analyze how CSIs were translated and to identify the applied translation procedures and implemented the following procedure to evaluate the selected examples: 1.
Reading the ST to identify CSIs (inscribed in bold text in Tables 1-20).Resident Emiratis were queried in some instances about the exact meanings of some local sayings (e.g., examples 10 and 14). 2.
Reading the TT to detect how the identified CSIs were translated (inscribed in bold text in Tables 1-20).
Commenting on the translation procedures used and suggesting alternative translations (whenever a mismatch was found).

Qualitative Data Analysis
The analysis that follows evinces the application of the abovementioned analytical procedure on the data collected from the selected corpus.The analysis is accomplished by tabulating both the ST and TT and a subsequent The quantitative analysis that followed the evaluation of the 20 Arabic CSIs and their English counterparts revealed that some CSIs were acceptably translated while others were not.The quantitative analysis also disclosed that the translator(s) adopted some of Newmark's (1988) translation procedures and ignored others.

Conclusion
This study aimed to analyze the translation of the CSIs found in Al Shehhi's ‫سام‬ ‫العم‬ ‫و‬ ‫أنا‬ /?na: wa l‫؟‬am sa:m/ and the English translation of the novel, Uncle Sam & Myself.To accomplish its objective, the study adopted Newmark's (1988) classification of cultural items and his proposed translation procedures.The corpus selected for the study belongs to the genre of travel literature because the narrative entails the author's journeys in the US as a student.The evaluation procedure comprised first identifying CSIs according to Newmark's classification before pinpointing the employed translation procedures.Subsequently, alternative translations were offered whenever the translations were deemed ineffective or inaccurate.Due comments were provided on the original translations, and translation procedures and/or justifications were recorded for the suggested alternative translations.Data for the study were collected and tabulated according to Newmark's categorization of cultural items.Each table marked 1-20 concerns a specific cultural category, as previously shown in the qualitative analysis.Each of these tables (1-20) contains a CSI example from the ST, its translation in the TT, the translation procedure used by the translator(s), a suggested alternative translation (if needed), and a comment on the accomplished translation or a justification for the suggested alternative translation.The justification elucidates why the original translation is inappropriate and offers reasons for the alternative suggestion.This study, however, does not attempt an overall critique of the translation of the book; rather, it focuses only on the translation of CSIs.
The study's findings revealed that some CSIs were correctly translated while others were not (Table 21).Some lexical, syntactic, and textual level mismatches were found between the ST and its translation.The results of the study also demonstrated difficulties confronting the translator(s) in converting Arabic CSIs into English.These complexities are attributed to several issues, including the overuse of literal translation in some instances (used 25%), even when the technique is untenable, and the cultural differences between Arabic (Emirati) and English societies that make the conversion of the CSIs difficult in attempting to aptly convey the author's intended sense.Additionally, the study found that the couplet technique (used 25%) was appropriately deployed in some cases (examples 4 and 17) and inappropriately applied in some other instances (examples 11 and 18).In some examples, one procedure of a couplet is correctly deployed, but the other is not (example 11).The current study also discovered that some of Newmark's (1988) proposed translation procedures remained unused (see table 22 earlier).
This investigation disclosed distinctly that the translation of CSIs poses certain difficulties.To overcome such difficulties, special attention is mandated in translating literary texts from one language to another.It is recommended that translators should identify the CSIs in the ST, seek their counterparts in the target culture, and translate the terminology using appropriate translation procedures to convey their intended meanings to target readers.
This review elucidates several issues concerning the translation of CSIs in travel literature by examining Al Shehhi's (2016) ‫سام‬ ‫العم‬ ‫و‬ ‫أنا‬ /?na: wa l‫؟‬am sa:m/ translation into Uncle Sam & Myself in light of the theoretical framework of Newmark's (1988) classification of cultural items and his proposed translation procedures.
Table 21 displays the number and percentage of acceptable and unacceptable translations:

Table 21 :
The number of acceptable and unacceptable translations

Table 22 :
Table 22 presents the frequency of Newmark's (1988) translation procedures deployed in the translation of CSIs identified in Al Shehhi's ‫سام‬ ‫العم‬ ‫و‬ ‫أنا‬ /?na: wa l‫؟‬am sa:m/ and it's English translation Uncle Sam & Myself: The frequency of Newmark's (1988) translation procedures