A study of sound translation in graphic novels from English to Arabic: a case study of DC’s Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell

Abstract

This study investigates the translation of sound expressions – specifically interjections, onomatopoeia, and interjectional onomatopoeia – in the Arabic version of the DC graphic novel Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell, published in 2014. Graphic novels, characterised by their integration of text and image, frequently rely on sound symbolism to convey emotion, action, and narrative tone. Translating these elements poses linguistic, cultural, and multimodal challenges, particularly when rendering them from English – a language rich in phonaesthetics and onomatopoeia – into Arabic. Drawing on insights from linguistic, translation, and comics scholars, this study approaches these challenges within an interdisciplinary framework. Despite the cultural prominence of translated comics in the Arab world, little scholarly attention has been paid to the treatment of sound in Arabic translations, marking a significant gap in the literature. Through a quantitative approach, this study classifies 170 sound expressions in the source text and examines their spatial placement – whether inside speech balloons, captions, or outside them – and the translation strategies applied. Muhaidat’s taxonomy was adopted as the primary analytical framework. The findings reveal notable variation in strategy use based on both sound type and placement. Transliteration emerged as the most frequently employed strategy overall, especially for interjectional onomatopoeia (84.00%) and interjections (43.96%), but was less common in onomatopoeia (24.07%). Creative invention dominated the translation of onomatopoeia (61.11%), yet was used far less for interjectional onomatopoeia (12.00%) and interjections (2.20%). Semantic equivalence was applied in interjections (35.16%), but dropped sharply for onomatopoeia (7.41%) and interjectional onomatopoeia (4.00%). Rewording accounted for interjections (18.68%), onomatopoeia (7.41%), and was entirely absent in interjectional onomatopoeia (0%). These patterns suggest that translation strategies are influenced by linguistic, cultural, and multimodal factors, highlighting the complexity of translating Arabic comics.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of Graphic Novels & Comics, 2026 · DOI ↗