Master’s Degree Awarded to Ms. Afnan Ali An-Nahari in Translation

Ms. Afnan Ali Mohammed Ahmed An-Nahari was awarded a Master’s Degree in Translation with an average of Excellent and a grade of (95) for her thesis titled: ‎ Cultural Manipulation of Children’s Literature Dubbing from English into Arabic: A Translation Quality Assessment of Extralinguistic Cultural References in The Simpsons, which was submitted to the Community Center for Translation and Language Teaching (CCTLT) – Sana’a University. The MA defense was held on Thursday, February 5, 2026.

The MA Viva-voce Committee, which was formed based on a resolution issued by the Graduate Studies and Scientific Research Council, consisted of the following:
# Committee Members Designation Position
1 Prof. Abdulhameed A. Ashuja’a Internal Examiner Chair
2 Prof. Ibraheem Tagaddeen ‎ ‎ Main Supervisor Member
3 Prof. Mohammed Qasim Al-Sharmani External Examiner Member
The thesis aimed to:
 Explore the main themes, ideological underpinnings, and extralinguistic cultural references embedded in ‎selected ‎examples from The Simpsons, using Critical Discourse Analysis.‎
 Investigate the problems of translating extralinguistic cultural references in the children’s ‎series The Simpsons from English into Arabic.‎
 Identify the strategies used in the dubbed Arabic version of The Simpsons, ‎based on ‎Pedersen’s (2011) taxonomy of ECR transfer strategies.
 Assess the translation quality of the dubbed children’s series The Simpsons from English into Arabic in light of Pedersen’s ‎(2017) ‎FAR model of quality assessment.‎
The study yielded a number of key findings summarized as follows:
 The primary difficulty in translating extralinguistic cultural references lies in rendering meaning ‎heavily ‎embedded in Western culture for a Muslim Arab child audience.‎
 The translation tends to rely on substituting Western cultural references with elements ‎more compatible with Arab children’s culture.‎
 These challenges are partly attributable to insufficient oversight by regulatory bodies ‎and ‎translation institutions in evaluating content targeting Arab children, as well ‎as a lack of ‎scholarly research on children’s literature translation.‎
In light of these findings, the researcher recommended the following:
 Giving greater attention to assessing the quality of translating cultural references in ‎content directed at Muslim Arab children.‎
 Strengthening collaboration among translators, educational specialists, and reviewers ‎within cartoon production institutions to ensure culturally and pedagogically ‎appropriate ‎dubbed versions.‎
 Establishing clear criteria for evaluating the quality of translating cultural references in ‎animated works, with due consideration for cultural suitability and semantic ‎accuracy.‎
 Encouraging further research on the impact of translators’ cultural choices on shaping ‎the ‎ideology of Muslim Arab children across various animated series.‎‎
The defense session was attended by a number of professors, researchers, students, colleagues, and the researcher’s family.