An ANALYSIS OF THE URDU TRANSLATION OF THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: AN IDEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

In modern times, the discipline of Translation Studies is developing rapidly and new advances are taking place at an astonishing rate. Translation is not only a process of transmitting linguistic features from a source text to a target text, but it also acts as a tool for manipulating/substituting the ideologies and assumptions enshrined in the source text. In the present study, it has been analyzed how ideological shifts have taken place in the Urdu translation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The Declaration has English as its source text (ST) and Urdu as the target text (TT). Drawing on the ideas proposed by Hatim and Mason (1990, 1991 & 1997), the researchers have analyzed the translation considering a set of constraints related to text, genre, and discourse through which various ideologies find their ways to the target text. The findings of the study demonstrate a number of ideological shifts in the translation. Thus, the present study has analyzed the Urdu translation of the UDHR from the perspective of ideological shifts.