Risk Management as a Method of Translation Criticism

Risk management has been occupying a central place in Translation Studies in recent years. Perceiving the Source Product as a material with a number of risks moving from credibility to uncertainty to communicative ones, risk management focuses on the way the translator deals with these different risks. It has first been suggested by Anthony Pym in the field of professional translation. Some studies tried to apply this approach to translation teaching, interpreting training, and translation assessment. Hence, the present study aims at exploring risk management in the literary translation area. It tends to answer the following question: 'how can risk management approach be applied in assessing and analyzing literary translation?' The research opens with a theoretical introduction tackling the concept of risk management, the different kinds of risks, strategies of dealing with risks as well as a literature review of literary translation. Then, it sheds light on Yasmina Khadra’s translated novels (English and Arabic versions) revealing risks and the various strategies adopted by translators. Methodically, the paper adopts a qualitative method taking each example aside, analyzing it from a communicative point of view and suggesting potential alternatives.