Movie Title: هم الكلاب

Movie Title: هم الكلاب

Story of the movie:

According to IMDb website, the movie tells the story of a TV crew who roams the streets of Casablanca in the midst of the Arabic spring protests that many Arab countries witnessed, including Morocco. While reporting the events, they met an old person wandering in the crowd. They soon realized that he must be an interesting story to report on. The man, later in the movie, will explain to the TV crew that he was arrested during the Moroccan riots in the 1980s, known as the “Bread Intifada”. As such, the now-free prisoner does not recall his name nor where he lives. The reporters will, then, offer their help to find out his identity in exchange of an interview.

• Release date: 2013

• Director and writer: Hisham Lasri

 Literal translation of movie title:

A literal English translation of the movie would be: They are the dogs.

Analysis of the title:

The title is a metaphor used by the Arab upper class during the 1980s to insult the protesters, especially in Morocco. It is obvious that the title of the movie is a direct response to the insult. Contrarily to many cultures, the word “dog” in the Moroccan Darija, and more generally in Arabic, has a negative connotation. It refers to someone who is barbaric, primitive and non-educated amongst other negative meanings. It could be argued that these negative connotations are derived from Islam, for there are many Hadiths which pose numerous restrictions on having a dog; such examples include dogs as being impure. Hence, the title is of a cultural nature and could only be transposed using an equivalent word that would have the same equivalent impact on the target audience.

Official translation of the title into English: They are the dogs

According to Vinay and Darbelnet’s (1958) procedures, the title was transposed into English using literal translation.

Concerning the referential function, the movie title in English does not explicitly relate to the content of the movie, nor does the Arabic one. It could be argued that the movie producer /marketer deliberately chose this title to make the audience question the identity of those insulted. As such, the readers will be interested in revealing their identity and would eventually watch the movie. In other words, he sacrificed the referential function for the appellative one.

In what concerns the expressive function, the title was translated literary without taking into account the systems of belief, culture and ideas of the target audience and the fact that the word “dog” in English does not carry the same derogatory connotation as in its Arabic counterpart. To elaborate, even though the word “dog” could be used in few settings as an insult, it doesn’t have the same impact as the Arabic one. More often, the word “dog” is used as a positive connotation. Such examples include the following idioms:

• Love me love my dog
• To help a lame dog over the stile
• An old dog barks not in vain

Arabic, on the other hand, includes many derogatory idioms:

• القافلة تسير والكلاب تنبح
• تموت الأسود في الغابات جوعا … ولحم الضأن تأكله الكلاب وعبد قد ينام على حرير … وذو الأنساب مفارشه التراب
• لا تأسفاً لغدر الزمان ِلطالما رقصت على جثث الأسُودُ الكلابُ لا تحسبن برقصها تعلوا على أسيادها تبقى الأسودُ أسودُ و تبقى الكلابُ كلابُ

Hence, the title doesn’t serve the expressive function.

Finally, it could be argued that the movie producer/marketer’s aim was to urge the Arabic audience watch the product by referring to an Arabic insult. As aforementioned, it could be argued that once the audience is exposed to the title, they would question the identity of those insulted and would be interested in watching the movie. The English title, however, even though it will lead the audience to investigate the identity of the “dogs”, could result in a negative feedback; most of the viewers would be inclined to believe that the word “dog” is a compliment. As such, one could safely conclude that the English title does not serve the appellative function.

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