Inflectional Deviation of Gender in the Qur’an

Inflection, part of morphology, has its own rules that govern the combinations of morphemes in words and the relationships between parts of speech within a text. Yet, inflection including that of gender can vary across different linguistic systems. Arabic and English notably contrast in gender-based relations. More specifically and within Arabic itself, the Qur’an displays striking cases of gender disagreement between grammatical categories within a text. Such deviating forms, as using a masculine verb with a feminine subject, a masculine subject with a feminine predicate or a masculine adjective to modify a feminine noun, are very unlikely to appear in other Arabic text genres. These are utilized in the divine text as rhetorical devices to create certain effects or achieve a linguistic power on the audience, in addition to other functions. This special use of gender deviation and the functions it purports to perform in the source text are likely to be lost in translation. Of course, this is attributed to the fact that the target language system neither accommodates the same inflectional rules governing gender relations in Arabic, on the one hand, nor can it provide equal deviating or gender-based disagreements, on the other

Certain terms relating to Islamic observances : their meanings with reference to three translations of the Qur'an and a translation of Hadith

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Lost in Translation: Shop Signs in Jordan

Shop signs, in the Jordanian public commercial environment, have invariably been studied from linguistic, sociolinguistic, and pragmatic perspectives, but they have been utterly ignored from a translational point of view. This study, the first of its kind, investigates various problems and inadequacies pertinent to the subject under discussion. Shop signs are selected here from a number of heterogeneous cities, and the translation errors therein, committed by communicators, were empirically analyzed and categorized. Language and culture are, of necessity, inextricably intertwined, and this nexus is particularly apparent in the world of local commercial shop signs, and thus it has been tackled for its direct relevance to the translation of these signs. This investigation, therefore, highlights the linguistic (e.g., word-order, wrong lexical choice, and reductionist strategies), and extralinguistic (i.e., sociocultural and promotional) factors that have turned out to lead to translation inappropriateness and unparallelisms, information skewing, and, consequently, serious semantic-conceptual problems in the produced TLTs. This study may, in a way, provide educated insight into the trendiest translation practices in this field, and the way shop signs are most often verbalized, mishandled, and mistranslated.Les panneaux de magasins, nombreux dans le contexte commercial public en Jordanie, ont été largement étudiés d’un point de vue linguistique, sociolinguistique et pragmatique, mais jamais ils n’ont été abordés sur le plan de leur traduction. Cette étude, la première de son genre, aborde les problèmes et insuffisances liés au sujet en question. Les panneaux commerciaux ont été sélectionnés à partir d’un certain nombre de paramètres hétérogènes. Quant aux erreurs de traduction commises par les interlocuteurs, elles ont été empiriquement analysées et classées par catégorie. Étant donné que la langue et la culture sont inextricablement liées, le lien entre elles s’avère encore plus évident lorsqu’il s’agit des panneaux commerciaux locaux. Le sujet a été ainsi abordé en raison de son rapport direct avec la traduction de ces signes. Cette recherche met donc l’accent sur les facteurs à la fois linguistiques (e.g. l’ordre des mots, les choix lexicaux, les stratégies réductionnistes) et extralinguistiques (e.g. facteurs socioculturels et promotionnels) qui ont été à l’origine de l’inexactitude et l’inadéquation de la traduction, d’une part, et du détournement de l’information, d’autre part. Ce qui mène, en conséquence, à de graves problèmes sémantico-conceptuels sur le plan des traductions en question. Cette étude pourrait, d’une certaine manière, fournir un aperçu instruit des différentes tendances de traduction pratiquées dans le domaine ainsi que de la manière dont les panneaux commerciaux sont souvent exprimés, malmenés et, notamment, mal traduits

Culture as a Problem in the Translation of Jordanian Proverbs into English

The study aims at identifying the cultural problems, encountered in the translation of Jordanian proverbs into English. The significance of the study stems from the fact that it stresses on the social, colloquial, and folkloric use of proverbs that adds to the various implications of them. It relies on the selection of proverbs that are used and understood in different regions of Jordan. They address different social and cultural issues, and this makes indispensible the relationship between Jordanians and their cultural and social values. The conventions of the proverbs reflect their historical background, and the actual incidents or events that have led to their formation, utterance, currency, and frequency. The whole proverbial context has been pivotally and elementally noticed in proverbs' construction, and this fact enhances both the utterer and the audience in the comprehension of the proverb. Translating the selected proverbs into English collides with many challenges, of which the cultural ones are observed as the most manifest. What adds to the translation challenges is the colloquialism of the proverbs, which gives them enough semantic, social, and cultural values that cannot be stripped or ignored in the literal translation of the proverbs

Connotations of Fewness and Muchness in Arabic: A Semantic and Translational Perspective

This study attempts to explore the reflection of the connotative meanings in the translation of the Arabic lexical items qalil (few or little) and kathir (much or many) and their derivations from Arabic into English and Spanish. In order to conduct the study, some Qur’anic verses containing the two items are chosen, and two translations of the verses, English and Spanish, are selected to evaluate the portrayal of the connotative meanings of the two items in the translation. The study shows that the verses containing qalil and its derivations hold positive and favorable connotations and overtones, while the verses containing kathir and its derivations hold negative ones. It shows that the translation challenge of the antonymous lexical items qalil and kathir does not lie in their denotative meaning, but rather in the connotative one. It further reveals that lexical items can be concurrently antonymous at the denotative and connotative levels, a semantic fact that should be given enough attention in translation. The study concludes that since literal translation does not convey the various implications of lexical items, exegetic translation is suggested as an appropriate translation strategy to transfer these implications

Jordanian Folkloric Songs in Translation: Mousa’s Song They Have Passed by Without a Company as a Case Study

Folkloric song-translation is a research area that diverges acutely from the centre of interest of interlingual-intercultural transfer in general, and Arabic-English translation studies in particular. This paper attempts to shed light into Abdu Mousa’s culture-bound song marren wa ma ma’hin hada (they have passed by without a company), as an instance of the challenges that folkloric songs may pose in translation, and how, when translating between cultures with different discursive properties, the translator has a certain leeway when reformulating the lingual-cultural import of the source text for target readers. Drawing on Low’s (2005a) Pentathlon Approach, and placing a strong emphasis on content, the study highlights the problems and difficulties involved in translating this type of song, and demonstrates a number of unique aspects of translating folkloric songs, which involve elements of sense, naturalness, cultural references, and how these elements are interconnected and entangled with each other. These insurmountable difficulties are accounted for by the existing sharp linguistic and cultural differences between Arabic and English, and, the incompatibilities between the two working concept systems of the two languages, which add to the intricacy of translating this type of literature. On a less formal level, colloquialism has been found to have had its way to the source language text, a factor which further complicates the abridgement process.La traduction des chansons traditionnelles folkloriques constitue un domaine de recherche qui s’écarte sensiblement de celui du transfert interlinguistique et interculturel en général, notamment de l’arabe à l’anglais. Le présent article porte sur la chanson d’Abdu Mousa, dont le titre est marren wa ma mahin hada (ils sont passés sans être accompagnés), comme exemple des défis posés par la traduction de ce type de chanson. Il montre jusqu’à quel point le traducteur a une marge de manoeuvre pour reformuler l’apport linguistico-culturel du texte de départ, lorsqu’il travaille avec des cultures dont les discours présentent d’importantes divergences. Se basant sur la stratégie Pentathlon de Low (2005a) et mettant l’accent sur le contenu, l’étude met en relief les difficultés et les problèmes inhérents à la traduction de ce genre de chanson et souligne un certain nombre d’aspects qui lui sont uniques (éléments de sens, idiomaticité et références culturelles, ainsi que les rapports entre ces éléments). Au-delà de la difficulté inhérente à la traduction de ce genre lui-même, elle rend compte des difficultés insurmontables liées aux différences linguistico-culturelles et conceptuelles de l’arabe et de l’anglais. Enfin, à un niveau moins formel, le ton familier du texte source ne fait que compliquer le processus de traduction

Culture as a Problem in the Translation of Jordanian Proverbs into English

The study aims at identifying the cultural problems, encountered in the translation of Jordanian proverbs into English. The significance of the study stems from the fact that it stresses on the social, colloquial, and folkloric use of proverbs that adds to the various implications of them. It relies on the selection of proverbs that are used and understood in different regions of Jordan. They address different social and cultural issues, and this makes indispensible the relationship between Jordanians and their cultural and social values. The conventions of the proverbs reflect their historical background, and the actual incidents or events that have led to their formation, utterance, currency, and frequency. The whole proverbial context has been pivotally and elementally noticed in proverbs' construction, and this fact enhances both the utterer and the audience in the comprehension of the proverb. Translating the selected proverbs into English collides with many challenges, of which the cultural ones are observed as the most manifest. What adds to the translation challenges is the colloquialism of the proverbs, which gives them enough semantic, social, and cultural values that cannot be stripped or ignored in the literal translation of the proverbs

Culture as a Problem in the Translation of Jordanian Proverbs into English

The study aims at identifying the cultural problems, encountered in the translation of Jordanian proverbs into English. The significance of the study stems from the fact that it stresses on the social, colloquial, and folkloric use of proverbs that adds to the various implications of them. It relies on the selection of proverbs that are used and understood in different regions of Jordan. They address different social and cultural issues, and this makes indispensible the relationship between Jordanians and their cultural and social values. The conventions of the proverbs reflect their historical background, and the actual incidents or events that have led to their formation, utterance, currency, and frequency. The whole proverbial context has been pivotally and elementally noticed in proverbs' construction, and this fact enhances both the utterer and the audience in the comprehension of the proverb. Translating the selected proverbs into English collides with many challenges, of which the cultural ones are observed as the most manifest. What adds to the translation challenges is the colloquialism of the proverbs, which gives them enough semantic, social, and cultural values that cannot be stripped or ignored in the literal translation of the proverbs

Marriage Invitation Cards in Jordan: A Translational Analysis

The present study investigates the socio-cultural problems that translators encounter in translating Jordanian wedding invitation cards from Arabic into English. The study proves that these cards have enough social and cultural details that reflect the Jordanian community. It also shows that the information in the cards differs from one time to another due to economic, social, and religious changes and emerging circumstances. It also uncovers that the contents of the cards are norms-like and have ideologies that are not easy to transfer into a completely different culture. In order to conduct the study, some examples that include social and cultural elements are selected, and these elements are translationally investigated. The paper shows that resolving these translation challenges can only be through providing enough discussion and enclosing sufficient social and cultural backgrounds about the wedding invitation cards