The Translation of Arabic Collocations into English: Dictionary-based vs. Dictionary-free Measured Knowledge

This paper compares the output of two translation tasks. In an attempt to find out the extent to which students of translation can translate Arabic contextualized collocations into English properly, two conflicting views about carrying out a translation task are tested. The first holds that avoiding the use of a dictionary in test sessions, though not in translation classes, would save time and yield better translation products, whereas the second contends that recourse to a dictionary is unavoidable at any translation task, including tests. The two opposing views have their corollary in a similar dispute which has already been settled in favour of the mental lexicon rather than the dictionary (cf. Rangelova/Echeandia 2001). The results of this study defeat the first claim and run counter to Rangelova/Echeandia's findings, though obtained from qualitatively a different test setting

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

Qur’an-related Intertextuality: Textual Potentiation in Translation

Qur’an-related intertextuality, envisaged as an enriching communicative act both monolingually and interlingually, represents a case of semantic complexity that is wired to present inconceivable translation challenges. Drawing on Derrida’s (1977) dichotomy iterability/citationality, Kristeva’s (1980) vertical intertextuality, Fairclough’s (1992a; 1992b; 1995 & 2011) manifest intertextuality, and Bakhtin’s (1986) double voicing or re-accentuation, the study argues that Qur’an-related intertextuality is conducive of conceptual densities, the ‘harnessing’ of which requires ‘mobilizing’ those translation strategies that should exceed the lexicographical equivalence (Venuti 2009) to establish intertextual relations relevant to the form and theme of the foreign text. To resolve the arising translation problems, the study basically proposes two synthetic approaches: the gist-paratextual and the gist-exegetical. Translation skopos has been found to be central to the production and reception of intertextuality and to determining which of the two proposed synthetic approaches to operationalize. Finally, analysis shows that Qur’an proved to be a virtual breeding ground for textual dynamism and potentiation

Shifts of Cohesion and Coherence in the Translation of Political Speeches

Discourse Markers (DMs) are central to maintaining cohesive and coherent translations. Drawing on Halliday and Hassan’s (1976) model to investigate the translation of DMs in political speeches, the study has verified the premise that tampering with the SLT's cohesion grid can adversely affect its relevant undergirding coherence grid. The study has revealed that any incurred cohesion shift in the act of translating would necessarily inscribe a parallel coherence shift, which fuse together to procure a noticeable translation loss. Analysis has isolated three major problems pertinent to translating English DMs into Arabic: (a) mistranslating explicit SL DMs, (b) no translation is given for implicit SL DMs, and (c) no translation is given for explicit SL DMs.

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