Some linguistic and cultural problems of English-Arabic translation and their implications for a strategy of Arabization

The present study consists of eight chapters. Chapter One serves as an introduction to the entire work including brief discussions related to some broad aspects of translation in general and Arabization in particular. It also specifies the nature and scope of the problems being investigated and outlines the research approach. Brief accounts of each topic to be dealt with in later chapters are provided at the end of this chapter. The first pages of Chapter Two examine some linguistic features of Arabic along with its relation to other members of the Semitic family. The rest of the chapter furnishes a historical background to the origin, efflorescence, stagnation and revival of Arabic. This is a necessary step since it serves as a preliminary stage to what will be discussed later on. Chapter Three deals with spectroglossia, the first of a series of problems which jeopardise the current efforts aimed at reinstating Arabic as a workable modem language. The origins and the consequences of the problem are brought into focus. The second part of the chapter examines some features of modem standard Arabic (MSA) and the need to disseminate its usage as a possible pragmatic solution for bridging the gap between Classical Arabic and the regional dialects. Chapters Four and Five are dedicated to the discussion of the traditional and in fact most serious problem of Arabization, namely lexical deficiency and the problems of adopting foreign terminology. Chapter Pour begins by analysing some of the major problems of Arabic terminology such as non-standardization, the neglect of the proposals of the language academies and the hasty adoption of foreign words. The chapter proceeds to review some useful methodologies of lexical enrichment such as the revival of obsolete terms, derivation and semantic extension. On the other hand, Chapter Five, which is, in fact, an extension of Chapter Four examines some of the difficulties associated with the assimilation of foreign words into Arabic and the problems of transliteration. In Chapter Six some cultural and stylistic disparities between English and Arabic are reviewed so that difficulties and possible translation errors may be identified. Points of similarity and difference between some cultural and stylistic features of both languages are described and proposals for a successful transfer between them are formulated. Both Chapter Seven and Chapter Eight introduce further issues of a new dimension. For instance, Chapter Seven discusses some of the problems involved in Arabizing the educational system in the Arab world as an example of a real-life situation where, for the most part, Arabization, particularly at the higher level of scientific education, is still an ideal. On the other hand, Chapter Eight, the final chapter in this thesis endeavours to evaluate some programmes of teaching foreign languages (TFL) in the Arab world and the position given to translator---training in such programmes. Clearly, the present study could not have been written in vacuo. It is indebted to all previous scholarship in the fields of translation, Arabization and English-Arabic contrastive linguistics. Yet some contributions in arrangements and detail may be claimed for it, along with some specific analysis of certain problems of Arabization such as in Chapter Eight on the need to improve on the current TFL programmes as well as the upgrading of translator-training courses as a pre-condition for a more efficient execution of any future strategy of Arabization, is prominent among the other contributions of this study. Finally, a major characteristic of the present work is its attempt to encompass within a somewhat abridged form a variety of problems that have always been treated as separate areas of research

The Compressive Strength of High-Performance Concrete and Ultrahigh-Performance

The compressive strength of silica fume concretes was investigated at low water-cementitious materials ratios with a naphthalene sulphonate superplasticizer. The results show that partial cement replacement up to 20% produce, higher compressive strengths than control concretes, nevertheless the strength gain is less than 15%. In this paper we propose a model to evaluate the compressive strength of silica fume concrete at any time. The model is related to the water-cementitious materials and silica-cement ratios. Taking into account the author's and other researchers’ experimental data, the accuracy of the proposed model is better than 5%

Properties of cement composites reinforced with geotextile meshes

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D90038 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Désordres dus à l’infiltration des eaux Cas de la ville d’El-Affroun

Des désordres ont été constatés dans plusieurs édifices publics dans une ville au sud d’Alger. Cet article présente une description de ces désordres et de leurs causes probables. Les études géologique, hydrogéologique et géotechnique ont montré que la région de la ville est géologiquement stable et le sol est de bonne résistance. La cause principale des désordres est liée à l’infiltration des eaux dans les sols argileux provenant des pluies et des réseaux d’assainissement défectueux. La présence d’arbres et arbustes très proches des constructions ainsi que le manque de dallage périphérique autour des bâtiments ont contribué à l’accélération de ces désordres

Effet de la combinaison de la chaux et de la pouzzolane naturelle sur le compactage et la résistance des sols mous argileux

La stabilisation des sols mous a été pratiquée longtemps en mélangeant des ajouts, tels que le ciment, la chaux et les cendres volantes au sol pour augmenter sa résistance. Cependant, il y a un manque d’investigations sur l’utilisation de la pouzzolane naturelle seule ou combinée avec la chaux pour les applications d’amélioration des sols. Un programme expérimental a été entrepris pour étudier l’effet de la chaux, la pouzzolane naturelle ou leur combinaison sur les caractéristiques géotechniques des sols mous. La chaux ou la pouzzolane naturelle ont été ajoutées aux sols par des teneurs de 0-10% et 0-20% respectivement. Les échantillons préparés ont été soumis aux essais de compactage et de résistance à la compression non confinée. Les échantillons ont subis des périodes de cure de 1, 7, 28 et 90 jours après quoi ils ont été soumis aux essais de la résistance à la compression non confinée. Basé sur les résultats favorables obtenus, ilpeut être conclu que les sols mous argileux peuvent être stabilisés avec succès par l’action combinée de la chaux et de la pouzzolane naturelle. Puisque la pouzzolane naturelle est beaucoup moins chère que la chaux, l’addition de la pouzzolane naturelle dans le mélange chaux-sol peut en particulier devenir attirante et avoir comme conséquence une réduction des coûts de la construction

Perméabilité au gaz et aux ions chlore des mortiers à base de laitier de faible hydraulicité

La durabilité des bétons au laitier de haut fourneau dépend fortement de l’activité hydraulique du laitier. Dans cette étude, un laitier algérien, caractérisé par une faible hydraulicité, est utilisé dans la fabrication de mortiers comme substituant du ciment à des taux de 0, 30 et 50%. En plus d’une caractérisation mécanique, l’effet du laitier sur la durabilité des mortiers est évalué par des essais de perméabilité à l’oxygène, de diffusion de chlorures en régime permanent ainsi que de conduction des ions chlore (essai accéléré ASTM). Les résultats montrent, malgré une faible réactivité du laitier, une amélioration de la perméabilité à l’oxygène à long terme (360 jours) pour les mortiers au laitier, particulièrement pour un taux de 50%. La présence du laitier réduit la perméabilité aux ions chlore, d’une part, en augmentant le temps de passage des chlorures à travers le mortier et, d’autre part, en diminuant le taux de diffusion. Par ailleurs, une faible conduction des chlorures est observée pour les mortiers au laitier, montrant une similitude avec les résultats d’essai de diffusion en régime permanent

Middle eastern and north african english speech corpus (Menaesc): Automatic identification of mena english accents

This study aims to explore the English accents in the Arab world. Although there are limited resources for a speech corpus that attempts to automatically identify the degree of accent patterns of an Arabic speaker of English, there is no speech corpus specialized for Arabic speakers of English in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). To that end, different samples were collected in order to create the linguistic resource that we called Middle Eastern and North African English Speech Corpus (MENAESC). In addition to the “accent approach” applied in the field of automatic language/dialect recognition; we applied also the “macro-accent approach” -by employing Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC), Energy and Shifted Delta Cepstra (SDC) features and Gaussian Mixture Model-Universal Background Model (GMM-UBM) classifier- on four accents (Egyptian, Qatari, Syrian, and Tunisian accents) among the eleven accents that were selected based on their high population density in the location where the experiments were carried out. By using the Equal Error Rate percentage (EER%) for the assessment of our system effectiveness in the identification of MENA English accents using the two approaches mentioned above through the employ of the MENAESC, results showed we reached 1.5 to 2%, for “accent approach” and 2 to 3.5% for “macro-accents approach” for identification of MENA English. It also exhibited that the Qatari accent, of the 4 accents included, scored the lowest EER% for all tests performed. Taken together, the system effectiveness is not only affected by the approaches used, but also by the database size MENAESC and its characteristics. Moreover, it is impacted by the proficiency of the Arabic speakers of English and the influence of their mother tongue.This paper was made possible by a QUCP award [QUCP-CENG-CSE-15-16-1] from the Qatar University. The statements made herein are the sole responsibility of its authors.Scopu

Integrating numerical tools in underground construction process

In Algeria, the time frame for the execution of a construction project is rarely respected because of organizational problems and uncertainties encountered while the execution is underway. A case study on the construction of a metro station is used as a pilot project to show the effectiveness of replacing traditional construction processes by more innovative procedures.En Alg\ue9rie, les \ue9ch\ue9anciers fix\ue9s pour l?ex\ue9cution d?un projet de construction ne sont que rarement respect\ue9s en raison de probl\ue8mes de nature organisationnelle et d?impond\ue9rables survenant en cours d?ex\ue9cution. On utilise ici comme projet pilote une \ue9tude de cas portant sur la construction d?une station de m\ue9tro dans le but de d\ue9montrer l?efficacit\ue9 du remplacement des proc\ue9d\ue9s traditionnels de construction par des m\ue9thodes plus novatrices.TH1 E58 MAINPeer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye