Applied Translation - 2022
Applied Translation - 2022
Applied Translation - 2022
Muhammad Jalal
Applied Translation
(324)
Prepared By
Prof. Muhammad Jalal Khalifa
Applied Translation 2 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
Name of the
Office Hours course's Prof. Muhammad Jalal
Instructor
Faculty of Science and Arts –
Sun. Mon. Tue. Wed. Thurs. Location
Group Al-Ola
OEN6 01:00- 08:00- G20
[email protected]
02:40 08:50 (Girls)
EU6 08:00- 10:00- 301
09:40 10:50 (Boys)
Languages and
Main Campus English
Translation
OEN6
Groups
EU-6
Applied Translation 3 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
Course Description:
This course provides practical translation training from English into Arabic in order to
develop the students’ translation skills. It presents several theoretical translation
notions that would enhance the students’ practical translation skills. It deals with
English texts taken from various text types. Different approaches for solving translation
problems are also practiced. The course also focuses on in-class dictionary practice to
choose the correct meaning in context.
Distribution of marks
Schedule of Assessment Tasks for Week Due Proportion of
Students During the Semester Total
Assessment
1 1st Mid-term Exam (27/02/2022) 6th week 25%
1 Participation, attendance, homework All along 10%
2 2nd Mid-term Exam (03/04/2022) 11th week 25%
Final Exam As scheduled 40%
5 Total 100%
Attendance
Attendance is mandatory. If you feel that you have to be absent then you must ask
for an early excuse, or provide me with a written one. However, if your absences
exceed the permitted limits, then you may fail the course.
Learning Resources
1. Required Textbooks
Dickins, J. Hervey, S. & Higgins, I. (2002). Thinking Arabic Translation. London
and New York: Routledge.
Applied Translation 4 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
2. Main References
1- Munday, J. (2012). Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications ( 3rd
ed). Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
2- Newmark, P. (1988). A Textbook of Translation. London and New York: Prentice Hall.
3- -------------------- (1991). About Translation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
3. Recommended References
Nida, E. A. (1982). The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: Brill.
4. Online resources
1- http://translation2.paralink.com/
2- http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/76518/linguistics/books/translation%20studies.pdf
3- http://translationindustry.ir/Uploads/Pdf/translation%20studies-2009.pdf
4- http://www.linguistik-online.de/37_09/gorgisAlkharabsheh.pdf
5- http://www.dur.ac.uk/daniel.newman/translation.html
Applied Translation 5 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
Lecture 1
Introduction
Translation generally refers to all the processes and methods used
to render and/or transfer the meaning of the source language text into the
target language as closely, completely, and accurately as possible.
Methods of translation
Methods of translation
(a) Literal translation
(b) Free translation
• I’m sorry again and again for all the promises I fell short.
أنا أكون آسف مرة ثانية ومرة أخرى لكل الوعود فأنا سقطت قصيرا
This method is risky for the following reasons:
language are also accounted for in the TL. In this sense, it can be
described as the "full translation of meaning."
• Hi, sir, could you stand up, please? Just right where you are.
.مرحبا سيدي هل يمكنك الوقوف رجاء؟ فقط قف حيث أنت •
• It's important for us to stand up for those values.
Applied Translation 9 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
Free translation has two types: bound free translation and loose free
translation.
Although these translations have gone far from the context, they have
not gone too far from it, or outside it. This means that this type of free
Applied Translation 11 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
the fact that they do not translate the language and the context on the
page. They reflect indirect inferences and far interpretations of
translators.
Lecture 2
Word-Level Translation Problems
• Lexical Gaps
• False Equivalents
• Borrowings
• Word Frequency
• Ambiguity
• Semantic Complexity
1. Lexical Gaps:
Lexical Gaps are words that exist in the source language but
have no equivalents in the target language.
.لم تكن هذه األيديولوجيات الدينية تنسب نفسها إلى العلم أو تدعي العلمية
ثم ترجل بعد ذلك حمود وكان يرتدي الزي العربي وهو يتأبط مسدسا من نوع
«كولت سمث.»
(and holding a Colt Smith gun) (with a Colt Smith gun tucked
under his arm.) (and he was putting a Colt Smith gun under
his arm)
.يستحيل معرفة ما إذا كانوا في مكان قريب أو على بعد مئات الكيلومترات
أمر الشيخ زايد المهندس المشرف على تنفيذ أحد المشاريع الرئيسية في مدينة أبو ظبي
.بأن يغير مسار الشارع تفاديا لقطع الشجرة
Lecture 3
Word-Level Translation Problems
2.False Equivalents:
False Equivalence occurs/ happens when the source word
has a counterpart/ an equivalent/ a synonym in the target
language that does not share all the social and political attitudes.
False Equivalence is due to:
• social meaning
• Connotations
Social Meaning
Example 1: social meaning:
Some words are associated with cultural attitudes that
range from taboo or inappropriate to politically correct or positive.
For instance, the Arabic nouns السودBlacks and الهنود الحمرRed
Indians are unacceptable English counterparts because they are
racially charged terms.
We should avoid the English literal counterparts and instead
use neutral terms that are culturally appropriate, such as African
Americans and Native Americans.
3064 ( العدد، 2009 فبراير18 ،(جريدة الوطن) السعودية.
قام العقيد القذافي بتذكير األمريكان كيف أنهم كانوا يحملون صورا نمطية سلبية عن فئات من
.داخل المجتمع األمريكي نفسه مثل السود أو الهنود الحمر
Applied Translation 20 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
Connotations
Example 1: Connotations:
Reason: connotations
Example 2: Connotations:
the target language that does not share all the social and political
attitudes.)
Reason: connotations
Lecture 4
Word-Level Translation Problems
4. Word Frequency:
Sometimes we encounter Arabic words with perfect English
equivalents, but these words are common in one language,
whereas their counterparts are low-frequency words that are
rarely used. For example, the noun شبرis equivalent to span,
which is an obsolete measurement unit.
1621 ( العدد، 2008 نوفمبر20 ،(جريدة المصري اليوم) مصر
. فإن الحوار معه لم يكن سهال، أشبار5 رغم أن طوله ال يتعدى ال
Although he is only a child, he was not easy to interview.
The literal translation: although he was not even five spans tall, it
was not easy to interview him is not a valid option.
Word-Level Translation Problems
5. Lexical Ambiguity:
When we look up words in a dictionary, we rarely find a word
that has only one meaning; some entries are even a page or more
long. An ambiguous word can have many meanings. For
example, األرضcould mean land, ground, floor, or Earth.
The Arabic definite article الis attached to nouns to indicate
definiteness. However, الalso has another function, namely, to
mark generic nouns, which are nouns that do not refer to any
Applied Translation 25 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
Translation Strategies
1. Translation by Deletion:
Omission (leaving some words out) is sometimes necessary
and helpful to readers in the translation. To understand why
omission is sometimes necessary, let us take a look at the
feminine suffix when it is attached to adjectives (e.g., كبيرةbig-
feminine), and at nouns with the feminine suffix that refer to
inanimate objects (e.g., طاولةtable-feminine). In such cases, the
feminine suffix gives information about the word rather than its
referent—that is, the word has a “feminine” gender, but its gender
does not apply to its referent (i.e., the property of being big and a
table, in these examples).
Grammatical gender is not a semantic feature but a
structural one that helps establish grammatical relations between
words, such as subjects and verbs or nouns and their modifying
Applied Translation 27 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
.وهو أعزب لم يتزوج وكانت والدته رحمها هللا هي التي ترعى شؤونه
He never got married, and it was his late mother who used to take
care of him.
• Repetition is another phenomenon of Arabic discourse that
calls for omission when translating
Example 1:
- 194 ص، القاهرة، دار الشروق،”“ هذا العصر وثقافته، 1987 ،زكي نجيب محمود
1926
– بدأ في ربط الصلة بين1926 "بدأ هيكل – بمناسبة صدور كتاب عن " قصص البردي
.مصر الحديثة ومصر القديمة
Lecture 5
Translation Strategies
2. Translation by Substitution
The Arabic way of telling time involves using the third as a fraction
of the hour as well as adverbs such as ليالat night and فجراat
dawn, none of which are standard use in English. These words
have perfect English referential equivalents, but we cannot use
them in the translation. The solution is quite simple: We use the
English way of expressing time, and thus translate عشرة والنصف فجرا
من التاسعة والثلث ليال إلى الثانيةas from 9:20 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., instead
of the literal translation from the ninth hour and a third at night to
the twelfth hour and a half at dawn.
Applied Translation 32 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
Example 2:
Translation by substitution is especially helpful when dealing with
words that have specific functions but no suitable equivalents in
the target language. Consider the nouns فدان,قيراط, and سهم. The
noun فدانrefers to a unit of area (1.038 acres), and thus we can
use acre as an equivalent. But قيراطand سهمconstitute lexical gaps
that have no equivalents in English. A قيراطis 1/24 of a فدان,
whereas a سهمis 1/24 of a قيراط. In a case like this, we are better
off doing the math and converting the Arabic measurement units
into common English ones.
• قيراطhas been adopted into English as karat, but it cannnot
be considered a functional equivalent.
• Also, فدانhas been borrowed into English as feddan, but it is
used only in very restrictive contexts.
175 ص، القاهرة3 ("فتاوى دار اإلفتاء المصرية"(ج، 1998 ،جاد الحق علي جاد الحق
. سهما من قيراط يقسم بين ابنيه االثنين وبناته الخمس18 قراريط و9 والباقي وهو فدانان و
The remaining land, which is 2.498 acres, is to be divided among
his two sons and five daughters.
Example 3:
Applied Translation 33 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
The problem in this example is that the verb used to describe this
situation in the source sentence—namely, — عرضis referentially
equivalent to offer, show, demonstrate, and display, all of which
Applied Translation 34 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
Translation Strategies
3. Translation by Morphological Unpacking
We saw in the discussion of lexical gaps that Arabic
morphological derivation chains sometimes generate words that
have no equivalents in English. Some of these gaps are the result
of differences in the productivity of morphological rules across
languages.
Example 1:
The verb اخضرhas no equivalent in English because the adjective
green does not undergo the morphological processes that derive
verbs from adjectives. One way of dealing with lexical gaps of this
nature is to unpack the structure of the Arabic word and spell out
its semantic content in English. Thus, the verb اخضرcan be
unpacked as to turn green.
Produce = productive= production =reproduce= reproduction
Example 2:
The relevant English morphological processes are productive, but
the outcome does not mean the same thing or cannot be used in
the same way as the Arabic source word, as in the case of
Applied Translation 35 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
Lecture 6
Translation Strategies
4. Translation by Paraphrasing
Translation by paraphrasing provides additional information to
help readers recognize the referents of the source words in the
absence of direct equivalents.
Example 1:
الخماسينrefers to the sandstorms that blow over Cairo during a fifty-
day season in the spring. Because other translation strategies—
such as morphological unpacking, substitution, and deletion—
would not give acceptable solutions, we can translate الخماسينby
providing a definition, as in the spring sandstorms.
2007 ( مايو5 ،(جريدة الجمهورية) مصر
أجل عودته لمصر حاليا بسبب سوء األحوال الجوية التي تشهدها حاليا وموجة الخماسين التي
.من الممكن أن تؤثر على حالته الصحية
He postponed his return to Egypt for the time being because of
the bad weather there and the wave of spring sandstorms that
might affect his health.
Example 2:
The noun الرؤيةsighting, but sighting by itself is not a successful
translation. In the following sentence, الرؤيةdescribes seeing the
new moon that marks the beginnings of the lunar months of the
Islamic calendar. Most English-speaking readers are not likely to
Applied Translation 38 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
Exercises
Identifying Translation Problems
• Identify the difficulties that might arise when translating the
?underlined words. What translation strategies can you use
• عباس محمود العقاد “، 1963 ،يوميات العقاد” ،نهضة مصر للطباعة والنشر والتوزيع،
ص34
لقد تركت الساعة على مكتبي خطابا أعددته إلرساله إليك وضمنته بعض المعلومات عن شرشل بك.
• جريدة الشرق األوسط) السعودية( 30 ،أبريل ، 2004العدد( 9285
تناول من جهة أخرى الوضع السائد في األراضي الفلسطينية والقضية العراقية ،مؤكدا في هذا اإلطار أنه
جدد التأكيد على موقف المغرب في ضرورة أن يحتفظ العراق بوحدته الترابية.
Lecture 7
Phrase-Level Translation Problems
• Structural Mismatches
• Functional Mismatches
• Structural Ambiguity
• Non-compositional Meaning
b) Structural gaps
Problems come up when we encounter structural gaps.
These are source language phrasal constructions that have no
structural equivalents in the target language. For instance, Arabic
allows adjectives and participles in possessive constructions, as
in بعيد النظرand محدود السلطة, but there is no parallel construction in
English. We can translate بعيد النظرas farsighted, which is a
complex adjectival phrase—in this case, which actually forms a
single word—made up of an adjective followed by an adjectival
passive. This pattern works with other similar phrases/words,
such as متفتح العقلopen-minded and طيب القلبkindhearted. We
cannot, however, posit a rule that applies this pattern to all Arabic
adjectival possessive constructions.
We can reconstruct محدود السلطةas a verb phrase to get has
limited authority. Alternatively, we can further reconstruct the
whole sentence as his authority is limited.
7508 ( العدد، 2009 يناير5 ،(جريدة الشرق) قطر
.السادات لم يكن مجنونا بل كان محلال سياسيا بعيد النظر
Assadat was not a madman, but a farsighted political analyst.
The new president will not have an easy job because his authority
is limited.
• This works for أحب ما أحبهwhat I love most and أسعد ما أسعدني
what pleased me most.
Even number رقم زوجي
Applied Translation 44 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
Lecture 8
Phrase-Level Translation Problems
3. Structural Ambiguity
When translating the phrase قرار الرئيس الجديد, one must first
identify the intended reading by using structural and contextual
clues. Otherwise, the translation could provide inaccurate and
misleading information.
In fact, whenever a possessive construction composed of
two nouns with the same gender is followed by an adjective, we
have ambiguity, because the adjective can modify either noun, as
in كلب الولد الصغير, which could mean either the little boy’s dog or the
boy’s little dog.
Phrase-Level Translation Problems
4. Non-compositional Meaning
المعنى الذي ال يمكن الوصول إلية من خالل البناء
These are phrases whose meanings cannot always be
understood by looking at their constituents; therefore, we cannot
translate them simply by using their referential counterparts.
b) Idioms
Idioms constitute a separate category of semantically non-
compositional expressions. What distinguishes idioms from other
such expressions is their figurative nature. In fact, idioms start out
as new metaphors. Common English idioms include bark up the
wrong tree, break the ice, bury the hatchet, and let the cat out of
the bag.
The main challenge in translating idiomatic expressions is
identifying their intended meanings. Some idioms can be
understood by relying on common knowledge, such as في مهب الريح
ريشةlit. a feather in the path of wind. On the basis of our
knowledge of feathers and wind, we can guess that this idiomatic
expression means being helpless. With لبن العصفورlit. bird milk, we
Applied Translation 52 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
In track and field, the Saudi national team won the lion’s share of
medals.
Lecture 10
Phrase-Level Translation Strategies
1. Morphological Packaging
In our discussion of word-level translation strategies, we saw
that some morphologically complex words can be translated by
unpacking them into phrases—and the reverse is also possible.
We often encounter Arabic phrases that are best translated as
morphologically complex English words. For example, translating
the phrase على غير المتوقعword for word gives us on that which is
not expected, but this phrase cannot function as a manner
modifier in English. In English we use the adverbial suffix -ly,
resulting in unexpectedly.
Lecture 11
Translation Strategies
3. Translation by Deletion
Deletion is quite an effective translation strategy, but we need
to use our discretion when applying it. A phrase whose lexical
content is already encoded somewhere else in the sentence is
redundant. Therefore, it should be deleted in translation. For
example, in يمتهن الزراعةwe have a reduced relative clause “who
works in agriculture” and “ ال يقرأ وال يكتبwho does not read or
write,” both of which are lexically entailed by the nouns they
modify. By definition, a farmer is someone who works in
agriculture, and an illiterate person is someone who does not read
or write. Because these definitions are functionally redundant, we
do not lose anything by deleting them.
Example 1:
518 ( العدد، 2009 فبراير10 ،(جريدة النهار) لبنان
وسعيد،بطل القصة هو سعيد بن سليم اليطاشي وهو مزارع يمتهن الزراعة وصيد األسماك
.رجل أمي ال يقرأ وال يكتب وهو إنسان عادي فقير ولم يسبق له أن عمل عمال خارقا
The hero in this story is Saeed Bin-Salim Al-Yatashi, an illiterate
farmer and fisherman. He is an ordinary, poor man who never did
anything extraordinary.
Applied Translation 61 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
Example 2:
We have the collocation األعين يختفي عنlit. disappear from the
eyes, but this literal translation does not collocate in English.
Because the English equivalent of the semantic focus of this
collocation—namely, the verb disappear—does not need to be
further qualified, we can safely delete the rest of the phrase.
11000 ( العدد، 2003 يوليو28 ،(جريدة اليوم) السعودية
أما القصة األخيرة فهي قصة الحاج محمد عزام الذي بدأ حياته في المنطقة كماسح أحذية ثم
.اختفى عن األعين
The last story is about Hajj Mohammad Azzam, who started his
life in the neighborhood as a shoeshine boy but later disappeared.
Example 3:
The Arabic collocation قرن من الزمانa century of time can be
translated word for word. Because a century is by definition a unit
of time, we do not need to include the redundant prepositional
phrase of time.
Lecture 12
Translation Strategies
4. Literalization
Culture-specific idioms have no true functional equivalents in
the target language, and obviously we cannot just translate them
word for word. This is where literalization is most useful. The
expression أكمل نصف دينه, which literally means completed half his
religion, is an idiom that describes getting married. This idiom is
derived from a hadith, or a saying, of the Prophet Muhammad, in
which he stresses the value of marriage. The problem is that such
a strong association between marriage and religion does not
transfer well to English.
Probably the safest way to deal with أكمل نصف دينهis to avoid
metaphorical language altogether and to translate it as he got
married. This solution makes it easier to eliminate the redundancy
of the prepositional phrase بزواجهby his marrying, which we can
delete.
Lectures 13-14
Inside the Sentence
Functional Categories
The basic subject–predicate relation provides the essential
information necessary to describe a situation, but this information
is usually not enough. We need ways to locate situations in time.
1. Temporal Reference:
Unlike the words and expressions that describe cultural products,
practices, and belief systems, temporal reference is universal
across all languages. All languages have ways of describing past,
present, and future events.
a. The Simple Aspects:
Arabic has two main aspectual verb forms: the perfective (
) الماضيand the imperfective ( ) المضارع. Perfective verbs denote
complete event descriptions without locating them in time. To
truthfully describe an event as complete, it is usually an event that
ends before speech time. In other words, the Arabic perfective
aspect and the English past tense share the semantic function of
describing past events. This is why Arabic perfective verbs are
typically translated as English past simple verbs, as in وصلت باألمس
I arrived yesterday.
There are, however, a few notable exceptions of which we
need to be aware. Some of these exceptions are motivated by the
Applied Translation 68 Prof. Muhammad Jalal
adverbial phrase حتى اآلنuntil now makes it quite clear that the
state of Clinton’s being ahead extends into speech time, thus
suggesting that we should translate the Arabic perfective verb
using the English present tense.
event rather than its location in time. English, however, uses the
present simple in the conditional clause. The conditional clause in
(5) has the perfective verb غابlit. became absent, but if we
translate it as a past simple verb, we change the type of
conditionality from a factual conditional to a hypothetical one. This
sentence is a quotation from a legal text in which there are no
hypothetical interpretations. To make sure the factual conditional
is translated as such, we need to translate the perfective verb as
a present simple one.
2993 ( العدد، 2009 أغسطس27 ،( جريدة عكاظ ) السعودية-5
من نظام المرافعات على أنه إذا غاب المدعى عليه عن الجلسة األولى55 وقد نصت المادة
.فيؤجل النظر في القضية إلى جلسة الحقة
Article 55 of the Code of Civil Procedures states that “If a
defendant fails to appear in court for the first hearing, the case
shall be postponed to a subsequent hearing.”