K S U - C O LT ’ s RA I T
Research Articles In
Interpretation and Translation
Issue 3 - Spring 2015
King Saud
University
TO OUR DEAR READERS...
RAIT is a compilation of research articles in the fields of
translation and interpretation. All the articles presented in this
magazine are written by a new generation of researchers;
students enrolled in "Research Methodology" offered at the
College of Languages & Translation, KSU.
My deep gratitude to Mrs. Dania and Dr. Hind for their
continued support in such endeavors.
Happy reading! ~ Dina Al-Sibai, Course Instructor
2
3
B us i nes s N a me
Literal Translation
By Wejdan J. ALdogeshim
Translation is a concept that we all might be familiar with and the easiest definition
that can explain this term is “transfer written or spoken SL texts to equivalent written or spoken
TL texts” (Ordudari, 2007). Some people might think that translation is easy and it just needs a
bilingual person and he will be able to do it perfectly! Unfortunately it is not as simple as
that. With a variety of translation strategies, a good translator has to be able to choose the best
strategy that fits with a specific text. In fact, a lot of translators believe that literal translation is
the best strategy to translate, however it can't always apply to all texts.
The best way to understand what translators mean by mentioning the literal translation
strategy is by knowing how they define it. According to Chen (2009), literal translation mean
transferring the whole image which a certain text carries from the source language to the target
language while maintaining its own unique national and regional rhetoric characteristics’. The
real aim of a literal translation strategy is both transfers the meaning with its national flavor without contravenes linguistic principles of a target language.
Unfortunately literal translation strategy does not fits all types of texts and it could lead to
what is known as "unwanted literal translation" (p. 12). Arffman (2012), for example, explains
that literal translation is very useful especially when it is between two related languages. However, it is sometimes called as "unwanted literal translation" (p. 12), which is a serious challenge the faces a translator who chooses this method of translation. Unwanted literal
translation happens when the translator translates the text word for word and avoids straying
away from the source text, so the result is that "the target text becomes odd, unnatural and cumbersome" (p. 3). As an opposite to this kind of translation is the idiomatic translation, where the
translator translated more freely without sticking to the source text words.
A good example that could describe the meaning of unwanted literal translation is
the history of Bible translation. According to Leonardi (2010), the first attempt to translate the
Bible was made by Wycliffe. After his translation, a large number of translators from all
4
around the world translated the Bible to their languages. In that time there was a man called
Martin Luther who had a different perspective relating to the strategy that was used to translate the Bible. He believed that a perfect translation would be a mix of both literal and free
translation since using a literal translation only would lead to incomprehensible translation.
Another example in unwanted literal translation is the literal translation that used to
translate collocations in religious texts. According to Dweik and Abu Shakra (2010), the
translators who use this strategy focusing on finding the corresponding words between the
two languages without take into their consideration the cultural aspects like for example the
phrase "‫ "وابيضت عيناه‬they would probably translated literally as "his eyes turned white" while
its real meaning is "becoming blind" (p. 5).
Indeed, as Dweik and Abu Shakra (2010) conclude, if you give a translator a text and he
relies only on literal translation to translate different structures and phrases, he without a
doubt, will end up with an incomprehensible text which will lead to a big misunderstanding
for the readers. Also he will not be able to transfer the message that the text carries because
all his concentration will be on finding the corresponding words.
References
Abu, M. M., & Dweik, B. S. (2010). Strategies in translating collocations in religious texts
from Arabic into English. A tlas Global Journal for Studies and Research. Retrieved
from http://eric.ed.gov//
Arffman, I. (2012). Unwanted literal translation: An under discussed problem in international
achievement studies. Education Research International . Retrieved from http://
www.oalib.com/
Chen, L. (2009). On literal translation of English idioms. English Language Teaching. Re-
trieved from http://www.oalib.com/
Leonardi, V. (2010). The role of pedagogical translation in second language acquisition: From
theory to practice . Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa/books
Ordudari, M. (2007). Translation procedures, strategies and methods. Translation Journal.
Retrieved from http://translationjournal.net/journal/
5
B us i nes s N a me
Translation and Cultural Globalization
By Nouf M. Al-Mowannas
Globalization is the process where different societies, cultures, and regional economies
integrate through a worldwide network of political ideas through transportation, communication, and trade. Nowadays, in a global environment the ability to communicate effectively
can be a challenge. Even when both parties speak the same language, there can be misunderstandings due to ethical and cultural differences. Therefore, globalization plays a huge role
in translation and making cultures closer (Cuadra Montiel, 2012).
Robertson and White stated that “Translation always stands between at least two languages and cultures” (p. 30). So in order to transfer the content from the source language to
the target language, knowing about the culture is a must. Especially in this age of globalization, where the use of the Internet has become popular among non-English speakers and vice
versa, cultural translation is important in international communication (2003). Also, they
add that there should be at least two types of translation: “Linguistic translation” and
“cultural translation” (p. 30).
Ting reported that translators have studied translation in many aspects, and with the
devolvement of economic globalization, advertisements have become more popular by entire
kinds of media (2014). The author points to the fact that, “In order to publicize the function
and service of the products, as well as its corporate culture, the quality of the advertisement
translation plays a critical role in the exploiting of the new markets” (p. 712). So to achieve
a high quality translation, translators should adjust a good conversion in terms of language,
culture, and communication.
With virtual borders being crossed so quickly, businesses are looking to offer websites
in many languages. The global language translation market is expected to grow very quickly, and here’s how: If you translate your site, people will go to the website and do a search in
their native language, and the local search engines will find it. Then, you can generate more
movement.
6
In 1998, Cohen and Ward divided the translation business to translation, localization, and internationalization. As globalization becomes ever more prominent, the role of
media advertising and consumerism also increases. Companies have naturally used this
means of communications to let a large number of people know about their products, like
Coca Cola, Burger King, Starbucks, and Microsoft. Piñero said in his video that, “we
globalize technology, finance, and money in many different ways” (0:09). In fact, we live
in a globalized world; we are connected to million cultures and places. Our coffee comes
from Africa, our t-shirt from Taiwan, and our best friends are well somewhere (2010).
In conclusion, Zou said that globalization has contributed a lot to the world today. It
has enhanced country economies, advanced technologies, and improved daily life for people. It is a fact that translation is a typical activity of intercultural communication. So,
with the development of globalization and the use of translation, we can communicate and
reach to different cultures, different places, and different languages (2014).
References
Cohen, J., & Ward, J. (1998, October 26). World's wide web needs to speak its languages.
Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com
Cuadra Montiel, H. (2012). Globalization - education and management agendas. (p. 325).
Retrieved from DOI: 10.5772/3256
Piñero, H. (2010, May 27). Cross cultural communication - Globalization and work [Video
file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=AeNto6NR0pU&list=PL7588D09E6EAE49A2&index=2
Robertson S., & White K. (Eds.). (2003). Globalization: Specialized applications and re-
sistance to globalization. (p. 30) Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Ting, B. (2014). A study on advertisement translation based on the theory of ecotranslatology. Journal of Language Teaching & Research, 5(3), 712. doi:10.4304/
jltr.5.3.708-713
Zou, Y. (2014). Cultural awareness in translating cultural and creative industries in the
context of intercultural communication. Forum of Teaching and Studies, 10(2), 13.
Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/
7
B us i nes s N a me
The Importance of Learning the Target Language Culture
By Alaa S. AlEnezi
In 1970s, the culture became an important object of translation studies. The researchers
noticed the significance of culture when they wanted to translate from one language to the other one, so Loogus said “Accordingly, translation is not regarded as just a simple transfer from
one language into another, or from source text into a target text, but also as a transfer between
cultures” (Loogus, 2012, p. 370). In fact, having sufficient knowledge about the second language culture is very important for the translation process.
Knowing about the culture of a society takes us beyond our purpose. We know that a
nation's culture flourishes by interacting with other cultures. Cultural variety opens our eyes to
human rights, but cultural variety can only be recognized through discussions. Generally, language is an expression of culture and individuality of its speakers. It influences the way the
speakers perceive the world. So focusing on the issue of translation from one language to another, the culture of both languages in the process of translation is influential (Bedeker &
Feinauer, 2006).
Furthermore, every language has its own beliefs, traditions, and habits which are aspects
of the culture; so the translator has to take these into account. For instance, when he wants to
translate some proverbs or idioms from one language to another, he should find something
similar and has the same degree of publicity in the target culture. Others such as Hoffmann
(1996) have said “culture finds its expression in the language and through the language” (p.
153).
Culture and intercultural competence and awareness that rise out of experience of culture, are far more complex phenomena than it may seem to the translator. The more a translator is aware of the complexities of differences between cultures, the better a translator he will
be. It is probably right to say that there has never been a time when the community of translators were unaware of cultural differences and their significance for translation. Translation
theorists have been cognizant of the problems attendant upon cultural knowledge and
8
cultural differences.
As Ene and Panainte (2014) agree; they concluded that there are two major paradigms
in translation and one of them is the cultural paradigm. The prominent place of culture in
foreign language teaching is clear so language teaching has to be seen as culture teaching.
This has to give way to an integration of culture into foreign language teaching programs
and various strategies and materials to incorporate culture into the curriculum in the translation field. According to Jaeyoung, Kushner, Judy and Lai, 2012, “the language translation
process may be the most important part of cross-cultural qualitative studies” (p. 653).
As a matter of fact, a good translator should be familiar with the culture, customs, and
social settings of the source and target language speakers. He should also be familiar with
different styles of speaking, and social norms of both languages. This awareness, can improve the quality of the translations to a great extent. Indeed, the culture has to be the most
essential paradigm of the translation.
References
Bedeker, L., & Feinauer, I. (2006). The translator as cultural mediator. Southern A frican
Linguistics & Applied Language Studies, 24(2), 133-141. Retrieved from http://
eds.a.ebscohost.com/
Ene, D., & Panainte, M. (2014). Beyond language in translation theory: Translation and
nonverbal communication. Scientific Journal Of Humanistic Studies, 6(11), 9498 .Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/
Faiq, S. (Ed.). (2004). Cultural encounters in translation from A rabic. (p. 4). Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa
Hoffmann, C. (Ed.). (1996). Language, culture and communication in contemporary Europe. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Jaeyoung, C., Kushner, K. E., Judy, M., & Lai, D. L. (2012). Understanding the language,
the culture, and the experience: Translation in cross-cultural research. International
Journal Of Qualitative Methods. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/
Katan, D. (2014). Translating Cultures: A n introduction for translators, interpreters and mediators. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
9
B us i nes s N a me
Properly Translating Jokes
By Asma A. Al-Jarba
Jokes are a very important part of the language, but they can be difficult to understand
or translate sometimes in another language. Jokes are very common to use in everyday life,
therefore, you will not enjoy hearing or reading them if you can't understand them. They are
not stated directly so, you need to understand the meaning. In fact, translating jokes can be
tricky somehow for many people, however translating the meaning is the best way to understand them (Welo, 2009).
According to El-Yasin (1997). One way to classify jokes is to look up whether the
joke derives from a situation or a linguistic fact; this will help the translator in the translation. Some problems could face the translator while translating some of them due to culture
differences between the two languages. For example as El- Yasin (1997) said "the Arabic
riddle-joke asking about the similarity between an orange and a train does not lose when its
punch line is translated into English neither of them can swim." (p. 672). Here it is based on
the universal character of the comparison and contrast.
As Zabalbeascoa (2005) stated, there are many types of jokes; unrestricted, inter-binational, restricted by audience profile traits, intentionality, improvisation, signals, private,
word play, target, meaning, optionally and familiarity, taboo, metalinguistic, humor, verbal
and non-verbal idioms and ,metaphor, meaning and the forms of humor. They are very different and need to be studied in terms of meaning and word play.
There are a lot of ways that jokes can be translated into. One way of course is translating the meaning, but it is the hardest one. Sometimes it is not understood by translating the
words individually. A joke's meaning sometimes comes from a story or a cultural saying, so
in this case, you need to look up those stories or read about the country's joke-culture to
translate it properly, and only then the readers will understand it and enjoy it too
(Zabalbeasoca, 2005).
Another way to translate jokes is using the literary translation which is not
10
restricted to the translation of great works of literature as they said “All kinds of books,
plays, poems, short stories and writing and covered, including such items as collection of
jokes, the script of a documentary, a travel guide, a science textbook and an opera libretto” (p. 5). Becoming a literary translator is difficult because you need to take the quality
and the success of the item you are translating into consideration (Brown & Geoffrey,
2010).
Some of the challenges that jokes pose is on the play of words. It is usually a culture
matter. You can laugh at any joke even though it is not in your culture. You have to have
some knowledge of the country to understand the joke (Baker, 2011). One may not appreciate some jokes and might not find them funny at all, and this is because of the manipulation of literal and idiomatic meanings. Some translators face difficulty finding a similar or
the exact meaning in the target language, which leads them to translate the meaning, so the
reader will enjoy it (Davies, 2005).
References
Baker, M. (2011). In other words: A coursebook on translation (2nd ed.). Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa/books
Brown, S., & Geoffrey. (2010). Topics in translation: Practical guide for translators (5th
ed.). Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/sdl/detail.action?docID=10393256
Davies, C. (2005). European ethnic scripts and the translation and switching of jokes. Humor: International Journal Of Humor Research. Retrieved from//
eds.a.ebscohost.com
El-Yasin, M. K. (1997). The translatability of Arabic jokes into English. Meta : journal des
traducteurs / Meta: Translators' Journal, Volume 42, Number 4, December 1997, p.
670-676 . Retrieved from http://scholar.google.com
Welo, A. (2009, May). The study about understanding jokes in the English language. Retrieved from http://www.rsu.ac.th/libarts/new/english/asp_work1/isa_1/arunee.pdf
Zabalbeascoa, P. (2005). Humor and translation: An interdiscipline. Humor: International
Journal Of Humor Research. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com
11
B us i nes s N a me
Translating American Sign Language
By Dalal S. Al-hootah
From ages, translation and interpretation were very important tools to communicate between different people speaking different languages. Also, they served a crucial part in many
fields such as education and business in modern life. Furthermore, many types of translation
and interpretation were established throughout history. And one of these types are translating
sign language because there is a need of American Sign Language (ASL) translators in education, medicine and business fields. In fact, there are several strong evidences which prove the
importance of sign language interpreting and translation.
Sign language (SL) interpretation has two types based on how we transmit the context. Before talking about its types, let us distinguish between sign language interpretation and
translation. Sign language translation has to do with transmitting SL to written language while
interpretation has to do more with spoken language. However, Peterson et al., 2005, classified
them into two types ''free'' and ''literal''. Free interpretation is translating concepts and meanings
from a language into another by combining cultural norms and values. While, literal interpretation is approximately using the patterns of the source language in the target language.
Sign language interpretation is important for deaf people. SL interpreters help
them to communicate with others who do not use sign language. However, there are some misconceptions as Rouse and Barrow (2011) mentioned that a deaf person needs an interpreter all
the time, and that is not true. They need them just in situations that require "full participation in
the hearing world" (para. 4) such as legal, medical, educational and professional matters. The
absence of an interpreter does not block deaf people from communicating. They can use substitute methods such as writing, gestures and lip-reading.
There are some methods that every sign language interpreter should follow. Tonkin, Humphrey, Frank, and Esposito (2010) stated that at the beginning, in a linguistic perspective, an interpreter must choose from his knowledge of alternative kinds of signing. In some
cases, "the interpretation must really go from (for example) English to ASL and back to English" and in other situations, "contact sign is used" (p. 58). When an interpreter face an
12
audience with different backgrounds and linguistic skills, he/she is required to find "some sort
of a middle ground" (p. 58).
In addition to the methods, there are some famous interpreters who have special ways
that helped them to succeed. One of the most outstanding interpreters is "Lydia Callis – Michael Bloomberg’s Sign Language Interpreter'' she become famous after participating in
"Michael Bloomberg' televised press" (para. 6). People could not ignore her lively facial expressions as she transmitted what Michael was explaining to the audience ("Autumn at Accredited Language," 2014).
Finally, some modern inventions acted as SL interpreters and translators. For example,
BBC News (2012) reported that some Scottish scientists developed technology that use the
camera of a laptop or a phone to record the movements. Then, there is an application that
would "translate these movements" into a written text for those who do not use sign language
(para. 2). Also, there is "Kinect"; a device developed by Microsoft. Microsoft Research
(2013) stated that it catches the sign language and then identifies its meaning "including the
posture and the trajectory" (1:17). After that, Kinect translates it into spoken and written language. To conclude, all of this is an evidence to prove how sign language interpreting is a
very important profession.
References
Autumn at Accredited Language. (2014, January 29). Learn about 6 famous interpreters. Retrieved from http://www.alsintl.com/blog/learn-about-6-famous-interpreters/
BBC News. (2012, March 12). Sign language 'turned into text' by Aberdeen scientists. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/
Microsoft Research. (2013, October 29). Kinect and sign language translation [Video file].
Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnkQyUo3134
Peterson, R., Winston, E., Sapere, P., Convertino, C., Seewagen, R., & Monikowski, C.
(2005). Sign language interpreting and interpreter education : Directions for research
and practice: Directions for research and practice. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Rouse, J., & Barrow, A. (2011, March 15). Sign language interpreters for deaf clients. Retrieved from http://deafness.about.com/od/usinganinterpreter/a/slterproles.htm
Tonkin, Humphrey, Frank, & Esposito, M. (2010). Translator as mediator of cultures . Retrieved from http://sj9sr8sb5k.search.serialssolutions.com
13
B us i nes s N a me
Translation: Literature Translation across Languages
By Sarah K. Al-Hassoun
Literature is a major aspect in peoples’ lives because with literature, people are exposed to
different cultures, beliefs, and periods of time. It can open peoples’ minds to imagine what they
can’t experience in real life. In addition, literature can improve our critical skills like how to criti-
cize the characters and analyze the plot. Therefore, translating literature in different languages is as
important as the literature itself, since it can make us live in one world and understand each other’s
culture, tradition, and the way we live our lives.
Healey (1998) stated that there was an issue about Italian literature to be translated and published back in 1982. Frank Meshane the editor of the translation journal said “Awareness of the art
and literature of another country is not a luxury, something that it may be nice to have. Nor is it a
matter of charity on our part to take an interest in the culture of other places . . . In literature, translation is what makes that realization possible. It is the link that binds us. It makes it possible for us to
know how other people think and feel.” (p. 18).
There are two incidents that awakened the Western readers’ curiosity about Arabian culture
and its literature which are Najuib Mahfouz’s winning the Noble prize in 1988, and the 9/11 attacks
in 2001. On a limited scale, there are some Arabic works that have been translated in English because of the interests that the western readers’ have. (p. 86). Allen states that “the general situation
regarding the translation of Arabic literacy works into English is probably the least satisfactory of
all the European languages . . . and the receptivity among the readership for translated
works.” (“Translating Arabic Literature,” p. 1) as cited in Aldebyan, 2010, p. 86.
Altoma reported that “Iraqi literature has attracted in recent years a growing number of general readers, not only because Iraq has been at the center of world’s events. The literature itself reveals a fairly impressive range of styles and themes, with notable modernist trends, particularly in
poetry.” (p. 1). He adds that Jewish Iraqi (e.g. Anwar Shaæul) during the pre-1950 period who were
known for their efforts in literature are mentioned only if their translated works were originally written in Arabic and published before they leave Iraq, and also their writings are recognized in positive
terms as an important part of Iraq’s Arabic literature (2010).
14
In 1996, Harris stated that Romantics brought literalism back into fashion, for example
Chateaubriand translated Milton’s Paradise Lost as traced (a` la vitre). The form of the French
text was twisted in order to force the source language, but this led to the use of collocations that
appear amazing, and verbs which are intransitive in French became transitive. In contrast, there
is evidence of Greek literature translation being the most translated work “Among modern translations into Greek, 50 percent consists of literature, and another 25 percent comes from science.” (Merry, 2004).
As Wong (2007) stated “One of Archipelago's recent books, "Gate of the Sun," by Lebanese
novelist Elias Khoury, was one of The New Y ork Times's 100 Notable Books of 2006.” (para. 8).
This indicates the need of literature translation in our world, because it is a good way to show the
culture and sometimes if we do not have literature translation in our world, it would lead to misconception. Straumanis (2013) stressed “You learn about other cultures, their writing styles, what
drives them spiritually and politically, what kinds of house pets they may or may not eat or wear
occasionally as clothing, how they really feel about things like Speedos or public intoxication” (para. 1).
References
Aldebyan, Q. A. (2008). Strategies for translating Arabic cultural markers into English: A foreignizing approach. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa/books
Classe, O. (2000). Encyclopedia of literary translation into English: A-l. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa/books
Harris, G. T. (1996). On translating French literature and film, volume 1. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa/books
Landers, C. E. (2001). Literary translation: A practical guide. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa/books
Merry, B. (2004). Encyclopedia of modern Greek literature. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa/books
Straumanis, K. (2013, December 13). Three percent: Why literature in translation is super super
important. Retrieved from http://www.rochester.edu
Wong, M. (2007, February 1). World literature: Found in translation; online magazines and
groups push for greater availability of writings from around the globe. The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved from https://www.questia.com
15
B us i nes s N a me
Smart Strategies to Translate Idioms
By Malak M. Al-Jbreen
You can see idioms everywhere in English, such as, in the Bible, poetry, literature, even spoken, and formal English. Therefore we can say that the English language is full of them as is said
by (Strakšien, 2009). Also Grassilli (2013) talked about how the beauty of idioms is their exclusive
belonging to human communication, and that they can’t be translated by machines or AI like
Google translate. However, because they are bound to humans, they are bound to humans’ culture
and therein lies the difficulty in translating them. Even so there are strategies for translating idioms.
First of all, we have literal translation, which is translating from SL to the TL while keeping
the form and meaning of the original text. This strategy is best used when translating languages
from the same family tree since they are closer in form. Even so, there are differences in culture, so
it is best if the translator changed some words to fit the TL’s culture. An example for that is, “En.
Have goose pimples ~ Fi. Olla kananliballa lit. ‘have chicken pimples’. In this figurative idiom, the
phrase is basically translated word-for-word, but the culture-specific animal species, goose, is replaced by chicken, which has traditionally been a much more typical domestic animal in Finland” (Belikova, Jänis, & Kemppanen, 2012, p. 127).
Secondly, we have the option of using an idiom that has the same meaning but is different in
form, (Shojaei, 2012) stated that, the use of different lexical items or a semantic equivalent to express the same idea, such as in, “'When you are in Rome, do as the Romans do' corresponds in
meaning to the Persian"! "‫ی یُخوا‬
ً ‫رسوا طو‬، ُ‫( ضو جواعت ًگر ن‬Literally: if you don‟t [sic] want to become
ignominious, change your color to the color of the rest of people!)” (p. 1227). As seen in the example, they both have the same meaning but their form is completely different.
Also there is paraphrasing and it’s the most usually used among all of the strategies because a
matching or similar idiom can’t always be found between the SL and the TL. Therefore, a need to
paraphrase arises. An example for that is found in (Eftekhari, 2008) which states that “prepare
theground; [sic] create a good/suitable situation for something to take place. Or: for the best; unpleasant now but will turn out well in the future. In Farsi we have some expressions like: ‫کار از کار‬
‫ توی خط این چيزها نيست‬، ‫ با رئيس چپ افتاده است‬، ‫ گذشته است‬which need to be paraphrased” (para. 38) .
16
Finally, there is omitting or deletion, where a translator removes parts of a text. There are
some types of deletion; Deletion of a whole sentence, just the idiom within the sentence, or maybe a larger portion of the text as said by (Panou, 2014). Deletion should be the last resort for a
translator because removing something from a text will change some of it’s proprieties, and as a
translator, one always tries to deliver the text from the SL to the TL with the least possible change
in form and meaning.
In the end, one can say that the task of a translator may seem interesting and easy. However, it is a difficult and challenging task to do, where the translator has to have a lot of patience and
a love for his work or a will as strong as steel because a translator needs to be honest when translating idioms; Not deleting them when he is too lazy to look for an idiom that is equivalent to the
one in the original text, nor paraphrasing when a matching idiom already exists in the TL. On the
other hand if you enjoy translating, it will be a fun and interesting journey no matter what challenges there are.
References
Belikova, A., Jänis, M., & Kemppanen, H. (2012). Domestication and foreignization in translation studies. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Eftekhari, N. (2008, October). A brief overview on idiomatic translation. Retrieved from http://
www.translationdirectory.com
Grassilli, C. (2013). Translation techniques: How to translate idioms. Retrieved from http://
translatorthoughts.com/2013/10/translation-techniques-idioms/
Panou, D. (2014). Idiom translation in the financial press: A corpus-Based study. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa
Shojaei, A. (2012). Translation of idioms and fixed expressions: Strategies and difficulties. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2(6), 1220-1229. doi:10.4304/tpls.2.6.1220
-1229
Strakšien, M. (2009). Analysis of idiom translation strategies from English into Lithuanian. Studies About Languages, 13 -19. Retrieved from http://www.kalbos.lt/
17
B us i nes s N a me
Challenges in Translating Children's Literature
By Amal A. Al-duhami
Literature translation is one of the most difficult fields because of many reasons. One of
these reasons is that a translator should be aware not only of word meanings in either language, but
also of the language's culture. Even if a translator follows certain strategies, he may face many
challenges in translating literature. However, have you ever asked yourself; what if a reader is a
child? Will translators face more or less challenges? In fact, translating children’s literature is more
difficult than adult's literature as translators may face many different challenges.
Translating foreign names in literature might be a problem for translators. Some translators tend to change the names in children's literature stories, but according to Yamazaki, "The
change of names creates a false impression of a homogenous world only to discourage children
from learning about other possibilities, enhancing the feeling of strangeness when children actually
come across foreign names in real life" (p. 60). He also adds that cultural signs in the source language should be translated to make the children aware of the other cultures and be familiar with
them. Also, translating these cultural signs will help the children accept them as a part of the environment not as something foreign (2002).
According to Zhang, "it's more important for the successful translator to acquaint him/
herself with two cultures than to know two languages because the words achieve their meanings in
their own culture backgrounds" (para. 19) and that includes the translation of children's literature.
However, he also adds that there are two methods used in translating the cultural factors in children's literature. The first one is "Foreignization" in which the translators try to make the readers
know about the source language and its culture by keeping the original strangeness. The second
method is "Domestication" which caters to the target language and culture. In fact, translators use
this method to make children understand the equivalent easily (2011).
In addition to foreign names and cultural factors, difficult vocabulary and songs in
children's stories can be a challenge for translators, too. In translating children's fairy tales and stories, it is very important for a translator to translate the text into simple language for children. This
means that he should avoid new words or remove them if possible (Morar, 2009).
18
Oittinen also stated that "having read quite a few books aloud for children, I find this situation familiar; every time there are songs in the stories, I sing the text-when the songs are unfamiliar to me, I create tunes of my own" (p. 110). The music is a part of the emotivity of the reading
situation, and of the nonverbal elements. Thus, when translating children's literature the songs
must be singable, too (2002).
In addition, translators must be aware of the level of complexity of the texts. They should
make the texts easier for children to understand. According to Lathey "the text's integrality is directly affected by the need to shortening a text, translators have to make sure that they also reduce
the proportions between elements and functions and make fewer elements carry even fewer func-
tions" (p. 36). He also stated that the norm of simple and simplified models is still the prominent
in most children's literature (2006). In adult's translation, translators usually are not able to
change the complexity of the texts. Therefore, if a translator is not a children's writer in children's
literature, this may be the hardest challenge for him.
Finally, translation plays an imperative role in almost all children's literature. One can
hardly imagine a history of children's literature without mentioning translations (Coillie &
Verschueren, 2014). In fact, children's literature reflects the countries' cultures but not all cultures have children's literature of their own. The countries that have children’s books differ from
one another in the number of books they produce. However, when it comes to the selection of the
book that will be translated, political, economic and cultural relationships between countries play
an important role (Yamazaki, 2002).
References
Coillie, J. V., & Verschueren, W. P. (2014). Children's literature in translation: Challenges and
strategies. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Lathey, G. (2006). The translation of children's literature: A reader. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Morar, O. (2009). Children's literature in translations. Scientific Journal Of Humanistic Studies, 1
(1), 29-34.
Oittinen, R. (2002). Translating for children. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Yamazaki, A. (2002). Why change names? On the translation of children's books. Children's Literature In Education, 33(1), 53-62.
Zhang, Y. (2011). On the translation of children's literature. doi:10.4304/jltr.2.1.251-254
19
B us i nes s N a me
Impact of Globalization on Today's Translation
By Malak S. Alshehri
Globalization is a worldwide exchange of culture, ideas and information. It is a new era
of civilization and advancement, and it has had an impact on almost every aspect of on our live
including, food, religion and language. Those were the local aspects; however, there are inter-
national industries that have been affected by globalization like: finance, economics and business. Just like any other industry, translation has been affected by globalization in different
ways and different domains.
The era of globalization has changed the meaning of translation. Graciela (2001) stated
that “today's translation means more than transferring a story from one language to another or
transmitting and transcoding cultural values from one tradition to another. It also means signing contracts, seeking out market targets.” (p. 62). The market's targets these days are the chosen content, the translator, the publisher and the selling location. As a result, for the publishing
industry nowadays, reading does not only imply creation, reception and effect, it also implies
new processes like buying, selling and the idea of better books.
Modern day's translation has been viewed differently than before. Some scholars such
as Tymoczko (2005) argued that translation is an individual practice characterized as group
work, while some non-western theories said it is a group process rather than a personal endeavor. However, Palubmo (2009) viewed translation as "a collective endeavour as translators become part of teams operating in online environments" (p. 9). Palubmo's view takes into consideration the changes that the movement of globalization had on modern-day's professional
translation.
The relationship between translation and globalization is a close one. Globalization has
given new ways and methods for translation, while translation has given new meanings and
definition for globalization (Gupta, 2009). This relationship started to appear more and more
after the colonial and post-colonial era. Therefore, globalization has mostly given translation
the ways of the hegemonies countries, and translation has given globalization an international
definition to make it easier for anti-hegemonies countries to accept it.
20
Globalization has a wide existence in the world, however, the exact geographical extent is not the same. Hence, not every part of the planet will experience globalization at
the same time or the same way. The notion of globalization that is adopted by different
countries and communities has been translated from global and informational elements into local circumstances. Translation is not a product of globalization, but it takes a huge
part in both operating and making sense of the phenomena in that community (Cronin,
2013).
Translation brings cultures closer, and the movement of globalization has been a
helping factor for making it more closer, Hence, the access of words from one language to
the other is much easier now. Therefore, the translator might be influenced by it and it
might be impossible to avoid it in translation. Finally, the translator has to defend his
choice or use the option of including foreign words in certain contexts (Wiersema, 2004).
Globalization has not only affected translation on the vocabulary level, but also on the
grammatical level because it gives a new sense of time which may change the suitable
grammar structure in a particular context (Bielsa, 2009).
References
Bielsa, E. (2005). An approximation to the key but invisible role of translation in globalization. Globalization as Translation, 1-5. Retrieved from http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk
Cronin, M. (2013). Translation and globalization. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Graciela, M. Z. (2001). Translating in a globalized world. The Vagaries of Translation in
the Age of Globalization, 5(1), 14-61. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com
Gupta, S. (2009). Globalization and literature. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Palumbo G. (2009). Key terms in translation studies. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa/
Wiersema, N. (2004). A discussion of the effect of globalisation on today's translation.
Globalisation and Translation, 8(1). Retrieved from http://
www.translationjournal.net
21
B us i nes s N a me
The Difficulties of Translating the Holy Qur’an
By Rafeef Yousef Aljummah
The Qur'an is one of the most important books in the history of humankind. Qara'i (2012) believes
that the special thing about the holy Qur’an is that it is not limited for a particular group of people who share
the same taste in literature for instance but it is for every ordinary human being. There were many efforts to
make the meanings of the Qur'an accessible to non-Arab communities. Therefore, The Qur’an is now available in 72 different foreign languages (Mohammed, 2014). However, are all these various translations correct? In fact, translating the Holy Qur’an into English is not an easy task.
One of the baggiest troubles that face the translator is that some Arabic words have different meanings depending on the context. For instance the word “Daraba” has the meaning of putting forth and the
meaning of “strike/beat” (Monotheist Group, 2008). Also the word ūmmah - ً‫ (أ ُ َّمة‬people has nine different
meanings; one if its usage is to refer to the leader who guides a group of people to the right path in their religion and life. as in surah al-Nahl: “Abraham was indeed a model, devoutly obedient to Allah, (and) true in
Faith, and he joined not gods with Allah” (Yusuf Ali’s Translation, 2000) (Sura Al-Nahl 16:120). Another
translator translated it as (nation) which is one of the meanings of ūmmah but doesn’t fit here (Brakhw,
2012). This shows how polysemy can be a confusion to the translator and may lead to incorrect translation.
Translators usually are required to stick to the text in translating, but sometimes this bias affects the
quality of the text especially in the case of translating the Holy Quran. Due to the fact that English doesn’t
have the same features of Arabic, for instance the lack of singular and plural second person pronouns (thou,
thine, thee) in modern English, translators tend to use the older versions of English to give similar meaning
to the Arabic text, however using words that aren’t used anymore can make the text a little bit awkward for
the reader. Such as translating “ inna “ َ‫ إن‬to “lo!” which is considered as a bad translation because” "lo!"
indicates surprise whereas ”inna” indicates emphasis.” (p. 33) (Ibrāhīm, Aydelott, & Kassabgy, 2000).
Another difficulty is what Brakhw (2012) claims is the major problem of translating the Holy Quran,
which is the non-existence of some Arabic-Islamic words in English. Islamic terms like these:
taqwā piety - , ‫ تقوى‬kufr disbelief , ‫ – كفر‬shīrk (associating other
gods with God – ,‫ شرك‬haq (truth- , ‫ حق‬ma‛rūf charity – ‫معروف‬
munkar (wrong ,‫ – منكر‬ghaīb (the unseen/unknown – ,‫ غيب‬zakāh
alms giving ‫ – زكاة‬and tāwbah repentance – ‫( ثوبة‬para. 4).
These do not have equivalence in English. Therefore, the English translation only provides approximate meanings to these words.
22
Another challenging problem for translators according to Alshaje'a, 2014, is the case of translating
collocation. Collocation is a “linguistic phenomenon found in different languages“ (para. 2). It is words
that are orderly combined and have fixed meaning that usually cannot be known without looking back to
the dictionary. Translators stumble upon an enormous challenge while translating collocations in general
and Arabic collocations in particular. These collocations, especially the ones found in the Holy Qur’an,
are cultural related, so finding a suitable equivalence or even trying to explain it to a non-Arabic speaker
is complicated.
Finally, we must not forget that no matter how good the translator is, the translated text will not be
the same as the original text especially in translating the Holy Quran as “the Holy Quran contains the
word of God and the translation is done according to the choice of words of the translator” (para. 2).
Therefore, the translator should focus on how he can deliver the meaning correctly to the reader rather
than distracting himself with other things that are not as important (Al-Solmi, 2011). Also it is a must for
translators of the Holy Quran to include the Quranic text in Arabic along with the interpretation (Siddiek,
2012).
References
Abdel, H. (2005). Qur'an. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/sdl/reader.action
Al-Solmi, Z. (2011, October 26). Translating the Holy Qur’an not an easy task. Saudi Gazette.
Retrieved from http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/
Alshaje'a, H. (2014). Issues in translating collocations of the holy Qur'an. Language In India, 14(8), 49-65
Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/
Brakhw, M. (2012). Some linguistic difficulties in translating the Holy Quran from Arabic into English.
International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 2(6). Retrieved from http://www.ijssh.org/
Ibrāhīm, Z., Aydelott, S., & Kassabgy, N. (2000). Diversity in language: Contrastive studies in A rabic
and English theoretical a nd applied linguistics. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Mohammed, I. (2014, June 25). Qur’an available in 72 languages at grand mosque. A rab News. Retrieved
from http://www.arabnews.com/
Monotheist Group. (2008). The message: A pure and literal translation of the Qur'an. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa
Qara'i, A. (2012). The Qur'an and its translators. Retrieved from http://web.archive.org/
Siddiek, A. (2012). Viewpoints in the translation of the Holy Quran. International Journal of A pplied Linguistics & English Literature, 1(2). Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/
Yousef, A. (2000). The holy Quran. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.sa/
23
B us i nes s N a me
Translators’ Moral Code
By Nouf K. Al-Saleh
Because of globalization, the world became closer, and language barriers are slowly but surely decreasing. Nowadays, people communicate with each other regardless of their nationality and mother tongue.
Due to the massive increase in our need of communication with people who speak different languages, translation became one of the most important fields in the world. But in order to truly transform the thoughts and
ideas of the original text, the translator must translate the text appropriately and in a correct manner. It is, in
fact, harder than what people might think because of the challenges and difficulties translators encounter.
Surely, translators may face many obstacles while translating, but they have to deal with them ethically and
professionally.
Rao (2009), like most scholars, states that the term 'Translation' means carrying across. In Greek,
'Translation' is related to words like 'Metaphrase' and 'Paraphrase'; this relation implies the main issues a
translator may encounter. The term 'Metaphrase' means translating a word to a corresponding word, while
'Paraphrase' means expressing ideas using different words close to the original text. There's a "need for
equivalence between the text in the Source Language (SL) and the final version in the Target Language
(TL)" (p. 51). However, translators find it hard to balance the two ways without affecting the meaning of
the original text.
Mendelsohn (2013) explains that to a certain degree, every passage is a confusion to its translator
because every language has qualities which "can't be carried across" (para. 2) (i.e. translated) to a different
language and a different culture. Some people feel that “Traduttore traditore, the Italians pun: The translator
is a betrayer,” (para. 2) but still, translators have to do their jobs. And what usually amazes book review
readers are the specifications used in evaluating a translation. They may ask, what are the correct translation
standards? How essential is it being loyal to the original text? Do the exact same measures and standards
apply to classic and contemporary texts evenly? Critics normally have their own models and criteria.
Because of the confusion and difficulties, translators follow a set of ethical codes and standards that
could help them overcome those difficulties while staying true to the writers ideas and thoughts. The term
'Ethics', according to Lawrence, is mainly "concerned with the evaluation of human conduct and human
character. It is an activity in which every human being is inescapably involved” (as cited in Jiang, 2013, p.
209). So, when a translator joins a professional association, he and the association are required to abide by
certain ethical rules (Dolmaya, 2011).
24
Nord (2007) states that translations accepts two pedestals related to ethics: "functionalism (i.e. the
aim of making the target text work for target-culture receivers) and loyalty" (p. 12) (i.e. honoring and recognizing the aims and objectives of every associate in translation). Translators have to respect the original text and the writer's views. Mostly, respecting the text means translators have to explain their methods. For example, if a translator used modern words like 'unemployed' in a text labeled as old, he should
clarify his approach by informing the readers what he did and the reason why he did it.
In conclusion, Pym (2012) urges that translators' ethics should also consider translators themselves. They should insist on getting basic rights like appropriate payment, their name in the printed
copy, and many more. But translators should know that the moment they accept the conditions and terms
stated by their employers and associates, they become liable for the translation. So, they should make
sure they are ready to be loyal to the text before agreeing on any terms. Most importantly, translators
must trust themselves and try their best while staying true to the writer's views.
References
Dolmaya, J. M. (2011). Moral ambiguity: Some shortcomings of professional codes of ethics for translators. The Journal of Specialized Translation, (15), 28. Retrieved from http://www.jostrans.org/
Jiang, H. (2013). The ethical positioning of the interpreter. Babel, 59(2), 209. Retrieved from http://
eds.b.ebscohost.com/
Mendelsohn, D. (2013, October 8). What do you look for in modern translation? New Y ork Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/
Nord, C. (2007). Function plus loyalty: Ethics in professional translation. Genesis, 7(17), 12. Retrieved
from http://humanities.ufs.ac.za/
Pym, J. (2012). On translator ethics: Principles for mediation between cultures. (p. 165). Retrieved from
https://books.google.sa
Rao, S. P. (2009). Translation or transference: The problematic of cultural specifics. ICFA I Journal of
Earth Sciences, 3(3), 51. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/
25
B us i nes s N a me
Art of Translating Poetry: Skills and Strategies
By Heba F. Alfahed
Jones (2011) stated that poetry is the most valuable way of expressing emotions, and it is really
challenging when it comes to translation. Translators are ready to work for long hours and put much
effort into translating poems even if they get a low payment because they seek personal satisfaction.
Poetry translators are not only translating the poems to the readers they are also conveying the images
of the source culture. Luckily, there are many skills and strategies of translating poetry for us to
choose from.
Anani (2003) stated that people who translate verses need to build their intuitive skills and they
must overcome lexical limitation difficulties. To have a good intuition means having the ability to assimilate the English text before translating it. The Arabic translator should be aware of the wide variety of the suitable equivalents for the lexical and structural characteristics of the English text. Then we
can say that his intuition is well exercised. Arabic translators who have a problem with overcoming
limitations will have counterproductive results.
Ali (2005) mentioned a strategy for translating poems that have repeated verses. Let us take
Frost’s poem as an example, “Whose woods these are I think I know His house is in the village
though . . . And miles to go before I sleep And miles to go before I sleep” (p. 352-353). The strategy is
to translate the indirect meaning because if we translated this poem literally, it will lose its essence.
We understand from the repetition that the journey is long but literal translation will give a whole other meaning; that he must not waste his time wandering by the woods and focus on his journey. So instead of repeating it while translating, we should just give the meaning instead to not allow it to be
weak and shallow.
Wilson (2009) believes that translating poetry is all about imitation. In other words, let the poem inspire you then try to imitate it according to the culture of the target language. Maybe you will
need to change the poem a little bit to convey the meaning but not too much to avoid losing the main
idea and changing the whole meaning. What can be concluded from his story of translating poetry is
that we must be aware of the culture of the source language to better understand the poem. Then try to
look for some equivalents from the target language for the expressions that were mentioned in the poem in the source language to convey the meaning clearly to the reader, and this is how to translate poetry by imitation.
26
According to Al-Jabri (2013), language and culture are the most effective factors in translating poetry. The strategies that Al-Jabri adopted in translation of poetry are “either to maintain cultural heterogeneity or acquaint the reader with some elements of the SL culture or to abandon the
SL culture entirely and concentrate instead on the TL of the reader.” (p. 447). We also have what
is called “substitution strategy”. It is replacing source cultural expressions with those of the local
target culture.
Shiyab, Rose, House, and Duval (2010) point out that translating poetry needs lots of practice because it is not an easy thing to do. Practice will make you a good translator of poetry and it
will let you get used to the most effective strategies of it. The translator must make a balance between the content of the source language and the form of the target language in order to convey the
meaning and keep the aesthetic features of the poem. Generally, to translate poetry, the translator
must have a sharp poetic taste and high analytic skills.
References
Al-Jabri, S. (2013). Translation of poetry between the 'self' and the 'other'. Bable. doi:10.1075
\bable.59.4.04jab
Ali, S. (2005). Pertinence and redundancy in poetic repetition: A translatological perspective. Babel.
doi:10.1075/babel.51.4.05sal
Anani, M. (2003). The translator’s intuition explored: An approach to the translation of poetry.
Studies in Translation. doi:10.1017/S0020743813000019
Jones, F. R. (2011). Poetry translating as expert action: Processes, priorities and networks. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/btl.93
Shiyab, S., Rose, M., House, J., & Duval, J. (2010). Globalization and aspects of translation. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa/
Wilson, J. (2009). Sounding lines: The art of translating poetry. Teaching Theology and Religion.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-9647.2008.00489.x
27
B us i nes s N a me
Requirements and Issues in Advertisements Translation
By Muneera A. Al-Zayed
Advertisements translation as Millán and Bartrina (2013) pointed out is a large field that is full of
challenges and it is not only concerned with translation studies but also with other vital aspects. The authors
also mentioned that advertising translation studies offers “different perspectives to marketing, communication and media studies and contributes to discussion about globalization and localization” (p. 312). Although, it's not only directed to specific people, but to various people from all over the world, therefore, it
must be clarified that advertisements translation requires an accurate bilingual speaker because it is not an
easy field that anyone who knows two languages can take care of the job.
Stafford and Faberand stated that "the development of new types of media such as the internet and
the World Wide Web is a process often surrounded and enveloped by exciting events that go far beyond the
new medium itself" (2005,p. 3). However, the development caused some issues when American fast food
giant Kentucky Fried Chicken opened their first restaurant in Beijing in 1987; they accidentally translated
KFC's famous slogan, “Finger-lickin' good” to “We'll Eat Your Fingers Off!” in Chinese (Brooks, 2013, pa-
ra. 5). If the translator were fluent in Chinese, he would not make such silly mistake, but because the company did not make the effort to hire one that is highly qualified.
In 2012, Zhang pointed out other issues which stated that "the differences between culture and language play a decisive role in advertising translation" (para. 1) and it not only serve normal citizens, but also
political parties, interest groups, and others. For example, in 2006, hair care company Clairol introduced a
curling iron called the "Mist Stick", which did very well in U.S. markets. When the company marketed the
product in Germany, however, they failed to realize that “mist” means “manure” in German. Oddly enough,
the “Manure Stick” did not sell so well in Germany (Jenkins, 2011, para. 4). Therefore, a bilingual with cultural upbringing is deeply essential in this field.
In any advertisement, headlines are the most important part and that's why advertisers try to create an
eye-catching and attractive advertisement to captivate the reader's attention hence, advertisers frequently use
rhyme in the headlines to make them stand out so that the reader goes on reading the rest of the advertisement (Mehawesh, 2013, para. 1). In that case, standard and nonstandard varieties in a language must be taken into consideration. Besides, non-native speakers do not usually understand vernaculars in a country,
therefore, using them in advertising will cause confusion and lead the trading company to losses. Thus, an
understandable language between residents is extremely vital.
28
Jaashan (2014) stated that knowing the clear meaning in the language of advertising is not as vital
as the invisible one. For example, in "BABY AND TODDLER SALE", the advertiser wanted us to think
not only about what the words mean, but also about what he intends them to mean, therefore, this deviation lets the readers think about the invisible meaning that is clothes for children. Although, this advertising is grammatically wrong, still it is more persuasive and suits the trade market more than the original
one (para. 9-12). For that is why in advertisements translation we need a person who knows the trade
market well enough to avoid translation mistakes.
Reboul explains that the process of advertisements translation is "to transfer an advertisement
from one language (and culture) to another, possible answers would be to translate, adapt, and create" (as
cited in María, n.d., para. 29). Therefore, the main goal of an advertisement is to capture the consumer's
attention with the help of attention-seeking devices, also the "art of persuasion" is an important aspect of
advertisements - the ability to persuade people through the use of language. In other words, language
plays an important role in informing the consumers, convincing them of the benefits of the products or
services and putting them into action (Mehawesh, para. 20).
References
Brooks, C. (2013, October 15). Business news daily. Retrieved from http://www.businessnewsdaily.com
Jaashan, H. M. S. (2014). The deviant features of trade advertising register in Arabic. Theory and Practice
in Language Studies,4(11), 2307-2313. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/
docview/1630751287?accountid=142908
Jenkins, B. (2011, May 18). Oddee. http://www.oddee.com/item Retrieved from _97732.aspx
María, S. S. (n.d.). Nivea beauty is” campaign against “belleza es, facetas. Advertising in Translation, 16
(2012). Retrieved from http://www.bokorlang.com/ journal/62nivea.htm
Mehawesh, M. I. (2013). Grammatical parallelism in the translation of advertising texts with particular
reference to English and Arabic. A sian Social Science, 9(10), 254-263. Retrieved from http://
search.proquest.com/ docview/1445001137 ?accountid=142908
Millán, C., & Bartrina, F. (Eds.). (2013). The Routledge handbook of translation studies. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa
Stafford, M. R., & Faber, R. J. (Eds.). (2005). A dvertising, promotion, and new media. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa
29
B us i nes s N a me
Academic Skills to Improve Translation
By Danah F. Alsadhan
Nowadays, translation is one of the most important departments in every authority, organization, and college. As Popescu (2009) stated "Translation Studies has grown into a fullyfledged discipline almost all over the world" (p. 7). It's an essential skill a person should have,
especially for students since they usually have to do lots of research and assignments that require other foreign languages and sources. In other words, students should develop their translation skills. In fact, academic skills improve translation in several ways.
Translation is the knowledge of how to transform information into different languages.
Being able to understand a foreign text is a translator's duty (Le, 2004). The author mentioned
that to translate a text well, you have to understand the source text at first. Then, you will be
able to rewrite it in the target text without problems. However, this process needs a lot of prac-
tice and knowledge in "The basis of linguistic knowledge, domain knowledge and world
knowledge (p. 1).
For those who want to improve their translation, academic skills like literary translation
courses are essential. In those courses, students study the problems of translating between different cultures and traditions. They observe how those differences can change their whole translation. Also, they learn how to translate culture differences in the target language. In his 2010
article, Erakovic points to the fact that the literal translation course "Gives the students time and
the opportunity to recognize certain problems they had been unaware [of]" (p. 47).
Angelelli and Jacobson (2009) claimed that "Text analyze is an important skill for translation students" (p. 148). The authors observed many students' translations to mentor their improvement. Also, they met the student, Mira Kim and read her translation journal. They noticed
that before she took the text analysis course, she didn't translate nor understand texts correctly. And what she thought was a good translation was totally wrong since she thought it has to be
a word for word without understanding the text correctly.
30
Newell (n.d.) stated that a good translator should have communicative skills. He explained that what will make you master translation is to learn those skills. Though, communication skills are not gifts; you have to learn them step by step. In order to be able to communicate well, the author claimed that "You should have a broad, expressive vocabulary and
excellent, in-depth knowledge of the grammatical nuances, quirks and rules of your target language." (p. 1).
There is no doubt that translation is an important field of knowledge. In my opinion,
translation is not an easy mission because it requires endless practice. Also Wang (2011)
mentioned "Translation is a social complex activity" (p. 204). However, there are certain academic skills that will help you improve your translation in many ways. It is well known that
mastering those skills e.g., reading, writing, vocabulary, speaking and listening will make you
a professional translator.
References
Angelelli, C., & Jacobson, H. E. (Eds.). (2009). Testing and assessment in translation and interpreting studies: A call for dialogue between research and practice. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa/
Erakovic, B. (2010). Successful communication in a beginner's translation class, or how to
help students develop interpersonal sub-competence. Scientific Bulletin Of The
Politehnica University Of Timisoara. Transactions On Modern Languages / Buletinul
Stiintific Al Universitatii Politehnica Din Timisoara. Seria Limbi Moderne, 9(1/2), 4051. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/
Le, E. (2004). The role of paragraphs in the construction of coherence text linguistics and
translation studies. Iral-international Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teach-
ing, 42(3). Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/
Newell, R. (n.d.). What makes a good, successful and happy translator: Part 1. Retrieved from
http://lingocode.com/what-makes-a-good-translator/
Popescu, F. (2009). Perspectives in translation studies. Retrieved from \http://site.ebrary.com/
lib/sdl/
Wang, Y. (2011). Education and educational technology. Retrieved from/ https://
books.google.com.sa
31
B us i nes s N a me
Translating Metaphor and Metonymy
By Rawan S. Alanizi
Among the past and the coming years translation has been important in which it is a source of
knowledge. It also connects us with the surrounding world, but not anyone who knows two languages can
translate one into another. Translation is science, skill and art combined together that a translator has to
learn, due to the differences between languages such as culture and many other things. Metaphor and metonymy are examples of the differences as they are two types of figurative language. People often use expressions to refer to things other than saying it literally, so translating them needs to be learnt. In fact, there
are so many ways for translating metaphors and metonymies which are considered as figures of a speech.
The very first and the most important strategy to follow for learning how to translate metaphor and
metonymy is to learn the culture of the source and the target language. According to Schäffner (2004), the
differences between the SL culture and the TL culture have often been problems for the translator when
translating metaphors. For example, “it has been argued that if a metaphor activates different associations in
the two cultures, one should avoid a literal translation” (para. 43). However, Winner, (1982) claimed that
"misunderstanding metaphors stems from a cognitive limitation" (p. 287). Thus, according to Rundblad and
Annaz (2010), "metonymy is cognitively more basic than metaphor" (para. 1).
Besides learning the SL and the TL culture, the translator has to use a parallel metaphor and metonymy in the target language. However, the translator has to bear in mind that metaphor and metonymy are aspects of conceptual thinking. They also have words that can occur in one language as the opposite in another when they are translated. As what Newmark (1981) claimed that translating them is by reproducing the
same image in the target language. The translator must avoid the word-for-word translation because that
will distort the source language. Since the cultural reference of the term is not their main reason. Thus, "the
cultural content is not important in it's own rights, but only as a vehicle of metaphor" (para. 103).
Translation of metaphor and metonymy by using similar meaning but dissimilar form is one of the
strategies that a translator follows when translating them. This way depends on the type of context. As an
example, in poetry compensation in text may be attempted, however translating metaphor and metonymy by
it's sense is the correct way to translate them. According to Newmark (1981), this way has the advantage of
combining communicative and semantic translation in addressing the translation. Also, "the simple transfer
of the metaphor will not be understood by most readers" (para. 104). The translator should introduce similar
meaning in the TL to the SL which is the right way.
32
The translator should translate metaphor and metonymy by explaining and writing notes if the previous three ways are not suitable. Translating them this way is for not losing the quality of metaphor and
metonymy, which is transferring the exact same meaning in order to convey the implied meaning in the
SL text. Transferring the exact same meaning is very important in order to transfer the same picture of
the metonymic text. If the translator does not transfer the same picture then the meaning will change. For
example, "there is a new face is the office, this saying refers to a new person rather than literally a
face" (para. 1). When translating it, the word 'face' can refer to a whole person so the translator has to explain, for it would be vague if he doesn’t. (Annaz et al., 2009).
In conclusion, translation needs to be learnt due to the differences between languages such as metaphor and metonymy in which they are a figure of speech. When translating them, the translator has to follow strategies to avoid making mistakes. The first strategy is learning the culture of the SL and the TL.
Second using a parallel metaphor or metonymy in the TL. Third using similar meaning but dissimilar
form. If the previous strategies do not suit them, then explaining and adding notes is the only choice left.
When inspecting metaphor and metonymy inside a context, they show that the process is not just the substitution of a lexical term from one semantic area to another (Alvarez, 1993), however, they are a cognitive mechanism (Barcelona, 2003).
References
Alvarez, A. (1993). On translating metaphor. Meta: Journal des traducteursMeta:/Translators' Journal, 38
(3), 479-490. Retrieved from: https://scholar.google.com
Annaz, D., Van Herwegen, J., Thomas, M., Fishman, R., Karmiloff-Smith, A., & Rundblad, G. (2009).
Comprehension of metaphor and metonymy in children with Williams syndrome. International
Journal Of Language & Communication Disorders, 44(6), 962-978.
doi:10.3109/13682820802525005
Barcelona, A. (2003). Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads: A cognitive perspective . Retrieved
from https://books.google.com.sa
Rundblad, G., & Annaz, D. (2010). Development of metaphor and metonymy comprehension: Receptive
vocabulary and conceptual knowledge. British Journal Of Developmental Psychology, 28(3), 547563. doi:10.1348/026151009X454373
Schäffner, C. (2004). Metaphor and translation: some implications of a cognitive approach. Journal of
Pragmatics, 36(7), 1253-1269. Retrieved from: https://scholar.google.com
Winner, E. (1982). Invented worlds: The psychology of the arts. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa/books
33
B us i nes s N a me
The Positive Impact of Translation
By Fatmah M. Alkaf
Whilst the world began to develop unstoppably, translation has been a main tool helping in improvement. Also, it has been teaching people to learn from each other, and transit or even blend cultures to grow in a better shape and a lot more. Thriveni, 2002, defined translation as an intellectual
activity that won’t stop expanding and growing. So, translation “is an intellectual activity that will
continue to thrive, deriving inspiration from fiction in the source language and passing on such inspiration, or at least appreciation, to target-language readers.” (para. 23). In fact, translation has a huge
positive impact on culture, education and business.
Translation isn’t just about solving codes of the foreign language, but it also represents the culture identities of the source language within the target language. For instance, when we read books in
any other language or watch movies with subtitles, we learn something about the culture and its traditions, and “Having such knowledge helps people to feel part of a tradition” (Malmkjær, 2004, p. 3).
Furthermore, people would respect and get to know each other better and even encourage tourism to
know different cultures and see the beauty of any other country.
In addition, education has been incredibly improved in most of the globe because of translation.
Translation has been transferring all kinds of scientific fields from and to each country. Thus, the
country that receives and translates the knowledge for its people thrives, its economy gets higher and
its education develops. For example, the “dark ages” of Europe didn’t end until they learned and
transferred some the Arabian culture and civilization into theirs as (Marzolph, Leeuwen & Wassouf,
2004) explained, “Ultimately, it contributed to the new scientific of the Europe Renaissance” (p. 662).
Moreover, how can a business go globally without translation? Translation offers a great favor
to business men to transfer and expand their business to the maximum extent possible. This will
strengthen relations between nations and approximate cultures. Also, the expanded business can attract talented people from around the world and reduce its costs by employing cheap labors such as
China. This has contributed in increasing revenues like Nike which produces in China when it expanded globally. In addition, companies can also expand by franchising which is a contract between a
franchiser and franchisee to “run its business in a specified manner and provide assistance during the
contract duration” (David, Ali & Al-Ali, 2011, p. 152).
34
Roemer (1957) believes that translating from another language is an intellectual exercise that
offer limitless sources of progressive and interesting compositions to transfer the foreign author’s
thoughts. On the other hand, for example, when young people are usually required to write abstract
essays in their native language, it is a painful mission as he said “Not infrequently on very abstract
subjects, are to them, from the inadequacy of their information, a very difficult and painful task.” (p.
39).
Clearly, translation has been an important tool to convey and clarify cultures, education and
so on. It helped people spread their thoughts, business, civilization, etc. Even for writers, O’Neill
(2014) explains the power of translation that “Any writer who achieves such a worldwide readership
can of course do so only by means of translation.” (p. 8) which means translation is really significant in our lives.
References
David, F., Ali, A., & Al-Aali, A. (2011). Strategic management: Concepts and cases. Retrieved
from https://books.google.com.sa
Malmkjær, K. (2004). Translation in undergraduate degree programmes. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Marzolph, U., Leeuwen, R., & Wassouf, H. (2004). The Arabian nights encyclopedia. Retrieved
from https://books.google.com.sa
O’Neill, P. (2014). Transforming kafka: Translation effects. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Roemer, J. (1957). Polyglot reader and guide for translation, consisting of a series of English extracts, with their translation into French, German, Spanish and Italian: The several parts designed to serve as mutual keys. English text. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Thriveni, C. (2002). Cultural elements in translation. Translation Journal. Retrieved from http://
translationjournal.net/journal/19culture.htm
35
B us i nes s N a me
The Influence of Globalization on Today’s Translation
By Seham M. Bakalla
The term globalization is originally closely tied to economics and dates back to the 1940s. It
was popularized by the Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt in 1983 with the publication of his article “Globalization of Markets”. Coupland (2011) stated that “globalization has given to
the spread of English is also largely attributable to the earlier role that colonization played in expanding the language geographically and demographically” (p. 12). In fact, globalization has changed
translation today in numerous ways.
The translating process faces many challenges. The most important factor that can impact, either negatively or positively, the translation is the translators. They will ultimately be faced with the
challenges of effectively transferring the source language (SL) into the target language (TL), which for
purposes of our discussion, are French and English respectively. In addition, the translator’s
knowledge of the region and its linguistic specificity, whether first-hand or through extensive research
is paramount. Ning (2008) stated that “A translator’s choices may be influenced by a variety of factors” (p. 35).
Globalization does not come from a vacuum as there are some causes for globalization. First,
economic investment and free trade policies. Second, reduction of investment and communication
costs, so there is no doubt that research and information technology have a lower cost than the cost of
physical communication. Third, free private enterprise. Nowadays, it is very hard to conceive the
world without technological advancement or novelty. Finally, global networks because technology
contributed to world integration through setting up global networks (Sonzogni, 2005).
The effect of globalization had a social impact on translation studies because globalization ne-
cessitated translation and has always brought cultures closer. With the age of globalization and technology, and the emergence of so many new technical and nontechnical words, the translator has no
choice but to adopt a set of foreign words that enrich the target language, so it becomes more understandable to the reader. It could be that this aspect of translation can be applicable to the translation of
literary or scientific texts, but the fact that globalization has brought with it so many innovations with
regard to all genres is a case in point (Czarniawska, 2012).
36
Globalization has also affected how translators do their work and their style. This forced
translators to redefine their services. Globalization has helped translators become significant mediators among cultures. Also, Internet services have become a way of life, and with the increased demand on such services, there will be a demand on translation and translators. With the pursuit for
globalized strategies, there will be a bigger need for better quality translation, i.e. translation of advertisements. Translation can bridge the gap between peoples and nations, and globalization has
contributed in a more effective way towards understanding the source language and culture (Ning,
2008).
Al-Qinai (2008) stated that “Globalization has been fervently discussed by scholars in the
field of translation and those in other fields, i.e. industry, management, politics, and economics” (p.
12). Interpretation of globalization varied from positive to negative. At the translation level, globalization has impacted the lives of everyone, including the profession of translation and the lives of
translators. With the new technology and the emergence of new words and concepts, translators
have to incorporate globalization into their daily practices.
References
Al-Qinai, J. (2008). Pragmatic interpretation in translated texts. V igo International Journal of A pplied Linguistics. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com
Coupland, N. (Ed.). (2011). The handbook of language and globalization. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Cronin, M. (2013). Translation and globalization. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Czarniawska, B. (2012). Operational risk, translation, and globalization. Contemporary Economics.
Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com
Ning, W. (2008). Translation, globalisation and localisation. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Olaf Du, P. (2005). Michael cronin: Translation and globalization. Paula G. Rubel and A braham
Rosman: Translating Cultures. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com
Sonzogni, M. (2005). Translation and globalisation. Prophet of a Multi-Ethnic Ireland. Retrieved
from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com
37
B us i nes s N a me
Translation: Science and Culture
By Reema Z. Al-Hussain
What is a language? What is the language science? Language is a communication system contains sound, grammar, emotion, and ideas. Language is a purely human and noninstinctive method of communication. Language science contains many parts such as body lan-
guage, human language, translation, and more parts. Translation science which is a part of the
language science is the most complex one.
Washboune reported that “Translation tends to be a certain kind of reading an intensive
reading of the original text which as a result becomes an interpretive reading” (p. 42). Intensive
reading is a kind of interpretive reading or interpretive translation. He adds that in translation
we read to translate and we translate to read. Translation is a form of intense reading and reading one of translation forms, it is converge relation (2012).
In 1978, Tytler tried to accurately define and describe what is meant by a good translation
by saying "it is evident that a considerable progress would be made towards establishing the
ruled of the art" (p. 13). He also stated that many rules would flow naturally from this definition
but if the genius and character of all languages were the same it would be an easy task to translate from one language to another.
In 2015, Abdelwahab stressed that culture is a broad concept with many implications. It
may refer to our way of life and it includes beliefs, concept, principles, behavior patterns, habits,
and everything we learn to do. He adds that, "culture embraces all aspect of human life" (p. 66).
And Shyinthavy reported that "Culture which is an integral part of language learning sometimes
fades into the background of the language classes" (p. 2). Also culture should be integrated with
the teaching of all languages (2014).
According to Meifang, cultural transposition which is part to translation is "the various
degrees of departure from literal translation that one may resort to in the process of transferring
the contents of ST into the context of a target culture" (p. 207). He also mentioned five types of
cultural transposition: calque, communicative translation, cultural borrowing, cultural transplantation, and exoticism (2012).
38
Meifang found that some names are translated according to the pronunciation or meaning of the original word, while others are translated in a familiar way to the target language
reader. In his 2012 article, the author points out that whatever translation strategies are applied and whether the translation is moving toward the source culture or target culture, names
and their translations for one language to another have their own stories about the history. He
stressed that, "translation versions are expected to give an access to the rich culture" (p. 217).
References
Abdelwahab, M. (2015). Culture and English language teaching in the Arab world.
Adult Learning, 26(2), 66. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com
Language. (n.d.) Random House Kernerman W ebster’s College Dictionary. (2010). Retrieved
from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/language
Meifang, Z. (2012). Reading different cultures through cultural translation: On translation of
site names in macau historic center. Babel, 58(2), 205. Retrieved from http://
eds.b.ebscohost.com
Shyinthavy, P. (2014). Learning a new language is learning a new culture. Language in India,
14(12), 2. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com
Tytler, F. (1978). Essay on the principles of translation. (p. 13) Retrieved from http://
books.google.com
Washboune, K. (2012, November 1). Active, strategic reading for translation trainees: Foundations for transactional methods. Retrieved from http://www.trans-int.org/
39
B us i nes s N a me
The Impact of Culture on Translation
By Hadeel A. Al-Thunayan
Translation is transferring the ideas from the source language into the target language.
There is a relation between translation and culture. When we translate a text, "We are not
just dealing with words written in a certain time, space and sociopolitical situation; most im-
portantly it is the "cultural" aspect of the text that we should take into account" (Karamanian,
2002, para. 3). Without a doubt, culture affects translation, and plays a huge role in translation.
A good translator should be familiar with both source and target languages. In addition, he must have an extensive knowledge about these two languages. In 2003, Razmjou
stated that reading different genres in both source and target languages including modern literature, newspapers, advertisements, announcements, instructions, etc. is what makes you a
good translator. Being familiar with all these categories is important, since "they implicitly
transfer culture-specific aspects of a language" (para. 11).
Moreover, understanding the culture of both the source language and the target language is an essential role in the course of idiom interpretation (Al-Shawi & Mahadi, 2012).
As we know, translating idioms is not an easy job. Actually, it requires a good knowledge of
the culture. For example, the English idiom "to kick the bucket" does not mean striking it
with the foot. It has a non-literal meaning which is "to die".
"When cultures are very different, they produce what we might call “cultural transla-
tion”, i.e. when in the source text contains an element that is culturally unfamiliar or extremely opposed to the target culture" (para. 2). For example, with the word "owl", we all
know that it means a bird, but it symbolizes a different meaning from Arabic culture to English culture. In English, it means wisdom while it means bad luck in Arabic (Scott, 2010).
Therefore, we can say that some words have positive meanings in one language, but negative
meanings in another language or culture.
40
In 2011, Al-Jabbari, Sedeg, and Azmi reported that "the problems of translating
meanings from one culture to another are influenced not only by the use of words and expressions that are not found in the second language culture, but also by its language form
and usage" (p. 61). For instance, the word "Kimchi" refers to a famous Korean dish, yet it
has no equivalent word in Arabic culture. So, when we translate this word, we just write
it as it is pronounced in English ‫( كيمتشي‬Kimchi).
In conclusion, in studying the language of a society, we do not focus only on the
language and the process of communication, but we consider the importance of culture
(Akbari, 2013). Culture plays an important role in translation. We can be certain that
translation is linked to culture because it helps us to understand the language. I think that
if the translator does not have enough knowledge of the other culture, he will face many
difficulties in translation.
References
Akbari, M. (2013). The role of culture in translation. Special Issue on Applied Linguistics.
Retrieved from http://.academians.orgwww/
Al-Jabbari, E., Sadeq, A., & Azmi, J. (2011). Cultural gaps in linguistic communication
with reference to English and Arabic language communities. Retrieved from http://
zujournal.org/
Al-Shawi, M., & Mahadi, T. (2012). Strategies for translating idioms from Arabic into
English and vice versa. Retrieved from http://www.amarabac-magazin.com/
Karamanian, A. (2002). Translation and culture, 6(1). Retrieved from
http://translationjournal.net/
Razmjou, L. (2003). To be a good translator, 8(2). Retrieved from http://
translationjournal.net/
Scott, J. (2010). Cultural differences in translating Arabic. Retrieved from http://translation
-blog.trustedtranslations.com/
41
B us i nes s N a me
Types of Errors in Subtitling
By Aisha A. Al-Lhaidan
The term "subtitle" is a type of written translation of a dialogue in a foreign language which is apparent at
the bottom of the screen (Department of Linguistics and African Languages, 2013). A professional subtitle does
not only convey the right meaning, it also helps the audience learn a little about the foreign language and understand the foreign culture without problems (Lv, Zhu, & Ning, 2014). In fact, amateur subtitlers who commit
many errors in subtitling are increasing. Bisson et al. (2011) stressed that, "the extent to which people process
subtitles under different subtitling conditions remains unclear" (p. 399). Indeed, there are several types of errors
in which amateur subtitlers commit.
Linguistic problems in the subtitling process could be vast, for example, syntax, lexical choice, collocations, idioms and so forth (Thawabteh, 2011). Baker argued that the audience will be confused when an idiom is
translated as individual words because the idioms have nothing in common with the meaning of the words themselves. In order to pursue optimal subtitling, the subtitlers have to use expressions that are similar in meaning
and form to the original, or related to only the meaning, or they may rephrase the original, or instead they could
omit the difficult expression [when it's not a necessary one] (as cited in Bilić et al., 2013). However, subtitlers
must be familiar with common expressions and idioms in both languages (Fong, 2009).
Misinterpretation is a result of mishearing culture-specific items. On other hand, Fong stated that conscious naturalization is acceptable when it does not misrepresent the original (2009). However, in order to avoid
mishearing, "subtitlers are required to be aware of the socio-cultural context of both SL and TL in order to overcome the limits on translation" (p. 366). Indeed, translating subtitles is not so simple as it seems (Kiziltan, 2013).
Subtitlers have to read, search, and ask about the SL culture when they do not understand any issue, and only
then, they can convey the right meaning, or add a short explanation for terms that are not found in the TL culture.
Sometimes the speaker doesn't express the whole meaning, so some translators omit the whole part. The
missing part will show by other signs in the film such as moving images and music. The right thing to do is to
render the unfinished subtitle and point to the unspoken part; for example, "Today my fellow is --, is not complete in this subtitle, and not finished in the utterance by the character in the film" (p. 377), so two dashes were
used to indicate the missing part. As much as the translator understands the mode of the film, he can convey the
meanings in several ways (Chuang, 2006).
Subtitling irrelevant verbiage of certain expressions used in dialogues force viewers to read the subtitle
and it distracts their attention. Irrelevant verbiage expressions are commonly clearly understood because viewers
interpret films orally as well as visually; therefore, industry practice does not agree that to be subtitled. For
42
instance, even though names are very essential, there seems to be no particular reason to repeat what can already be heard by the audience (except the names are uttered for the first time). Subtitlers must shorten the
interference of subtitles to the complete minimum. Subtitles should be done in such a way that they convey
only the core meaning (Bilić et al., 2013).
As you can see, subtitling is an essential part of films, and a film may lose its attractiveness if the audience is incapable of getting the message through subtitling (Thawabteh, 2011). Bogucki argued that the lack
of professional dialogue scripts is a great problem for amateur subtitles (as cited in Bilić et al., 2013). Bilić et
al. added that whoever wants to become a professional film translator, subtitling might be an excellent exercise for them. It might also be useful for universities to give students the duty to render subtitles for films.
The end result might be the evolution of some gifted amateur subtitlers into professionals who are ready to
provide good quality subtitles for films (2013).
References
Bilić, V., Holderbaum, A., Kimmes, A., Kornelius, J., Stewart, J., & Stoll, C. (2013). Amateur subtitling - selected problems and solutions. T21N – Translation in Transition. Retrieved from http://www.t21n.com/
homepage/articles/T21N-2013-03-Sajna.pdf
Bisson, M., Heuven, W., Conklin, K., & Tunney, R. (2011). Processing of native and foreign language subtitles in films: An eye tracking study. Applied Psycholinguistics, 35(02), 399-418. Retrieved from http://
dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716412000434
Chuang, Y. (2006). Studying subtitle translation from a multi-modal approach. National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology. Retrieved from https://scholar.google.com
Department of Linguistics and African Languages, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. (2013). Yorùbá
movies and the problem of subtitling. IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSRJHSS), 12(1), 09-13. Retrieved from http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jhss/papers/Vol12-issue1/
B01210913.pdf
Fong, G. (2009). Dubbing and subtitling in a world context. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Kiziltan, N. (2013). Cultural and political problems in subtitling “Havar”, “Autumn” and “Bahoz” International Periodical For The Languages, Literature and History of Turkish or Turkic, 8/10, 365-371. Retrieved from http://www.turkishstudies.net/Makaleler/1048655522_K%C4%B1z%C4%B1ltanNalanfr.pdf
Lv, L., Zhu, H., & Ning, P. (2014). Subtitle translation of foreign movies and tv series under skopos theory.
Journal of Language Teaching & Research. doi:10.4304/jltr.5.4.901-905
Thawabteh, M. A. (2011). Linguistic, cultural and technical problems in English-Arabic subtitling. SKASE
Journal of Translation and Interpretation, 5(1), 24-44. Retrieved from http://works.bepress.com/
mohammad_thawabteh/4/
43
B us i nes s N a me
The Role of Translation in Tourism
By Hatoon F. Aldhowayan
Translation effected and had been effected by many things. One of the most prominent
things that translation played a big role in is developing tourism. Tourism has begun many years
before we could count, but translation is ancient, and far more practiced and known for more serious
and important purposes than entertaining ones. So it is translation that existed first and had a massive impact on tourism in many different ways.
The first thing in tourism was miscommunication between a culture and another. The differences between the tourist’s culture and language and the culture and language of the visited country
created communication issues and prevented some barriers between the tourist and accomplishing
the real goal of tourism, which is exploring. “Cross-cultural interpretation, however, has a particular set of complex issues associated with it” (p. 115). Cultural differences created the need for
translation to break these barriers and reach the main purpose of tourism which can’t be reached
without a way to connect those sides (Staiff & Bushell, 2003).
As translation took on an emerging rule in tourism, there were some mistakes in transferring
ideas and thoughts from one culture to another. Like any language with semantic features, most
common mistakes in translation to tourists are the grammatical ones. Major theme and minor
themes both concern unit structure. Sanz stated that “Major themes are essential to the unit’s structure, they are always cognitive and can be expressed” (p. 295). Specifying time, place, cause and
manner is where a mistake would usually happen. Also translating conjunctions and linking words
are harder to easily translate without a background about each word and what does it mean (2003).
Other kinds of mistakes might be easy to avoid at the beginning of the finding of the bound
between translation and tourism such as pragmatic translation errors. “The methods of establishing
translation equivalence utilized here included a judgmental back-translation method and a statistical
method” (p. 931). They are usually caused by some things that could be easily avoided like the lack
of receiver orientation by simply choosing the right guide with the right tourists’ purposes. The useless information for the visitor should not be mentioned at all in the first place. With that, they all
would get along (Jiangbo & Ying, 2010).
44
At the twentieth century, almost everyone was hitting a road to somewhere foreign mostly.
And with how knowledge was spreading wider than it ever had, people desired learning new languages just for the sake of it. “According to American and British law, translation is a secondorder product, an adaption or derivative work” (p. 4). Realizing what benefits could come out of
it, translation started to be a part of tourism that people noticed and agreed on how translation is
helping and building a whole new future for tourism to become a new kind of investment
(Clifford, 1997).
As the world is racing these days, now we can all see where tourism has come to after
translation and where it was before the great impact translation has had on it in not a so long period of time. Translation took tourism to a whole new level and made it a main field of successful
business and investment. Not to mention whom some countries are relying on tourism at making
needed money. There would not be places to visit at summers and memories to make out of each
trip without translation.
Resources
Chen, Y., & Huang, P. (2008). The translation equivalence of the effort scale between Chinese
and Portuguese travel agents. Social Behavior and Personality. doi:10.2224/
sbp.2008.36.7.931
Clifford, J. (1997). Routes: Travel and translation in the late twentieth century. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa/books
Jiangbo, H., & Ying, T. (2010). Study of the translation errors in the light of the Skopostheorie
Samples from the websites of some tourist attractions in China. Babel. doi:10.1075/
babel.56.1.03he
Newmark, P. (1998). More paragraphs on translation. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa/books
Sanz, R. L. (2003). The translation of tourist literature: The case of connectors. MultilinguaJournal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication. doi:10.1515/mult.2003.015
Staiff, R., & Bushell, R. (2003). Special issue: Sustainable places translation in an age of global
travel: some issues. Translation in A n A ge of Global Travel: Some Issues,21.
45
B us i nes s N a me
Idioms: Posing Challenges for Translators
By Abeer F. AlRubia
There are a lot of challenges that translators face, but translating idioms is the most
common problem. I have always had a hard time understanding the real meaning of any idiom when I did not already know the idiom. According to Hassan (2014), idioms are compli-
cated expressions; they are not easy to translate because they are culture-bound and their
meaning is rather metaphorical than literal. In English, there are so many idioms that simply
cannot be translated literally. Therefore, translators usually face a hard task translating any
idiom.
First, idioms are expressions that are specific to a certain language or group of people.
Abdolshahnejad (2009) defined the idiom as "An expression whose meanings cannot be inferred from the meanings of the words that make it up, but which seems perfectly natural to
native speakers of the language" (p. 2). "Let sleeping dogs lie" is an example of an idiom
which means to avoid restarting a conflict. One main problem of the lexical representation
theory is that a lot of idioms can act like normal phrases, not like words (Simpson, 1991).
According to Balfaqeeh (2009), we mostly translate the idiom depending on the context. For the idiom in the target language, there may be sameness but it is used differently
from the second language to the target language, so an idiom may have the same meaning in
the TL but a different concept. Also, the frequency and the formality of idioms are different
from one language to another. As an example given by Baker (1992) “Arabic and Chinese
are languages that allow limited use of idioms in formal written texts” (p. 3).
Balfaqeeh (2009) stated that, when an idiom is known and understood correctly, the
next stage is to decide how to translate it into the target language. The problems concerned
in translating idioms may be summarized as: first, a huge number of idioms in English have
both literal and an idiomatic meaning, so a translator who is not accustomed with the idiom
can simply take the literal interpretation and miss the play on idiom. Second, an idiom may
be used in the source text in both its literal and idiomatic senses at the same time.
46
Third, An idiom may have a comparable counterpart in the target language but its
context of use may not be similar. Fourth, The agreement of using idioms in written discourse and their frequency of use may not be the same in the source and the target language. Fifth, being able to identify that he is dealing with an idiomatic expression because
it is not always so clear and also because there are many types of idioms. According to
Hatim (2001), analyzing and working on translated texts should involve studying the context of the translation, the history of the ST and TT and the position of the text within the
literary system of both languages.
Cacciari and Tabossi, 2014, stated that familiar idioms would become directly available and would not create any problem. Unfamiliar idioms must present no problems for
understanding because a lot of metaphors are understood without several difficulties. In
contrast, an idiom could be difficult because of possible conflict between the operation of
different processing components. Finally, I like idioms even though it is hard to translate
them because it’s something that Google Translate will never be able to manage with. I
really enjoy when idioms make me think and use my mind to guess the real meaning if I
do not know it.
References
Abdolshahnejad, A. (2009, 6). A study of idiomatic expressions and cultural concepts in
literary translation of simin Daneshvar's 'Savushun'. Retrieved from http://
www.proz.com/translation-articles
Balfaqeeh, N. (2009). Strategies for translating idioms and culturally-bound expressions
within the human development genre. Retrieved from http://www.birmingham.ac.uk
Cacciari, C., & Tabossi, P. (2014). Idioms: Processing, structure, and interpretation. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Hassan, B. (2014). Between English and Arabic: A practical course in translation. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Hatim, B. (2001). Teaching and researching translation. Longman. London
Simpson, G. (1991). Understanding word and sentence. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
47
B us i nes s N a me
Translating Proverbs
By Hailah Y. Al-fozan
Proverbs are one of the most widespread expressive styles used by people in everyday life since
they reflect people’s feelings, ideas, beliefs and traditions in a lively picture. In 2014‫ و‬Columbia
University Press defined it as “short statement of wisdom or advice that has passed into general use and
more homely than aphorisms” (para. 1). In addition, for translators to know what proverbs consist of
and how they can translate them, this will help them in understanding other cultures and come up with
best translations. Indeed, translating proverbs is a great way for translators to understand other languages and cultures.
First of all, in order to translate a proverb in the most proper way, translators have to keep in
mind the importance of proverbs. Proverbs play a big role in people’s life as they are handed down
from generation to generation. According to McDaniel, Porter, and Samovar (2009) there are thousands
of proverbs that each culture uses to teach lessons that are unique to a particular culture and that shows
how proverbs are important. Also, they pointed out that American interpreters prepare themselves for
their stressful job by learning proverbs of the foreign languages. Moreover, Mieder in 2005 notes that
“studying proverbs can offer insights into a culture’s world view regarding such matters as education,
law, business, and marriage” (p. 113).
In addition, translators need to know how to analyze proverbs to translate them in a perfect way.
In 2005‫ و‬Unseth stated that to analyze proverbs a translator should look at the amount of information
they contain. In many languages, one of the imprints of proverbs is that they make the listener stop and
ponder the meaning, rather than clarifying all the multiple senses of words. Also, he specified that “the
two major categories of techniques used in forming proverbs are those that rely on sound [e.g. rhyme,
tone, assonance] and those that rely on structure [e.g. parallelisms & personification]” (p. 2). For translators, knowing those techniques will help them in analyzing and translating proverbs in a way that is
instantly clear.
After analyzing proverbs, the stage of translating them begins. It is important to know how to
translate proverbs. In 2010, as Obisakin explained that to translate proverbs from the source language to
the target language you have two ways: either translating meaning for the speakers of the target language, or translating word for word known as equivalence. However, sometimes it is not easy to
48
translate proverbs by getting an equivalent from both languages especially when the target language
is based in a different environment. He also pointed out that “many of the proverbs, upon translation,
may lose substantial parts of their meanings” (p. 34). In addition, he believes that all original proverbs are always shorter than their translations.
For translating proverbs, the translator should first know the linguistic and non-linguistic features of both languages. The linguistic features are those elements that are not carried only through
words, but also by culture (Dabaghi et al., 2010). In addition, it is not reasonable to translate a proverb by just looking at the first meaning of its words in a dictionary because as Mollanazar (2001) emphasized, proverbs cannot be translated literally (word for word) and they may have no natural equiv-
alent in the target language. Thus, he suggested two strategies for translating proverbs which are replacing them with an equivalent local proverb, or stating their non-figurative meaning straight forwardly.
In conclusion, no doubt that proverbs are interesting, important, and complex. This is shown
when people express their true feelings using proverbs in everyday life. Dabaghi, Pishbin, and
Niknasab (2010) assure that “proverbs have been and remain most powerful and effective instrument
for the transmission of culture, social morality, manners and ideas of a people from generation to another” (p. 7). Therefore, knowing and mastering how to translate proverbs as translators is an extremely important thing.
References
Columbia University Press. (2014). Proverbs. In The Columbia encyclopedia (6th ed.). Columbia:
Columbia University.
Dabaghi, A., Pishbin, E., & Niknasab, L. (2010). Proverbs from the viewpoint of translation. Journal
of Language Teaching & Research, 1(6), 7. Retrieved from SDL
McDaniel, E., Porter, R., & Samovar, L. (2009). Communication between cultures. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa/
Mieder, W. (2005). Proverbs are the best policy. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/
usupress_pubs/49/
Mollanazar, H. (2001). Principles and methodology of translation . Retrieved from http://
abstract.iauksh.ac.ir/
Obisakin, L. O. (2010). Proverbs in communication: A conflict resolution perspective. Retrieved
from https://books.google.com.sa
Unseth, P. (2006). Analyzing and utilizing receptor language proverb forms in translation. The Bible
Translator, 57(4), 9. Retrieved from SIL
49
B us i nes s N a me
How to Be a Good Translator?
By Alanoud S. Al-Baker
Translation is a highly skilled. It is the process of translating words or text from one
language into another. A translator is an individual who fluently reads, write, and speaks a
minimum of two languages, and translates written and spoken words into another language.
Training translators is an important task which should be given a high priority. The service
that translators render to enhance cultures and nurture languages has been significant
throughout history. Being a translator is not difficult, but it is not easy to be a good translator. There are many skills needed to promote translating ability, and help anyone who wants
to be a good translator.
The first step is extensive reading of different translations of different kinds of texts.
A good translator is someone who has a comprehensive knowledge of both source and target
languages. Translators should read different genres in both source and target languages including modern literature, newspaper, magazines, advertisements, etc. According to Sofer
(2006), one of the most important skills that might help anyone who wants to be a good
translator is to read more in the linguistics as he said "the good translator is a perennial language student, always eager and willing to learn more and to keep up with the latest" (p. 37).
"Writing" skills, the ability to write smoothly and correctly in both source and target
languages, are also important. In fact, writing is the main job of a translator. Translators
should become familiar with different styles of writing, techniques and principles of editing
and punctuation in both source and target languages. Editing and punctuation improve the
quality and readability of the translation (Razmjou, 2002).
A good translator should be familiar with the culture, customs, and social settings of
the source and target language speakers. Also a good translator should be familiar with different registers, styles of speaking, and social stratification of both languages. According
50
to Hatim and Mason (1990), the social context in translating a text is probably a more important variable than its genre. The act of translating takes place in the socio-cultural context.
Moreover, according to Claudia and Holly (2009). They mentioned that a successful
translator must understand how a source text is structured internally and the effects that
such an organization has on the meaning that the author is creating and communicating (p.
33). Also, they should know the meanings of the idioms in both source and target language so they can defeat the difficulty of translating idioms.
Finally, it is important to know that it takes much more than a dictionary to be a good
translator. To be a good translator requires a sizeable investment in both source and target
languages. It is one of the most challenging tasks to switch safely and faithfully between
two universes of discourse. Only a sophisticated and systematic treatment of translation
education can lead to the development of successful translators.
References
Claudia, V & Holly, E. (2009). Using a rubric assess translation ability. In Testing and assessment in translation and interpreting studies: A call for dialogue between research and practice (p. 386). Retrieved 2009, from https://books.google.com.sa
Hatim, B. & I. Mason. 1990. Discourse and the Translator. London: Longman.
Razmjou, L. 2002. Developing Guidelines for a New Curriculum for the English Translation BA Program in Iranian Universities. Online Translation Journal, V. 6, No.2
http://accurapid.com/journal/20edu1.htm
Sofer, M. (2006). Requisites for professional translators. In The translator's handbook (p.
376). Retrieved from https://books.google.com
51
B us i nes s N a me
Translation Theory
By Ibtesam A. Burhan
The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy
(Xiaowei, 2013). In modern science, the term “theory” is generally understood to refer to a proposed
explanation of empirical phenomena, made in a way consistent with scientific method. Translation
theory is a statement of a general principle, passed upon reasoned argument and supported by evidence
that is intended to explain a particular fact, event, or phenomena. In 1988, Newmark defined the theory of translation as follows “Translation theory is the body of knowledge that we have about translating, extending from general principles to guidelines, suggestions, and hints” (p. 7). In fact, it is important to know the main types of a translation.
The main kinds of translation are oral and written translation. Oral translation is a translation
performed orally, irrespective of the form of the text-source, either consecutively or simultaneously.
However written translation is a translation performed in writing, irrespective of the form of the textsource, either consecutively or simultaneously. These are the differences between oral and written
translation (Liu, 2015).
According to Gentzler (2001), written translation of texts, documents, contracts, instruction
manuals, design engineering documentation etc. is made in format maximum close to the original one.
Written translation implies for execution of work applying computer hardware using different kinds of
dictionaries, with the customer having a possibility to get the document both in hard copies, and in eform. Translators of the translation agency Meridian do not apply machine-aided translation technologies, as computer-aided translation software does not provide adequacy and correctness of translation.
It stands to mention that oral translation has a range of differences from the written one. When
executing written translation, the translator has the possibility to do his work in a quiet manner, to refer to dictionaries, reference literature and to plan his working time reasonably; while doing an oral
translation the interpreter works in or under completely different conditions. The oral translator has
restricted time periods to think the translation over, and accordingly, the only language he has at his
disposal is material that he holds and gained after years of experience. That is why oral translation
provides for availability of definite features of the interpreter allowing him to reach success in interpreting (Lavrakas, 2007).
52
There are several differences between oral and written translation and we use them employing many methods. Vermeer (2006) said:
Oral translation is often equated with interpretation and translation with
written translation but, the analogy is only partial. Written translation uses
a different language and different media from oral translation and translation in general partly uses different media from other types of
interaction and communication (p. 5).
Translation theory is as deep as the sea, so it has a lot of definitions, types, criteria, processes,
tools, etc. In this research paper the focus was on the differences between the two main types of
translation theory which are very common. Every sort has its specific characteristics: the translator
should be able to use all of them that is if they want to be a professional translator. Oral and written
translation are very difficult tasks because they need practice, experience, and proficiency.
References
Gentzler, E. (2001). Contemporary translation theories. https://books.google.com.sa
Lavrakas, P. J. (2007). Advances in telephone survey methodology. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa/books?
Liu, Y. (2015). Skopos theory and legal translation: A case study of examples from the criminal law
of the P.R.C. International Journal For The Semiotics Of Law, 28(1), 125-133. doi:10.1007/
s11196-013-9353-6
Newmark, P. (1988). Translation and Interpretation: Retrospect and Prospect. Retrieved from
http://eds.b.ebscohost.com
Vermeer, H. J. (2006). Luhmann's "social systems" theory: Preliminary fragments for a theory of
translation verlag für wissenschaftliche literatur. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa/books?
Xiaowei, G. (2013). A study on flow theory and translation teaching in China's EFL class. Journal
Of Language Teaching & Research, 4(4), 785-790. doi:10.4304/jltr.4.4.785-790
53
B us i nes s N a me
Difficulties in Translating English
By Maha A. Abaoud
The task of a translator is to render the source message in the most full way (Yu,
2006). It seems to be easy, but when you go deeply into this process you will discover that it
has a lot of difficulties. These difficulties can, more or less, depend on the gap between the
two languages that you translate to and from. In fact, there are many difficulties that face
translators during the translation process from English to any other language.
In many cases, traditional grammatical terminology is more bewildering than useful. For instance, the possessive construction in English rarely relates to real possession as in
the case of the phrase "his house" (p. 50). It is used to refer to any position that a person regularly lives, even if it is an apartment or a duplex. The author adds that the phrase "his
leg" (p. 50) has more complex meaningful relations because leg is a part of a person and not
something that is regularly bought and sold (Nida, 2002).
Another difficulty of translation according to Melby (1995) is that most English words
have multiple meanings, so a translation based on one-to-one replacement is rarely suitable.
For example, the verb “to run” as moving quickly will not have the same translation of “run
a company”, “run long”, or “run dry” (para. 9). He insists that “there is no set list of possible
ways to use ‘run’ or other words of general vocabulary. Once you think you have a complete
list, a new use will come up” (para. 9).
Differing collocational possibilities is another difficulty of translation. Judge (1986)
stated that any lexical item in a language tends to occur with a particular range of other lexical items. For instance, in English we say “he has trouble” or “he suffers trouble” which in
other languages say “he drinks trouble” or “he sees trouble” (Larson, 1984, p. 141). Both of
them have the same meaning, but different words are joined to indicate that meaning.
Extension and intension in different countries when defining the same object is another difficulty in translation. According to Wu (2008), there are things or concepts that are
54
represented by one or two terms in one language, but in another language has more terms
for that concept. For example, in English, the word “brother-in-law” can be applied to
“my sister’s husband, my husband’s brother, and my husband’s sisters’ husbands” (p. 125)
which in other languages they have their respective terms.
In conclusion, each translation process has its difficulties. Whatever this difficulty
is, there must be a way to deal with it. Translators with experience will know the suitable
way to deal with any difficulty. In addition, reading about these difficulties and how to
deal with them will make the translation process much easier. Once they master translation, the difficulties will be less, but they will never end.
References
Judge, A. (1986). Difficulties in the transfer of information between languages. Retrieved
from http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/lingcul2.php
Larson, M. L. (1984). Meaning-based translation: A guide to cross-language equivalence.
Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Melby, A. K. (1995). Translation research group - TTT.org: Barker lecture. Retrieved from
http://www.ttt.org/theory/difficulties.html
Nida, E. A. (2002). Contexts in translating. Retrieved from http://sdl.edu.sa
Wu, J. (2008). The analysis of cultural gaps in translation and solutions. Canadian Center
of Science and Education, 123-127. Retrieved from http://www.ccsenet.org
Yu, P. (2006). Grammatical problems in translation. Retrieved from http://
www.rusnauka.com/ESPR_2006/Philologia/6_pelihovs_kiy%20juriy%20.doc.htm
55
B us i nes s N a me
The Role of Culture in Translation
By Areej A. Bin Othman
Lefevere states the role that translation has in our lives and in many fields like psychology, economics, anthropology, linguistics and many more. In the beginning he starts with the growth of translation and
how it developed in the 21st century and how “the history of translation is the history also if literary innovations” (p. 6). Then he adds articulating the definition of translation as a rewriting process conveying certain
intentions and introducing new objectives. Pointing out that a rewriting process is a manipulation process,
Lefevere seems to assert that the manipulative process of literature can help us better see the world in which
we live (2002).
Akbari states that individuals in a society use language to express their culture and the environment
that they live in and are surrounded by. Therefore, as well as using language as a means to understanding a
society deeply and well, the society’s culture is also used (2013). Some scholars have claimed that culture
has a close relationship with phenomena and behavior; others have claimed that knowledge belongs to cul-
ture. Hence, people’s attitude towards knowledge, translation and art is formed through their culture and
their perspective of materials around them. According to that, translation can be viewed as more than just a
linguistic aspect (Babaee, 2014).
Babaee (2014) stated that “the process of translation should be defined, not as a sort of mechanical
transferring from one language to another; instead as an understanding of two languages and cultures” (para.
20). Therefore, in order for a translator to be very specific and a professional, he must be aware of all the
cultural aspects of a language when translating to and from. He should also be aware of all the different dialects, social norms and all the other aspects there is in the target language (Akbari, 2013) and this results in
high quality of a translation. The best way to be capable of all the mentioned points is to interact with dif-
ferent language speakers, read their classic books and also look into the significant differences there are in
linguistic aspects from one language to another.
Babaee explains that creation of meaning in both languages should also be taken into consideration
when translating. An example of this is the meaning of the black sheep in different cultures. For instance,
in Italy it signifies independence whilst in other cultures in signifies something else (2014). We can interpret this kind of diversity in means of pros and cons. The pros being related to mastering the notion of competence in the language; and the cons including no competence (incompetence) in education (Torop, 2012).
56
Another aspect of distinction between language and culture is idioms. Hasan states that there must
be awareness of the difference between universal and cultural expressions (idioms). For example, the expression ‘born with a silver spoon in his mouth’ which means that he was born rich is used in one culture
and not used in another (2006). The lack of knowledge about such cultural language might result in illtranslated sentences. An example Homeidi shows is the expression in Arabic ,’‫‘یمسح كل من على وجه األرض‬
which means to destroy everyone on earth, might be translated to ‘delete all on earth’s face’ (2004).
Therefore, translators should have specialized idiom and expression dictionaries in order to be familiar
with all idioms and present a well-translated text.
In conclusion, it can be viewed now that translation is an act of creation and art more than transferring from the source text to the target text. Translation being “creation” more than a transferring
means, the translator must do harder work than the author who created the original work. It has been said
that the translator himself can either kill the original text and its beauty or recreate it in a better way.
Therefore, being a translator is considered to be a difficult job and good translators are very hard to find.
The most important thing a translator must be aware of is the complex relationship it has with culture and
that any translated text must have cultural interference. If that is achieved, then the translator will be successful in his translating path.
References
Akbari, M. (2013). The role of culture in translation. A cademic and A pplied Studies, 3(8), 13-21. Retrieved from http://academians.org/
Babaee, S., Yahya, R., & Babaee, R. (2014). Creativity, culture and translation. English Language Teaching, 7(6), 14-18. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview
Bassnett, S., & Lefevere, A. (1990). Translation, history, and culture. Retrieved from http://ilts.ir/
Hasan, A. (2006, December 14). Translation and culture. Y emen Times. Retrieved from http://
search.proquest.com/
Homeidi, A. (2004). Arabic translation across cultures. Babel, 50(1), 13-27. Retrieved from http://
www.ebscohost.com
Linning, G. (2008). Translation problems in reference to thought and reality. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa/
Torop, P. (2010). Culture and translation. A pplied Semiotics/Semiotique A ppliqué, (24). Retrieved from
http://go.galegroup.com
57
B us i nes s N a me
The Hindrances in English-Arabic Idiom Translation
By Rawan Ayedh Alharbi
Idioms are hard to understand even to a native speaker of English. The role of idioms is important
in any languages. As long as you observe them well, you will grant the privilege to a colorful, varied and
coherent speech and writing. However, the problem lies in when a person can not interpret or translate
idioms as they should be in his or her language. Also, in his 2014 article, the author points out to the fact
that idioms cannot be predicted by their individual words (Birinci). Therefore, many translator students
encounter difficulties in translating idiomatic expressions from English to Arabic and vice versa.
Epstein explains that the reason why idioms differ widely between languages is that they pertain to
a particular time and place. Therefore, translators must understand the purpose of idioms in a particular
text and know how to translate them as best as possible. The author defines idioms as fixed phrases that
are conventional with no-literal meanings. Also, he mentions a typical example of non-literal idioms
which is “it’s raining cats and dogs”. He articulates that “rain is coming down heavily, as though the
drops were animals” (p. 99). Furthermore, the author points out the importance of learning these idiomatic expressions because they tend to be less clear than other fixed expressions (2012).
In 2014, Xiao-yan and Zhong-zhi stated that idioms are the result of different cultures which in
turn poses a lot of difficulties in translating. They believe that geographical features, traditional costumes, and religious influence are what made idioms. Clearly, those factors are highly important as we
can see them in Arabic and English idioms. In the Arabic language, most idioms contain vocabularies
that describe the Arabic geographical traits. Also, the equivalence of the English idiom “once bitten,
twice shy” (p. 225) in the Arabic language is ‫ال یلدغ المؤمن من جحر مرتين‬which has some kind of religious
influence (Vulchanova, Vulchanov, & Stankova, 2011).
Many researches have been conducted in translating idiomatic expressions. One of them focuses
on the problems of translating and understanding cultural differences which idioms carry. All in all, the
two main reasons that have been discussed in those researches and are responsible for making idioms’
translation process failed are: (a) not being able to apprehend either or both semantic and pragmatic components (b) lack of equivalence for some idiomatic expression in the students’ native language (Nazzal,
Aqel, & Igbaria, 2014).
58
Nazzal, Aqel and Igbaria investigated the type of difficulties that Arabic graduate and undergraduate students of English language face in translating idioms. The purpose of this study is to test
several hypotheses concerning students’ semantic and pragmatic competence in translating three idiomatic expressions. This study was conducted on 83 undergraduate students of English language and 13
graduate students by doing a written test as a part of a final exam. The findings of this study revealed
the importance of connotative or pragmatic meaning since most students made mistakes in the connotative meaning. Finally, the researchers pointed to the importance of exposure to the target language and
its culture (2014).
Idioms are hard to translate especially for non-native speakers of English since they have more
than one perception (Nazzal et al., 2014). Considering this issue, Baker (1992) summarizes the main
difficulties as follows:
The main problems that idiomatic and fixed expressions pose in translating relate to two
main areas: the ability to recognize and interpret an idiom correctly; and the difficulties in
volved in rendering the various aspects of meaning that an idiom or a fixed expression con
veys into the target language (p. 65).
She also believes that such difficulties are encountered widely in the case of idioms and not in the case
of fixed expressions.
References
Baker, M. (1992). In other words: A course on translation. London and New York: Routledge. Retrieved from https://scholar.google.com
Birinci, M. (2014). Development of idiomatic knowledge. Construction of Identity. Retrieved from
https://scholar.google.com
Epstein, B. J. (2012). Translating expressive language in children's literature: Problems and solutions.
Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/
Nazzal, A., Aqel, F., & Igbaria, A. (2014). Difficulties encountered by Arabic-speaking undergraduate
and graduate English language students in interpreting English formulaic expressions. International Journal of English Linguistics, 4(5). Retrieved from http://sdl.edu.sa
Vulchanova, M., Vulchanov, V., & Stankova, M. (2011). Idiom comprehension in the first language: A
developmental study. V igo International Journal of A pplied Linguistics. Retrieved from https://
scholar.google.com
Xiao-yan, W., & Zhong-zhi, L. (2014). Translating idioms based on the principle of equivalence. US China Foreign Language, 12(2). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com
59
B us i nes s N a me
Translating Multiword Units: Posing Problems and Assisting Solutions
By Atheer S. Alkheraiji
Multiword units in their various forms are phenomena that are found in almost all languages in
our world. They occur repeatedly in languages, which makes them mandatory to every speaker of any
language to achieve fluency. However, these units are the most complex when it comes to translation.
In fact, translating multiword units in their miscellaneous forms mostly appear to be problematic and
intricate; therefore, a lot of assisting strategies in translating such units have been found.
The major identification of multiword units is identifying the compositional from the noncompositional ones; the latter is the one that most translators encounter difficulties with. The idea that a
non-compositional expression is, according to Glucksberg (2001), “a construction whose meaning cannot be derived from the meaning of its constituents” (p. 68) is what sets it as a difficulty. The problem
exacerbates when the same expression has both compositional and non-compositional meanings as in
the case of "black and white". This expression clearly refers to objects that are black and white, but, according to the context, it also can have a non-compositional idiomatic meaning that is clear-cut (Philip,
n.d.).
Along with the problem of meaning recognition comes the problem of misinterpreting. Misinterpreting non-compositional multiword units occurs when the literal meaning of these units makes clear
acceptable sense that varies from their non-compositional meaning (Akbari, 2013). Also, when the
units in the source language have literally identical counterparts in the target language but they are distinctive meaning wise, it may trick unwary translators who are not familiar with the target language
(Eftekhari, 2008). Another problem rises when the context in which these units may appear or their frequency of use differ in the source language from the target language (Saeed, 2012).
To overcome these difficulties, many researchers have suggested several methods and strategies.
Tabassum stated that literal word-for-word translation is probably the least useful strategy; yet its usefulness appears when both languages, source and target, belong to the same family and are closely similar (2014). Additionally, when translators are well accustomed to the target language, the translating
process becomes considerably easier. They can follow the method of translating a non-compositional
multiword unit with a unit that is similar in meaning to the one in the source language, but consists of
different lexical items (Akbari, 2013).
60
In some cases, translators can, depending on the unit, find an identically equivalent unit in the
target language. This is probably the most recommended method. It is, according to Eftekhari
(2008), based on finding a unit that is lexically and semantically similar to the unit in the source language. Finally, translating by paraphrasing, which is by far the most commonly used method. When
a matching unit or expression is likely impossible to be found in the target language, or when the corresponding match is considered inappropriate to the context, Akbari (2013) suggested paraphrasing as
the only way to transfer the meaning.
Translating non-compositional multiword units is one of the most challenging issues in the
field of language. Akbari (2013) believes that successfully “conveying the same conceptualization,
connotation and shades of meaning” (p. 32) of the source expression to the target one is what makes
this process highly demanding and difficult. However, the different strategies that have been suggested by many researchers should provide translators with great assistance to help them get the better of
this challenge.
References
Akbari, M. (2013). Strategies for translating idioms. Journal of A cademic and A pplied Studies, 3(8),
32-41. Retrieved from www.academians.org
Eftekhari, N. (2008, October). A brief overview on idiomatic translation. Retrieved from http://
www.translationdirectory.com
Glucksberg, S. (2001). Understanding figurative language: From metaphor to idioms. Cary, NC,
USA: Oxford University Press, Incorporated. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com
Philip, G. (n.d.). Identifying multi-word units in context. Retrieved from http://
amsacta.unibo.it/1133/1/MultiWordUnits.pdf
Saeed, A. T. (2012). Difficulties Arab translation trainees encounter when translating high frequency
idioms. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com
Tabassum, M. (2014). Strategies of translating idioms. British Journal of English Linguistics, 2(3), 14
-29. Retrieved from http://www.eajournals.org
61
B us i nes s N a me
Difficulties in Translating Collocations
By Bashayer H. Al-Yami
Collocation is a lexical relation between words which combine orderly with other particular words to shape one semantic unit. However, this combination of words is not subject
to rules but to certain constraints that determine the way they can be combined to convey
meaning. The meaning resulting from collocation is not simply a matter of associations of
ideas but, according to Alshaje'a (2014), is "idiosyncratic" and cannot be predictable. For
example, "blond" as an adjective referring to color is highly restricted in its distribution.
"Blond" is associated with hair and not with door even if the color of the door is "blond" (p.
2). Therefore, there is blond hair but not a blond door.
Smajda, Mckeown, and Hatzivassiloglou (1996) explain that collocations usually
come as word pairs or phrases. Also, their meaning cannot be translated word for word but
you should know their meaning as a whole phrase, then try to find a common equivalent in
the target language (TL). Along with the previous authors, Barnbrook Mason, and Krishnamurthy (2013) suggest that in order to produce a proper translated equivalence of collocation
in the TL, you should fully understand it in both languages.
Although collocations are at first sight semantically transparent and therefore similar
to regular constructions, many of them cannot be translated literally. The choice of the "right
word" to use in the target language is often a subtle process, with crucial implications on the
translation quality. For example, apparently harmless combinations, like grande attention,
granade diversité in French, will lead to inadequate formulations in English if translated literally: *big attention, *big diversity (Seretan, 2011, p. 23).
Dickins, Hervey, and Higgins (2013) believe that an important area for collocation is
the use of conjoined phrases of the pattern X and Y. Thus, in English we tend to say 'pots
and pans' instead of 'pans and pots' (p. 71). Moreover, some collocations have become established idioms. Thus, ‫ من لحمه ودمه‬has to be translated as 'his own flesh and blood', rather than
the reverse 'his own blood and flesh' (p. 71).
62
According to Bahumaid (2006) collocational rage is different from the source language to the target language. For instance, in English the verb "catch" collocates with a
fish/ a cold/ a train/ fire. In Arabic, .‫ تشتعل النار فيه‬/‫ یلحق بالقطار‬/‫ یصاب بنزلة برد‬/‫ یصطاد سمكة‬He
also believes that there are language-specific collocations (entirely used in a particular language) such as, in English: eat one’s soup but in Arabic: drink one’s soup (p. 135). Furthermore, he illustrated some collocations that have culture-bound meanings, for example,
in Arabic: ,‫عنتر زمانه‬but in English: Hercules of his times (p. 137).
On the whole, Hassan (2010) stresses that collocations belong to a specific culture and language, and it cannot be easily or fully understood unless you are a native
speaker of the source language. Indeed, translators should be more careful and aware
while translating collocations because ignoring them would lead to misunderstandings and
the target text would lose a part of its meaning. For this purpose, translators should give
collocations enough importance as any vocabulary element.
References
Alshaje'a, H. (2014). Issues in translating collocations of the Holy Qur'an. Language in India, 14(8), 17. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com
Bahumaid, S. (2006). Collocation in English-Arabic translation. Babel, 52(2), 156. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com
Barnbrook, G., Mason, O., & Krishnamurthy, R. (2013). Collocation: A pplications and implications. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Dickins, J., Hervey, S., & Higgins, I. (2013). Thinking A rabic translation: A course in
translation method: Arabic to English. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Hasan, N. (2012). Collocations in English and Arabic: A comparative study. English Language and Literature Studies, 2(3), 75-93. Retrieved from http://sd.edu.sa
Seretan, V. (2011). Syntax-Based collocation extraction. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Smadja, F., McKeown, K., & Hatzivassiloglou, V. (1996). Translating collocations for bilingual lexicons: A statistical approach. Computational Linguistics, 22(1), 1-38. Retrieved from https://scholar.google.com
63
B us i nes s N a me
Challenges in Translating Poetry
By Wejdan M. AlHudaithy
Poetry is the art of literature that is written with special linguistic qualities. Every poet has a
unique expressive ability that reflects the culture and beliefs of his community. Due to that, poets
and those who love poetry want to enjoy poetry from all over the world. Regarding that, Jones stat-
ed "translating can bring a source poet and poem into the international mainstream" (2011, p. 7).
Thus, the role of translation is crucial. The field of translation in general is challenging because a
good translator is responsible for adequately transferring all the ideas, emotions, and meanings of
the original text. However, translating literature is the most difficult type, especially, poetry.
"Poetry by its very nature is untranslatable" (para. 3) Singh stated against translating poetry
(2013). Also, according to Al-Jabri, poetry beauty cannot be reached just by choosing specific
words or using nonliteral language, but also he added by “the creation of rhythm, rhyme, meters,
and specific expressions and structures that may not conform to those of everyday language” (p.
446). Due to that some people see poetry as “sacred entity” (p. 446) which is impossible to translate. On the other hand, others have the courage to overcome its difficulties (2013).
Zid (2014) sees that these pessimistic opinions definitely have reasons one of which is that
poems contain cultural and social elements that should be interpreted and overcome by the translator. So he should be familiar with the culture of both source and target languages because the
"meaning", "content", and "form" of a poem totally rely on that (para. 3). And it is worth to mention Walter Benjamin's similar statement that "no poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the
beholder, and accordingly no original for a translation" (as cited in Zid, 1992, p. 72).
Another reason that Zid stated is that the translator is usually stressed because of the struggle
with keeping the aesthetic form and the meaning of the original which often ends up damaged either
in meaning or aesthetic characteristics. Besides the cultural, social, and aesthetic challenges the
translator might encounter in translating poetry, there are also "pragmatic problems and losses of
allusions, images, and references" (para. 4) that are buried in the poet's uniquely selected words
(2014).
Landers (2001) presented Wood's contention that "poetry cannot be translated; it can only be
recreated in the new language" (p. 97). He supported his argument by giving a small piece of
64
"Ode to a Nightingale" which is a poem by John Keats: Charmed magic casements, opening on
the foam, Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. Then he argued that it is impossible to rewrite
it in English without destroying the "magic"; for example: "Enchanted supernatural windows, unclosing on the bubbles, Of dangerous oceans, in unreal romantic countries dejected", so even the
meaning is the same but he said "there is no poetry here" (p. 97). So, to survive as poetry, a poem
should be rewritten by a poet who has equally strong expressive ability in the other language.
We start the argument with the notion that it is impossible to translate poetry; however,
we conclude with a contrasting idea which is there are actually translated poems so poetry can be
translated. According to Bredella and Delanoy (1996), even the translations do not carry exactly
the entire meanings of the original; however, the entire, core meaning is there but expressed differently. Also, they added that "we always lose something of the original but this is because we
gain something of our own" (p. 126). So translating poetry could be difficult but it is possible.
References
Al-Jabri, S. (2013). Intercultural literary exchange: Translation of poetry between the ‘self’ and
the ‘other’. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com
Bredella, L., & Delanoy, W. (Eds.). (1996). Challenges of literary texts in the foreign language
classroom. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Jones, F. R. (2011). Poetry translating as expert action: Processes, priorities and networks. amsterdam, NLD: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Retrieved from http://
www.ebrary.com
Landers, C. L. (2001). Literary translation: A practical guide. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Singh, V. (2013, February 8). Problems in translating poetry: Some structural, textural and cultur-
al issue. Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/
Zid, M. (2014). Memes of translation revisited: From translating poetry to 'poeming' translation.
Theory and Practice in Language Studies. Retrieved from http://sdl.edu.sa
65
B us i nes s N a me
Idioms and Literal Translation
By Sara D. Al-Khathami
Literal translation is one of the translation methods that are used frequently, but it is considered as a
big and common mistake when it comes to idiom translation that leads to errors in the concept and the context. Therefore, idioms should not be translated literally due to four reasons. Idioms can be considered as a
part of everyday language. They are the essence of any language and the most problematic part to handle
with. So what are idioms? Why can we not translate them word for word? Moreover, how can we translate
them?
Idioms are often ungrammatical. They, as what Mohammad Hassan defined them, are “groups of
words with special meanings which are different from the meanings of the individual words” (para. 1) which
make them not make sense even with knowing each word’s meaning. Idioms include slang, proverbs, figurative phrases, mottos, sayings, quotations, jargons, colloquials, two-part allegorical sayings, and so on
(Wang & Wang, 2013). We use them frequently in our daily conversations and every language and culture
has their own set of idioms. Therefore, they should be studied individually (“Examples of Filipino Idioms,”
2015).
Idioms should not be translated literally due to four reasons. First, idioms are used in a figurative
sense. For example the idiom in “Exams are part of a carrot and stick method” which Frank Boers (2008)
explained:
There are obviously no real carrots and sticks involved. The image is that of a donkey being encour
aged to move forward by dangling a carrot in front of it or by hitting it with a stick. We can use this
idiom to describe any event that involves more abstract rewards (the carrot) and threats (the stick)
(Boers, 2008, para. 2).
Secondly, an idiom should be treated as one word. Therefore, translating it literally will make no
sense. For example, the literal translation for the German idiom “tomaten auf den augen haben” is “you
have tomatoes on your eyes” which makes no sense, but means as a whole: “You are not seeing what everyone else can see” which has a meaning that is understandable and acceptable. Thirdly, sometimes they will
be considered as an offense. For instance, the literal Arabic meaning of the English idiom “put yourself in
my shoes” is ”‫“ضع نفسك في حذائي‬which really means: “put yourself in my place before you judge me” ("40
Brilliant Idioms," 2015).
Finally, they are an abstract of cultures that contain their experiences, domains, stories, history and
beliefs, which means that they differ from one country to another. Therefore, even for a person who
66
knows the SL and has studied the skills, he will not be able to understand them easily unless he studied
them individually or understands the culture itself. So, translating them carelessly word for word will
erase all of that and keep nothing but confusion. For example, the Arabic idiom ”‫“عاد بخفي حنين‬has a
known story in our culture. So translating it to “he returned with Hunain’s slipper” will make no sense
for foreign readers because Hunain’s character is not in their culture. ("Meaning Transfer," n.d. ; Yousef,
n.d.).
For idiom translation problems, there are many strategies that depend on the context that the idiom
is used in. First, using an idiom of similar meaning and form. For example, translating “all is not gold
that glitters” to Arabic: .”‫“ما كل أصفر دیناراً لصفرته‬Secondly, using an idiom of similar meaning but
dissimilar form. For instance, the previous idiom to: ”‫"ما كل بيضاء شحمه وال كل سوداء فحمه‬. Thirdly and most
ً ‫"األهم أو‬. Finally, translating by
commonly, translation by paraphrase. As in “first things first” to ”‫ال‬
omission. This strategy is used when the idiom is very difficult even for the translator and there is no
close match between the two languages or there are no other equivalents (Adelnia & Dastjerdi, 2011).
Idioms are the beauty of a language; an abstract of cultures and humanity wisdom. Each idiom
has its meaning, story and beauty, and simply by translating the idiom literally, it loses its essence in literal transferred words with no sense. It is a hard task for all translators, but still it is a responsibility that
should be met. Through the transferred meanings, his sincerity and ingenuity are measured.
References
40 brilliant idioms that simply can’t be translated literally. (2015, January 20). Retrieved from http://
blog.ted.com
Adelnia, A., & Dastjerdi, H. (2011). Translation of idioms: A hard task for the translator. Retrieved from
http://google.books.com
Boers, F. (2008, February). Understanding idioms. MED, (49). Retrieved from http://
www.macmillandictionaries.com
Examples of Filipino idioms. (2015). Retrieved from http://examples.yourdictionary.com
Idioms. Retrieved from http://www.english-online.org.uk/adv6/idiom1a6.htm
Meaning transfer. N. Wasfy (Ed.), Introduction to translation (p. 28). KSU.
Wang, L., & Wang, S. (2013). A study of idiom translation strategies between English and Chinese. Retrieved from http://ojs.academypublisher.com
Yousif, M. H. (n.d.) Idioms. Retrieved from http://www.saaid.net/Doat/hasn/67.htm
67
B us i nes s N a me
Ethics of Interpreting And Translating
By Fadia T. Alhaqbani
A lot of people think that interpretation and translation are an easy job and some of them even
think that devices can take the translator’s job very easily, without thinking that translating needs the human mind to translate correctly and to work through different cultures and different mind states. In fact,
devises do not have any ethics to work with and I do not think that in the future those devices will have
that kind of power. It is unknown that a translator must have some sort of ethics to be successful in his
profession and he must follow them correctly.
In 2003, Anderman and Rogers defined ethics as “the science that deals with the principles, morals, standards, norms and rules” (p. 119). Ethics teach you how you should act or behave with your work
or the people around you, my they be your colleagues or clients. Some of those ethics could change
through time and some of them have remained unchanged for a long time if not forever and should never
be forgotten especially by translators because ethics is what made them successful in their work field.
Meschonnic and Boulanger stated that translation without ethics cannot work by any chance, and it
is a matter of how the person uses his language and how the person interacts or behaves towards the language. It is also how the person expresses his feelings and how to understand them perfectly, and translates them to the target language correctly and makes the reader or the listener feel like this is the original
work and never had been translated. This is when, we can say, that the translator has succeeded in his
field (2007).
The ethics of translating an old text like a text in Middle English for example, is so difficult and
not anyone could do it, at least without training. You have to be trained for translating ancient texts to do
it correctly; if you did not have proper training for it, do not attempt to do it because it will have a different structure, new words and idioms that you never saw or worked with. But it could be workable with
much more in-depth reading and training (Tytler, 1978).
In 2009, Guelman stated that if you work as a medical interpreter and a translator, you have to
check first with the emotional state to the foreign patient who does not speak English and you need to understand his culture. It is crucial to understand his culture so you can be as professional as you can in
your job. He reported that “our ability to show compassion when someone else is ill can be hindered by a
language barrier, and it is a sign of respect to a patient’s uniqueness to make an effort to bridge that linguistic divide” (p. 11).
68
In 2014, Vaslescu stated that when translating business, you need different kinds of ethics.
You have to have confidentiality between the translator and the boss or the person who the translator
translates for. Second, the translator should be so precise with his translation quality and professional
solidarity and a lot of translators tend forget the aspect of cultural identity or maybe think it is not important as the rest of the other aspects because of the business field but it is as important and as crucial as the other aspects.
In conclusion, ethics are so crucial in translation and every field of translation somehow has
similar ethics, whether it is business translation or medical translation. Also, according to Zahniser,
2013, it should be clear to every translator to know those ethics and work with them because that is
what differentiates between the human mind and the devises, which people think that could replace
the human mind which is not possible; not now or in the future because devices could not be smarter
than the human mind which God made in terms of intelligence and more flexibility.
References
Anderman, G. M., Rogers, M. (2003). Translation today: Trends and perspectives. Retrieved
from https://docs.google.com
Guelman, Mónica. (2009). Ethics in medical interpretation and translation. Retrieved from http://
eds.b.ebscohost.com
Lord Alexander Fraser Tytler. (1978). Essay on the principles of translation. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa/books
Meschonnic, H., Boulanger,&P. (2007). Ethics and politics of translating. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa/books
Vaslescu. (2014). Ethical issues in machine translation. Retrieved from
http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/
Zahniser,E. (2013). Interpretation is an ethics. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/
69
B us i nes s N a me
Translating Proper Names
By Zaha R. Al-kharaif
The English language is unique in what it considers to be proper nouns and what it considers to
be common nouns. A proper noun gets more specific. It gives us the actual name of the person, place,
thing, or idea. According to Primary Grammar and Word Study (2008), proper names "Are used to
name specific people, places or things and begin with capital letters" (p. 4). Another definition of proper names that Tembo (2006) explains is "The Nonsense Theory argues that proper names merely stand
for or present objects" (p. 1). Some translators wonder how to translate proper names. In fact, there are
various strategies of translating proper names that differ depending on the context and audience.
Suppose a reader of a target language tries to read a Chinese novel that is translated to his language, but the characters' names are not translated, and the original characters' names are Chinese, the
translator translates them depending on the target language's sound. As a result, the reader of the target
language definitely will face difficulty and he will be confused with these Chinese characters. Also,
Coillie (2014) finds another negative impact in keeping the proper names as they are in translating text
"the name will function differently if the reader of the translation is not familiar with the person to
whom the names refers. The name does not then have the same identifying function" (p. 125).
Translating proper names in any text is directed to a certain category depending on the age. In
case of adults, there is no need to translate proper names because there are no problems of pronunciation; also, there is not relevance between the names of characters and traits or meanings that are conveyed. On the contrary, in children's literature, proper names should be translated. According to Munday, children find difficulty to pronounce these original names. Also, usually the names in children's
literature are connotative which means that names carry meanings and features (2008).
Proper names usually carry significances and meanings refer to the class and race. In 2014, Bandia illustrated that names convey meanings referring to relations such as family ties and tribe, and also
identify sociocultural relations. For race and class, Giguere (2010) clarifies that "The name ''Raleigh''
implied a family of old money and the family were blond and fair skinned" (p. 143). In this regard, a
translator has to be aware of the background of the names because they can transfer a big part of meaning and effects to the reader.
70
A translator has trouble when the proper names do not carry any meanings or features; also,
their sounds are too difficult to keep them in the target language. Therefore, he has to read the context, to understand the roles that a character plays, and what the main features it has. Then, he could
use it as a name of this character. Maybe this method will make the characters have special names
conveying traits and sense instead of renaming randomly. The original writer chooses his names of
characters carefully and has a clear image of his characters. Therefore, he tries to transfer this image
to the reader. While the translator's mission is to transfer this image as much as possible to the reader
in the target language.
Translating proper names needs sufficient experience, ample knowledge, and a deep recognition
between name case to another. This reveals an efficient translator and the extent of the truthfulness of
a translator. Newmark (1988) believes “A satisfactory translation is not always possible, but a good
translator is never satisfied with it. It can usually be improved" (p. 6). In conclusion, following primary strategies of proper name translation are based on the context and the reader.
References
Bandia, P. (2014). Translation as reparation. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.sa
Coillie, J. Y., & Verschueren, W. P. (2014). Children's literature in translation: Challenges and strategies. Retrieved from http:\\books.google.com.sa
Giguere, A. (2010). The plays of Y asmina Reza on the English and A merican stage. Retrieved from
http//books.google.com.sa.
Munday, J. (2008). Thinking translation: Perspectives from within and without. Conference proceedings, third UEA postgraduate translation symposium. Retrieved from http://
books.google.com.sa
Newmark, P. (1988). A textbook of translation. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.sa
Primary grammar and word study. (2008). R.I.C. Publications. Retrieved from http://
books.google.com.sa
Tembo, M. (2006). Zambian traditional names: The meaning of Tumbuka, Chewa, Nsenga, Ngoni,
and Tonga names. Julubbi Enterprises Limited. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.sa
71
B us i nes s N a me
The Difficulties of Translating Metaphors
By Ethar M. Al-Wethinani
Metaphor, as stated in the online dictionary, is etymologically from Greek, from metapherein,
meaning 'to transfer' and from meta- + pherein, meaning 'to bear'. It is defined by the same source as "A
figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable
in order to suggest a resemblance." (para. 3). In his 2004 article, Schäffner points out that metaphor has
been extensively argued that the discipline of Translation Studies, mostly with respect to translatability
and transfer methods. In fact, it has been discussed that metaphors can become an obstacle, since transferring them from one language and culture to another one may be hampered by linguistic and cultural
differences.
According to Al-Hasnawi (2007), because metaphors are linked to various cultural fields, this
means that it is the translator’s duty to get the meaning across to the TL reader, and to do so he must
search for a TL similar cognitive equivalence in the latter’s culture. He stressed “the more the SL and
TL cultures in question conceptualize experience in a similar way, the easier the task of translation will
be.” (para. 17). However, a translator’s task is still difficult when translating metaphors across languages are related to different cultures.
Herrera and White (2012) explain the issue of translating metaphor. The figurative uses of a certain word cannot be understood completely except by referring to its meaning literally. And they reported, “Treating this basic meaning first would enhance the non-native learner's awareness of synchronic
etymology, which is the realization that meaning may be related to other, more basic meanings” (p.
157). Learning a new language requires to memorize information that is irrelevant, and memorizing irrelevant information is much harder than information evincing a specific pattern, or information that can
be shown to be relevant.
Fernandez (2011) declares that metaphor translation has been either abandoned or is the main
cause of conflicts, mainly because it has always been treated with a perspective focus, and mostly from
a traditional, not a cognitive point of view. Her main theory is that many translators stand on uneasy
ground regarding the translatability of metaphor and metaphor translation procedures. She adds that the
existence of many variables that could be bearing on the degree of translatability of metaphor have contributed to the situation: cultural references, communicative purposes, metaphor typology, co-text and
context restrictions, etc.
72
In 2012, Chanda stated that since metaphors mean by appeal to an incongruity produced
through the use of literal meaning in a context where the literal meaning does not apply the literal
translation into a target language that does not have the concept is not possible, simply because of a
cultural gap between source and target language. There is no possibility of connecting between sense
and reference in this case as the reference does not exist and the sense therefore cannot be activated.
In conclusion, a metaphor is a figure of speech that makes an implicit, implied or hidden comparison between two things. However, rather than saying that something is like another, a metaphor
implies that it actually is that thing. Some metaphors are easy to identify and translate while others
are so subtle that you have to analyze the text carefully to find and translate them correctly. Whether
a metaphor can be translated (i.e. if a literal translation could recreate the same dimension) and how
hard it is to translate, how it can be translated and if it must be translated at all cannot be determined
by a set of abstract rules, but should rely on the structure and function of the metaphor within the text
concerned (Snell-Hornby, 1995).
References
Al-Hasnawi, A. (2007). A cognitive approach to translating metaphors. Translation Journal,
11(3). Retrieved from http://translationjournal.net/journal/
Chanda, I. (2012). Metaphor translation as a tool of intercultural understanding. CLCW eb:
Comparative Literature and Culture, 14(4), 3-8. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/
Fernández, E. S. (2011). Translation studies and the cognitive theory of metaphor. Review of
Cognitive Linguistics, 9(1), 339. doi:10.1075/rcl.9.1
Herrera, S. H., & White, M. (2012). Metaphor and mills: Figurative language in business and
economics. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Snell-Hornby, M. (1995). Translation studies: A n integrated approach. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins
Pub.
Schäffner, C. (2004). Metaphor and translation: Some implications of a cognitive approach.
Journal of Pragmatics. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2003.10.012
73
B us i nes s N a me
The Role of the Translation Process in the Improvement of Translator Skills
By Wejdan M. Alharthi
In 2004, Razmjou explains that “a comprehensive knowledge” (para. 10) is a basic reason behind the
success of the professional translator. In his point of view, many sources can improve the students’ reading
skills such as “newspapers, magazines, advertisements, etc.” (para. 10), with strong words, he states the importance of these sources that will culturally develop the transfer process between languages. He also
stressed that, “Specialized readings are also suggested: reading recently published articles and journals on
theoretical and practical aspects of translation.” (para. 10). These readings will not only enhance their skills,
but also the aspirations during the translation process.
Translator training, from my point of view, is also a second step, which leads to the success of the
entire translator. At the beginning, all we know about translation is that words have been changed from one
language into a different language, and carrying different dictionaries is completely a good solution to be a
perfect translator. The first and important step, which we may have not thought about before, is training. As
Robinson mentioned that “The key to successful translator training, I've been arguing, is to move from the
painfully slow analytical processes that are typically taught in classrooms to the fast subliminal processes
that most translators rely on to make a decent living.” (2008, p. 11).
At the same time, many translators have this ability but sometimes the magnitude and the complexity
of the subject lead to the realizations that a combination of traditional thinking and new cognitive concepts is
necessary and that the manifold observations of authentic data must be brought into the scope of a relatively
small number of guiding principles. In his 1995 book, the author points to the fact that “The most important
of these is for me the fact that in translator performance, knowledge and skills are inseparable. This concept
has important consequences for the organization of this book and for how it will be received by researchers
in the field of translation.” (Kussmaul, p. 51).
Translation is an approach that implies many benefits; first, it suggests that a student will immerse
him-/herself in various facets of language and language practice for a set number of years, which provides
time for exposure to a variety of skills and fields. Second, it allows for productive cross-fertilization between the different domains within language practice. Kearns illustrates that “editing skills are involved in
translation and subtitling, while translation is an important part. Involving various domains in language
practice, offers opportunities for skills to be developed by various means, thereby empowering students by
helping them to develop transferable skills.” (2008, p. 47).
74
As it is mentioned above, translation requires great ability and some experience in this field. According to Transolatorsbase, 2010, almost all the translators working in the United State have a Bachelor’s Degree, which is not very important in the translation field. On the other hand, most professional
translators have at least some experience working and/or living in a country where their source language
or languages are spoken; many translators lived and worked in their source language country for many
years, or pursued higher education in their source language(s).
In conclusion, we can summarize that the translation process depends on the experience of the
translator; also their background knowledge about this field and how they can solve any problem they
may face them. As Kang and Shunmugam stressed that, “Translation is considered to be one of the
emerging professions in developed countries. It is a quasi-profession is facing many challenges en route
to attaining the full professional status.” (2014, p. 191). In addition, Dreifus states that “I really do think
that writers are the ideal people to be translators. To translate a text, you must understand it fully and be
able to basically rewrite it in a new language” (E. Dreifus, personal communication, June 9, 2007).
References
Kang, M. S., & Shunmugam, K. (2014). The translation profession in Malaysia: the translator's status and
self-perception. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies,14(3), 191. Retrieved from https://
www.eds.b.ebscohost.com
Kearns, J. (Ed.). (2008). Translator and interpreter training: issues, methods and debates. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa
Kussmaul, P. (1995). Training the translator. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com
Razmjou, L. (2004). To be a good translator. Translation Journal, 8(2). Retrieved from http://
translationjournal.net/journal/28edu.htm
Robinson, D. (2003). Becoming a translator: A n accelerated course. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Transolatorsbase. (2010, March 25). What you need to become a translator. Retrieved from http://
www.translatorsbase.com/articles/1296.aspx
75
B us i nes s N a me
Translating Grammar: English Grammar vs. Grammar Around the World
By Sarah A. Bin-Masad
The most essential thing we must pay attention to while we are translating from one language to
another is the grammar of both languages. In 2012, Denham and Lobeck define grammar as, “linguistic
rule system that we use to produce and understand sentences” (p. 7). Without grammar we will not be
able to speak and write correctly. There is no language that has a grammatical system which is identical
to another language. Without a doubt, there are many differences between the grammatical systems of
the English language and the grammatical systems of different languages.
One of the aspects that English differs from other languages is in word order. “English is an
SVO language, while Arabic is a VSO language” (p. 248). The two languages state other variations in
their basic word order which are commonly found in literary style (Al-Rubai'i, 2004). We can illustrate
word order differences in the following example “Fahad plays football”. When we want to translate this
sentence to Arabic, we need to switch between the subject and the verb, so the sentence can be a correct
Arabic sentence like this: ‫ یلعب فهد كرة القدم‬. The first element in the Arabic sentence )‫ (یلعب‬is the verb,
and the second one )‫ (فهد‬is the subject.
There is also a difference between English and Japanese word order. Akiyama and Akiyama
(2002) reported that “Japanese is a Subject-Object-Verb language” (p. 14). They add that in a typical
Japanese sentence, the subject is the first element, then the object, and the last element is the verb. The
most important difference from English is that the verb must be at the end of the sentence. For example
in “the cat ate the meat”, we can translate this sentence to Japanese like this: Nekoga (cat) niku o (meat)
tabemashita (ate). Another example is “Mike breaks it” and it can be translated to Japanese as: Maiku
wa (Mike) sore o (it) yaburimasu (break).
Another difference between English grammar and the other two languages’ grammar is in the
verb tenses. In 1998, Yule stated that in an English sentence there is a very important component which
is the verb. There are distinct forms of the verb that are described by tense, which is related to any state
in time, and aspect, which describes the way in which that condition was experienced. The two different tense forms in English are present and past tense. On the other hand, the two different forms for aspect are perfect and progressive. He stressed that, "the use of the model verb will is included, typically
as an indication of future reference" (p. 54).
76
However, in his (1963) book, the author points to the fact that the Japanese language has no
future tense. There are only two tenses; present and past. The definite future idea is expressed by the
present tense (Bleiler). Similar to the Japanese language, the Arabic language has two tenses. In
2007, Wightwick and Gaafar stated that Arabic grammar has only two basic tenses and it is ambiguous about time. The two tenses are the past and the present. They stressed that, “the future may be
made by adding ‫ف‬
ْ sawfa or ‫سـ‬
َ (sa) to the present” (p. 18). For example “the student will go to his
َ ‫سو‬
school tomorrow”, can be translated to Arabic this way: .ً‫ سوف یذهب الطالب إلى مدرسته غدا‬The verb
)‫ (یذهب‬is in the present form and we added ‫ف‬
ْ to it.
َ ‫سو‬
In conclusion, the differences that have been illustrated above are not the only differences between English, Japanese, and Arabic grammar. There are a lot of other differences. According to
Bleiler, 1963, Japanese is not included in the Indo-European Language Family. In contrast, English
is one of them. And still yet, the Arabic language is from the Semitic language family as Alotaiby,
Foda, and Alkharashi (2014) stated. This is one reason why there are a lot of differences between
these languages.
References
Akiyama, N., & Akiyama, C. (2002). Japanese grammar. Retrieved from https://books. google.com.sa
Alotaiby, F., Foda, S., & Alkharashi, I. (2014). Arabic vs. English: Comparative statistical study.
Arabian Journal for Science & Engineering (Springer Science & Business Media B.V. ), 39
(2), 809-820. doi:10.1007/s13369-013-0665-3
Al-Rubai'i, A. A. (2004). The effect of word order differences on English-into-Arabic simultaneous
interpreters’ performance. Babel, 50(3), 246-266.
Bleiler, E. F. (1963). Essential Japanese grammar. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Denham, K., & Lobeck, A. (2012). Linguistics for everyone: A n introduction. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Gaafar, M., & Wightwick, J. (2008). A rabic verbs & Essentials of grammar, 2E. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa
Yule, G. (1998). Explaining English grammar. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
77
B us i nes s N a me
Metaphor and Translation: Some Implications of a Cognitive Approach
By Sara M. Alowaini
Schaffner (2004) states linguistics has two processes in transferring meanings of source language (SL) it’s usually the learner's native language, which is a source of interference in learning
another language. Target language (TL) which means a foreign language, that one is in the process
of learning. “Linguistics-based approaches define translation as transferring meanings, as substituting source language (SL) signs by equivalent target language (TL) signs” (p. 1254). In taking this
approach, it is also possible to explore several studies about metaphor in some implications of cognitive approach.
According to Lackoff (1992) metaphors are not just words. It is the ontological mapping
across conceptual domains, from the source domain of journeys to the target domain of love. Also,
the mapping is primary in that it sanctions the use of source domain language and inference patterns
for target domain concepts. It’s also traditional, that is, it is a fixed part of our conceptual system,
one of our traditional ways of conceptualizing love relationships. This view of metaphor is at odds
with the view that metaphors are just linguistic expressions. We would anticipate different linguistic expressions to be different metaphors if metaphor was a linguistic expression. Hence, “we’ve hit
a dead end street” would comprise one metaphor. “Their marriage is on the rocks” would constitute
a different metaphor (p. 6).
In 2007, Williams and Wake explained that metaphors have become set in our culture so that
we can’t think differently of their targets. We might become culturally besieged in their metaphorical entailments “we may become culturally trapped in their metaphorical entailments: acts of metaphorical deconstruction become necessary” (p. 10).
When we argue with someone we see them as enemies. We try hard to defend our own situation and attack theirs. We can win or lose an argument. It’s essential to understand that we don’t
just talk about quarrel in terms of war. We use different ways and strategies when we come upon
indefensible positions. Though there isn’t a tangible battle, it’s a spoken battle “many of things we
do in arguing are partially structured by the concept of war. Though there is no physical battle, there
is a verbal battle” (p. 455). In this culture, we live by the argument is war metaphor (Lackoff &
Johnson, 1980).
78
Some studies have found out that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical. Metaphor is expanding day after day, not only in language but in thoughts and actions. “Since the time
of those studies, an increasing number of studies have revealed that our conceptual system is
largely metaphorical” (p. 2). Lackoff and Johnson reported that the way we think about what we
experience and what we do is a metaphor. Furthermore, the expansion of metaphor in language
has motivated a tremendous number of cognitive studies on metaphor (Sakamoto & Utsumi,
2014).
Thibodeau and Boroditsky reported that, “We find that even the subtlest instantiation of a
metaphor (via a single word) can have a powerful influence” (p. 1). They added that people don’t
realize metaphor as an influence on their resolutions. They focus on more “substantive” information as the motivation for their problem-solving decisions. We find the exposure to even a single metaphor can incite substantial differences about how to solve social problems (2011).
References
Lackoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Conceptual metaphor in everyday language. The Journal of
Philosophy, 77(8), 453-486. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org
Lakeoff, G. (1992). The contemporary theory of metaphor. Metaphor and thought, 2, 202-251.
Retrieved from: https://scholar.google.com
Sakamoto, M., & Utsumi, A. (2014). Adjective metaphors evoke negative meanings. PLoS ONE,
9(2), e89008. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0089008
Schäffner, C. (2004). Metaphor and translation: Some implications of a cognitive approach. Journal of Pragmatics, 36(7), 1253-1269. Retrieved from: https://scholar.google.com
Thibodeau PH, Boroditsky, L. (2011). Metaphors we think with: The role of metaphor in reasoning. PLoS ONE 6(2): e16782. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0016782
Williams, J., & Wake, G. (2007). Metaphors and models in translation between college and workplace mathematics. Educational Studies in Mathematics. doi:10.1007/s10649-006-9040-6
79
B us i nes s N a me
History of Translation
By Hessa M. Al-Swilhi
There are many definitions of translation, but this is the clearest one "the act or process of
translating something into a different language" (para. 1). The world has become a “Global Village"; even in such simple activities such to watch news on TV, translation plays a very im-
portant role. Translation is the key to open communication with people in any part of the world.
Although translation may seem as a modern science, it has a deep history.
In 2013, Bassnett stated that the translation study in English in the nineteenth-century has
given much time to the issue of finding a term to describe translation itself. Bassnett stressed
that, "some scholars, such as Theodore Savory, define translation as an 'art'; others, such as Eric
Jacobsen, define it as a 'craft'; whilst others, perhaps more sensibly, borrow from the German
and describe it as a 'science'" (p. 17). According to Bassnett (2013), Horst Frenz even goes as
far as to opt for 'art' but with qualifications, claiming that "translation is neither a creative art nor
an imitative art, but stands somewhere between the two" (p. 17).
According to Koerner and Asher (2014), from Roman times, Europe has been a civilization of translations, every angle of its culture and religion having deeply been affected by translators. They stressed that “modern thought on translation derives ultimately from the Jews of
Alexandria in the first century BC who translated literally, and the Romans of the Classical Age,
who did just the opposite” (p. 419). They added that translation was a constant of ancient civilizations, and there are bilingual inscriptions from Assyria and Mesopotamia (3000 BC). They
reported that “the Jewish translators of the Old Testament were based in Alexandria, then one of
the most important Greek-speaking cities in the Mediterranean” (p. 419).
The history of translation is disunited into four periods. Sawant (n.d.) stated that "starting
from the Roman translators Cicero and Horace to Alexander Fraser Tytler is the first period; the
second period extends up to Valery and from Valery to 1960s becomes the third period and the
fourth period 1960s onwards" (p. 1). He points to the fact that Rosetta Stone is considered the
most ancient work of translation in the second century B.C. and Homer's Odyssey which is a
translated work by Livius Andronicus.
80
Kuhiwczak and Littau reported that "translation history is sometimes presented solely
as the history of translation theory" (p. 63). They add that it combines the history of translation theory with the study of literary and social trends in which translation has played a direct
part. They point to the fact that it is the story of interchange between languages and between
cultures and as such has implications for the study of both language and culture.
In 2007, Gouadec stated that the translator is a key actor in the process of importing or
exporting ideas, discourse structures, services and so on. Gouadec reported that "he is in fact
an extremely powerful and critical agent facilitating and even at times enabling economic,
straregic, cultural, technical, literary, legal, scientific, and ideological exchanges throughout
the world" (p. 6). In addition, the translated text is the only thing that matters, the translator
has no right to a personal opinion or interpretation (Robinson, 2012).
References
Bassnett, S. (2013). Translation studies. Retrieved from https://scholar.google.com/
Gouadec, D. (2007). Translation as a profession. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa/
Koerner, E. K., & Asher, R. E. (2014). Concise history of the language sciences: From the sumerians to the cognitivists. Retrieved from https://scholar.google.com/
Kuhiwczak, P., & Littau, K. (n.d.). A companion to translation studies. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Robinson, D. (2012). Becoming a translator: An introduction to the theory and practice of
translation. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa/
Sawant, D. G. (n.d.). History of translation. Retrieved from https://scholar.google.com/
Translation. 2015. In Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved May 9, 2015, from http://
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/translation
81
B us i nes s N a me
Translation of Idioms
By Abeer A. Alyahya
Idioms are main characters in every language. Understanding them fully is part of understanding the entire language. In fact, translating idioms requires special techniques as they
should not be translated as a normal text; an idiom has to be identified as such before translation.
This paper will first introduce a basic definition of idioms in English. Then, it will discuss the
difficulties in translating idioms. Also, what steps done before translating idioms should be
done is discussed.
An idiom is established as a functional element of language. An idiom is a word or a
phrase that is constructed to have different meaning from its composite element suggestion.
This means that the literal meaning of that phrase is different from the intended meaning of it.
For example, "break a leg" would literally mean to physically break someone's leg. However, as
an idiom, it means an idiom from the theater that means "good luck" (Strässler, 1982).
Strässler (1982) explains that translators who are in their training stage find translating
idioms the most difficult. These difficulties could also happen at their early career levels. The
reasons for those difficulties could be “the usual non-transparency and cultural specificity the
idioms embody” (p. 181) and that mostly the general meaning of the idiom is not defined by its
words. This could be seen in Keep your hair on, where the idiom hold a different overall meaning than the literal translation of it.
Due to the fact that idioms are completely language-specific translating them is difficult
and challenges might arise while translating. First, an idiom must be recognized within the
translated text. When the sentence is not identified as idiomatic , then translators are faster on
the target literally related to the last word (Cacciari, 1988). Then, idioms have to be fully understood and analyzed. These steps are considered pre-translation steps as they should be applied
before applying in such techniques of translating idioms (Mustonen, 2010). As Ingo (1990) stated, "the translator must first analyze what the writer has intended to say before s/he can
even think of translating the expression" (p. 247).
82
Mustonen (2010) explains that one of the most recommended strategies of translating is translating them with a natural target language idiom which has the same
meaning as the original source language idiom. For example, idioms me be translated
with a semantically and stylistically corresponding idiom in the target language.
However, Bassnett-McGuire (1991) argues that idioms should be translated based on the
goal of the containing paragraph.
As discussed idioms will be encountered in all aspects of the English language.
Translators should anticipate such an idiom from between the line when translating as they
would always have different meaning than their literal one. This paper discusses the definition of the idioms in general. Then, it talked about some of the difficulties that might
arise when translating them. Finally, it discussed what steps should be performed before
translating idioms.
References
Bassnett-McGuire, S. (1991). Translation studies (revised edition). London and New York:
Routledge.
Cacciari, C., & Tabossi, P. (1988). The comprehension of idioms. Journal of Memory and
Language, 27(6), 668-683.
Ingo, R.( 1990). Lähtökielestä kohdekieleen. Johdatusta käännöstieteeseen. Juva: WSOY,
The practical value of translation theory. International Journal Of Translation,
XXXI, , no. 4, pp. 208–260
Mustonen, S. (2010). Translating idioms: A case study on Donna Tartt's The Secret History
and its Finnish Translation.
Nunberg, G., Sag, I. A., & Wasow, T. (1994). Idioms. Language, 491-538.
Strässler, J. (1982). Idioms in English: A pragmatic analysis (Vol. 183). Gunter Narr Verlag.
83
B us i nes s N a me
Translating the Holy Quran from Arabic into English
By May Ali Al Qahtany
The Holy Quran is the 4th and last sacred book of Allah. It provides complete guidelines for living a
successful life here and in the hereafter. Muslims all over the world recite and understand this sanctified
scripture as a religious duty and seek assistance from it. According to Bevilacqua, 2014, “In November
1733 the first translation of the Quran from Arabic into English — a copy of which Jefferson would eventually purchase — appeared in London” (para. 6). But the translators face many challenges when they translate it. There are some linguistic problems that need to be fixed, and strategies must be followed when translating the Holy Quran from Arabic into other languages.
There are different types of linguistic problems but the most important problems are the lexical,
and the semantic ones. First, one of the lexical problems when translating the Holy Quran is the lack of
equivalence or the absence of the equivalent of some Islamic terms. These terms have no direct counterpart
in English such as ” "‫ المعروف‬which means “Charity”, "‫"حق‬which means “Truth”, and "‫ "تقوى‬which means
“Piety” (Ali, Brakhw, Nordin, & Ismail, 2012, p. 588).
The other lexical problem is that some lexemes can not be paraphrased. For example,
(34:22( ‫ قل ادعو الذین زعمتم من دون هللا‬its translation is “Say: Appeal to those whom you claim to instead
of God” (Abdelwali, 2007, para. 13). There should be explanatory notes to convey these aspects of meaning
because the previous example falls short of the semantic complexity of the word Dunni. The word Duuni
signifies dignity which means there is nothing above God or equal to Him (Abdelwali, 2007).
The second problem that translators face is semantic problems, and there are two kinds. The familiar one is that languages lexicalize things differently and they differ in the cultural and social orientations. The second kind is peculiar to the translation of the Quran itself. For example, two words seem to be
synonymous but it is different such as the word ’‫ “أب‬which means “father”. Elsewhere in the Quran the
same lexeme has the word “forefather” as its translation is equivalent in English. Using a word in more than
one sense in a particular language is a semantic problem. For example, the word "‫ "آثار‬can be rendered into
”effects” in the verse ,‫ فانظر إلى آثار رحمة هللا‬into "traces "in ‫( كانوا هم أشد منهم قوة وآثارا‬Fawzi, 2006, p. 588).
Second, there are roles every translator needs to follow while translating the Holy Quran. The following sets of rules for translating the Holy Quran are suggested by Sadiq (2008, p. 23):
1- The Quran text in Arabic must be written following its form as in the Mushaf on the top of each
page, followed by the word (interpretation).
84
2- The translators should be subjected to the verse only; and they should not adhere to particular doctrine of schools of Islamic jurisprudence, or particular philological methods, nor to interpret the verse of
miracles and other issue in an extremist manner.
No errors or faults should occur when the translators stick to the regulations. These regulations include the following: when explaining the Quran, the verses should be mentioned in full if they are all
linked to the same subject matter. He should resort to abrogated Ayahs only in linking between two
Ayahs, and if the need is felt to expand explanation to achieve clarity of some of the issues, the translator
should place that in a footnote explanation (Siddiek, 2012).
To create a standardized terms and concepts of the Quran, the standardized translation should be
made according to Arabic context because the same word may have different meanings in different contexts (Halimah, 2014). Because of the nature of the literary Holy Quran and the rich figures of speech, all
of the previous strategies will help them to avoid mistakes, and according to Siddiek (2012) “the Holy
Quran is one of the hardest tasks that may a translator may encounter” (p. 67).
There are different types of texts such as religious texts and these kinds of texts are difficult to translate especially the Holy Quran because of the nature of the Holy Quran and the rich figures of speech and
linguistic problems such as lexical and semantic problems. Indeed, to be a successful translator you need
to know all the roles and apply them when translating your texts.
References
Ali, A., Brakhw, M., Nordin, M., & Ismail, S. (2012). Some Linguistic difficulties in Translating the
HolyQuran from Arabic into English. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 588.
doi:10.7763/IJSSH.2012.V2.178
Abdelwali, M. (2007). The loss in the translation of the Qur’an. Translation Journal. Retrieved from
http://translationjournal.net/journal
Alhaj, A. (2015). New theory of the Holy Qur'an translation: A textbook for Advanced University Students of linguistics and translation. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa/books
Bevilacqua, A. (2014, February 9). When the Quran spoke English. Aljazeera America. Retrieved from
http://america.aljazeera.com
Fawzi, M. (2006). Investigating some semantic problems in the translation of the Holy Quran. Adab AlRrafidayn, 588. Retrieved from http://search.shamaa.org
Sadiq, S. (2008). Investigating some semantic problems in the translation of the Holy Quran. Sayyab
Translation Journal, 23. Retrieved from https://scholar.google.co.uk/
Siddiek, A. (2012). Viewpoints in the translation of the Holy Quran. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English literature, 25. Retrieved from http://www.journals.aiac.org.au/
85
B us i nes s N a me
The Victims of Translation
By Alanoud H. Al-Abri
What is translation and what are translation mistakes? The definition of translation is “the
act or process of translating something into a different language” (para. 1). And the definition of
translation mistakes is when a translator change words from one language into a different language
in a wrong way. In fact, there are lots of translation mistakes; therefore, there are many examples of
victims of translation and there are some examples.
Stayer (2000) stressed that, "Martin Luther was one of the most brilliant theologians of his
time, a scholar of vast learning and productivity" (p. 96). According to Stayer, he translates the Bible into the vernacular language (rather than Latin) because it is more easily which had a tremendous impact on the church and on German culture and resulted in the denial by the Pope and convicted as an outlaw by the emperor.
According to Riess (2003), William Tyndale’s desire to complete such a translation brought
him in conflict with the king until they killed him. Riess reported that ”tank none of .e Bible is familiar Caught up in the Reformation, efforts. Provide ordinary readers with .e Scriptures in the vernacular, Tyndale set onto to produce a faithful translation of the Hebrew a. Greek manuscript of .e
Oki a New Testament” (p. 1).
According to Delacourt (1988), In Ottawa, Susan Globe and Mail Ottawa has painted the
Federal Energy Minister Marcel Mas himself as the victim of a wrong translation of controversy because of allegations of election irregularities spending. But he did not deny that he may have played
a role in the violation of which they are accused of some supporters. This role, which consists of a
request Lavalin company to pay the expenses of the campaign worker, was not illegal and was intended to circumvent the rules.
According to Loddgeaard and Dollerup (1992), the translation means and what the mathematical end of it should be taught. They stressed that “the identification and analysis of translation
errors requires a strong conceptual framework before it can ensure any heuristic validity" (p.
279). They added that the issues need conceptually elaborate formalization to be solved. They reported that “but the most importantly, it requires that the issues to be addressed by very specific and
sufficiently problematic to warrant considerable intellectual work" (p. 279).
86
In conclusion, in 2014, de Oliveira, Paes, Spadoti, and Aparecida stated that translators
should know about the language culture when they translate to avoid mistranslation. As shown
above, translation mistakes can destroy a life. Therefore, translators should be more careful when
they translate something in religion such as the holy Qur’an or in the hospital between doctors
and patients to avoid having a victim.
References
Citation [Def. 2]. (n.d.). In Merriam W ebster Online, Retrieved September 24, 2011, from http://
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/citation.
Delacourt, S. (1988, Feb 10). Beleaguered masse says he's the victim of bad translation. The
Globe and Mail. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/386075482?
accountid=142908
de Oliveira Freitas, N., Paes Caltran, M., Spadoti Dantas, R. A., & Aparecida Rossi, L. (2014).
Translation and cultural adaptation of the perceived stigmatization questionnaire for burn
victims in Brazil. R evista Da Escola De Enfermagem Da USP , 48(1), 25-33. doi:10.1590/
S0080-623420140000100003
Loddgeaard, A, and Dollerup, C, eds. Teaching translation and interpreting: Training Talent and
Experience: Papers from the First Language International Conference, Elsinore, Denmark,
1991. Amsterdam, NLD: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1992. ProQuest ebrary.
Web. 8 March 2015.
Riess, J. (2003). God's bestseller: William tyndale, thomas more, and the writing of the english
bible-A story of martyrdom and betrayal. Publishers W eekly, 250(26), 75. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/197086839?accountid=142908
Stayer, J. (2000). Martin Luther, German saviour: German evangelical theological factions and
the interpretation of Luther, 1917-1933 . Montreal, QC, CAN: McGill-Queen's University
Press. Retrieved from http://www .ebrary.com
87
B us i nes s N a me
Sign Language Translation in the Entertainment Industry
By Sakinah H. Al-Attas
Around the world, people used to interact with each other by spoken languages. On the other
hand, the deaf community depends, in their communication, on gestures or what is called "Sign Language". This community has been neglected although as Kyle and Woll (1988) said "it is not a new language . . . ; rather it is a naturally occurring form of communication among people who do not hear" (p.
5). They added that in order to understand their community, we need to observe its language. One way
to do it is through TV programs. For sure, providing sign language translation has been a part of the entertainment industry; however, it did not acquire the importance it should have.
As one of the important methods to gain information and entertainment for deaf people, providing signing and subtitling on spoken TV programs are the best ways to approach it (Xiao & Li, 2013).
This process has begun since the 70s in “The French Chef” program that has been the first one to use
these methods (Patterson, 2013). It continued spreading as Neves mentioned that in 1988 the European
parliament ordered to include sign language translation in almost every general interest programs
(2007).
Though sign language interpretation has been shown on screen, it was not essential to be on
news for many countries. That has caused problems especially in the case of natural disasters. McKee
stated that in 2011 a series of floods and cyclones attacked the city of Queensland, AU. Bonser, an interpreter on DSQ, said that he called for a meeting with deaf senior citizens, on the day the flood was
issued, to spread the news among the other deaf people. He continued that it was hard and one old deaf
man was trapped in his house with water up to his knees. Only after an hour and a half he received a
call from the emergency media people to ask him to interpret on TV which made the deaf people more
stable (2014).
Having the same degree of importance, adding sign language in children's programs will positively affect them. As cited in Lee (2000), Santomero said the ''Blue's Clues'' show on Nickelodeon's
TV is addressing sign language by presenting a few signs frequently during the episode so children can
learn them. Also, Agin explained the purpose of the show saying that ''The message to deaf children is
'you're valuable; you are part of this society'' and ''The message to hearing children is to be openminded, to be accepting, to be respectful to each other" (as cited in Lee, 2000, para. 8).
88
Although it is widely needed to include sign language on television, it is difficult to find professional interpreters. In 2014, Evelyn studied the response of deaf people after providing news interpretation within the flood on Christchurch, in 2011, and it was mostly negative. The interpreter was
not a citizen there and used different signs than theirs (McKee). Another case is the sign language
translator at Nelson Mandela's memorial. He was standing beside the world leaders while broadcasting and as Bruno Druchen, the federation's national director, stated "the interpreter was 'moving his
hands around but there was no meaning in what he used his hands for" (Reilly, 2013, para. 3).
Interpreting sign language to spoken languages and vice versa is not an easy process to deal
with. It is difficult to find the right alternative that will deliver the exact meaning (Tonkin & Frank,
2010). But after knowing how helpful and cheerful it is for the deaf community, it will turn every
drop of sweat to pleasure. Moreover, blending with the bigger community they live in and gaining
new information is the most appreciated gift that will change their lives.
References
Kyle, J., & Woll, B. (1988). Sign language: The study of deaf people and their language. Retrieved
from https://books.google.com.sa
Lee, F. R. (2000, April 22). A children's adventure in a deaf world. The New York Times. Retrieved
from http://www.nytimes.com/
McKee, R. (2014). Breaking news: Sign language interpreters on television during natural disasters.
Interpreting: International Journal Of Research & Practice In Interpreting, 16(1), 107-130.
doi:10.1075/intp.16.1.06kee
Neves, J. (2007). Of pride and prejudice - The divide between subtitling and sign language interpreting on television. Retrieved from http://www.porsinal.pt/
Patterson, M. (2013, March 1). History of closed captioning. Retrieved from http://www.ncicap.org/
Reilly, J. (2013). Sign language translator at Nelson Mandela's memorial was a fake: South Africa's
deaf federation confirms his movements had 'no meaning'. Retrieved from http://
www.dailymail.co.uk
Tonkin, H., & Frank, M. E. (Eds.). (2010). Translator as mediator of cultures. Amsterdam, NLD:
John Benjamins Publishing Company. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com
Xiao, X., & Li, F. (2013). Sign language interpreting on Chinese TV: A survey on user perspectives.
Perspectives: Studies In Translatology, 21(1), 100-116. doi:10.1080/0907676X.2011.632690
89
B us i nes s N a me
Difficulties and Challenges in Legal Translation
By Manar S. Al-Dawood
Being a translator is not an easy job. It demands a lot of responsibilities and hard work. As a
matter of fact, these difficulties differ from one field to another. For example, some translators find
commercial translation difficult, others believe financial translation is more difficult. However,
whenever you ask a translator about the most difficult translation, he/she would answer legal translation is the most difficult one. Actually, after investigating and looking closely at legal translation,
the main reasons why it is so difficult seem to have been unraveled.
According to Onorina (2012), in order to translate legal texts, translators must totally get distinct legal systems that are completely associated with social and cultural features of both languages.
Beside the previous components, translators must note that "law is renowned to be interweaving with
cultural values and national cultures" (p. 1). Also, while they translate, they should look for the
"analogical legal institutions" (p. 1) in order to deliver the exact legal meaning from the source language to the target language since each legal system has its own terms and expressions.
Also, in 2004, Marta stated that in some cases, many legal concepts in the source language
might be transferred in the target language by terms that carry the same concepts and that's why legal
translators should possess what is called “legal literacy” (p. 13) that helps with distinguishing legal
terms and concepts, but this is not enough. Also, he added that they should ''identify the elements of
the legal discourse in its entirety (its genre, its narrative repertoire, legal concepts and their reflection
in terminology, etc.), and subsequently transmit all relevant information into the TL in such a way
that the translated legal text can be understood and interpreted by its readers'' (p. 13).
Furthermore, in his 2008 article, Sieglinde points to the fact that the challenge that legal translators face is they must be creative yet restricted by law. They should be creative when choosing
suitable strategies that give the legal text its own quality and continuity and help to solve problems.
What should any “creative legal translator” (p. 11) do is to look at things differently seeking the hidden meaning and not just the obvious one in order to find relevance among legal texts. Also, they
have ''to read more carefully and write with more clarity and precision and to remain ambitious, conscientious and restlessly curious . . . while at the same time respecting unalterable limits'' (p. 11).
90
Moreover, what makes legal translation the most complicated, difficult type is the terms.
Basically, legal terms rarely match from one language to another which is frustrating for translators. In addition, sometimes, even though the terms match, they do not match completely. For
example, a term in a source language would have a general and broad meaning while in the target
language it is much more specific and not narrowed. (Aodha & Máirtin, 2004).
To conclude, Cao believes that legal translation is complicated due to the nature of law and
legal language (2014). That is why translators should employ a verity of different translation techniques (Li, 2014). The way I see it, true it is difficult but not impossible. I think that when it
comes to legal translation, translators should isolate their previous knowledge of language that is
used on a daily basis and try to see it as a new whole language that has its own codes, vocabulary
and grammar. Moreover, translators should be connected to both languages through reading and
looking into legal texts. Finally, practicing is the ultimate solution.
References
Aodha, M., & Máirtin. (2004). Legal translation -- An impossible task? Semiotica. doi:10.1515/
sem-2014-0017
Cao, D. (2014). Teaching and learning legal translation. Semiotica. doi:10.1515/sem-2014-0022
Li, K. (2014). A study on the process of legal translation. Semiotica. doi:10.1515/sem-2014-0031
Marta, C. (2014). Making sense in legal translation. Semiotica. doi:10.1515/sem-2014-0018
Onorina, B. (2012). The complexity of legal translation: social and cultural bounds aspects. Contemporary Readings in Law & Social Justice. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/
Sieglinde, P. (2008). No creativity in legal translation? Babel. Retrieved from http://
eds.a.ebscohost.com/
91
B us i nes s N a me
Translation Strategies: How to Translate Idioms
By Najd F. Alamirah
Shojaei (2012) stated that “idioms and fixed expressions are an inalienable part of each language
found in large numbers in most of the languages.” (p. 1). Adelnia and Dastjerdi (2011) define idioms as
“linguistic expressions or lexical items representing objects, concepts or phenomena of material life particular to a given culture.” (p. 1). Idioms refer to a group of words that are used together to give a particular meaning and it cannot be understood by the individual words. The differences between languages in
some factors harden the process of understanding and translating idioms for translators. Certainly, idiomatic expressions constitute a serious challenge in translation.
Newmark (1991) stated that if idioms were defined as a group of words with a special meaning
that is quite different from the meaning of the individual words, then the literal translation of these idioms will make sense, “take the German das hat mir noch gerade gefehlt, inadequately translated in Collins as that was what was missing.” (p. 58). However, the use of literal translation might be misleading
since languages are related to cultures and cultures differ from one country to another. Griffin (2004)
pointed to the cultural differences in translation as “a problem to be confronted and dealt with.” (p. 460).
A translator must be aware of those differences in order to convey the same meaning of the idiom in the
source language.
There are many strategies used to translate idioms, and one of them is the translating by using
what Saeed (2012) called “an equivalent idiom.” (p. 191). In this strategy, the translator translates the
SL idiom using an idiom in the TL that carries the same meaning. For example, the English idiom all is
not gold that glitters is translated into the Arabic idiom ‫دینارا لصفرته‬
‫ما كل أصفر‬by using this strategy.
ً
However, finding an equivalent idiom might be a difficult task in translation. Idiom dictionaries must be
used in this strategy to understand the history behind an idiom and then to decide if it corresponds with
the original idiom or not.
In some cases the equivalence strategy does not apply. If equivalent idioms are not found in the
TL, the translator simply transfers the meaning from the SL. Translation by paraphrase is used when it is
impossible to find an equivalent idiom, so the translator transfers the meaning using a group of words
that corresponds to an idiom but is not an idiom. This strategy is one of the most common strategies in
translating idioms (Adelnia & Dastjerdi, 2011). For example, the English idiom it is raining cats and
dogs is translated into the Arabic idiom ‫ إنها تمطر بغزارة‬by using the paraphrase strategy; however, there is
an equivalent idiom in Arabic ‫إنها تمطر كأفواه القرب‬
92
Another strategy is translating by omission which means that an idiom is deleted in the TL because there is no equivalence and its meaning cannot be paraphrased. This strategy is rarely used and
it is done in the sentence level. Shojaei (2012) stated when an idiom is omitted, there will be loss in
the meaning. Translators must use supplementary words where omission has been done to compensate that loss. Baker (1992) expresses that “one may either omit or play down a feature such as idiomaticity at the point where it occurs in the source text and introduce it elsewhere in the target text.” (p.
78).
In conclusion, idioms occur frequently in all languages and they are complex phrases that can be
translated in many ways depending on the idiom itself, the translator’s knowledge, and the relationship
between languages (Abu Ssaydeh, 2004). A translator should use the proper strategy when translating
a specific idiom and keep in mind that he cannot just simply omit parts from the original text (Adelnia
& Dastjerdi, 2011). According to Shojaei (2012), the stronger the relationship between two cultures
and languages, the easier the translation of idiomatic expressions becomes.
References
Abu Ssaydeh, A. (2004). Translation of English idioms into Arabic. Babel, 50(2), 114-131. Retrieved
from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com
Adelnia, A., & Dastjerdi, H. (2011). Translation of idioms: A hard task for the translator. Theory and
Practice in Language Studies, 1(7), 879-883. Retrieved from http://ojs.academypublisher.com
Baker, M. (1992). In other words: A coursebook on translation. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Griffin, F. (2004). Idioms and back translation. Business Communication Quarterly, 67(4), 455-464.
Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com
Newmark, P. (1991). A bout translation. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Saeed, A. (2012). Difficulties Arab trainees encounter when translating high frequency idioms. Babel,
58(2), 181-204. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com
Shojaei, A. (2012). Translation of idioms and fixed expressions: Strategies and difficulties. Theory
and Practice in Language Studies, 2(6), 1220-1229. Retrieved from http://
ojs.academypublisher.com
93
B us i nes s N a me
Difficulties of Translating Humor: From English to Other Languages
By Reham A. Altwyjiri
Translators have always faced problems while they translate any kinds of texts. For humor texts,
there are a lot of difficulties in translating them. Not all cultures have the same thoughts in humor and jokes.
So, translators cannot use a literal translation while they translate a humorous text. Therefore, they have to
figure out another way to translate it without losing its sense of humor. In addition, they have to transfer the
kind of humor that the language has in its culture to the language they are going to translate to. However, a
knowledge of how humor works is an important asset for any translator and so it is also necessary for translation from one language to another (Zabalbeascoa, 2005).
Antonopoulou stated that “the risk of jeopardizing the humorous effect through explication is considerable: explanations are infamous joke killers” (p. 223). So, from what he stated, explanations kill jokes,
and it is true, and it makes the joke lose its sense of humor. Also, the major difficulties in humor translation
is the language culture interaction. It is effect the humorous sense while transferring. So, the translator can-
not rely entirely on standard strategies for mediating cultural gaps. He adds that, this is so even if the text
type and the medium allow for the implementation of this strategy.
Also, according to Han (2011), the fact of untranslatable of linguistic humorous texts is due to the
conventional concept about the nature of translation. He stressed that “no one can deny that peculiar linguistic features of English linguistic humor block the way of its translation” (p. 3). The author added that Chang
Nam says the views to what is translation is the effect of translatability varies with charges. Also, Chang
Nam states that translation gives us ideas about the truth that are deeply hidden and not clear for us to get or
understand from the original text. So, this is the most difficult step that the translator has to do while he
translates humor text to another language, and tries to reach the meaning that other language has in its cul-
ture.
Humor does have its distinctive features (Dynel, 2011). One humorous feature which translators
may lose while they translating humorous texts is regional and ethnic connotations. This feature is hard for
the translator to keep as clear as in the original text. That is why a dialect is frequently used for humorous
purposes; suffice to say that when thinking of stand-up comedy, many comedians will tend to use a regional
variety. In his 2010 article, the author points to the fact that the necessary ingredients need to be preserved
in the translation in order to signal the qualities of the dialect speakers to recipients of the joke (Chiaro).
94
So, in the case of when translators face the problem of humor untranslatability, they may have no
other option than to introduce shifts of meaning in a certain fragment. It has been stressed that, “ the term
(shift) denotes a change that may occur between the SL and TL in the process of translation” (p. 8). So,
introducing bigger or smaller modifications of the SL is a common practice in humor translation due to
linguistic and cultural dissimilarities. However, shifts of meaning in humor translation are a manifestation of dynamic equivalence. So, the translator has to transfer the meaning of the humorous text that can
merge within the language that he\she transfers to (Bruzdziak, 2013).
As you can see, translating humor is not as easy as we think. It is one type of translation that is
different from any other kind. That is why the translator has to figure out a way to transfer the correct
translation for humorous texts with a clear meaning for the reader, and some linguistic mechanisms in
some simple forms of humor have been presented here. And this emphasizes the variety of roles that language can play in the creation of the humor and the varying consequences which this could have for the
translation of the humor. As noted at the outset, it is not clear exactly how the notion of translatable applies to humorous text.
References
Antonopoulou, E. (2004). Humor theory and translation research: Proper names in humorous discourse.
Humor: International Journal Of Humor Research, 17(3), 219-255. Retrieved from http://
eds.a.ebscohost.com
Bruzdziak, E. (2013). Translation strategies and techniques in audiovisual translation of humour. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Chiaro, D. (2010). Translation, humour and literature: Translation and humour. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Dynel, M. (2011). The pragmatics of humour across discourse domains. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Han, Q. (2011). On untranslatability of English linguistic humor. Special A spects of Education, Educa-
tion, Language and Literature , 1(2), 149-152. Retrieved from http://doaj.org
Zabalbeascoa, P. (2005). Humor and translation - An interdiscipline. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 18(2), 185-207. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com
95
B us i nes s N a me
Dialect Translating
By Shahad I. Benrasheed
Language is the main way to communicate between humans. It differs depending on the speaker,
whether he uses spoken or sign languages. Moreover, spoken language differs depending on the geographical location, too. Because each country has its own culture and history, different countries use different languages. For example, the language in Saudi Arabia and many other Islamic countries is Arabic
because of the Islamic culture and how it is related to The Holy Qur'an. However, people in each country
use different dialects that vary from one region to another which leads to differences in translation.
Therefore, a translator must be well aware of every dialect in both the source, and the target language.
In the same language, cultures may vary in different types of the same historical standard. Berezowski (1997) explains that "dialect subsumed language variation relatable only to particular
speaker and independent of the setting, register, discourse function" (p. 88). Some people like a classical
culture, while others prefer a modern one and gives it more value. According to Xianbin (2006), "in
translation, this is reflected in the translator's choice of linguistic variety - the classical or modern dialect,
especially when the two are competitive. The translator's temporal orientation is not just a matter of taste,
but is greatly affected by the power of each temporal dialect in her/his mind" (p. 419).
In 2011, De Martino points to the fact that translation is an innate activity in human beings. When
one looks at the process of re-encoding from one system to another, it appears that it is both governed by
the same principle (i.e., the transfer of an idea between two systems). When it comes to the transposition
among languages, there are several factors involved other than simple utterances, as language is not isolated from the context. On the contrary, it is the result of a series of conditions that operate on its formation and its manifestation. Such conditions are cultural and political, so a given language is a cultural
vehicle.
Buffagni, 2011, stated that the main topic of dialect translating is how the translator can cope with
the dialect of the source language and transfer it into the target language. Does he translate the original
text into a dialect in the target language? Or in the standard form? And will he be able to transfer the
same meaning, purpose and tone of the original text? Paul, Finch, and Sumita (2011) indicate that
"applying the linguistic tools of the standard dialect to local dialect resources is often insufficient. However, the application of a linguistically motivated standard dialect word segmentation tool to a local dialect corpus results in a poor segmentation quality due to different morphologies of verbs and adjectives" (p. 56).
96
The translation of books written in a modern dialect requires to be careful of morphological
characteristic—suffix, words, concepts and sentences—to translate it into the perfect form and to prevent any misunderstanding. Dr. ALKAYIŞ (2009) said:
The new Uygur Turkish Dialect, thought as an Eastern Turkish Dialect at
the classification of Turkish Language, is nearer to the characteristic of old
Turkish Dialect, thought as a western Turkish Dialect. We can get a classification
of translating problems, between the New Uygur Language and Turkey Turkish
Language, in those titles: Verb moods, participles, gerundiums (p. 61).
Though translating dialects may seem very broad and complex, solving the problems will help
to decrease distance among citizens of same country that may not be able to understand each other. In
addition, it helps for better understanding and making cultures similar to each other by transferring
them as time passes. Also, it helps the whole world to unite when they get to know the similarities they
have among each other. However, a translator should be aware of dialect diversity; therefore, he must
study each text he will translate carefully to translate it correctly.
References
Buffagni, C., Garzelli, B., & Zanotti, S. (2011). The translator as author: Perspectives on literary translation. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Berezowski, L. (1997). Dialect in translation. Wrocław: Wydawn. Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
De Martino, A. (2011). Translating Neapolitan dialect in theater: Problems of cultural transfer. Translation: A Translation Studies Journal, 3(1). ucsbspanport_tsj_12478. Retrieved from:https://
escholarship.org/uc/item/3hn8f69v
Dr. ALKAYIŞ (2009). The translating problems of contemporary Turkish dialects (between The new
Uygur Turkish dialect and Turkey Turkish dialect) (pp 60-70 ). Turkish studies publisher.
Paul, M., Finch, A., & Sumita, E. (2011). Word segmentation for dialect translation. In Computational
Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing (pp. 55-67). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Xianbin, He. 2006. Cultural status and language selection in translation. Journal Of Language & Politics 5, no. 3: 415-426. Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed March
18, 2015)
97
B us i nes s N a me
Peter Newmark
By Alshaima Khalid Alharthi
Peter Newmark’s writing is well known all around the world; also he is considered one of the
most important contributors to the development in English; on the other hand, little know about his
life. Newmark was born in Czechoslovakia. He left his home town moving to England, Rugby at
the age of five. He received a classical education from the age of six until eighteen. Anderman stated that “On the years spent in Rugby, a period of time in his life which he would describe as anything but happy”. Then Peter decided to leave the somber life of Rugby and start a university career
at Trinity college, Cambridge, where he studied Modern Languages, graduating with honors in
French, German, and English literature three years later (1999).
Years later, while Peter Newmark was still at university, he started to write drama critiques
“first contributing to an undergraduate publication called The Gownsman, later to the more prestigious Cambridge Review” (p. 18). At the outbreak of World War II, Peter Newmark joined the British Army and after two years of service he traveled to Italy and he started to learn one more language which was Italian. On his way returning to the UK, he started teaching modern languages. In
1958, he was appointed head of the Modern Language Department at Holborn College of Law
(Pedrola, 1999).
In 1981 Peter Newmark published his first book called A pproaches of Translation, which a
few years later was translated to Italian as well as Arabic. One of the approaches in his book was
based on a series of correlative statements, universal culture and language to serve as a third part of
the comparison between the source and the target language. In his 1981 book, the author point to
the fact that translation is not simply a duality or seesaw between the various factors related to two
languages (Newmark).
As a result of the widening of Peter Newmark’s theories, his publications increased and he
published his second book A Textbook of Translation in 1988. Newmark reported in this book that
“Translation is a two-edged instrument: it has the special purpose of demonstrating the learner's
knowledge of the foreign language, either as a form of control or to exercise his intelligence in order
to develop his competence.” (p. 23). And it also subsequently was translated to Arabic, Spanish,
and Galician (1988).
98
In his third book A bout Translation, Newmark stated that translation is connected to democratic awareness as it “is a weapon against obscurantism, the realization that the material, social
and cultural inequalities often associated with ethnic and linguistics groups as well as gender, race
or class, are not god given or natural” (p. 42). Then he adds examples of countries where social
balance is affined to free interlinguistic communication, and the publication of the statues in their
national languages. The necessity for improving countries is to determine the function of languages of international communication. All the formation worldwide depends on translation and
interpretation for the conduct of whole life aspects (1991).
Peter Newmark has been and will always be based at the head of translation studies.
Showing people his life and his thinking will hopefully assist in a more comprehensive appreciation of the nature of his work and the significant contributions which he has made with the establishment and development of translation studies as a discipline in its own right in the UK as well
as the whole world.
References
Anderman, G., & Rogers, M. (Eds.). (1999). W ord, text, translation: liber amicorum for Peter
Newmark. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa/
Newmark, P. (1981). A pproaches to translation. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Newmark, P. (1988). A textbook of translation. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa/
books
Newmark, P. (1991). A bout translation. (p. 42). Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Newmark, P. (1999). A n interview with Peter Newmark: Interview by M. Pedrola. W ord, text,
translation. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa/books
Zhang, G. (2012). Peter Newmark’s theory in translating the public signs in the scenic spots.
doi:10.3968/j.css.1923669720120804.1185\
99
B us i nes s N a me
Translation Techniques of Figurative Speech
By Esraa G. AL-Darsoni
All over the world, languages are counted as the carriers of cultures. Figurative language, by its
all types, is the refined language unit and the wisdom of nations that contains profound culture connotations. However, since there are great differences in history, culture, geographical environment, religion
and way of thinking between native speakers of different languages, this will lead to a lot of trouble
when translating. As a matter of fact, the interlingual translation of figurative speech is a sensitive task
for every translator because of the many challenges figurative speech hides.
According to Homeidi (2004), there are many problems translators face when translating idioms
and fixed expressions, which are two types of figurative speech. One problem is “the ability to recognize and interpret an idiom correctly”, another is “the difficulties involved in rendering the various aspects of meaning that an idiom or a fixed expression conveys into the target language” (p. 14). Just as
when hearing the idiom “Throw caution to the winds” for the first time, translators may not be able to
translate it or may interpret it wrongly according to their misunderstanding without noticing that with
more focusing, they will be able to figure its meaning ”‫( “لم یعد یكترث ألي شيء‬p. 15).
Besides, many words and idioms of different languages may carry a bit of ambiguity, and nothing can determine them but the sentences that contain their meaning. Sometimes the ambiguity of an
idiom in a language might have one meaning only, but another, for example, in English, “in the dark”,
can mean either “in secrecy” or in ignorance. Yet the same idiom; which is ‫ في الظالم‬in Arabic, means
only “in secrecy”. Native speakers considered such idioms as transparent, and by this Al-Wahy proved
in his 2009 article that “transparency is not determined by the lexical or grammatical structure of the
idiom, but by the way native speakers interpret such structures according to the meaning they already
know” (p. 107).
In addition, the cultural differences play a main role in forming the way of thinking and the way
of seeing creatures and things; for instance, in their 2014 article, the authors stated that “people who
speak English and people who speak Chinese as their native language have different ideas for the same
animals” (p. 1292). One of the animals they view differently are dogs. The Chinese identify it as negative while English speakers see it as positive (Huiqiong, Weiwei, & Yidan). This issue might be counted as a problem for translators who know nothing about the cultures of the source and target languages.
100
Most importantly, if the translator fails in interpreting an idiom, the resultant would represent
a literal and an erroneous translation. In 2004, Abu-Ssaydeh shed the light on some strategies to
avoid mistaking while translating an idiom, like “finding an idiom in the TL which is semantically
equivalent to the English idiom and creates the same impact on the receiver of the translated text” as
translating “Warm the heart” with ”‫( “أثلج الصدر‬p. 119). Also, “giving the meaning of the idiom in the
target language” (p. 119) is the safest and most commonly used one, unfortunately the impact of the
idiom and its cultural significance will be lost. So, translators must search probably for a parallel before paraphrasing.
Finally, in the case of paraphrasing, translators should make sure that they’d managed to offer
an acceptable paraphrase for the idiom by following the back translation (BT) method. One good example of BT that Saeed pointed in 2012 is “powers must be wrestled with similar powers” for
”‫ “مصارعة القوى بقوى شبيهة بها‬of the original “fight fire with fire” (p. 188). Likewise, in her 2014
article, Bazzi mentioned a great example of BT, which is “it has turned the goal . . . into a mirage”,
for ”‫ إلى سراب‬. . . ‫ “مما حول هدف‬out of the source “it has turned the goal . . . into an empty shell” (p.
136). These cases show how translators created an equivalent conceptual meaning in the target culture or an equivalent sense of meaning.
References
Abu-Ssaydeh, A. (2004). Translation of English idioms into Arabic. Babel, 50(2), 114-131. Retrieved
from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/
Al-Wahy, A. S. (2009). Idiomatic false friends in English and modern standard Arabic. Babel, 55(2),
101-123. doi:10.1075/babel.55.2.01wah
Bazzi, S. (2014). Foreign metaphors and Arabic translation: An empirical study in journalistic translation practice. Journal of Language & Politics, 13(1), 120-151. doi:10.1075/jlp.13.1.06baz
Homeidi, M. A. (2004). Arabic translation across cultures. Babel, 50(1), 13-27. Retrieved from http://
eds.a.ebscohost.com/
Huiqiong, D., Weiwei, C., & Yidan, G. (2014). Cultural metaphor and translation strategies in English and Chinese animal idioms. Journal of Language Teaching & Research, 5(6), 1292-1300.
doi:10.4304/jltr.5.6.1292-1300
Saeed, A. T. (2012). Difficulties Arab translation trainees encounter when translating high frequency
idioms. Babel, 58(2), 181-204. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/
101
B us i nes s N a me
Translation Services
By Noura M. Al-Qahtani
Now with the importance of the foreign languages especially the English language, we
have here many websites, offices of translation, but like everything they must have mistakes
because it is not easy. Also, some companies hire an individual translator rather than a firm
because the cost will be less but they will have big problems. For that reason, many translators have offices now and their own websites, even if there are still some problems, but at
least they are less than before.
The translation profession is becoming an internet-based profession, where there is little contact between the freelancer and work provider. This is what Brown (2009) said here.
Fees offered to freelancers have declined significantly over the last few years and thus the
volume of work a freelancer needs to get through to generate an acceptable income has increased proportionately. But the corners will be cut and quality will suffer. If the translator
wishes to do the lone freelance to progress “to work for direct customers or develop a translation company” (p. 144).
The Association of Translation Companies (ATC) is a professional organization representing the interests of commercial companies offering language services. That has a number of members with applied language solutions (Britain, 2013). For example, qualification
of criteria for each stage were not fully defined from the outset. Now, these services make
the language very easy to use and anyone can translate any language he wants.
One of the examples of language services is the Japanese Technical Information Services which was shut down by University Microfilms International (UMI). This service was
in business for 2 years. It offered hundreds of translated abstracts from a select number of
journals in a wide range of fields (Sun, 1988). According to Ferreira-Alves (2010), translators need training as well as promoting their ability to adapt to the most varied context, backgrounds, professional situations, language pairs and specialized subjects.
102
The outset of extreme cases of less translated languages would be non-translated
languages. Branchadell, Albert, and West's paper (2005) deals with languages of this sort.
Their paper introduces an innovative approach to the issue of interculturality and translation. They address the question of how the translation was done before translation services
existed. By this question, they can make a perfect system for translation.
Organizations of languages translation looking for many ways to improve the translation services. They know how the languages are important and they also know that translation is more important. For that reason, they said the translation services will develop the
level of translations and make it easier. Their approach also builds a reliable system for
translation services (Chen, Iyer, Liu, Milojicic, & Sahai, 2008).
References
Branchadell, Albert, & West , Lovell Margaret, eds. Less translated languages. Philadelphia, PA, USA: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2005. ProQuestebrary.
Britain, G. (Ed.). (2013). Language services. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Brown, G. S. (Ed.). (2009). Managing translation services. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Chen, Y., Iyer, S., Liu, X., Milojicic, D. S., & Sahai, A. (2008). Translating service level
objectives to lower level policies for multi-tier services. Cluster Computing. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/
Ferreira-Alves, F. (2010). Using the knowledge of the crowd: Internet-based experiments
on collocation translation. Retrieved from http://www.t21n.com/homepage/
searchdb.php
Sun, M. (1988). Translation service throws in the towel. Science, 239(4847), 1482. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/213531564?accountid=142908
103
B us i nes s N a me
Difficulties in Phonological Translation
By Fahda M. Alsubaie
Phonological translation is a thing that almost every bilingual and multilingual does unconsciously. For instance, did you know that when you are saying your American friend's name you are actually
translating his name phonologically. That is why it is very important to learn how to do it perfectly, especially translators, because they meet different kinds of people from all around the world and they have to
translate some words that do not have an equivalent in the other languages. Also it can change the situation in seconds. For example pronouncing the name of a politician wrongly in an international conference
can make the situation very embarrassing.
According to Wen-Chao Li (2007), the process of phonological translation between two languages
is not constant; it differs depending on the phonological and orthographies properties of the two languages. The reason why we cannot call the process uniform is; languages are not the same. Some have
letters that the others don’t, for example, in Arabic we have letters such as: ‫ع‬, ‫ ض‬,‫خ‬which the English
language doesn’t have. Also the English language has some letters that we cannot translate in Arabic
such as: P, V.
As we explained, the English language has letters that cannot be transferred phonologically. For
instance, the letter C has more than one sound and it might have two in the same word. Read the following words: cat, minced, ocean, check. If you didn’t know much about English you would pronounce the
C in all the words , ‫س‬but actually each one of them has a different sound. And here we can see the
difficulty of phonological translation clearly. And because of that, Hulme et al. (2012) believe that lettersound awareness and knowing the number of phonemes that one letter has is very helpful in learning how
to read.
"Switching between languages requires the phonological translation of proper names, a skill that
requires mapping the phonemic units of one language onto the phonemic units of the other" (Oller, 1998,
p. 250). So if a person is unaware of the phonemic units of the target language, he will probably mispronounce words or even names. That’s why Lodge (2003) thinks that making sure that there is a rationally
close phonological similarity between the source and target languages is one of the goals of translation.
"Most proper names simply do not have non-trivial translations: typically a name is not replaced
by something else . . . but simply taken over for use in the language into which the sentence is being
104
translated, as a so-called exonym" (Burgess, 2005, p. 199). For example, if you are visiting a new
country and want to know more about their traditions, you will face some difficulties such as pronouncing the names of famous places, kinds of food, or even names of people because every language, as we
mentioned, has its own phonemic set. An example of a very common mispronounced word is Fajita - a
very famous Mexican sandwich – which is actually pronounced as Fahita and that is very confusing.
In conclusion, it is believed that phonological translation is very important, and all the previous
information is obvious evidence of that. So it is necessary to any person, especially translators, to be
aware of other language phonemes. However, it is not that difficult, as what Pym and Perekrestenko
(2009) said, translation difficulties are more likely to be challenges because the person who transfers
the sounds from one language to another is challenged and he must prove to himself that he can do it.
References
Burgess, J. (2005). Translating names. Analysis, 65(3), 169-205. Retrieved from http://
eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=c5ee4487-adab-4c99-8ca288886af6937c%40sessionmgr4002&vid=2&hid=4203
Hulme, C., Bowyer, C., Carroll, J., Duff, F., & Snowling, M. (2012). The causal role of phoneme
awareness and letter-sound knowledge in learning to read: combining intervention studies with
mediation analyses. Psychological Science, 23(6), 572-577. Retrieved from http://
pss.sagepub.com/content/23/6/572
Lodge, K. (2003). Phonological translation and phonetic repertoire. International Journal of Applied
Linguistics, 13(2), 263-276. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/
pdfviewer?sid=c711837d-64ff-4d03-ad80-b58ef6d9ec6e%
40sessionmgr4003&vid=2&hid=4203
Oller, D., Alan, B., Rebecca, E., & Eilers. (1998). Phonological translation in bilingual and monolingual children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19(2), 259-278. Retrieved from http://
journals.cambridge.org/article_S0142716400010067
Pym, A., & Perekrestenko, A. (Eds.). (2009). Translation research projects 2. (p. 84). Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa/books?id=rPEuEvA4LH8C&printsec=frontcover&hl=
ar#v=onepage&q&f=false
Wen-Chao Li, C. (2007). Foreign names into native tongues: How to transfer sound between languages
— transliteration, phonological translation, nativization, and implications for translation theory. Target: International Journal on Translation Studies, 19(1), 45-68. Retrieved from Foreign
names into native tongues: How to transfer sound between languages — transliteration, phonological translation, nativization, and implications for translation theory
105
B us i nes s N a me
Idioms as Barriers
By Ghada A. Al-Eshaiwi
Every language has its special components. Under these components are many different uses
of the language, such as, using certain expressions to describe situations that happened in the past,
but referring to ones that are happening in present time. Such expressions are called “Idioms”. Idioms are a very useful way of likening similar statuses and uttering them. Duan, Cui, and Gao believe that languages of different cultures will have big differences in idioms (2014). Therefore,
there will be some challenges in translating idioms, one of which is that translators might face difficulties in translating other languages’ idioms into theirs due to some differences in cultural features.
Baker has summarized the difficulties involved with translating idioms in two points. One is
that an idiom may have no equivalent in the target language. The ways languages choose to express
idioms are different from one language to another. One language may express an idiom with one
word while another language may express it with many words. The second point is that an idiom
may have a similar counterpart in the target language, but its context of use may be different (2014).
Mostly, these difficulties are related to differences in culture. Some suggestions however have been
made to try to overcome these difficulties.
Translators should investigate which strategy is more appropriate in translating idioms
properly. Also, they should try to translate the idiom in such a way that the sense would not be lost.
Translating idioms would be very easy if every idiom had an equivalent in the target language as in
translating “to carry coals to Newcastle” the translator has no problem during this process of translation because it has an equivalent in Persian as ”‫زیر تَ کرهاى تردى‬
ٍ “ (p. 881). The meaning and the
sense is the same in both languages (2011).
Rafiabadi reported that “Particular idioms or slang phrases, when rendered into another language and read by another culture leave the reader at best confused, at worst grossly misdirected” (p. 210). And when it comes to finding a way to translate them correctly, he adds that using
dynamic equivalence is a useful method in translating old idioms into the modern version of idioms
in the target language. Although in dynamic equivalence translators keep the original tendency of
the author, they transfer idioms into a more understandable language to the modern reader (2003).
106
Chen (2009) confirms that with the rare complete or absolute equivalence between languages, it is useful to use the dynamic equivalence technique. This will help in delivering almost
the same sense of the original idiom to the one in the target language. For example, when English
speakers want to describe an obstinate person, they use the idiom “as stubborn as a mule”. While
Chinese people liken him to a bull as in “Jiang Dei Xiang Tou Niu”, meaning “bull-headed” (p.
44).
Irujo inferred that translators usually avoid translating difficult and challenging idioms
(1986). But, as Chen stated, finding a way to cross cultural barriers and pass these difficulties
while translating idioms is linguistically and culturally possible in most cases. Even if some information will be lost in translation, it is sufficient to transfer the meaning correctly. Idioms are
like any other linguistic form. They can be translated, interpreted or explained if translators knew
how to deal with them professionally (2009). In order to do so, translators should have sufficient
knowledge about other cultures and the basics of the languages which they deal with.
References
Adelnia, A., & Dastjerdi, H. (2011). Translation of idioms: A hard task for the translator. Theory
and Practice in Language Studies, 1(7), 879-883. doi:10.4304/tpls.1.7.879-883
Baker, M. (2014). In other words: A coursebook on translation. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Chen, L. (2009). On translatability of English idioms. A sian Social Science, 5(2), 1911-2025.
doi:10.5539/ass.v5n2p43
Duan, H., Cui, W., & Gao, Y. (2014). Cultural metaphor and translation strategies in english and
chinese animal idioms. Journal of Language Teaching & Research, 5(6), 1292-1300.
doi:10.4304/jltr.5.6.1292-1300
Irujo, S. (1986). Don't put your leg in your mouth: Transfer in the acquisition of idioms in a second language. TESOL Quarterly, 20(2), 287-304. doi:10.2307/3586545
Rafiabadi, H. (2003). W orld religions and Islam: A critical study. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
107
B us i nes s N a me
Different Types of Translation
By Huda Y. AlGhurimeel
Schjoldager (2008) pointed out that it is essential to realize that translation is process
itself, therefore, any type of translation is a special kind of communication which is different
from and similar to other kinds of communication. The author also mentioned that transla-
tion process goes through "six communicative dimensions that each defines a language function" (p. 21). And those dimensions are represented in addresser, message, contact and addressee. However, translation difficulty varies in several kinds but a good translator should
have an extensive knowledge of both source and target language because that is what translation is all about.
The two basic types of translation would be represented in interpretation translation
and written translation. First of all, interpreting is "a form of translation (in the wider sense)
in which (a) the source-language text is presented only once and thus cannot be reviewed or
replayed, and (b) the target-language text is produced under time pressure, with little chance
for correction and revision" (Munday 2009, p. 133).
Second of all, meanwhile written translation plays a very important role in any translation. Since a translation happens in a context and implies the transposition of a source text
into a target text, this must fulfill the same constrains of an original text written in the target
language (Aksoy, 2001) . Therefore, the degrees of difficulty varies between them however,
each one of these types has their own pros and con.
The translation process faces a lot of obstacles, starting of with the cons of the interpretation and written translation; they both need to be done at an exact time, and the written
translator needs to produce accurate, well written paraphrases and also he\she needs to use
new words and stay away from repetition. An interpreter needs to be acute with a high tone
so he\she can influence the listeners; also he\she needs to use a lot of connectivity and linking tools so he\she can grabs the listener's attentions.
108
Although the translation process goes through so many different steps, whether they
are difficult or easy, there could be some pros for both the written translator and the interpreter. The written translator has the advantage of time, which allows him\her most of the
time to revise and go back to specialized dictionaries. However, the interpreter needs to
focus on the meaning, and tends to the colloquial language more than the standard one,
with massive concentration on the main points, without mentioning details.
Gouadec (2007) stated that "The translator, on the other hand, knows that good
translations are the outcome of a very demanding and ever more complex technical activity" (p. 4). However, the translation process is a changeable one because of new technology and the appearance of new words in the language. Therefore, a good translator must
have both strong writing skills and massive knowledge of the target language.
References
Aksoy, Berrin. (2001). ‘Translation as a rewriting: the concept and its implications on the
emergence of a national literature’. Translation Journal. Retrieved from: http://
accurapid.com/journal/16prof.htm
Das, B. K. (2005). Handbook of translation studies. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Gouadec, D. (2007). Translation as a profession. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Holzer, H. (2011). One translator’s journey. Retrieved from http://
www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article2325.php
Munday, Jeremy. (2009) The Routledge companion to translation studies, London and
New York: Routledge
Schjoldager, A. (2008). Understanding translation. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Zaky, M. M. (2000). Translation and meaning. Retrieved from http://translationjournal.net/
journal/14theory.htm
109
B us i nes s N a me
What it Takes to Be a Professional Translator
By Lama F. Alnekhilan
As the world becomes smaller, the need for interaction with others grows. So many obstacles stand in the way of understanding others' ideas and background culture. That is when the
need of translating appeared. Paul (1995) stated that, “We need methods for training translators,
and that these methods should be concerned with the actual process of translation" (p. 2). As in
any other profession, being a translator requires practice, experience, and specialized training.
In 2007, Arduini and Hodgson states that "Despite the difficulty in bridging the gap between source language/source culture and target language/target culture, it is important to bear
in mind that the necessity of translation lies in that there is a gap between source language/
source culture and target language/target culture, and translation is a means to bridge it" (p.
395). Translation is simply the attempt to replace a textual material in the Source Language
(SL) by an equivalent textual material in the Target Language (TL). The difference between
languages is one of the main obstacles in the translation field, not only linguistic differences, but
also cultural difference as well.
A good translator will not let his readers be able to notice that the text is translated and
will not let them catch mistakes. To achieve that, one must understand the source's language
culture and acknowledge their habits, beliefs, and behaviors. According to Cutter (2005), "An
effective translator can creatively mesh languages and worldviews so that the spiritual, cultural,
and social values of the original or parent culture are not lost as the translator moves into a new
culture and language" (p. 2).
Sofer (2006) stressed that, "Prospective translators should have certification (if possible),
appropriate education and field experience" (p. 270). As a translator, you are expected to be an
expert in translating each individual text you translate. Nowadays a wide variety of colleges offering different courses in translation starting from humanities to engineering, petroleum, medical and technological translation. A good translator also should have access to different resources as well as general and specialist bilingual and monolingual dictionaries.
110
V.T (2014) stated that, "One requirement for translation is that a person be fluent in the
language he or she will be translating. Fluency is important because there may be different
needs for translation" (p. 14). Fluency in another language means being able to comprehend,
speak, read, and write in that language at the level of an educated native speaker. You need to
know another language inside and out, from formal dialogue to casual conversations.
According to Green (2010), "To be a translator one must possess knowledge and
skills" (p. 18). As a translator you should always try to expand your field of expertise and always keep yourself updated with the changes that happen in you language. Also, always
practice and translate each text you read because that will give you a rich, well-developed vocabulary, After all, translation is a form of writing, and good translators should be good writers too.
References
Cutter, M. (2005). Lost and found in translation. Retrieved from https://books.google.com
Green, J. M. (2010). Thinking through translation. Retrieved from https://books.google.com
Kussmaul, P. (1995). Training the translator. Retrieved from http://books.google.com
Sofer, M. (2006). The translator's handbook. Retrieved from https://books.google.com
Stefano, A. & Robert, H.(2007). Similarity and difference in translation. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com
V. T. (2014). Getting a job as translator. Retrieved from https://books.google.com
111
B us i nes s N a me
Translating Words and Sentences with a Cultural Image
By Marwa A. Assar
According to Fenfang, Shiyang, and Tian (2010) the difference between cultures could cause
problems while translating cultural-specific terms, since possibly the reader couldn't understand what
the text had implied clearly. They stressed that ‘’Misplacement of translation of words with a cultural
image prevents the target readers from losing the chance to have a distinctive and real access to the original work” (para. 3). The authors added that the incompetence of mastering the source and target language is a main reason for this misplacement occurrence, so, there are many factors which the translator
should focus on to help him avoid mistranslating the words or sentences with a cultural image.
The translator faces lots of challenges while translating. In order to avoid mistranslating, the
translator has to focus on some main factors. The first one and the most important is the intercultural
differences between languages (Salmeri, 2014) because translation is not just transforming some letters,
it is also translate the culture. So, when the translator faces words with a cultural image, he should first
understand it well, then translating it by saving the same idea but use different templates. Linguistic
subtleties is the second factors; the translator should pay attention to how he could use forms to give the
reader a correct and complete image about the concept in the source language.
The third factor is language evolution and origin (Salmeri, 2014). Some words acquire through
time another meaning and sometimes the new meaning is totally different from the old one, so the translators must search and read about the origin and the changes that may occur to languages as time passes.
So, one small mistake as this one can ruin the whole cultural meaning and make it vague and confusing,
e.g. the word nice was mean “foolish” or “stupid” but now it means “lovely” or “kind”, so if the transla-
tor translates a sentence with a cultural image that contains the word “nice” as in “have a nice day” to
“have a stupid day” it won’t make sense to the reader and gives him a wrong image about the culture.
Otherwise, if the translator understood the cultural image which the writer referred to then he
mistranslated it by using a weak or wrong form without taking into account the linguistics differences
between the two languages, this will immediately affect the cultural image and prevent the target language speakers from getting the idea correctly. So the translator must be exposed to both cultures
(Moropa, & Kruger, 2000), and stay away from machine translation because of its inability to contemplate the cultural context which may give the words another meaning (Pollitt, 2014).
112
As Baker believes, problems while translating cultural-specific terms are bound to happen, and
she listed eight solutions or translation strategies to deal with these problems, and using more general
words while translating cultural-specific terms is one of them. On the other hand, if the translator
chooses a general word, it must give the target reader a clear image about the word in the source language. Also she mentioned that translating by illustration is one of the solutions, and it requires an
explanation from the translator for words or sentences with a cultural image which have no equivalence in the target language (Zhang, 2012).
In conclusion, translating cultural-specific terms or sentences is not 100% possible but the trans-
lator should be broaden his knowledge in this field as much as possible in order to try to avoid cultural mistakes, and he should always look for solutions and strategies, as Katan (1999) stated “If the
translators and interpreters don’t include culture as a part of their remit, then the ‘writing consultant’
and others will ensure that the translating profession will remain classified with the transcribes, copiers, stuffers, and sealers” (p. 17) because translation is not about copying and pasting, it is about paraphrasing, strong structure, and culture transforming.
References
Fenfang, L., Shiyang, R., & Tian, X. (2010). Translation of words with cultural image.
Journal Of Language Teaching & Research, 1(5), 694-700. doi:10.4304/jltr.1.5.694700. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer.
Katan, D. (1999). Translating cultures: A n introduction for translators, interpreters and
mediators. Manchester, England: St. Jerome. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa/books
Moropa, K., & Kruger, A. (2000). Mistranslation of culture-specific terms in Kropf's KafirEnglish dictionary. South A frican Journal Of A frican Languages, 20(1), 70. Retrieved
from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost
Pollitt, M. (2014). A warning from history for the Google translates generation. History
Today, 64(9), 3-4. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost
Salmeri, C. (2014). The translator as an intercultural mediator. Translation and Cultural
Influences. Lebende Sprachen, 59(1), 78-86. doi:10.1515/les-2014-0002. Retrieved
from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer
Zhang, M. (2012). Reading different cultures through cultural translation: On translation of
site names in Macau Historic Centre. Babel, 58(2), 205-219. Retrieved from
http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer
113
B us i nes s N a me
How to Translate Idiomatic Expressions
By Rawan Al-thawad
Idioms are a group of words, phrases, or expressions which mean something different from its
literal meaning. They are colorful and mostly related to the culture. Jaeger (1999) has defined idioms as
“lexical units of two or more words but under sentence-length carrying a figurative meaning” (p. 245).
Translating idioms from English to Arabic is not an easy task. A translator will likely face some interferences because of the non-literal meaning, the grouping of words, and the lack of cultural knowledge of
the target language. Therefore, it is challenging to translate them. No doubt, there are several approaches that could be utilized to overcome the interferences in translating idiomatic expressions from English
to Arabic and vice versa.
The first approach of translating idiomatic expressions from English to Arabic and vice versa is to
avoid translating them literally. Larson (1984) has stated that "The real danger comes in translating an
idiom literally, since the result will usually be nonsense in the receptor language’’ (p. 20). Therefore, a
translator should never translate the words of an idiom in isolation because they are not going to make
sense. So, a translate should look for and try to understand their real meaning instead of directly translating each word separately because that will most likely cause a meaningless phrase like it was just stated.
The second approach is to avoid paraphrasing. Abu-Ssaydeh (2004) believes that idioms are
complicated because of their relationship with culture. He also stated that paraphrasing is the most common method when translating idioms. Abu-Ssaydeh reported that "Paraphrasing is statistically the most
significant strategy Arab translators employ when rendering English idioms into Arabic"(p. 115). He
actually believes that paraphrasing does not give the meaning adequately, "This entails a substantial loss
of the cultural dimension of the idiom, its impact on the receiver and its appealing brevity" (p. 115).
Therefore, it is better to avoid paraphrasing when translating idioms, and only use it if there is no other
way.
The third approach that will overcome the interferences of translating an idiom, is to look for a
similar idiom in meaning and form in the target language (TL). Baker (1992) believes that one of the
best strategies of translating an idiomatic expression is “finding an idiom of similar meaning and similar
form in the target language may seem to offer the ideal solution, but that is not necessarily always the
case" (p. 72). In fact, there are many English idioms that are very similar to Arabic idioms. This is actually the easiest approach because there are many English idiomatic expression, that are similar to the Arabic idiomatic expressions.
114
The fourth approach is to look for a similar meaning but dissimilar form. If a translator fails to
find an idiom that is similar in meaning and form, then it is fine to use an idiom that has the same
meaning, but different form. For instance, a translator might find an idiom in the target language (TL)
that is similar in meaning, but has different lexical items. For example "To jump on the bandwagon"
and "‫( "یسایر التيار‬Sadiq, 2008, p. 50). Clearly, a translator's main goal is to transfer the intended
meaning.
In conclusion, translation is not an easy process, let alone translating idiomatic expressions
which are very hard and problematic to translate because of the non-literal meaning, the grouping of
words, and the lack of cultural knowledge of the target language (Al- Haddad, 1994). Using some approaches like avoiding to translate them literally, avoiding paraphrasing, looking for a similar idiom in
meaning and form, or looking for a similar meaning but dissimilar form can actually ease the process
of translating idiomatic expressions from English to Arabic and vice versa.
References
Abu-Ssaydeh, A. (2004). Translation of English idioms into Arabic. Babel, 50(2), 114131. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/
Al- Haddad, K. (1994). Investigating difficulties faced by advanced A rab students of English. Re-
trieved from http://books.google.com
Baker, M. (1992). In other words: A coursebook on translation. Retrieved from http://
books.google.com
Jaeger, L. (1999). The nature of idioms: A systematic approach. Retrieved from
http://books.google.com
Larson, M. (1984). Meaning-based translation: A guide to cross–language equivalence.
Retrieved from http://books.google.com
Sadiq, S. (2008). Some semantic, stylistic and cultural problems of translation. Sayyab
Translation Journal. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/
115
B us i nes s N a me
What You Should Know Before Translating a Poem
By Razan W. Al-Zeer
In the globalized world we live in today, and the inevitable mass exposure to information, we can
draw that translation is underlied by much more than just knowledge of words. With the various genres
of texts, literary translation, poetry to be specific, tops the list as the most complex and intellect-related
text making it the hardest to translate. Although poetry is just another type of text, it is, agreed by all,
exceptionally fascinating. Poetry interpretation is much more challenging for translators, regardless of
languages, and that can simply be because poetry is different.
Have you ever wondered why reading poetry may be more appealing than any random text? The
answer is simple; it is rhyme and rhythm which poems are symbolized by, and we tend to be charmed
by it due to the innate rhythm our bodies possess from breathing to heartbeats (Suppes, 2009). Rhythm
is such a prominent feature of a poem. In fact, according to Attridge, it is quite fundamental since it
gives text consistency, unity, memorability, and emotional effect. Also, rhythm retains a power for
which it gives each line a distinct meaning different than the one before filled with contrarieties and
contradictions, however, harmonious and balanced (1995).
A lot of the time poetry is degraded when translated with just few meanings retained in the target
language; and that happens since, most often, the wording in poems gives referents to a culture-specific
thing, according to Anderman and Rogers that is, so unless the translator is thoroughly exposed to that
culture or strongly familiar with its word pattern, chances of fully understanding the meaning are low
(1999). It’s only in poetry that you will encounter a whole different structure than the other texts. Even
words are manipulated, and some may even come off as bizarre or impractical if were showcased in a
regular manuscript.
Poetry requires high degree of intelligence and insight in order to look further than the external
structure. Translators, seemingly, may be gifted with words. However, the sophistication of literary
writing requires skill and most importantly, experience. Indeed, following one method of translation is
ineffective because each poem has certain characteristics that need to be identified in order to determine
the right procedure. Prickett stresses in his book that translators must enrich themselves by reading
about the period of the given poem, the author’s background, and try to grasp the meaning behind every
of word, anomaly and ideology (1988).
116
Certainly, the style of writing differs, worldly, from one person to another, but thankfully, regardless of the person’s style, there are certain techniques commonly used when composing a piece of
art shaped as a poem. Skimming through the poem is capable of giving you insight on the used procedure. Haiku, Lay, and Ghazal for example are some of many methods used when writing a poem
that lead translators, if comprehended, to a better translation in the aimed language (Hiss, 2004).
In conclusion, literature is one of the most beautiful forms that express cultures in a whole elevated level. Jones stated, “Hearing voices from beyond the boundary fence of our language can give
added value” (p. 7). Poems are one of the things that leave an effect on a person’s state of mind due
to its high level of connection with emotions. Beyond the external structure, there is a deep meaning
behind each lexical item that tells a story of the whole when combined with the other. Although
translation can be provoking, its results are extraordinary.
Reference
Anderman, G., & Rogers, M. (1999). W ord, text, translation: Liber amicorum for Peter Newmark.
Retrieved from https://books.google.com
Attridge, D. (1995). Poetic rhythm: A n introduction. Retrieved from https://books.google.com
Foster, T. C. (2003). How to read literature like a professor. Retrieved from http://
www.aaps.k12.mi.us/
Hiss, G. (2004). What can poetry teach us about beauty? Retrieved from http://
www.poemofquotes.com/
Jones R, F. (2011). Poetry translating as expert action: Processes, priorities and networks (93rd ed.).
Retrieved from http://books.google.com
Prickett, S. (1988). Words and the word: Language, poetics and biblical interpretation. Retrieved
from https://books.google.com
Suppes, P. (2009). Rhythm and meaning in poetry. Midwest Studies in Philosophy. Retrieved from
http://eds.a.ebscohost.com
117
B us i nes s N a me
Arab Translators: The History of Arabic Translation
By Alia A. Al- Oraifi
In 2007, McGinnis and Reisman stated that the early seeds of the Arabic translation movement were sown in the
middle of the fourth century C.E. when the emperor of Roman, Jovianus, ceded a large tract of land to the Sassanian or
Persian, Empire. In addition, Delisle and Woodsworth (2012) confirm that “the translated works acted as raw material
that nourished the creative talents of Arab translators and furthered the development of science before being passed on to
the Western world.” (p. 109).
However, Gutas (1998) explains that the study of the major social, political, and ideological factors that occasioned the unprecedented translation movement from Greek into Arabic in Baghdad, the newly founded capital of the
Arab dynasty of the ‘Abbasids, during the first two centuries of their rule draws upon a long and distinguished line of
historical and philological works on Graeco-Arabic studies, or the study of the medieval translations of secular Greek
works into Arabic. Since then, the Arabs have focused their attention on translators, in particular, and translation, in
general. As Rashad (2013) shows that “many Arab countries took the decision of forming many councils and centers for
translations like the National Center for Translation in Egypt, National Council for Arts and Culture in Kuwait and others.” (para. 12).
Indeed, Arabic is the joint official language in Middle Eastern and African states. Large communities of Arabic
speakers have existed outside of the Middle East since the end of the last century, particularly in the United States and
Europe. People, since that time, have focused on Arabic language features and investigating several existing translation
systems within literature related to Arabic to English translation, in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of translation
(Alqudsi, Omar, & Shaker, 2012). During that time, Arab translators insisted on translating loads of books from other
cultures and so many languages - other than English.
Moreover, they have translated scientific, philosophical, medical, historical and cultural books, and they have
also translated manuscripts, periodicals and everything that was related to various fields of science and medicine from
the civilizations of the ancient world such as the Greek civilization and the Romanian civilization, yet they have not attempted to translate literature and poetry because they contain a lot of beliefs that are contrary to Islam and at that time
Arabic literature was overwhelming.
Therefore, these translations gave rise to the Arabic translation movement and so ultimately made philosophy
itself possible. That is when the first works translated were pieces on Aristotelian logic, followed shortly thereafter by
works in many various fields (McGinnis & Reisman, 2007). However, Labib and Taher explain that “the condition of
Arabic translation in the Arabic World aimed to build up a network of information about professionals in this field, both
individuals and institutions, to learn about their activities and encourage them to join in.“ (para. 2). The skill of the
translator is most needed in life because above all translation is an act of communication among the countries around the
world (Homeidi, n.d.).
Shureteh (2014) stated that : Most of the assessments of the contemporary landscape Arabic translation tend too
readily to make harsh judgments through the lenses of the Medieval past in spite of all the radical changes that
118
overwhelmed and transformed the course of everything in Arab world. It is regrettable how various persistent accomplish-
ments of present-day Arab translators are often left out of consideration and disregarded because the glorious past acts as
the only perspective critics use to view and talk about present-day Arabic translation and culture. This obviously restricted
view does not allow critics of the contemporary scene of Arabic translation to value many contemporary bright achievements of Arabic translators which range from individual successful translations to the contributions of journals and big non
-profit projects of translation including the Franklin Project for the Translation of Arabic, one of the largest English-Arabic
translation projects of the twentieth century5, PROTA and the recent Kalima (para. 24).
Moreover, a series of publications dedicated, among other things, to the history of Arabic philosophy and the transmission of Greek philosophy to an Arabic-speaking audience, examining the Arabic translation and commentary tradition
needs little explanation. At the core of this transmission process was what has come to be called the “Greek-Arabic translation movement”, a concerted effort to translate the available Greek scientific, medical and philosophical literature into Ara-
bic, carried out between the eighth and the tenth centuries (Vagelpohl, 2008).
The Greek-Arabic translation movement was, both in terms of its scale and its influence, an unprecedented process of
cultural transmission and transformation. Working across a substantial linguistic and cultural divide, the translators developed whole new terminologies to describe subjects and disciplines for which there was no equivalent in contemporary Arabic culture (Vagelpohl, 2008).
Their work and the subsequent writings of scientists and philosophers were not just an isolated episode in the history
of science or philosophy, least of all a mere interlude in the history of Western scientific and philosophical activities as it
has sometimes been understood. All of these Arabic speaking scholars contributed to the formation of Arabic culture and,
through the medium of Arabic-Latin translations produced from the twelfth century onward, left their mark also on Western
science and philosophy (Vagelpohl, 2008).
References
Alqudsi, A., Omar, N., & Shaker, K. (2012). Arabic machine translation: A survey. Retrieved from http://
link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10462-012-9351-1
Delisle, J., & Woodsworth, J. (Eds.). (2012). Translators through history: Revised edition.(p.109). Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Gutas, D. (1998). Greek thought, A rab culture: The Graeco-Arabic translation movement in Baghdad and early Abbasid
society (2nd-4th & 8th-10th C.). Florence, KY, USA: Routledge. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com
Homeidi, M. A. (n.d.). Arabic translation across cultures. Babel. Retrieved from http://
sj9sr8sb5k.search.serialssolutions.com
Labib, & Taher. (n.d.). Pan Arab civil organizations: The A rab Organization for Translation. Retrieved from http://
eds.a.ebscohost.com
McGinnis, J., & Reisman, D. C. (2007). Classical A rabic philosophy: A n anthology of sources (p. 18). Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa
Rashad, A. (2013). Exploring licensing translation rights in the Arab world. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/
article/10.1007/s12109-013-9337-0/fulltext.html
Shureteh, H. A. (2014). The contemporary landscape of Arabic translation: A postcolonial perspective. Theory and Practice
in Language Studies, 4(7), 1376-1384. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1547333118?accountid=142908
Vagelpohl, U. (2008). Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Texts and Studies, Volume 76 : Aristotle's Rhetoric in
the East : The Syriac and Arabic Translation and Commentary Tradition. Leiden, NLD: BRILL. Retrieved from http://
www.ebrary.com
119
B us i nes s N a me
The Translation of the Holy Qur'an: Difficulties and Obstacles
By Haifa S. Al-Dawood
Translating the Holy Qur'an is the hardest task the translators may face. Because translating
Qur'an is not only about finding the equivalence of one word in Arabic with another word in English or
any other target language, but also includes the different interpretations of the texts given by reliable
explications (Alhaj, 2015). Indeed, translators face a lot of difficulties and obstacles in translating the
Holy Qur'an, and some Qur'an translations become erroneous for several reasons.
First, the issue of the particle wa- (and) is one of the most argued issues in translation. According to Ibrahim, Aydelott, and Kassabgy (2000), due to the different style between Arabic and English,
the particle wa causes problems in translation. That is the series in Arabic sorted as A and B and C.
While in English it is sorted as A, B, and C. Pickthall and others tried to stick to the original text as
much as possible. They keep the additional "ands" in lists.
Figure: The "ands" are all there (Ibrahim, Aydelott, & Kassabgy, 2000, p. 34)
Second, one of the great problems faced by translators of the Qur'an is the lexical problems. According to Ali, Brakhw, Bin Nordin, and Ismail (2012), one of the lexical problems is that some Islamic
expressions or phrases have no synonyms or equivalence in English, that means translators have to
translate them in a communicative manner. For instance, taqwā -piety - kufr -disbelief, shīrk
(associating other gods with God ), haq-truth, ma‛rūf -charity ,munkar -wrong, ghaīb-the unseen/
unknown, zakāh-alms giving, and tāwbah -repentance. These translations are only an approximate
meaning (p. 12).
Third, in addition to the lexical problems, some semantic problems may occur when translating
the Holy Qur'an. For example, the word ‫ أب‬as used in the Qur'an has two equivalences in English
120
which are (father) and (forefather) The Qur'an says ‫وال تنكحوا ما نكح آباؤكم من النساء إال ما قد سلف إنه كان فاحشة‬
.(4 : 22( ‫ومقتا ً وساء سبيال‬
In this verse the equivalent of the lexeme ‫ أب‬is the word (father), while in other cases like ‫وجاهدوا في هللا‬
.(23-87( ‫حق جهاده هو اجتباكم وما جعل عليكم في الدین من حرج ملّة أبيكم إبراهيم هو س ّماكم المسلمين من قبل‬
The lexeme ‫ أب‬is translated as (forefather) (Ahamed, 2006).
Consequently, some mistakes showed up in translating the Qur'an and there are some major reasons. Khalifa reported that the reasons behind those mistakes are:
1- nescience of the Arabic word's exact meaning.
2- knowing only one shade of the meaning.
3- confusion between different Arabic words.
4- limited knowledge of Arabic eked out with figments of imagination.
5- mistaking Arabic for Hebrew or Syriac.
6- some confusion with Hebrew tradition. (n.d., p. 3)
In conclusion, translating the Holy Qur'an is very hard and complicated. According to Guillaume,
"The message of the Qur'an is couched in various literary structures, which are widely considered to
be the most perfect example of the Arabic language" (as cited in Abdelwali, 2007, p. 1). Therefore, it
needs a high degree of knowledge in both languages. They are sacred texts that contain beliefs and
ideas; therefore, translating the Qur'an must be done with a high degree of accuracy and awareness.
References
Abdelwali, M. (2007). The loss in the translation of the Qur'an. Translation Journal. Retrieved from
http://translationjournal.net/
Ahmed, M. (2006). Investigating some semantic problems in the translation of the holy Quran. Iraq
Academic Scientific Journals. Retrieved from http://www.iasj.net/iasj?
func=issues&jId=78&uiLanguage=en
Alhaj, A. (2015). New theory of the holy Qur'an translation. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Ali, A., Brakhw, M., Bin nordin, M., & Ismail, S. (2012). Some linguistic difficulties in translating
the holy Quran from Arabic into English. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity. Retrieved from http://www.ijssh.org/
Ibrahim, Z., Aydelott, S., & Kassabgy, N. (2000). Diversity in language: Contrastive studies in A rabic
and English theoretical and applied linguistics. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Khalifa, M. (n.d.). Cyberistan organisation. Retrieved from http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/
translate.htm
121
B us i nes s N a me
Translation Problems: Idioms
By Atheer Fayez Al-Fayez
In fact, translation is not an easy field because it deals with two or more different languages. Every language has its own characteristics which makes it vary from others, therefore, as a translator for example, from English to Arabic you should be versed in all the as-
pects of these two languages to avoid the problems that might face you. However, one of the
most difficult problems that you should deal with carefully is translating idioms. As we
know, idioms take an important part in language, but they have a lot of problems.
First of all, Meryam stated that Langacher (1968) defined “an idiom is a kind of complex lexical item. It is a phrase whose meaning cannot be predicted from the meanings of the
morphemes it comprises” (p. 11). Therefore, translating idioms is very difficult because they
are fixed phrases whose their form and meaning are unchangeable, inflexible, and indirect.
Due their difficulty, idioms should not be translated literally. Larson (1984) emphasized that
the translator will put himself/herself in danger when he or she tries to translate idioms literally because they will become nonsense in the target language.
In fact, one of the most commonly known problems that face translators usually is that
the idiom expression has two meanings. One of them is literal or direct which is usually customary and clear, so you can guess its meaning without referring to a specialized dictionary.
The other is idiomatic or figurative which often happens with particular types of idioms,
such as physical idioms which are usually based on physical images (Khalil, 2014).
Another important problem facing translators is a lot of idioms cannot be recognized
easily especially in a given text. There are some idioms that are easier to recognize and understand than others, perhaps due their place in the context or their order in the sentence,
however, there are some idioms that cannot be figured out or recognized at all. Mostly in
this case, translators fail in understanding the point of the idiom, therefore, they resort to literal translation "the more difficult an expression is to understand and the less sense it makes
in a given context, the more likely a translator will recognize it as an idiom.'' (Baker, 2014).
122
Also, most translators are usually exposed to a big problem when they attempt to integrate their idioms' translation into the target language. This problem may confuse and
disperse translators which leads them to make bigger mistakes, so Meryam (2014) stated
that "Such difficulties involve, above all, selecting the most appropriate strategy for translating idioms" (p. 16). Therefore, translators should decide on the strategy they will use in
their translating before they start.
Finally, translating idiom expression is a very complex process. There are a lot of
problems which may face translators in translating idioms; some of them concern how the
translator determines the right meaning of the idiom in a particular context, some problems
concern how the translators recognize and understand the idioms, and some problems are
concerned with how the translators will use and integrate idioms in a text.
References
Amrani, A. (2015). Problems faced by students when translating idioms from English into
Arabic. Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu
Baker, M. (2014). In other words: A coursebook on translation. Retrieved from
books.google.com.sa
Despoina, P. (2014). Idiom translation in the financial press: A corpus-based study . Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Khalil, G. (2014). Overcoming difficulties in translation idioms from English into Arabic.
Retrieved from http://www.iasj.net
Lahlali, E., & Abo Hatab, W. (2013). Advanced English-Arabic translation: A practical
guide. Retrieved from books.google.com.sa
Unberto, E., & Alastair, M. (2008). Experiences in translation. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
123
B us i nes s N a me
The Translation Methods and Theories: Discourse Analysis
By Reyouf M. Al-Rowaijih
Correct and integrated translation based on our understanding of the text as a first step, and to
understand the text well, we must analyze its language and components and that is what called discourse analysis. There are three ways to define discourse analysis which are: language beyond the
level of a sentence, language behaviors linked to social practices, and language as a system of
thought. According to some authors "Discourse analysis is a term that has come to have different
interpretations for scholars working in different disciplines'' (Brown & Yule, 1983, p. 3).
"Discourse analysis is the study of language in use" (Gee, 2014, p. 8). It considers how language, both spoken and written, enacts social and cultural perspectives and identities. So analysis of
discourse looks not only at the basic level of what is said, but takes into consideration the surrounding social and historical contexts. There are many different approaches to discourse analysis; some
of them look only at the content of the language being used, and other approaches pay more attention to the structure of language and how this structure functions to make meaning in specific contexts.
According to Jørgensen and Phillips (2002), the aim of discourse analysis, in general, is to
map out the processes in which we struggle about the way in which the meaning of signs is to be
fixed. But "there are different approaches to discourse analysis study discourse from a different
point of departure in the pattern of discourse planes" (Georgakopoulou & Goutsos, 2004, p. 10).
Some of them called "descriptive", which strive to describe how language works in order to understand it, just as the goal of the physicist is to describe how the physical world works in order to understand it. In both cases their hope may be to gain extensive explanations of how language or the
world works and why they work that way.
Some other approaches to discourse analysis, which we can call "critical" as in "critical discourse analysis" which consider as "a network of scholars emerged in the early 1990s, following a
small symposium in Amsterdam, in January 1991" (Wodak & Meyer, 2001, p. 4). The critical approach analysts' goal is not just to describe how language works or even to offer deep explanations,
though they do want to do this. They have focused on the social and political issues related to texts
and text productions, and they want to apply their work to the world in some fashion.
124
We make or build things in the world through language. Not just strikes, marriages, and
threats, but many things. For example, I can make or break a relationship with other people
through language. Whenever we speak or write, we always construct or build seven things or
seven areas of reality. Let's call these seven things the "seven building tasks" of language. These
are: building significance, building practices, building identities, building relationships, building
politics, building connections, and building sign systems and knowledge (Turnbull & DaileyO'Cain, 2009, p. 149).
Essentially a discourse analysis involves asking questions about how language, at a given
time and place, is used to engage in the seven building tasks we have discussed earlier. So we
have seven building tasks and six tools of inquiry which are: situated meanings, social language,
figured worlds, intertextuality, discourses, and conversations. A discourse analysis uses each of
the tools of inquiry to ask questions about each building tasks. This means we have six questions
to ask about seven things, a total of 42 questions.
References
Brown, G., & Yule, G. (Eds.). (1983). Discourse analysis. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa
Gee, J. P. (2014). A n introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method. New York:
Routledge.
Georgakopoulou, A., & Goutsos, D. (Eds.). (2004). Discourse analysis: A n introduction.
Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Jørgensen, M., & Phillips, L. (2002). Discourse analysis as theory and method. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa
Turnbull, M., & Dailey-O'Cain, J. (2009). First language use in second and foreign language
learning. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (2001). Methods of critical discourse analysis. Retrieved from http://
www.fib.unair.ac.id
125
B us i nes s N a me
Overview On The Differences Between Localization And Translation
By Rana A. Al-Harbi
We need to communicate with people in other countries who have different cultures, so we
need to learn the language they speak. For instance, if we buy some of their products, we must translate the language they use in the products to our language so it will be easier for people in our country
to read the instructions. Doing this means that we localize the product and translate it at the same
time. In fact, how many of us know the term '' localization''? Also, is there any connection between it
and translation, and, what is it? Finally, what are the differences between these two terms?
Payne reported that “localization is taking anything such as video games, websites, brands or
even apps and local one of them to a country or a culture that is foreign to where it was produced, that
will go through a process of localization” (2013, 1:4 ), so localization is not a translation. In fact,
translation is a part of localization. Websites have a completely different way of localizing than video
games and so on, on the other hand, translation is translating the words, phrases and sentences from
one language to another.
In 2003, Esselink stated that, “word processors, for example, needed to support the input processing and output of character sets in other languages, language-specific features such as hyphenation
and spelling, and a user interface in the user’s local language. The same expectation applied to hardware. For example, in 1985 the Spanish government decreed that all computer keyboards sold in
Spain should have the ῆ key’’ (p. 22). So the author mentioned that this problem, and of course many
others, was the beginning of localization. Then we can conclude that localization did not exist before
the 1980s. In 2013, Densmer reported that, “The first known translations are those of the Sumerian
epic Gilgamesh into Asian languages from the second millennium BC” (para. 4).
Because of the increase of game sales in the international markets, game publishers need to localize them (para. 3). Also, in the world of novels they do that, especially in literature works, like the
French novel The Count of Monte Cristo which is translated into Arabic then localized into the Egyptian accent. This is not only for games or novels, but also for apps, brands, phones, movies and many
other things. This example would be seen also in Disney movies like the two movies Tarzan and
Brave. So these examples clearly show the differences in localization and translation (Cadieux & Esselink, 2011).
126
The strategies of translation can be counted, but those which are used in localization are so
many because localizing a product depends on the purpose, so for each type there is a specific methods and strategies (Melby, 2012). “If we localizing [sic] games we have to look at culture, expressions and slangs for each country” (Sãnches, 2013, 0:10). In fact, to localize games we need a
game designer, art director, translator, voice actor and tester (Project, 2013). On the other hand, for
translation we do not need all that; mainly we need a dictionary and a context.
In summary, we noticed that translation is a part of localization. Also, the differences between them in their definitions, strategies and examples. As we said above, localization is translat-
ing the content into the desired language to appeal to the local target audience as well as coordinate
with all preexisting products. So translation is an integral part of localization which is more widely
popular nowadays.
References
Cadieux, P., & Esselink, B. (2011, March 20). A short history of localization, internalization and
globalization (Part#1) | AIM Danışmanlık | consulting [Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://aimdanismanlik.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/a-short-history-of-localizationinternalization-and-globalization/
Chandler, H., & Deming, S. (2011). Planning localizations. In The game localization handbook
(2nd ed.). Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Densmer, L. (2013, May 31). Translation history: From sticks and clay to the internet [Web log
post]. Retrieved from http://info.moravia.com/blog/bid/293495/Translation-History-FromSticks-Clay-to-the-Internet
Esselink, B. (2003). The evolution of localization. Retrieved from http://
webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-61bseNR7h8J:isg.urv.es/library/papers/
Esselink_Evolution.pdf+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=sa
Melby, A. (2012, August 7). Do I need to localize products when I go international? [Video file].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRAuWUn6YJM
Project, F. (2013, August 9). Pink noise: Games localization [Video file]. Retrieved from https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgwnG1DeSR0
Sãnches, P. (2013, February 7). Localization quest - How video game localization works [Video
file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9hGNGT0du4
127
B us i nes s N a me
Google Translate: Overlooked Disadvantages
By Emtenan O. Alabdullah
Google Translate is widely used around the world. It is a fast, smart, and free translation system. Bellos defined it as "a statistical machine translation system" (para. 7). Unlike the older machine translation systems which break the sentence into pieces and then rebuild it in the target lan-
guage, Google Translate tries to find similar translated sentences on the Web (2010). It can also
translate documents or Web pages from one language to another. Currently, Google Translate is
able to translate 90 languages (Kelman, 2015). Although many people use Google Translate because of its advantages, it has a lot of disadvantages.
Because the Arabic language has a different linguistic system from English, Google Translate cannot be accurate in translating English phrases into Arabic. For example, the English phrase
CAUTION: WET FLOOR is translated by Google Translate as: ‫ الرطب الكلمة‬:‫ 'تنبيه‬tunbeeh arratb al
kalemah', while the suitable equal phrase in Arabic is: ‫ أرضية مبللة‬:‫ 'تنبيه‬tunbeeh: ardheyah
mubalalah' (Al-Samawi, 2014). In Google Translate, the word floor can be translated in Arabic as
,‫ كلمة‬،‫ أرضية‬،‫ طابق‬but Google Translate failed to choose the appropriate word to be used with wet as
we see in the previous translation.
In English, verbs can be used with singulars or plurals, but in Arabic it is used also with duals. When Google Translate translates dual nouns having an affix pronoun, it fails to translate these
forms. Google Translate deals with these forms as if they were proper nouns by transcription into
Latin alphabets. For instance, 'qaddamat li Fatima tufahatan min tufahatayha' ‫قدمت لي فاطمة تفاحة من‬
,‫تفاحتيها‬Google Translate translates it as: Fatima gave me an apple from Tfahtaha. The correct
translation for the last sentence is: Fatima gave me one of her two apples (Dodita, 2012).
In addition, Google Translate has problems with definiteness. The definite article is omitted
in Google Translate translation for the genitive construction, for example, indices of surprise is
translated as: ‫ 'مؤشرات مفاجأة‬muaashirat mufagaah', instead of ‫ 'مؤشرات المفاجأة‬muaashirat
almufagaah'. Also, adjectives in Arabic must agree with their nouns in definiteness. When we translate the phrase the vague regions into Arabic by Google Translate, it is translated as: ‫'المناطق غامضة‬
almanatiq gamidah', while the correct translation is: 'almanatiq algamidah' ‫( المناطق الغامضة‬Ghoniem,
2014).
128
The dangerous problem of Google Translate is that it sometimes gives the opposite meaning.
It is a risk to use Google Translate in legal translation. The sentence No one shall be presumed
guilty of a criminal offence is translated in Google Translate as: ‫یجب افتراض إدانة أي شخص بارتكاب‬
‫ جریمة جنائية‬instead of .‫ ال یجوز افتراض إدانة أي شخص بارتكاب جریمة جنائية‬Google Translate translates
shall into ‫یجب‬while the correct translation is .‫ال یجب‬In this way, the whole meaning of the sentence
has changed (Al Shehab, 2013).
In conclusion, Google Translate is a machine translation system that can make mistakes automatically. To improve it, the Google Translate team redesigned the translation system and let the
users help them improve the translations. Weiss and Todd (2014) announced, "When you spot a
translation that you'd like to edit, click 'improve this translation' pencil icon and click 'Contribute' to
submit your suggestion to us" (para. 4). Also, I would recommend that Google Translate use Arabic
diacritics to differentiate between the similar words and to help in grammar.
References
Al-Samawi, A. M. (2014). Language errors in machine translation of encyclopedic texts from English into Arabic: the case of Google Translate. A rab W orld English Journal, (3), 185. Retrieved from http://www.awej.org
Al Shehab, M. (2013). The translatability of English legal sentences into Arabic by using Google
Translation. International Journal of English Language and Linguistics Research, 1(3), 24.
Retrieved from http://www.eajournals.org
Bellos, D. (2010, March 20). Google translate vs. the humans. The New Y ork Times. Retrieved
from http://nyti.ms/19m5Hl7
Dodita, A. M. (2012). Limitations of automatic translations: Google Translate. Nr. XII (2012): 55
years of Arab studies in Romania, (12), 77. Retrieved from http://araba.lls.unibuc.ro/?
page_id=2549
Ghoniem, M. (2014). An analysis and evaluation of English Arabic statistical machine translation of
terminology-rich text. Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/
Kelman, S. (2015, April 5). A month of language love in Southeast Asia. Retrieved from http://
googletranslate.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-month-of-language-love-in-southeast.html
Weiss, & Todd R. (2014). Google asks language lovers to help refine translate services. Retrieved
from http://eds.b.ebscohost.co
129
B us i nes s N a me
Muslim Translators and Difficulties Faced
By Sara A. Al-Bnyah
The history of translation has its theories and figures that have emerged in its different periods.
Indeed, "each era is characterized by specific changes in translation theory." (para. 1). These changes
differ from one place to another, and there were particular incidents that lead to the birth of new theories
in each nation (Zakhir, 2008). The same as most translators around the world, Muslim translators might
face some difficulties during the translation process.
Ameneh and Hossein (2013) emphasized that “the first English translation the Qur’an was the
work of Alexander Ross (1649) based on a French version (1647) by Andre du Ryer. The second English version of Qur’an is by George Sale in 1734 which was reprinted in 1749, 1764, and many times
afterwards, most recently in 1984.” (p. 57). They added that the translation of Sale is based on the Arabic text. Although Sale used to look at the interpretation of the commentary by alBaydawi (Bobzin
2003), he looked at Marracci’s interpretation of the text and used Marracci’s work.
Michael (2014) said that:
One of the Qu'ran's more controversial verses mentions a 'spirit' sent by God
to assist Jesus: 'We gave Jesus clear signs and supported him with the spirit
of sanctity'. Abrahamic monotheism. The 'spirit of sanctity' (ruh al-qudus) is
easily associated with 'the Holy Spirit' (spiritus sanctus). The problem with
this translation is the uniquely Christian sentiment that it conveys. Muslim
translators commonly refuse to translate ruh al-qudus as 'the Holy Spirit',
favouring instead variants on 'holy inspiration' or 'divine grace' (p. 3).
The major problem that translators might face in translating the Qur'an is the lack or the absence
of the equivalent of some Islamic terms. These terms have no direct counterpart in English, compelling
the translator to convey them in a communicative manner. For instance, taqwā -piety - kufr -disbelief,
shīrk (associating other gods with God ), haq-truth, ma‛rūf -charity, munkar -wrong, ghaīb-the unseen/
unknown, zakāh-alms giving, and tāwbah -repentance. These translations are only an approximate
meaning. These English translations only give approximate meanings because they do not convey the
full semantic and liturgical scope of the Quranic terms (Brakhw, Nordin, & Ismail, 2012, p. 588).
130
According to Abdelwali, 2007, Qur'anic translators tend to restrict the sense of the lexical
words according to their referent in the real world rather than according to the core sense they possess
within the language system. For example, "the word Al-falaq (113:1( ‫ الفلق‬a generic term referring to
the process of splitting, has been restricted in most English versions of the Qur'an to one particular
type of 'splitting' , namely, 'daybreak' or 'dawn.' Although the notion of 'splitting' is still encapsulated
in the English equivalent 'daybreak' and in the idiom 'the crack of dawn,' the generic sense of the
word al-falaq that applies to all entities that crack, by necessity including seeds and fruits, is lost." (p.
27).
Since some Qur'anic expressions and words do not have counterparts in the target culture, it
doesn't mean that they are impossible to translate, or they don't have adequate equivalents in the other
languages. When the Qur'anic word is carrying a lot of meanings that translation fails to do it justice,
the translator may use more than one word in the Target Language for it. And for the Quranic terms,
the translator may explain them in the Target Language and introduce a glossary for them at the beginning of the translation. (Ahmed, 2006, p. 69).
References
Abdelwali, M. (2007). The loss in the translation of the qur’an. Translation Journal. Retrieved from
http://translationjournal.net/journal/40quran.htm
Ahmed, M. (2006). Investigating some semantic problems in the translation of the holy quran. Adab
Al-Rafidayn, 61-72. Retrieved from http://www.iasj.net/iasj?func=fulltext&aId=35616
Ameneh, M., & Hossein, P. (2013). The trace of translators' ideology: A case study of English translations of the Qur'an. 3L: Southeast A sian Journal of English Language Studies, 51-64. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com
Brakhw, A., Nordin, M., & Ismail, S. (2012). Some linguistic difficulties in translating the holy quran
from arabic into english. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 588-590. Re-
trieved from http://www.ijssh.org/papers/178-A10061.pdf
Michael, P. (2014). A warning from history for the google translate generation. History Today, 3-4.
Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com
Zakhir, M. (2008, September). Translation directory. Retrieved from http://
www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article1695.php
131
B us i nes s N a me
How to Translate Subtitles Successfully
By Aisha Mohammed Al-Homoudi
Translating subtitles on television is not an easy thing to do as many people believe, and it is not
something that anyone who knows both languages can do. Subtitles translation does not have a special
course yet because many people believe that it can be developed through experience (Gottlieb, 1994). The
author was against that view saying that “using one particular type of subtitling adaptation, reductions, to
demonstrate how apparently random, intuitive and very different adaptations all have the same general
’raison d’être‘” (p. 245). Indeed, there are some strategies and methods to help you translate subtitles in a
successful way.
First of all, translating subtitles in songs can be quite difficult because it’s not necessary to make the
subtitles rhyme with the song in the film. Fong and Au (2009) mentioned that a group of students translated
the lyrics of a song from a musical, and they worked so hard to make the subtitles rhyme with the song. Later, they found that the audience hadn’t actually noticed the hard work they had done with the subtitles, however, they appreciated their efforts. In addition, they said that “a song’s tempo can have a bearing on the
timing of subtitles. If the tempo is fast, then the subtitle breaks may be fast and frequent” (p. 99).
Second of all, a subtitles translator should consider readability, in addition to the speed of the subtitles, the shape of the letters should also be considered. As Bernschütz (2010) stated "it is well—timed, it
tells all it should, but still, it can be read in the time provided", and "don't show too much at once, don't be
miniature, be well separated" (para. 42). The figures below show two examples:
Figure 1. A poor quality subtitle (Bernschütz, 2010)
Figure 2. A better quality subtitle (Bernschütz, 2010)
132
Another strategy is how to add subtitles on YouTube. Biersdorfer (2013) explained that YouTube
has its own captioning tools in which you can add subtitles, if that’s where you want to share the video
only. He stated that “as YouTube's own Help guide notes, adding text makes the clip more accessible for
those with hearing impairments” (p. B.9). Furthermore, he mentioned that if you have any trouble with
adding captions, YouTube has guidelines and services to help you at (https://support.google.com/youtube/
answer/100076?hl=en).
Last but not least, translating subtitles can be quite challenging sometimes especially when translating 3D subtitles. Zhang, Li, Lan, and Wang (2013) defined a 3D video as a “stereo vision system, usually by means of a three-dimensional image to produce a certain depth in the human brain” (p. 310). If
we use the traditional technique for subtitles, it will block the original image of the video; therefore, it
will confuse the audience, and will cause them headaches, nausea, and other unpleasant reactions. They
commented that “such subtitles will hinder the smooth viewing instead” (p. 310).
In conclusion, Bannon (2010) explained that “subtitles should complement the tonal nature of
language-the sounds, pauses and stresses of an actors’ on-screen performance” (para. 1). In order to
translate subtitles perfectly, subtitlers must combine the sounds with the subtitles to make it easier for the
viewers to enjoy whatever they are watching. He also mentioned that “viewers rely on subtitles to clarify
which sounds, if any, play a role in the dialogue’s intent” (para. 2). In addition, linguist Robert Henry
Robins said that the translator must balance all the elements to make it similar to the original, and this requires being experienced in the language.
References
Bannon, D. (2010). Tonality in subtitle translation. Retrieved from http://translationjournal.net/journal/
Bernschütz, M. (2010). Empirical study of subtitled movies. Retrieved from http://
translationdirectory.com/articles.htm
Biersdorfer, J. D. (2013). Adding subtitles to videos: [Question]. New Y ork Times, Late Edition (East
Coast). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1320042162?accountid=142908
Fong, G., & Au, K. (Eds.). (2009). Dubbing and subtitling in a world context. Retrieved from http://
books.google.come.sa
Gottlieb, H. (1994). Subtitling: People translating people. Retrieved from http://sdl.edu.sa/SDLPortal/EN
Zhang, X. Y., Li, S. B., Lan, S. Z., & Wang, J. (2013). 3D subtitles superimposed technical overview. A pplied Mechanics & Materials. doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.433-435.310
133
B us i nes s N a me
Arabicization: “Selfie” and “Facebook”
By Sara N. Al-Sager
The arabicization term means using non-Arabic terms in Arabic speech or written words.
It needs to be mentioned there are huge difference between arabization and arabicization. Al-
Haq and Mizher (2014) argued the difference between them "Arabization indicates a reference
to the people and culture of the Arabs while Arabicization refers derived morphologically from
Arabic language" (p. 53). Arabicization is one of the major issued in translation world. Arabic
is a language full of words but sometimes it faces difficulties to translate new words specially it
has new concept.
At the beginning, we need to explain more arabicization term by giving some examples.
Daraghmah, Shehab, and Ashqar (2014) gave some examples in technology terms such as the
term "server the Arabic term is ‫ خادم‬and the arabicization term is .”‫( سيرفر‬p. 4). It can be
noticed so easily that the word "‫ "سيرفر‬is more known than the word ."‫ "خادم‬That might leads to
the first reason of this issue which is people are opened to new culture and world and want to be
included.
Coulmas (1989) stated that "the other issue is translating progress is being held by many
reasons. The real problem of Arabic as a language is not linguistic, but lies in the largely uncreative modern Arab culture. A language can develop and mature only to the extent that its users
are developed and mature" (p. 54). When the society and the culture accept the modern inventions and become modernize, they will present and name them in their own language.
In addition, one of the most common problems is the over use of the arabicization terms.
When the native speakers attend to use an English term for long period and get use to it, they
will not accept the new Arabic term for it; it will cause the increasing of the arabicization words
usage. As what Ya'qub (1986) stated "the overuse of lexical borrowing could endanger the core
of Arabic language and could render it incomprehensible [ as cited in Terminology and translation: A phonological-semantic approach to arabic , Darwish, 1988]". (p. 114).
134
There is a more bigger problem which is Arabic language cannot be conceder as an official language for many fields such as; medical , technical, etc. Also, these majors need a
language of wider communication in order for the scholars maintain connection with each
other. In order to solve these issues, there are few affective solutions according to Al-Asal
and Samdi (n.d.) "derivation: Arabic facilities the use of derivational for the formation of new
families of technical words, Assigning a new technical meaning to an Arabic word that has
another signification, and they are formed by combining more than one morphological root".
(p. 21).
In conclusion, many difficulties face translators in order to translate certain or new
words, and that affect the process and the delay of Arabic language development. These reasons can be summarized in brief way. The delay of culture development depending on its
people, Arabic is not considered as wide world communication language, and people not accepting the Arabic terms. We need to improve ourselves in translation field. As what Alfaleq said when she had her own center " the center will focus on effective methods for translating important scientific books" (para.1).
References
Al-Afaleq, A. (2014, January 26). Saudi woman heads research center. Saudi Gazette. Retrieved from http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/
Al-Asal, M., & Smadi, O. (n.d.). Arabicization and arabic expanding techniques used in science lectures in two arab universities. Perspectives in the Arts and Humanities
Asia, 2094(9375), 1-38. Retrieved from http://journals.ateneo.edu
Al-Haq, F., & Mizher, R. (2014). Attitudes towards using standard Arabic among academic
staff at balqa applied university/center in Jordan: A sociolinguistic study. International
Journal of English Linguistics, 4(1), 53-59. Retrieved from www.ccsenet.org
Coulmas, F. (1989). Language adaptation [Cambridge University Press]. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.sa
Daraghmah, A., Shehab, E., & Ashqar, A. (2014). Working without words: The methods of
translating open access technological English texts into Arabic. Linguistics and Literature Studies, 2(1), 1-10. Retrieved from http://www.hrpub.org
Darwish, A. (1998). Terminology and translation: A phonological-semantic approach to Arabic terminology. Retrieved from http://catalogue.nla.gov.au
135
B us i nes s N a me
A Pragmatic Analysis of Mistranslated Arabic Expressions to English
By Hadeel S. Ismail
The process of translation is transferring meaning from one language into another to find equivalent units. However, it could be challenging finding the equivalents due to the pragmatic and cultural
differences between languages (Samardali, Al momen, & Kitishat, 2013). According to Levinson,
pragmatics is defined as “the relation between structure and extra linguistic context. It concentrates on
how linguistic expressions are encoded by their context” (as cited in Triki, 2013, p. 41), which means
that pragmatics studies language use and how users interpret it.
Therefore, professional or novice translators should take the pragmatic and cultural aspects into
consideration and focus on the meaning and the structure of the message in order to produce the same
effect of the source language expressions in the target language (Kehal & Atamna, 2010; Samardali,
Al momen & Kitishat, 2013; Triki, 2013). An obvious example of this issue is translating from Arabic
to English. Without a doubt, some non-Arabic speaking translators face obstacles while translating
Arabic expressions due to their lack of understanding in the Arabic pragmatics and cultural background.
Austin, 1979, tells that the utterance “I do” said in a marriage ceremony implies performing an
action rather than saying something. Triki (2013) points out that translating such utterance into Arabic
will require the translators to use their cross-cultural knowledge to convey the message into the target
language properly because both languages differ in pragmatics and culture. Hence, instead of translating “I do” equivalently into ,”‫ “أنا أفعل‬it would be better translated into ”‫ “أنا أوافق‬which means I agree
(p. 42).
Some translation students at Yarmouk University were asked to translate local expressions
found in Jaradat’s Jordanian short story Habilat Bishra from Arabic to English. The story included
expressions like ”‫ “یوم لك ویوم عليك‬,”‫ “سقا هللا‬,”‫ “أیام العز‬and ,”‫ “عقال‬but the most problematic one was ‫“یوم‬
,”‫ لك ویوم عليك‬which some students translated it into “a day for you and a day against you.” (Samardali,
Al momen, & Kitishat, 2013, p. 167). In fact, the expression indicates that life does not stay the same
and everybody will experience good and bad days. Thus, translating the expression literally will result
in vagueness to the TL reader. So, the authentic translation that conveys the same effect of the SL is
“win a few and lose a few.” (p. 167).
136
Another Arabic expression from Najeeb Mahfouz’s novel ”‫ “یوم قتل الزعيم‬was given to
translation students. The utterance was “‫ “فترة انتظار ثملة بالدفء تحت الغطاء الثقيل‬Different meanings are
conveyed in the word .”‫“ثمل‬Therefore, in could be translated in many ways into English, such as,
intoxicated, boozy, screwed, etc. The literal translation would be “drunk”. However, the appropriate equivalent that conveys the meaning of ”‫ “ثمل‬according to its usage in the context is
“full” (Triki, 2013).
Triki, 2013, adds that the term ”‫“انتظار‬was translated by all students to “waiting”, which is
the denotative meaning. However, according to the context in which the term is used, the term
should be translated into “expectation”. Hence, “a moment of expectation full of warmth beneath
the heavy cover” is considered the professional and ideal translation that conveys the same implicit
meaning and gives the same effect that the real author wanted to render (p. 43).
To conclude, it is clear that translators of different languages experience difficulties when
different cultures and languages come into contact with each other, and as a result, a cultural gap is
created. For that purpose, all translators should be familiar with pragmatics to fill in the cultural
gap by inferring what goes through the writer’s or speaker’s mind in the source language to meet
the reader’s or hearer’s expectation of the target language. (Bernardo, 2010; Kehal & Atamna,
2010; Noori, 2012).
References
Austin, J. (1979). Performative utterances. Philosophical Papers, 233-252. Retrieved from http://
roundtable.kein.org/sites/newtable.kein.org
Bernardo, A. (2010). Translation As text transfer – Pragmatic implications. Retrieved from http://
www.clunl.edu.pt/
Kehal, M., & Atamna, E. (2010). Problems in English Arabic translation of reference pragmatic aspects. Retrieved from http://bu.umc.edu.dz/
Noori, B. (2012). A pragmatic analysis of polite forms in English and Arabic: A contrastive study.
Retrieved from http://www.iasj.net/
Samardali, M., Al momani, M., & Kitishat, A. (2013). An investigation into some pragmatic and
cultural problems in translating Arabic implicature into English: A case study Of Jaradat’s
“habilat bishra”. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu
Triki, M. (2013). A pragmatic approach to the study of English / Arabic translation errors. Journal
Academica Foundation, 3(1). Retrieved from www.journalacademica.org
137
B us i nes s N a me
Translating Cultural Expressions: Proverbs
By Moudhi Al-Johar
The term ”provebs” was defined by El-Yasin and Al-Shehabat in 2007 as a short pithy sayings which express timeless truth and wisdom. They arrest one’s thoughts, causing the reader to reflect on how one might apply divine principles to life situations. Proverbs contain insight both in
poetry and prose; yet, at the same time, they include commands to be obeyed. Surely, a deeper look
into Arabic vs. English cultural expressions could show a lot of difficulties in how to translate proverbs in particular.
Egibal and Badawi (1996) stated that Arabic is like any other natural language, has evolved
throughout its long history, but its traditional mode of study has remained relatively unchanged and
has continued to dominate the investigation of the language for some centuries. The topics span a
wide spectrum and include a historical account of attitudes to language and the origin of speech in
the Arab world, “an analysis of contemporary Arabic, a theoretical framework for teaching Arabic
to non-Arabic speakers, considerations for lexicography in collocational dictionaries, a new perspective on diachronic morphological innovation in Arabic” (para. 4).
The same concerns are also brought up in Bridges and Bellis article. They discuss translating
proverbs specifically in medieval schoolrooms of teaching Latin. First, it argues about “the question
of what happens to the nature of proverbial wisdom when modulated from the supposedly oral, vernacular, folk context of its primary application” (p. 68), the second one is about written context of
the classroom. They added that it considers the same proverbs, which appear as translation sentences when they incorporate elsewhere into poetry, pondering the comparable ways in which that genre
used them to construct authority, vernacularity, and orality (2014).
There are some difficulties that translators face in translating proverb expressions from Arabic into English. Many ways and strategies to translate proverbs either bring the same meaning to
of target language or translating it literally if it is possible. Here’s an example that Mitib stated in
his 2014 article “‫ “یصوم ویفطر على بصله‬he could not translated it literally because it would give a
weak and prosaic effect so instead as a better solution he came up with the same meaning using different sentence in English “a clean fast is better than a dirty breakfast” which means it's better to
give than to receive (para. 46).
138
Hayes and Roberts (1978) explain that translating proverbs have to do with social meaning
because a lot of non-native people may be lost in the process. Social meaning conveys the idea
that the use of proverbs by native language users is confirmation of their common knowledge because they belong to a certain culture. Therefore, translators should consider relevance in the
translating proverbs. For example, “ ‫ ”اكفى الجرة على فمها تطلع البنت ألمها‬could be translated in
English equivalent or meaning “Like a mother, like a daughter” so it is a fact that relevance is indeed one of the factors which they should pay special attention to the interpretation of proverbs
(p. 78).
According to McArthur, 1994, the cat has seven souls, not nine. By the same concept, in
Arabic “one bird in the hand is better than ten on the tree.” The first proverb uses the word
“souls” instead of “lives” and the second uses “on the tree” rather than “in the bush.” When a
non-native speaker of Arabic read some of them he or she will remember the English versions of
the proverbs while others might look odd at the first glance since they do not know with what it is
used for. It all depends on “This information is an addition to the reader’s knowledge” (p. 104).
References
Elgibali, A., & Badawi, E. (1996). Understanding A rabic: Essays in contemporary A rabic linguistics. Retrieved from books.google.com
El-Yasin, M., & Al-Shehabat, A. (2005). Translating proverbs. V ariations on Night & Day. Retrieved from ebscohost.com
Hayes, J., & Roberts, J. (1987). Young adult male categorizations of fifty Arabic proverbs. A nthropological Linguistics. Retrieved from www.jstor.org
Kassis, R. (1999). The book of proverbs and A rabic proverbial works, volume 74. Retrieved from
google.books
McArthur, T. (1998). Proverb. Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. Retrieved
from www.encyclopedia.com
Mitib, A. (2014). Informativity of Arabic proverbs in context: An Insight into Palestinian discourse. International Journal of Linguistics. Retrieved from www.questia.com
139
B us i nes s N a me
Cultural Hindrances in Translation from English to Arabic
By Marwah I. Al-Nashar
Our ability to communicate thoroughly with each other is what makes us quite different from other
species in this vast universe. Such unique and peculiar ability has a relatively extraordinary tool through
which it is displayed. Knowledge and beliefs are carried out from culture to culture in the form of language; which serves as a tool in the process of communication. Languages, however, aren't the same.
Each language is designed differently. Many factors, including culture, are responsible for such divergence. According to Dweik and Suleiman (2013), language is affected by people's culture and beliefs
whether consciously or unconsciously.
While the role of culture in forming languages is obvious, translation, as an act that occurs in languages, is usually defined rather vaguely. Most translation definitions disregard the connection between
language and culture, and only emphasize on the importance of finding equivalent terms in different languages. One example of those definitions is that of Catford's (1965); he defined translation as "the replacement of textual material in one language by equivalent textual material in another language" (p. 20).
Nida (1964), however, was one of the few who included culture in their definitions; he stated that translation is "to facilitate the massage, meaning, and culture from one language into another" (p. 13).
According to Ilys (1989), this connection is depicted in the English simile "as white as snow".
When translated into a language whose speakers have no experience with snow, say Arabs, it can be carried out accurately by finding a non-corresponding but functionally equivalent Arabic expression that
would match the English one. A suitable translation can be derived from the Arabs' culture and from what
they are acquainted with that could match the snow in terms of whiteness. "As white as cotton" (p. 124) is
an acceptable option since cotton is more familiar to Arabs than snow, and it, undoubtedly, matches the
snow in whiteness.
Another example that illustrates how language mirrors culture is given by Dickins, Hervey, and
Higgins (2013); according to them, the phrase "‫ "إن شاء هللا‬presents a quite intriguing cultural issue.
Although it is neither unusual nor exactly wrong to see this sentence translated as "by the will of Allah",
especially by Muslims, it still has an exotic meaning and considered to be alien to those who might be unknowledgeable of Islam and its terms. The phrase "‫ "إن شاء "هللا‬can be simply translated as "God willing".
Preferably outside religious context, a rough alternative translation, with a significant translation loss, and
a risk of distorting the intended meaning, is "it is to be hoped that" (p. 210).
140
Scott (2010) states that the real challenge lies within the translation of a concept which doesn’t
exist in the culture of the target language. Arabic language, as any other language, has plenty of concepts and terms derived from its speakers' culture and religion. It is nearly impossible to find a corresponding term for Sahuur, Tayammum, or Iddah in the western world or in any other different world
where Islam, the source of these terms, didn’t have a significant impact on its culture and language
(para. 2).
The crux of translation was never pursuing the equivalence in two different languages. The
fact that language is influenced by culture is what makes translation a demanding job. Translators
and those who attempt learning a new language are bound to deal with culturally determined concepts. A translator must delve within the culture of both source and target languages in order to
achieve a precise and error-free translation that conveys the genuine meaning of what is being translated.
References
Catford, J. C. (1965). A linguistic theory of translation. London: Oxford University Press.
Dickins, J., Hervey, S., & Higgins, I. (2013). Thinking A rabic translation: A course in translation
method: Arabic to English. Routledge. Retrieved from http://books.google.come.sa
Dweik, B. M., & Suleiman, M. (2013). Problems encountered in translating cultural expressions from
Arabic into English. International Journal of English Linguistics, 3(5), 47. Retrieved
from http://www.proquest.com
Ilyas, A. (1989). Theories of translation. Mowsil: University of Mowsil.
Nida, E. (1946). Toward a science of translation. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Scott, J. (2010). Cultural differences in translating Arabic. Trusted Translations. Retrieved
from http://www.trustedtranslations.com
141
B us i nes s N a me
Interpretation Difficulties: Fluency
By Njoud A Al-Khorayef
According to Weber, “an interpreter conveys information on language to the other in the oral
modality; a translator conveys information in the written modality” (as cited in Rhodes, Ochoa & Ortiz,
2005, p. 92). The author illustrates the difference in conveying information between interpreter and
translator. Others such as Black (2013) have defined an interpreter as “a professional who is fluent in
two or more languages” (p. 182). He stressed that an interpreter speaks two languages fluently and that
means speaking two languages without fluency is not enough to be a professional interpreter. Indeed,
interpreters face lots of difficulties that may occur issues relating to fluency.
Munková, Hodáková, and Welnitzová (2014) explain that fluency of a language is determined by
comprehension, cohesion, coherence and by the translator's ability to preserve the rules within the
macrostructure and microstructure of the target language (p. 223). They explain the general meaning of
language fluency which contains oral fluency as well. In 1992, Harris stated that fluency constitutes a
significant impact on the performance of translation when the target language is not the native language
of the interpreter.
The reason of why fluency has a strong effect in the interpretation process is because without it,
a lot of issues occur. According to Hervey, Higgings, and Loughridge (2003) one of the fluency factors
is "stress" (p. 121). As they mentioned stress is one of the important features of interpretation because
an interpreter who does not have enough knowledge about stress in the target language will lead to misunderstanding in his translations. As in the English language, there are a lot of words which have the
same spelling, but their meaning are completely different and to distinguish between them, only stress in
pronunciation can help to know the difference between them.
An example of how stress could change the meaning of the word is in the English word "desert"
which can be a noun or a verb with the same spelling, but different pronunciation (i.e. syllable stress).
If "de-zert" is used as a noun, the stress is on the first syllable and in the Arabic language it means
,"‫ "الصحراء‬on the other hand, if "de-zert" is a verb, the stress should be on the second syllable and in the
Arabic language it means ‫ یهجر أو یترك‬. Another issue is that when the interpreter lacks fluency, he will
not be able to translate quickly and smoothly. That means he will take time to translates while one of
the primary requirements to be a professional interpreter is to have the ability to translate at the same
time of hearing the source language.
142
Despite this difficulty, solutions must be found. First, as Akbar mentioned "training in both
source and target language" (2012, p. 42). In fact, practice and training is important to the translation
profession. Another solution according to Alsamani and Hassan is to listen a lot in the target language. They associate the concept of English fluency with improving all skills especially listening
skills (2013). Last, relying on dictionaries to know the correct pronunciation is useful because some
dictionaries provide the phonological word such as the IPA dictionary (International Phonetic Alphabet).
To sum up, oral translation is always quite different in nature and impact. Fluency plays an im-
portant role in transferring the meaning in the interpretation process. It is crucial because without it a
lot of overlapping in the meaning may happen. Also it takes time to pronounce the correct sound for
these translators who lack fluency. Sometimes even though they take enough time, they are not able
to pronounce the correct sound because they are not familiar with it. There are various ways to improve fluency such as practicing, listening, and benefiting from dictionaries.
References
Akbar, M. (2012). Media translation. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa/books
Alsamani, A. S., & Hassan, S. F. U. (2013, October). Acquisition of English language fluency of intensive course students at Buraydah community college: Challenges and recommendations.
Language In India, 13(10), 112+ . Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id
Black, B. P. (2013). Professional nursing: Concepts & challenges. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa/books
Harris, R. J. (1992). Cognitive processing in bilinguals advances in psychology. Retrieved from
https://books.google.ae/books
Hervey, S., Higgins, I., & Loughridge, M. (2003). Thinking German translation: A course in translation method. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Munková, D., Hodáková, S., & Welnitzová, K. (2014). Causal uncertainty and translation. Studia
Psychologica, 56(3), 221-232. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/
docview/1616505680?accountid=142908
Rhodes, R. L., Ochoa, S. H., & Ortiz, S. O. (2005). A ssessing culturally and linguistically diverse students: A practical guide the guilford practical intervention in the schools series. Retrieved
from https://books.google.com.sa/books
143
B us i nes s N a me
Translate Easily
By Sara Salih Alqahtani
With the development of Internet technology, translation applications are applied to manual localization, travel conversation and cross-language information retrieval. Li defines the translation application as “use computer for translation of text or speech between two different languages” (para. 1).
Although great progress has been made in translation applications, many problems remain unresolved.
So, many applications have been established to try to solve some of these problems. In fact, translation
applications have many examples especially in this developed world (Li, 2014).
Some people believe that people who travel to European countries to spend their vacation face
some difficulties because of the variety in language and lifestyle. It has been stressed that “Google
Translate is one of the most important programs that can benefit users and help them during their journey” (para. 1). Although Google Translate is one of the most important applications, it is still facing
some critical problems because it literally translates words. Also, it translates single words or short
phrases not long sentences. Google Translate makes life easier when we have contact with foreigners
because it translates words into 80 languages and translates words using voice recognition (“Google
Translate,” 2014).
The second application is transfer-based systems, which try to find mappings between specific
language pairs, and even more so for interlingua-based applications translation systems aiming to find a
language-independent representation that mediates among arbitrary languages. Seipel believes that “in
most cases a semantic representation of the sentence meaning is used as interlingua” (p. 51). Also, it
has another name which is knowledge-based machine translation systems. Therefore, this application
has not been improved in the last 10 years (2005).
The third application is corpus-like methodologies. It had been used to investigate linguistic
phenomena long before the advent of modern corpus linguistics. The basic assumption of corpus-like is
that translation is fundamentally a mediating process. Kanglong states that “recodification has its own
unique features which might come under the interference of the source text” (p. 37). In addition, the
rapid development of computer technology and availability of corpus software in recent years has enabled corpus linguistics to develop into a full-fledged methodology. The situation is the same in the field
of translation studies (2014).
144
The last translation application is smart modules. A smart module provides a service almost
instantaneously and is configurable for different applications. Authors agree that “A language model,
generated from a variety of audio recordings and data, provides guidance for the speech-recognition
system by acting as a knowledge source about the language properties” (p. 39). The design goals for
it included reducing latency, minimizing weight, volume, and power consumption. Smart modules
are divided into two types. The first one is speech-to-text language recognition and text-to-speech
synthesis. The second one is text-to-text language translation (Siewiorek, Smailagic, & Starner,
2008).
To conclude, every two weeks a new language is discovered. So, if we don’t have these appli-
cations, how will these languages be saved and understood? The author believes that “translation devises allow people to communicate across language barriers” (0:45). Translation applications have
made life easier than before. When the person wants to travel to any foreign country, he doesn’t need
to know or understand their language. All he needs is a good application in his phone to communicate with them (Thinking, 2014).
References
Google translate can help travelers who are lost in translation (2014). Retrieved from http://
www.saudigazette.com.sa/
International Conference on Applications of Declarative Programming and Knowledge Management,
Seipel, D., & International Workshop on Logic Programming. (2005). Applications of declarative programming and knowledge management: 15th International conference on applications
of declarative programming and knowledge management, INAP 2004, and 18th workshop on
logic programming, WLP 2004, Potsdam, Germany, March 4-6, 2004 : revised selected papers. Berlin: Springer
Kanglong, L. (2014). The application of Corpora in translation teaching: A critical review. Retrieved
from http://search.ebscohost.com/
Li, P. (2014). Advances of key technology for machine translation and its applications. Retrieved
from http://search.ebscohost.com/
Siewiorek, D. P., Smailagic, A., & Starner, T. E. (2008). Application design for wearable computing.
San Rafael, Calif.: Morgan & Claypool Publishers. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Thinking, F. (2014, March 5). Speak every language with real-time translation! [Video file]. Retrieved from http://youtube.com/
145
B us i nes s N a me
The Spread of Religions Culture Through Translation
By Aljohara A. Al-asaker
The world has become like a small village; we know how others live and what the different cultures are. There are many ways that help the culture spread through the world such as the internet, the
merchant's movement, and translation. In 2012, Abdulghafour reported that "Translation can wield
enormous power in constructing representation of foreign cultures"
(p. 3), and oldest effective way,
was there centuries ago. The kinds of cultures that have spread by translation are traditions, customs,
and religions. Indeed, we have now become familiar to some well-known religions because of translation.
The Islamic culture is a wide spread culture according to Alrais et al. (2014) Islam culture has
spread in the far east through the merchant's activity by the communication between them and different contents. In addition, through translation activities Islamic and Arabic books had been translated
to other languages in "different fields of since and philosophy"(p. 15) for many centuries. The big influence of the Islamic culture appeared and many foreign scholars and thinkers noticed that. Also, Abdulgafour (2012) stated that since India has many religions, a leading Islamic movement tried "to fill
this gap and remove the misunderstandings of Hindus, Christians and other non-Muslims in the country" (para. 2).
In addition, translation has its role in the spreading of Christianity through different centuries
and countries. Stine (n.d.) explained that at the beginning of the church spreading out from Eastern
Mediterranean, its spread "has been paralleled by Bible translation" (p. 1). Translation existed before
and maybe motivate the building of a new church; "more than it followed" (p. 1). Also, the expansion
of church in third world countries brought with it more numbers of languages, which the Bible was
translated, into all or part of it.
As for Judaism, Tuyl (2012) discussed an important factor that helped Judaism to spread and it
is the translation of Torah from Hebrew into Greek. Because the Greeks wanted to know the Judean
society, they demanded a copy of the Torah written in their language. He explained that the Greek
version of Torah was the expansion of all areas of "Greek influence" (p. 471). Without this translation, Judaism would never spread that much. When the translation was done, educated people were
able to read it.
146
Buddhism is a wide spread religion in Asia. Translators have suffered a lot to deliver the
message of the Buddhist through their books. Duarte et al. highlights the humiliation that the old
Buddhist monks and translators have suffered in the Chinese society that ended with the arrival of
the smart effective Buddhist scholars. They showed a commitment to translation and sciences and
they were supportive and imperial protectors. This, hence, made the spread of Buddhism so fast and
for "the introduction of astronomical, calendrical, and medical studies all over China" (2012, p.
151).
In conclusion, translation has served people, science, technology and nations in their devel-
opment. I think that the most important role that translation played is to introduce us to other religions and their histories. A lot of people entered Islam because of the translated books about Islam
and also other religions. We should appreciate what translators do because their work is not easy
and it is sometimes dangerous because they are delivering messages; if they make a mistake, they
will pay for it.
References
Abdulghafour, P. (2012, December 21). Spreading the message of Islam in India. Arab News. Retrieved from http://www.arabnews.com/
Alrais, I., Almiziad, A., Alqasim, K., Alsiah, A., & Mohammad, E. (2014). Madkhal ila althakafah
alislamiah [Introduction to the Islamic culture]. Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Madar
Alwatan.
Duarte, J., Rosa, A., & Seruya, T. (Eds.). (2012). Translation studies at the interface of disciplines.
doi:9027216762, 9789027216762
MuMurran, M. (2009). The spread of novels: Translation and prose fiction in the eighteenth century: Translation and prose fiction in the eighteenth century. doi:1400831377,
9781400831371
Tuyl, J. (2012). A new chronology for Old Testament times: With solutions to many hitherto unsolved problems through the use of rare texts. doi:1477219420, 9781477219423
Stine, P. (Ed.). (n.d.). Bible translation and the spread of the church: The last 200 years.
doi:9004093311, 9789004093317
147
B us i nes s N a me
Idiomatic Expressions and Translating Strategies
By Nada M. AlOtaibi
Translation typically has been used to transfer written or spoken SL texts to equivalent written or
spoken TL texts. In general, the purpose of translation is to reproduce various kinds of texts in another
language and thus making them available to a wider range of readers. The difference between an SL and
a TL and the variation in their cultures make the process of translating a real challenge. Among the problematic factors involved in translation are form, meaning, style, proverbs, idioms, etc. The translators
should follow several strategies of translating idiomatic expressions in order to over come these differences.
Bassnett and Susan reported that "One of the difficulties a translator must has when translating the
idiomatic expressions is cultures" (p. 20). Since English and Arabic speaking people have different cultures due to the religion, language, media, etc., a translator of these languages can only get the implied
meanings, the connotations, and the denotations if he has a solid foundation about the culture of the target
language. Therefore, the translating process will be easier and smother (1991).
In 2008, Eftekhari stated that the first difficulty that "a translator comes across is being able to recognize that he or she is dealing with an idiomatic expressions. This is not always so obvious, but once an
idiom has been recognized and interpreted correctly, the next step is to decide how to translate it into the
target language" (para. 5). There are considerable strategies a translator should follow when translating
idiomatic expressions.
The first strategy is "Correspondence" using an idiom of similar meaning and form or word for
word. For example: A. All roads lead to Rome .‫ جميع الطرق تؤدي إلى روما‬B. Necessity is the mother of
inventions ‫ الحاجة أم االختراع‬We can notice here there is correspondence, word for word and carry the same
meaning, but this strategy cannot be appropriate all the time due to the differences of culture.
The second strategy is "Equivalence" using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form or expressing the same meaning but they do not have the same words. For example: A. Haste makes waste ‫في‬
.‫ التأني السالمة وفي العجلة الندامة‬B. Birds of feather flock together .‫ الطيور على أشكالها تقع‬These two idioms are
very common in the two languages. "The idioms or fixed expressions in the target language which have
meanings similar to that of the source idioms or expressions, but which consists of different lexical
items" (p. 54). They express the same meaning with different words so they are equal and that's why we
called them equivalent meaning (Phythian, 1989).
148
The third strategy is "Paraphrase". We tend to use this strategy when a match cannot be found in the
target language or due to the differences of the cultures. In their 2010 article, Gebo team points to the fact that
the Arabic culture is the language of the dessert, lions, and camels unlike English which is the language of the
seas and modern technology. As a result, they have stressed that the idioms are no longer there in the target
language but we transfer their meanings. For example: A. Better be married than to be alone ‫ظل رجل وال ظل‬.
‫ حيطة‬B. All good things come to an end .‫كل شمس لها مغيب‬If you notice here, there are no idioms in the target
language but we just transfer their meanings.
Dr. Nahed Wasfi (2014) has mentioned this idiom in Arabic "‫"رجع بخفي حنين‬and it has a long story. It
means that someone returns with no benefits just as he left and nothing has changed, so if we manage to use
the first strategy the correspondence to transfer this idiom to the TL it will be like "he returned with Hanian's
slipper" and that's wrong because the reader of the target language will not understand what I meant by Hanian's slipper and that idiom does not exist in their culture. We also cannot use the equivalence strategy because there is no equivalent idiom in the English culture. However, the best strategy to use here is the paraphrase and it will be like "he returned empty-handed" (p. 29).
Munday and Jeremy have stated that "the Idioms are phrases or fixed expressions that have figurative
meanings are different from the literal meaning" (p. 23). A translator cannot figure out their meanings by just
knowing each single word or using the dictionary, but he or she has to learn more about the target language
culture in order to reproduce an appropriate version of the text (2001). The following website is recommended
for Arabic idioms http://www.amtalona.com/. For English idioms, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiom. These
websites will be beneficial when approaching idiomatic expressions and determining the best strategy to use,
whether it be correspondence, equivalence, or paraphrase.
References
Bassnett and Susan. (1991). Translation studies: Revised edition, London and New York: Routledge.
Eftekhari, N. (2008). A brief overview on idiomatic translation. Retrieved from http://
www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article1739.php
Gebo team. (2010).The art of translation and definition and methods and difficulties with highlighting the role
of the translator. Retrieved from http://www.startimes.com/f.aspx?t=21757399
Munday and Jeremy. (2001). Introducing translation studies: Theories and applications. London and New
York: Routledge
Phythian, B. A.(1989). A concise dictionary of English idioms. Hodder and Stoughton Educational.
Wasfi, N. (2014). Introduction to translation. COLT, KSU.
149
B us i nes s N a me
The Impact of Globalization on Translation and Translators
By Shahad A. Al-Bednah
The term ”globalization” was defined by Greenfield in 2011 as a rapid increase in international trade
and investment in the last 20 years which is breaking down national borders and creating a single global
economy - often called the 'global village'. Globalization has been an on-going process, but its impact on
translation became more obvious when the Internet revealed to what extent language and culture are conspicuous barrier, to borderless digital communication (O’hagan & Ashworth, 2002; "What is Globalisation?," 2001) .In fact, Globalization has had an enormous impact on translation and translators’ lives.
In 2004, the author points to the fact that the Internet has changed the translation profession and professional translators became largely employed as full-time or part-time job staff members by translation. They also used company computers to complete their translation jobs so many translators started to
work at their homes. As Cronin’s survey shows "over 88 percent of Irish professional translators now work
from home" (2003, p. 107). Downsizing business and outsourcing jobs to freelance translator, on a large
scale in the course of globalization has driven staff translators to become freelance translators (George).
Moreover, academic research should be determined more by the rules of market economy than by the
government's political intervention, thereby linking economic construction to cultural construction more
closely. What we should do at the moment is first go along with the trend of globalization before using it to
expand the influence of Chinese culture. Thus, it is quite reasonable to attach great importance to translation
as well as translation studies since translation plays a vital role in inter-cultural communication in a context
of globalization. In present age of globalization, translation plays a more and more important role in international communication, especially in English-Chinese translation with the internet being more and more popular in the non-English speaking world (Robertson & White, 2003).
Furthermore, the effect of globalization had a tremendous linguistic and social impact on translation
or translation studies simply because globalization necessitated translation. Nowadays, parts of the world
are becoming interested in one another due to many reasons. For me, the fact that globalization has always
been a significant aspect of translation because translation brings cultures closer. One aspect of translation
can be applicable to the translation of literary or scientific texts but the fact that globalization has brought
with it so many innovations with regard to all genres is a case in point. In Arabic, words that emerged as a
result of technology such as, fax, mobile and laptop are such examples (Shiyab, Rose, House, & Duval,
2010).
150
Shiyab, Rose, House and Duval (2010) indicated that globalization has helped translators become
more significant mediators among cultures though a better understanding that can be accomplished. One
cannot deny that the result of globalization, people develop a deep interest in familiarizing themselves
with other cultures and what better way to do this but though translation. Furthermore, Internet services
have become a way of life and with the increased demand on such services; there will be a demand on
translation and translators.
In conclusion, scholars in the field of translation have fervently discussed globalization. At the
translation level, globalization has affected the lives of everyone including the profession of translation
and the life of translators with the technology and the emergence of new words and concepts. It has enabled the English language and to some extent the French language to spread, it has also given an opportunity to all languages to take their rightful place in the world. At the cultural level, translation can bridge
the gap between people and nations and globalization has contributed in a more effective way towards
understanding the source language and culture (Alghamdi, 2012; Shiyab, Rose, House, & Duval, 2010).
References
Alghamdi, A. (2012). Arabs and the Arabic language. Saudi Gazette. Retrieved from http://
www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20120801131774
George, H. (2004). Globalisation and translation: Towards a paradigm shift in translation studies. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/305111592/abstract/963F409F463E4B14PQ/1?
accountid=142908
O'hagan, M., & Ashworth, D. (n.d.). Translation-mediated communication in a digital world: Facing the
challenges of globalization and localization (2002 ed.). Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa/books
Robertson, R., & White, K. E. (Eds.). (2003). Globalization: Specialized applications and resistance to
globalization. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa/books
Shiyab, S. M., Rose, M. G., House, J., & Duval, J. (2010). Globalization and aspects of translation. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa/books
What is 'globalisation'? (2001, 12). Asian Labour Update, Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/
docview/207235031?accountid=142908
151
B us i nes s N a me
Gender: Feminization of Translation
By Abeer A. Al-Saaed
Specializing in translation has opened other important fields of study; devoted scholars have studied
translation from different perspectives, such as “historical dimension” (p. 32), “social expression” (p. 7), and
primary “literary field” (p. 3) since translation was originally viewed as a literary activity and not as an independent discipline (Simon, 2003). During the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, translation was restricted
to masculinity as any other occupation at that time. Though women in the past were oppressed and excluded
from expressing themselves, translation was a permissible option to speak up and gain a position in the
world.
Delisle and Woodsworth (1995) agree that society used to control, and reject female translators in the
past. Also, Brown (2009) stresses the fact that women were viewed culturally and socially as dedicated
housewives; thus, translation was considered as an inappropriate profession for their sex. However, translation has performed a significant role during many stages of women’s literary professions (Williams,
2010). In 2003, Simon supports the fact that “women’s liberation must first be a liberation of/from lan-
guage” (p. 7) since she observes translation as writing practices which has the ability to convey cultural and
feminist thoughts.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, any work, whether it was literary or translation, that
was composed by women was neglected or disregarded even if it was highly competent. So Delisle and
Woodsworth (1995) note that plenty of physicians and doctors performed the duty of translating although
they were not qualified to translate. Consequently, it compelled women to use translation as a means to provide for themselves a position in the world. In his 1999 dissertation, Uman agrees that Aphra Ben used to
manipulate nationalist and colonialist discourses to allow a “literate Englishwomen to occupy a higher social
status” (p. 193).
Many researchers believe that women back then had no impact on their societies since they were shut
out or restrained by the rules which were imposed on them. In spite of that mentality, many powerful women were able to break that barrier by limited entry into translation. George Eliot, a pseudonym for Mary Ann
Evans, was first known as the transltress of Strauss before she was known as a novelist (Simon, 2003). Simon adds that female translators played a significant role in the social movements, for example, in firstwave feminism and fight against slavery. By these movements, female translators made “translation an expression of their political convictions” (p. 2).
152
Enlightened by recent studies about the impact of the translated text on target readers, it seems to
me that one should bear in mind many things, such as its relevance to the receiving audience or, more importantly, speech act theory. The first area of study is the ideology and position of a translator. In 2013,
Tymoczko studies in detailed various aspects that are mirrored in the translated text, as prime examples,
ideological and cultural or even geographical (as cited in Alhossary, 2013). I believe that studying pragmatics as an essential part of translation studies enables us to comprehend and discern the subliminal messages in a translated text.
The second important area of study is speech act theory which is comprised of two things: illocutionary intention and perlocutionary effect. According to Austin 1962, illocutionary act means
“utterances which have a certain force”, whereas perlocutionary act indicates “what we bring about or
achieve by saying something” (as cited in Jiang, 2012). While similar in concept, Jiang observes illocutionary intention, from translation standpoint, initially occurs in the translator’s mind after that it conveys
implicitly in the translated text; eventually, target readers will take it in as a perlocutionary effect (2012).
In summation, translation was a widespread women’s activity at a time when female poets and
writers lacked the privilege of authorship. As stated in 2010 by Williams, if researchers ignored translation as a literary object that deserves to be included among other literary works, thereby, it disproves a
large section of women’s creative work in the nineteenth century and depicts a fragmented image both of
“feminine literary work” and “generic divisions” (p. 57).
References
Alhossary, R. (2013). Politics of translating A rab women writers into English (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database.
Brown, H. (2009). Women translators in the Sprachgesellschaften1. Brill Academic Publishers, Inc, 38
(3/4), 621-646. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com
Delisle, J., & Woodsworth, J. (Eds.). (1995). Translators through history. Retrieved from https://
books.google.com.sa
Jiang, C. (2012). Rethinking the translator's voice. Springer Science & Business Media, 39(2), 365-381.
Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com
Simon, S. (2003). Gender in translation. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Uman, D. (1999). "This defective edition";: Notions of translation, gender, and authorship in renaissance
England (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database.
Williams, R. (2010). W omen translators in nineteenth-century France: Genre, gender, and literary creativity (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database.
153
B us i nes s N a me
Translation: Challenges in Film Translation
By Ghada W. Almarzouqi
Film translation can be a tough and onerous job. If it’s done well, it can help the acclaim of
film technicians and critics the world over. If done poorly, it can turn a serious drama into a laughout-loud comedy (Cincan, 2013). The challenges of film translating can never be countable, due to
the differences between languages and the gap that list many difficulties which all film translators
might face, but there are main challenges that every translator will stop at, consider deeply and conclude an appropriate translation.
One hard challenge that most translators have agreed to consider it as the toughest part of
film translating is slangs. Zatlin (2005) sees that cultural insinuations are hard to describe even in
the same language, which makes it exponential when translating to a dissimilar. In Yang’s opinion
(2010), the geographical proximity makes slangs translations easier when the two cultures are developed in parallel. Consider this expression: “Da’s kloten van de bok” in Dutch, is usually translated
as “That’s rotten” or “That’s very bad”; however, the literal translation is “That’s testicles of the
goat” (p. 12), which makes absolutely no sense in English when taken out of context.
Another big translating issue always comes when translating profanities. As swearing commonly happens in films that make profanities the first expressions one usually learns (Liu, 2014).
This makes profanity a universal phenomena that are unique to different languages and cultures.
The challenge in translation makes itself known when obscure profanity is used in films. This is especially true in period films, where a dialect that may not be popularly spoken is used. The real
challenge here is to maintain the same level of offensiveness as the original word or phrase (Shi,
2014).
A confusing area due to its complexity is translating nicknames. These are usually effected
by inherent cultural or behavioral connotations. Dimyan (1973) expressed this by another English
to Dutch example: a character called “sticky fingers” might mean that they are a kleptomaniac,
while calling them “plakkerige vingers” in the Dutch version may fall flat (p. 35). In such cases,
some translators merely use the original in the translated version. While this is simpler, it is not
necessarily more effective than literal translation. This becomes a real challenge for film translators
when it comes to movies about gangs or organized crime. (Universal Studios, 2003)
154
The challenges cannot be categorized by typical standards because it usually depends on
the film’s type and genre; it also depends on the grammatical gap between the two languages
sometimes! This happens when a person in a film speak so slowly that the translator will be compelled to separate the sentence word by word to follow the speaker’s talk, but this will disrupt the
word translation in order to make the target language’s grammar be correct, Rapold (2014) consider this as the only perfect way to have an understandable translation.
Coppola (2014) explains that the biggest challenges of translating films are in the cinema
world, where will usually be some difficulties that a translator can face and hardly overcome, especially with having many nuances of spoken, which is why the author defined the film translat-
ing as a tough job. Although that the author find the film translating harder than most other fields
of translation, he believe that “An expert translator will know these challenges, and will surely
have faced some” (para. 3).
References
A. Universal studios home video (Firm),. (2003). Lost in translation. Universal City, CA: Distributed by Universal Studios Home. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Brooks, D. A., Yang, L., & Brinkman, A. (2010). Shakespeare and A sia. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen
Press. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
Cincan, A. C. (2013). Challenges in film translation, Inbox translation (London, UK). Retrieved
from http://inboxtranslation.com/blog/challenges-film-translation/
Liu, J., & Jia, H. (2014). The study of non-verbal allusion translation in film subtitle: Based on
relevance theory. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, doi:10.4304/jltr.5.6.13811386
Dimyan, M. Y. (1973). The effect of gradient in spacing between bubble material and permalloy
film on the translational force of bubble domains. Proceedings of The IEEE, 607, 8.
doi:10.1109/PROC.1973.9369
Rapold, N. R. (2014, June 19). For subtitlers, challenges of meaning and nuance. The NewY ork
Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/movies/for-subtitlerschallenges-of-meaning-and-nuance.html?_r=0
Shi, X. (2014). The English film title translation strategies. Journal of Language Teaching and
Research, doi:10.4304/jltr.5.3.606-610
Zatlin, P. (2005). Theatrical translation and film adaptation: A practitioner's view. Clevedon. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sa
155
B us i nes s N a me
The Translation Services of Business
By Rana A. Aloush
Languages’ values have become more important than before. Therefore, people need translation
services around the world, especially, businessmen to help them understand the matters of business, and
make the communication between the businessmen and the customers smoother and easier. Lingotek
(2012) believes that “translation services today have become a core aspect for most business is a need to
communicate with the global audience with clarity and precision” (para. 6). In fact, translation services
are beneficial for every aspect of business in global trade.
The first benefit is for the businessmen is fast turnaround of translation for their business documents. Many document translation service companies offer very fast turnarounds, and they can return
your document or your set of documents within a 24-hour period. This means you can wrap up your
project within a reasonable time, without compromising on the quality of your product. In some cases,
delivering short certified translations in minimum time is three hours to hurried customers. Also, translators should have years of experience translating thousands of business documents to achieve turnaround of translation (Rev, n.d.).
In addition to fast turnaround is quality emendation and editing. Emendation and editing of documents are an effective part of most translation services, and this is the point of translation services that
many businessmen are looking for. Furthermore, you can give them your business document or anything you want to translate and emendate. Within 24/7 it could be finished quickly, according to how
large your document is. All that is done to ensure you receiving a flawless and high-quality document
that you can use right away ("Benefits of Using Translation Services," n.d.).
Another benefit that translation companies offer is online services. The Internet has had a nu-
merous influence in translation services, because of globalization of the world commercialization.
Nowadays, you can deal with companies on the Internet and with low cost price, since it could be easily
reached at any time or place you need. Therefore, dealing online with translation companies is very
special because of its advanced technology in sending and receiving documents at anytime. Also, this
modern technique is useful when you don't have much time. First, you create a file and then you put
your business or your product description in the file. Finally, you open your e-mail and send it to the
company’s email address, and you will wait for a while to receive your document translated (Zahorsky,
n.d.).
156
Finally, to serve new businessmen who have a small business from around the world is the
websites. Furthermore, companies made translation websites that give you the open option of multilingual interface. You will find that many companies’ websites today offer multilanguage an options
on their websites so that businessmen do not have to face problems while trying to place their business orders or the product and organization description as well. In addition, the costumers will know
about the businesses’ goals, scopes, and plans, so that it make them comfortable dealing with the
company (Doug, 2011).
With more and more businessmen opting for translating their business documents at the differ-
ent types of translation services that the companies offer, translation services should be increasing as
well to get the benefits, and for these businesses, it is surely going to expand and to reach a global audience.
References
Doug. (2011, April 27). 3 benefits of professional translation for your website. Retrieved from http://
www.alsintl.com/blog/website-translation/
Harrison, K. (2012). Reap the benefits of using translation services. business2community, 5. Retrieved from http://www.business2community.com/strategy/reap-the-benefits-of-usingtranslation-services-0289167
Lingotek, Inc. (2012, September 13). Important of translation services. Retrieved from http://
www.slideshare.net/Lingotek/importance-of-translation-services
Rev. (n.d.). Rev's professional translation services provide excellent quality and fast turnaround for
businesses. Retrieved from https://www.rev.com/translation/business
Sarson, M. (2013, March 18). The benefits of using professional translation services for your business. Retrieved from http://www.comtranslations.com/translation-blog/the-benefits-of-usingprofessional-translation-services-for-your-business/
Zahorsky, D. (n.d.). Business opportunity in language translation services. Magatopia, 5. Retrieved
from http://sbinformation.about.com/od/startingabusiness/a/translationbiz.htm
157