Translation of English Idioms Into Arabic Dr. Abdul-Fattah Abu-Ssaydeh English Department University of Sharjah Abstract This paper consists of three parts; the first part examines the definition of “idiom” as a technical term, primarily from a translational perspective, and the strategies usually employed by Arab translators when translating English idioms. The second part analyses the Arabic translations given in a sample of two hundred and fifty-three English idioms in terms of strategies and the significance of their frequency. This analysis reveals four important things: 1) Statistically, the most common strategy applied is paraphrasing, followed closely by literal translations and semantic equivalence, with omission, compensation and other strategies being of significantly less importance; 2) Literal translation has allowed certain English idioms to become part of Arabic lexis; 3) A disproportionately large number of the translations are literal and, therefore, sound “foreign” or are deemed void of sense to the Arab reader, 4) Literal (and therefore erroneous) translations in the target language arise primarily from the failure of the translator to decipher the meaning of the idiom in question. The last part revisits literal translation in order to understand its nature, reasons for its prevalence, its effect on the translated text and its impact on the Arabic language. 1. Introduction: What is an Idiom? In order to avoid any possible confusion arising from the different senses in which idiom-related terms are used and their scope, let us begin by defining our central terms. Firstly, the term “idiomatic” is used in one of three senses: a) As a property of discourse; a piece of discourse is described as idiomatic if it sounds “natural” or nativelike. Thus, a foreign learner’s speech or text will be “idiomatic” if it resembles that produced by the native speaker; b) Lexical combinations which occur as grammatical units in the language like phrasal verbs. This is the sense in which Cowie (1975, 1983) uses it; c) A general term equivalent to multi-word units or phrasal expressions. In this sense, the following expressions would be “idiomatic”: at last, before long, be broke, drop by, get the hang of it, how on earth, pain in the neck. In many cases, the terms idiom and idiomatic expressions are used interchangeably, especially in language books and exercises. (This is particularly true of internet sites which deal with idioms and idiomatic expressions). The same term has a different sense in translation. “Idiomatic translation”, says Larson, is one “ which has the same meaning as the source language but is expressed in the natural form of the receptor language.” (Quoted in Shuttleworth and Cowie (1997, 1 p.73) “Idiom”, on the other hand, may refer to a language or a style of expression which characterizes a certain group of language users. None of this is of direct concern to us. In this paper, we are primarily concerned with the complex multi-word lexicogrammatical phenomenon whose members have been established by usage (i.e. have become institutionalized) and display certain syntactic and semantic properties. Longman Idioms Dictionary (1998) defines the idiom as “a sequence of words which has a different meaning as a group from the meaning it would have if you understand each word separately.” (p.vii) Lewis provides another concise dictionary-like definition: an idiom, he states, is “ a multi-word lexical item where the meaning of the whole is not directly related to the meanings of the individual words.” (Lewis: 1998, p.217). Cowie and Mackin (1975, p. viii) also stress the multi-word nature and semantic opacity of the idiom: an idiom, they write, “ .. is a combination of two or more words which function as a unit of meaning.” Unlike many others, however, Cowie and Mackin (1975) and Cowie (1983) are inclined to “.. describe idiomaticity as a feature cutting across all fixed expressions rather than have idioms as a separate category included within and subsumed by an overall framework of fixed expressions.” (quoted in Carter, 2000, p.77) Mona Baker (1992) on the other hand, studies idioms and fixed expressions under the same heading as both types of multi-word units represent “frozen patterns of language which allow little or no variation in form, and in the case of idioms, often carry meanings which cannot be deduced from their individual components”. The speaker or writer, she adds, “cannot normally do any of the following with an idiom: 12345- change the order of the words in it; delete a word from it; add a word to it; replace a word with another; change its grammatical structure.” (p.63) A comparable set of characteristics to describe the idiom is given by Carter (2000); to him, idioms are “(1) non-substitutable or fixed collocations, (2) usually more than single word units, (3) semantically opaque.” (p.66) Noting that semantic opaqueness (or non-compositionality) and fixedness of form do not apply to idioms across the board, Carter adds, “But the different degrees of possible fixity or “frozenness”, both syntactic and semantic, should be noted.” (p.66) Cruse (1986) explains, in a partial manner, this flexibility by distinguishing between “true idioms” (e.g. under the weather) which do not allow substitution, modification or transformations and “dead metaphors” which display a certain degree of flexibility (e.g. sugar the pill). (page 42) As we shall note later, this lack of rigidity in sense as well as permissible variations in the grammatical form and lexical make-up of the idiom are crucial to the translator; idioms that are metaphorical in origin seem to be easier to grasp and interpret than those which are semantically opaque or those whose metaphorical sense has been lost in the mists of time (kick the bucket, hoist by his own petard). Metaphor-based idioms in English may also coincide with metaphorical idioms in Arabic especially in cases where the central word in the metaphor has a similar metaphorical potential in both 2 languages. This, when applicable, leads to the creation of equivalence that facilitates the task of the translator. On the other hand, changes in the syntactic pattern of the idiom (for example using parts thereof (the last straw, carry a big stick), modifications (take something with a bucket of salt, a mixture of carrots and sticks) or nominalization like teeth-gnashing (ascribe economic ills) to pocket-lining by politicians will produce new or different lexical units that are not available in the dictionary, thus making decoding more problematic for the translator. (For other definitions of “idiom”, see Cooper (1999) and Irujo (1986) In this paper, we shall consider the following categories as well as any versions that may involve syntactic and/or lexical variations and any syntactic modifications thereof as idioms: a) Binomials and certain collocations that are syntactically fixed and semantically opaque: red herring, spick and span, wild card, the acid test, red tape, white elephant, a bag of nerves, be all the rage, a balancing act, a tug of war, black hole; b) Lexical units that act as single semantic units, i.e. they are semantically opaque: rain cats and dogs, spill the beans, let the cat out of the bag; c) We will also follow Cooper (1999) in classifying as idioms all dead and frozen metaphors that have gained currency amongst the speakers of English and acquired a conventionalized meaning: light at the end of the tunnel, skin and bones, a shot between the bows, sail close to the wind and play with fire. We also recognize the fact that certain idioms which originated as metaphors were, at some point in the past, semi-transparent as they were interpreted as metaphors. Over the centuries, their metaphorical origin was lost, making them semantically opaque: spill the beans, let the cat out of the bag and an axe to grind are a case in point. We shall exclude from our definition transparent collocations (heavy smoker, stark naked, stir his memory) , phrasal verbs (verb-particle combinations: take after, get on with), multi-word units with pragmatic functions and literal senses (bless you, nice talking to you), similes (as easy as pie, as tall as a giant) and proverbs (When in Rome do as the Romans do). 2. Strategies for translating idioms The initial task the translator undertakes when analyzing a text is to recognize that a certain group of lexical items constitutes an idiom and then interpret it accordingly. (Baker, 1992: 65) Such recognition is essential since it would redirect the translation into the TL towards the non-literal sense of the idiom. If the translator fails in this initial task, the resultant rendition would represent a literal and, in the great majority of cases, an erroneous, translation. Once the multi-word unit is recognized as an idiom, the translator can opt for any of several strategies that will vary, depending on the closeness of the two languages, the interaction between them, the translator’s experience, the adequacy of dictionaries and the nature of the idiom in question. 1- Translating an idiom by an identical idiom in the target language If English idioms, or the idioms of any other language for that matter, are examined carefully, a close link between the idioms and the culture in which they are found will become immediately and abundantly clear. This author has always wondered where 3 the idiom the straw that broke the camel’s back came from until one source revealed that it was a quotation form Dickens in the nineteenth century. The British, who at one point had the greatest navy in the world, derived a fairly large number of their idioms from this source: give him a wide berth, sail close to the wind, a shot between the bows, son of a gun, take the wind out of his sails, from stem to stern. The confusing idiom between the devil and the deep blue sea, which dates back to the seventeenth century, is also naval in origin; the “devil”, a kind of plank attached to the side of the boat, was used by sailors when repair work had to be carried out. The danger of drowning when the sea got rough was always lurking as the sailor was hanging perilously between the devil and the deep blue sea. (Now it makes sense!). Hunting, the army, sports, gambling, card games and many other spheres of life also contributed to the creation of British idioms. American idioms are no less representative of the culture of that nation either. The famous Gold Rush in 1848 and 1849, for example, gave us the idiom strike it lucky as did frontier life (an axe to grind, this neck of the woods). But for Americans, it was sports, in particular baseball, that have contributed to the enrichment of idioms in a significant manner: be way off base, play ball, make a ballpark estimate, throw him a curve ball, touch base with, first/ second/ third base, keep pitching, major league, out in left field, have something on the ball, a fast ball, etc. But in spite of this close link between the idioms and their respective cultures, similarities do sometimes exist across languages. Occasionally, one might encounter an idiom that is a replica of the English idiom. Spanish and English have the idiom skate on thin ice. Arabic, Hebrew and English have I am all ears (Hebrew kuli ozen and Arabic ( كلي ذانI am all ears)). German and English have he's getting on my nerves (er geht mir auf die Nerven) and she's got a screw loose (bei ihr ist eine schraube los). Therefore, and whenever possible, the seasoned translator will give priority in idiom translation to those that are identical in TL. The effect of this strategy, when applicable, is to preserve the impact of the English idiom since the translation retains not only the lexical constituency, the semantic content and the brevity of the SL idiom but also the effect it may have on the text receiver. “Idioms”, says the introduction to Longam Dictionary of Idioms, “add color to the language, help us to emphasize meaning and to make our observations, judgments and explanations lively and interesting. They are also very useful tools for communicating a great deal of meaning in just a few words.” (1998: vii). Such a strategy, though, is not very viable in Arabic due to the cultural differences and the divergent historical affiliations of the two languages. The number of English and Arabic idioms that demonstrate full correspondence is very limited: i) In the twinkling of an eye ( ف لمح نلبصرlit. in the twinkling if an eye) ii) A stone’s throw ( على مرمى حجرlit. at a stone’s throw) iii) Give him a free hand ( أطلق يدهlit. give him a free hand) 2- In many cases, the lexical constituency of an idiom in SL may differ from its counterpart in TL though the semantic content of the idiom may be identical across the two languages: English when pigs fly has French and Arabic equivalents: French: when chicken have teeth and Arabic ( حتيى ييد ا نلجميا في ليي نل ي طlit. until the camel passes through the eye of the needle). The English idiom he who pays the piper calls the tune is semantically equivalent to the German idiom he whose bread I eat is whose song I sing. When fed up with someone, the English would tell him to go jump 4 in the lake, whereas in Hebrew, the same person would go whistle in the ocean and in Arabic he would be ordered to ( نشير نلبريرdrink the sea). Baker cites the English idiom carry coals to Newcastle which is culturally specific; noone would understand the significance of the idiom without realizing that the residents of Newcastle are, supposedly, the last on earth to need coal since they, apparently, produce it in vast quantities. This very idiom has parallel idioms in German (Eulen nach Athen tragen: carry owls to Athens) and French (porter de l’eau a la riviere: carry water to the river). (p. 69) In fact, Arabic has two idioms which express the same sense: one colloquial ( رنح يب ي نلم يف في حي رس نليي يcarry water to the quarters of water-carriers) and another idiom which dates back to earlier times but this author still finds appealing: ( كن قيا نلتمير نليى جيرcarry dates to Hajar ( a city that is famed for its dates)), with dates to Hajar being like coals to Newcastle. In cases of such partial correspondence, an English idiom can be translated by substitution, i.e. finding an idiom in the TL which is semantically equivalent to the English idiom (but different in lexical form as well as cultural dimensions) and creates the same impact on the receiver of the translated text: i) ii) iii) iv) v) vi) vii) viii) ix) Without batting an eye ( دو أ يطرف له جفlit. without batting an eyelid) Leave no stone unturned ( لي يترك ب ب نال وطرقهlit. knock on every door) Miss the mark ( ط ش لهمهlit. his arrow missed) Dig his own grave ( لعى نلى حتفه بظلفهlit. seek his death by walking to it Rear its (ugly) head ( أط ّا ب طمهlit. its nose appears) Between the devil and the deep blue sea بي نلمطرقيف ونلييندن ي بي شي نلرحيىي ( ك لميتج ر م نلرمضي ب لني رlit. and respectively: between the hammer and the anvil; between the two blocks of the grinding stone; like someone who seeks fire to avoid scorching heat) Give him a free rein ( أطلق له نلربيا عليى نلري رlit. to put the rope of the camel on the top of its hump) Up to his eyes ( غ رق حتى أان هlit. up to his ears) Warm the heart ( نثلج نلصدرlit. cool the bosom) 3- Paraphrasing; i.e. giving the meaning of the idiom in the target language. In this strategy, the meaning would not be an exact equivalent, an idiomatic-semantic equivalent or any identifiable unit of any sort. Furthermore, the impact of the idiom will be totally sacrificed, and any cultural significance associated with it will be lost in the target text. Whenever the two cultures and the language pair in question are very different, paraphrasing tends to be the safest and the most commonly used strategy. In fact, the present author’s forthcoming Beyond the Word II: Dictionary of English Multi-word Units (Arabic-English) is replete with examples where the only strategy for the translation of English idioms into Arabic was paraphrasing: Keep his finger on the pulse ( رنقب (نلوض ) بد ّقفlit. watch the situation very carefully) ii) In the hole ( مث ا ب لديوlit. be burdened with debts) iii) With flying colors بتفوق ّ (lit. in an excellent manner) iv) Mend fences with ( لوى نل الف ت مlit. settle differences with) v) Play ball ( نفذ أو أط ع نلتعل م تlit. carry out or obey instructions) vi) Jump on the bandwagon ( ننضي نلى نلفريق نلرنبحlit. join the winning team) i) 5 4- The translator may provide a literal translation of the lexical constituents of the idiom. Such a strategy would be adopted if the metaphorical potentials are similar, if the literal version is acceptable in the target language, if the translator is incompetent or dictionaries fail him or, finally, if the idiom has been lexically modified so that it becomes difficult to find its meaning in the dictionary. Due to the prevalence of this strategy and its immediate relevance to this paper, we shall return to it in more detail later. 5- Of considerably less significance are the strategies of omission, compensation and writing footnotes. We shall not discuss these here any further as they have been dealt with, fairly extensively, in the literature. (See also Baker 1992 for a further discussion of idiom translation strategies). 4. The Survey To examine strategies employed by Arab translators when rendering English idioms into Arabic, the author monitored the Arabic version of Newsweek, a weekly publication of the Kuwait-based Dar Al-Watan. The collection consisted of two hundred and fifty three random idioms that were culled from several issues of the magazine since its publication. No attempt was made to single out any special categories of idioms or any particular text type or sub-type in the publication. According to information the author gathered from the publishers, the English text of the newspaper is translated by a team of twelve experienced Arab translators all of whom hold university degrees. This particular publication was selected since it represents one of the very few parallel corpora which the researcher can access for purposes of contrastive studies and analysis of the process of translation. The English idioms were recorded along with their Arabic translations. Once collected, the idioms were classified into six major categories, primarily in accordance with the strategy employed in their translation: a) Idioms that were translated literally from English into Arabic but are not commonly used in Arabic (literal translations); b) Idioms that were translated literally into Arabic but these literal translations have actually established themselves as part of the Arabic lexis (borrowing); c) Idioms that were translated into Arabic by semantically equivalent idioms (substitution); d) Idioms whose meanings were paraphrased into Arabic (paraphrasing); e) Idioms which were dropped from the text; f) Idioms which were translated erroneously (wrong translations). (Other strategies given in 3-5 above were of no special significance in the survey, so they were ignored). 5. Discussion of Results Viewed in terms of the classification given in 4- above, the idiom translations surveyed in the study were distributed as follows: i) ii) 6 Literal translations: forty-two idioms (around 17%); Borrowings: fifty-seven idioms (around 23%); iii) iv) v) vi) Substitution: thirty-two idioms (around 13%); Paraphrasing: one hundred and five idioms (round 42%); Idioms dropped in the translated text: two (less than 1%); Idioms translated incorrectly: fifteen idioms (less than 6%). A cursory glance at the results reveals the following trends: A) Statistically, the figures indicate that the most common strategies employed by Arab translators are, in a descending order of importance, paraphrasing, borrowing, literal translation and substitution. The fact that a fairly high percentage of the idioms are translated into Arabic through paraphrasing means two things: firstly, that the idiomatic systems of the two languages are very different. This is primarily due to the different genealogies of the two languages. Secondly, when this particular strategy is employed, the unique nature of the idiom (i.e. its cultural significance and brevity) is lost in the target text; what we end up with is a lengthy, diluted but accurate rendition that signifies little beyond the meaning of the idiom in question. In some cases, the translator had to go to a great length to ensure that the meaning is accurate; the twoword English idiom white elephant, for instance, was translated by an eight-word paraphrase in Arabic: ( مشيروع يرتي ا نليث ير مي نلعن ييف م بيا ميردود ضي اlit. a project that needs a great deal of care but on which return is very low). B) The survey shows an interesting cross-linguistic trend: about twenty-three per cent of the English idioms were translated by idioms that have been borrowed and have established themselves as idioms in Arabic. This fairly high percentage is indicative of the far-reaching influence English has on the Arabic language and how central translation can be in enriching (and modifying) Arabic. This, combined with the extensive lexical borrowing and syntactic changes Arabic has been undergoing over the past few decades due to the influence of journalistic translation, are changing the Arabic language slowly but consistently. The extent of such change, however, needs to be verified and determined on the basis of historical evidence and parallel corpora, both of which are currently lacking in Arabic.. C) The number of idioms translated literally with no established borrowed equivalents is also remarkably high compared to the total number of idioms surveyed in the study: forty-two out of two hundred and fifty-three (that is around 17%). In this context, we must not lose sight of the elementary fact that idioms have a non-literal sense in their own language and will be understood correctly only if such a method of interpretation is followed. It goes without saying that a literal translation would lead to the same result in the TL. Conversely, however, literal translations at the idiomatic level may simply mean that translations which are at present unacceptable to Arab informants could, in time, end up as legitimate lexical chunks in Arabic Due to the important role literal translation continues to play not only as a strategy but also as a source of enrichment of the Arabic language as well as a constant source of weak or at best awkward translations, we shall devote the last section of this study to further analyze and understand this phenomenon. 6- Literal Translation 7 The results of the survey reveal that literal translation forms a fairly significant strategy in the translation of English idioms into Arabic: combined together, borrowed translations and literal translations form approximately forty per cent of the entire number of idioms in the survey. Moreover, an examination of literal translations in general confirms that the situation is indeed far more complex than what might have been suggested so far in this paper. To start with, literal translation, when utilized, may result in one of three things: a- It may yield a translation whose acceptance would vary depending on a variety of factors, including the metaphorical potential of the idiom in question and cross-linguistic similarities. For example, my informants, who were professorial staff in the Arabic Department, managed to give an acceptable, yet labored, interpretation to the following Arabic equivalents from the survey: i- The government had cash to burn توفر له م نلم ل م يمي له أ تررقه ii- Germany carried the torch (for a unified Europe) حما نلمشعا iii- (The Iraqis) would love to bag a trophy (نلعرنق يو ) يطمريو نليى نلرصيول عليى ص د ثم Other translations given to the informants were rejected off-hand as “senseless” and were “felt” to be literal (and therefore erroneous) translations of idioms in English: iv) USA is biting g more than it can chew نلوالي ت نلمتردس ق درس على قضي أكثر مم تيتط مضره v) We have been unable to chew what is in our mouths for ten years على مضغ م ف أفون ن vi) USA can walk and chew gum at the same time "ومضغ نلعليف ف نلوقت نفيه غ ر ق دري نلوالي ت نلمتردس ق درس على "نلمش Yet, the translations of a third group in the survey were understood to mean “literally” what they say, an interpretation which renders the sense totally different from that intended by the idiom user: vii) (Nokia suspected Motorolla) to be in the same boat نرت بون ف:نلترجمف نلررف ف نمي ن ف كو موتوروال ف نفس نل ر نرت بون ف كو موتوروال تونجه نفس نلمشيلف:نلمعنى نلصر ح vii) Nokia returned fire from New York ردت نوك على نطالق:نلترجمف نلررف ف نلن ر م ن ويورك ) ردّت نوك (على نلتهي نلموجهف نل ه:نلمعنى نلصر ح viii) lines in the sand طوط ف نلرم ل:نلترجمف نلررف ف ) طوط ال يمي تج وز أو طوط حمرن:(نلمعنى نلصر ح ix) (The Queen Mother talking about the German bombing of one her palaces in WW2) It made it easier for me to look East End in the face نلترجمف جعا نلنظر مب شرس نلى نييت نند نكثر لهولف:نلررف ف جعلن ال أ جا م مونجهف ولت إند:نلمعنى نلصر ح 8 b- The translation given may be short-lived; it might be used by a fairly small number of people in a limited range of styles only to be consigned to oblivion at a later stage. Translations demonstrating this category are extremely rare to spot and include a black horse نلرص نأللود, م يرتدو نلبدالت نلزرقblue-collar workers and a lame duck نلبطف نلعرج. c- It may generate a translation that would, sooner or later, find its way into the multi-word system of the lexis of the target language and become part and parcel thereof. English idioms that have gained currency in Arabic include the following examples all of which are taken from the survey: i) Fat cats نل طط نليم ii) (Her crusade) has struck a chord among ضربت على وتر حي س iii) New blood دم جديد iv) Make way for نفيح نلطريق ل v) A banana republic جمهوريف موز vi) Behind the scenes لف نليت ر vii) Not mean to slam the UN door لي ي صد أ يرلق ب نألمي نلمتردس viii) Deal a blow to the system وجه ضربف للنظ م ix) Time bomb قنبلف موقوتف x) Cast a cloud نل ت بظالله The analysis of the examples cited in the survey as literal translations also reveals three interesting points: a) Though a certain idiom may be borrowed in its entirety into Arabic, it is evident that it is only this ‘whole” unit that seems to have been assimilated into the language. Any literal translation of a version of the idiom that has been lexically or syntactically modified remains unacceptable. This is illustrated by the English idiom stick and carrot policy which has been translated into Arabic by ل ليف نلعصي ونلجيزرسand which appeared in the survey in the following modified forms: i) The Bush administration wants to use sticks, its allies want to use carrots ندنرس بوش تريد ن تيت دم نلعص ف م يريد نلرلف نلت دنم نلجزرس ii) Use a mixture of sticks and carrots نلت دنم مزيج م نلعص ونلجزر iii) She carries a big stick ترما ب د عص كب رس b) The survival of some translated idioms and the disappearance of others does not seem to follow any logical pattern or be related to cultural specificity. Consider the following examples found in the survey: i) Two sides of the same coin وجه لعملف ونحدس ii) Hold the trump card يملك نلورقف نلرنبرف iii) The ball is in the European court نصبرت نليرس ف نلمعيير نالوروب iv) Losing face ف دن م نلوجه iv) Brush up the country’s image تلم صورس نلبالد vi) Bad bet لر ر vii) A leap in the dark قفزس ف نلظالم 9 If we go beyond the idioms cited in the survey, we shall find that English abounds in naval metaphors which have turned into idioms as we indicated earlier. Yet none of these has managed to find its way into Arabic. Baseball idioms have also met a similar fate with one notable exception: the ball is in his court نلييرس في ملعبيه. By contrast, some idioms based on gambling (a bad bet لير ر, a safe bet ر ي مضيمو , hold all the cards ف يده كيا نألورنق, play his trump card لعيب نلورقيف نلرنبريف, put his cards on the table )وض أورنقه عليى نلط وليفhave been integrated into Arabic, though Arabs are, culturally speaking, averse to gambling. In fact, the English idioms that have joined the ranks of the Arabic lexis are so diverse that it is impossible to assign them to any specific category or make any sensible generalization about them. (For further examples of the metaphorical/ idiomatic potential of English and Arabic, see AbuSsaydeh’s Beyond the Word I: A Contrastive Study of English and Arabic Lexicology, forthcoming) One likely explanation this author would put forth I regard with this phenomenon is that once an English idiom is translated literally into Arabic, it may be adopted by other translators, particularly in journalistic translation. If the same translation is sustained in the press for a considerable time, it is possible that it will survive. This, however, remains a conjecture that needs to be substantiated through the examination of extensive Arabic lexical corpora. c) In a few cases, the literal translation into Arabic of an English idiom fits snugly in the metaphorical (and subsequently idiomatic) system of the Arabic language. A case in point are the words road, picture and horizon which seem to generate corresponding sets of idioms in both languages. Due to the limited size of the samples in the survey, the only example found was it is a long road ننهي طرييق طوييا. Other examples from outside the survey include: i) The end of the road نه يف نلطريق ii) The road of life در نلر س iii) We have a long way to go أم من طريق طويا iv) Take a different road للك طري م تلف v) Limitless horizons نف ق ال حدود له vi) Loom on the horizon الح أو بدن ف نألفق vii) Wider horizons ذف ق أرحب viii) Broaden his horizons ل ذف قه ّ و ix) Put in the picture وض ف نلصورس x) Out of the picture را نلصورس xi) A false picture صورس مزيفف xii) A true picture صورس ص دقف أو دق ف xiii) Form a picture كو صورس ّ Extensive discussions with Arabic language specialists to determine, in an unambiguous way, the nature of these similarities led to two conclusions; first, the Arabic expressions cited as idioms in i-xiii above do not form part of Classical Arabic lexis. Secondly, it is very likely that these translations sound “more natural” in Arabic than other literal translations simply because the words that form their basis (i.e. طرييق road, أفيقhorizon and صيورسpicture) do have a metaphorical potential that closely resembles that of their English counterparts. (It was felt, though, that the idioms with picture might be actual borrowings). But the validity of any claim made in this 10 regard, again, remains highly debatable in the absence of searchable Arabic corpus and historical documentation needed for authentication purposes. But why do translators resort to literal translation? If we examine the literal translations given by the Newsweek team (discounting, of course, those which have entered the Arabic lexis), we will discover that they can be attributed to three reasons. The most evident of these is, perhaps, the failure of the translator to recognize a certain lexical chunk as an idiom. This, when it happens, would reflect the linguistic incompetence of the translator and his evident inability to deal with idioms. In fact, there seems to be no other logical explanation if the idiom is cited in its entirety in the source text and its meaning is given in monolingual or bilingual dictionaries as the case is in the following examples: i) In these dog days of summer ني م:ف ني م نلص ف نلر رس ذه م فترس نليلب (نلصر ح ii) iii) lose sight of his mission ) تن لىي تج ا نلمهمف:زنع بصره ع نلمهمف (نلصر ح (They suspected Motorolla) to be in the same boat نرت بون ف نمي ن ف كو iv) (Nokia) returned fire from New York ردت نوك على نطالق نلن ر م ن ويورك v) the government had cash to burn :توفر له م نلم ل م يمي له أ تررقه (نلصر ح vi) Germany carried the torch (for a unified Europe) حملت:حما نلمشعا (نلصر ح )نلص ف نلال بف ) ف نفس نلمأزق:موتورورال ف نفس نل ر (نلصر ح ) ردت على نلتهي نلموجهف نل ه:(نلصر ح )توفرت له أمونل ط ئلف )لون أو رنيف On the other hand, the survey demonstrates that failure to interpret the idiom correctly may occur when the idiom is cited partially or undergoes lexical or grammatical modifications such as nominalization: ix) This is an administration with a pretty full plate يذه ندنرس طب هي ( مل جدنfrom have a lot on his plate) Wanting more of the pie ( ليع لرصيف أكبير مي نليعييفfrom a piece/ slice of the pie) nose-thumbing (at international obligations) seemed juvenile بدن وض x) xi) ignore teeth-gnashing in Washington تج ا صرير نأللن ف ونشنط (ascribe economic ills) to pocket-lining by politicians (يعزو نلمشيالت vii) viii) xii) xiii) نألص ب ف أنف ناللتزنم ت نلدول ف عمال صب ن نالقتص ديف) نلى مم رل ت حشو نلج و نلمتفش ف ولط رج ل نلي لف I took it all with a bucket of salt أ ذت نألمر م لطا م نلملح Use a mixture of sticks and carrots نلت دنم مزيج م نلعص ونلجزر Even in cases where the idiom is given in the text in its entirety, it may still fail to appear in general use dictionaries, which in itself seems to be a reason for literal (and decidedly wrong) translations given by team members in the survey: xiv) xv) xvi) xvii) 11 That’s a bridge too far ذن جير ض ي جدن Japan’s canary in the coal mine كن ري نل ب ف منجي نلفري The government had cash to burn توفر له م نلم ل م يمي له أ تررقه Turn Europe on its ear فتح ذان بريط ن There might be another reason for literal translation which I would like to add here tentatively. In a conversation with a colleague who teaches English, this author heard that colleague describing himself as being “in the same boat” with the others. Nothing is unusual about this except it was said in Arabic ( في نفيس نل ي رin the same boat) though it does not fall within the category of those English idioms whose translation has been adopted by the language; i.e. the translation was not used in everyday conversation as part of the lexical repertoire of the speaker. This is not a unique or isolated case. Those involved in teaching and/or translating English will confirm that they have had similar experiences. Arab language teachers and translators, it seems, think of themselves as bilinguals and as such, they may feel that calques are quite normal in Arabic, even though others may not be familiar with them. Some of the team members may have felt the same way about the Arabic literal senses they gave to the English idioms. 6- Conclusion Idioms are complex and culture-specific multi-word units which are translated through a variety of strategies, depending on the idiom, the translator’s command of the language and the relationship between the source language and the target language. The analysis of the sample idioms taken from the Arabic Newsweek shows that paraphrasing is statistically the most significant strategy Arab translators employ when rendering English idioms into Arabic. This entails a substantial loss of the cultural dimension of the idiom, its impact on the receiver and its appealing brevity. The survey also confirms that literal translation forms a dominant strategy in the translation of English idioms. This particular strategy can lead either to the enrichment of the Arabic language (through borrowing) or to the creation of lexical strings that are, more often than not, void of meaning or too awkward to interpret. Hence, translator training should focus on improving the lexical competence of translators, particularly in areas related to idioms and, by the same token, the more complex and creative aspects of the English language like multi-word units and metaphors. Moreover, Lexicography, whether monolingual or bilingual, should not only list exhaustively the idioms of the language but also address the issue of variation in idioms; as we have demonstrated, idioms are not as syntactically or lexically fixed as they are thought to be. They may vary their lexical constituents, occur partially and a variety of operations may take place within the idiom at the syntactic level. Cases of nominalization, for example, can be easily detected and could be listed in the dictionary. Corpus-based lexical variation and the potential for shortening should also be taken into account when dictionaries are compiled. Other aspects in the study also show that the development of Arabic language corpora is crucial for the documentation and verification of lexical, syntactic and semantic changes which the Arabic language is undergoing at the present. The creation of English-Arabic parallel corpora would also be instrumental for the purposes of contrastive analysis and translational studies. 12 Bibliography Abu-Ssaydeh, A. F. Beyond the Word I: A Contrastive Study of English and Arabic Lexicology, forthcoming. Baghinipour, Majid. (1997). “Idioms and Translating Farhang-e- Kerman Quarterly 1 (1):148-172. autumn 1377 1997 Idioms." Baker, M. (1992). In other words: A coursebook on translation. Routledge, London and New York. Pp. 304. Carter, R. (2000) Vocabulary: Applied Linnguistic Perspectives. 2nd edition. Routledge, London and New York. Pp.317. Cooper, T.C. 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