An-Najah Staff

Abstract:

^{By Monday, I’m almost used to the grim slavery routine and I start to see dim light in the end of the tunnel; the weekend is approaching... Tuesday: My lips stretch in a smile; barely! The countdown has begun for the remaining hours until the weekend... Wednesday: I am genuinely smiling. It is unquestionably the least miserable day in the week; the weekend starts tomorrow.  “Another Bad Week”}

This dissertation, titled “Bad Weeks in Saudi to Hyde Park Corners: Practical Translation of Short Stories”, will present English translations of two Arabic short stories: “Another Bad Week” and “Hyde Park” by Saudi author Hamad Al-Issa, accompanied with the supplementary commentary observing the practice of translation. This dissertation will dive into the mind of the translator to trace the decision-making process and present a glimpse of the ever-changing, aesthetic, flexible, rational and artistic procedure that is literary translation of two short stories; to all its own devices.  

Abstract This study examines the role context plays in determining the translation strategies
pursued by translators of Arabic euphemisms into English. Due to different cultural
backgrounds, adherence to the employment of euphemism in a social context may differ in
both Arabic and English. While some situations call for the use of euphemism in one culture,
the other culture finds no point in using such euphemisms for such situations; preserving the

original Arabic euphemisms when rendered into English in this case could lead to ...

This study examines the role context plays in determining the translation strategies pursued by  translators of Arabic euphemisms into English. Due to different cultural backgrounds, adherence to the employment of euphemism in a social context may differ in both Arabic and English. While some situations call for the use of euphemism in one culture, the other culture finds no point in using such euphemisms for such situations; preserving the original Arabic euphemisms when rendered into English in this case could lead to misunderstanding and may deprive the Source Language (SL) from a cultural trait. The study derives evidence from 11 Arabic euphemistic expressions taken from five literary masterpieces written by the Egyptian novelist and Noble Prize winner Najib Mahfouz, and it looks into the English translation of these euphemisms. The present study attempts to advance the proposition that Arabic euphemisms in their context exhibit fluctuating, unstable meaning, which emanates from various contextual factors such as speakers, addressees, shared knowledge and background information, and hence these factors combined dictate on translators the chosen translation strategy.

• This study falls into two parts. The first part aims at demonstrating how pragmatic and functional considerations are important in legal translation. The corpus the researchers relied on consisted of nine translated versions of three authentic contracts. A Real-Estate Contract, a Contract of Lease and an Employment Contract were commissioned to be translated by three professional translators certified by the Palestinian Ministry of Justice asking them to translate these texts the way they would usually deal with legally binding, official documents.

• The second part explores the relevance of Vermeer's Skopos theory to the translation of contracts through a small pilot study that compares the work of translation students with a broad, theoretical background and a professional translator uninformed about theories of translation. A group of graduate students of translation and applied linguistics and a professional translator were assigned to translate a "Power of Attorney" legal text from English into Arabic. They were all asked to translate the same text into a different context where it would be performing a new function. 

• This study demonstrates how standardized legal language features can still be tamed to serve the ultimate goal of successfully communicating the message across languages as intended and as commissioned. Unlike previous studies that were devoted to systemizing and mathematizing legal translation, this study focuses on communicative and functional approaches to contractual translation between English and Arabic

Globalization seems to have imposed a new paradigm on us whether we approve of it or not we ought to adapt and adjust to the matrix we live in and this involves complying with what appears to be practical and feasible.    This appears to be consistent with what Thomas Kuhn (1996) conceives of the conditions and circumstances which induce ‘paradigm change’ in the theories and mechanisms we use in some of the social sciences or humanities which we subscribe to in order to account for a particular transaction be that translation or a communication encounter between two individuals. To be precisely candid, what takes place in the process of translation along with the heightened debate among translation scholars concerning the question of ‘equivalence’ has ushered in such a state of affairs which calls for a real solution or a paradigm change in our overall approach to translation equivalence.   This particular approach has taken into account the applicability of the mechanisms with which one can account as intelligibly as possible for both the fragility of the notion of translation ‘equivalence’, and the possibility of considering the act of translation as an act of inter-cultural communication encounter. Therefore, this paper is designed to underlie the existence of a paradigm shift in the process of translation equivalence and underscore the countless merits of adopting the proposition which subscribes for ‘skopos theory’ or a functionalist approach as a viable solution to so many problems confronting every translator as well as communicators.    My rationale for such a claim comes from various but highly salient reasons one of which is that the existing translation approaches on ‘translation equivalence’ do not seem to provide inclusive remedies to what confront the translator in translating technology terms, nor do some of these approaches acknowledge the significance of the elevation of the role of the translator to an author status; and the merit of prioritizing the target text over the source text on a more practical and rational basis.Keywords:Translation, functional equivalence, technology terms, paradigm change

This paper shows that cognitive synonyms feature a serious problem in Arabic English translation. The study explores the translation of a number of cognitive synonymous lexical items in their original context of use. These synonyms were taken from Mahfouz’s two famous novels: “Al-Liss wal-Kilab” and “Ziqaq Al-Midaq”. Some other examples were also drawn from the Holy Quran. Thirty M.A students of Translation at An-Najah National University were the subjects of this study. They were requested to render these synonyms in their original contexts. The study explains that the translation of cognitive synonyms has been frequently done formally, functionally or ideationally depending on two significant factors: the text-type in which they are used and the purpose of using them in a particular context. The study, however, argues that in religious and literary texts where synonyms are usually used to convey certain implicated meanings and where we seek to have the same effect on the Target Language (TL) receiver as that of the original on the Source Language (SL) receiver, the use of formal equivalence is ruled out and hence only functional and/or ideational equivalence should be called for. Keywords: Translation ,Cognitive Synonyms ,Arabic Language, translation theory.

This study falls into two parts. The first part aims at demonstrating how pragmatic and functional considerations are important in legal translation. The corpus the researchers relied on consisted of nine translated versions of three authentic contracts. A Real-Estate Contract, a Contract of Lease and an Employment Contract were commissioned to be translated by three professional translators certified by the Palestinian Ministry of Justice asking them to translate these texts the way they would usually deal with legally binding, official documents. The second part explores the relevance of Vermeer\'s Skopos theory to the translation of contracts through a small pilot study that compares the work of translation students with a broad, theoretical background and that of a professional translator uninformed about theories of translation. A group of graduate students of translation and applied linguistics and a professional translator were assigned to translate a \"Power of Attorney\" legal text from English into Arabic. They were all asked to translate the same text into a different context where it would be performing a new function. This study demonstrates how standardized legal language features can still be tamed to serve the ultimate goal of successfully communicating the message across languages as intended and as commissioned. Unlike previous studies that were devoted to systemizing and mathematizing legal translation, this study focuses on communicative and functional approaches to contractual translation between English and Arabic.

The role of the translator is not really distinct from that of the communicator in any typical intercultural communication encounter/ verbal exchange. In both instances the translator as well as the communicator is called upon to deliver what is being intended in the written or spoken linguistic code. Having said that, then the task which both of them is bound to focus on is identical or similar since it presupposes that each person possesses a high level of competence in two linguistic and cultural systems in order to accomplish the very task they are called upon to accomplish. Therefore, the primary goal of this paper is two-fold: to underscore the family resemblance or interconnection between the process of translation and that of intercultural communication encounter; and to underscore the merits of treating translation as an intercultural or inter-lingual act of communication since the constraints which face the translator are quite similar to those which the communicator encounters.