JD RED0O. PlDC 0 EngI hJILPPCJP5IPJLACourscin1ransIationMcthod:Arabic toEngIishJumC8 LICkIH85uHdOi HCiVCyuH HIIH8.`...LLL P tV TLKKFirstpublished 2002 byRoutledge 2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,Oxon,OX 14 4RN Simultaneously published intheUSAand Canada byRoutledge 270MadisonAve,NewYork,NY1016 Reprintedin2005 TransferredtoDigitalPrinting2006 Routledgeisan imprintof theTaylor FrncisGroup T2002 JamesDickins,SandorHervey,[anHiggins Typesetin Times by[anHiggins,Cupar,Fife PrintedandboundinGreatBritainbyTJIDigital,Padstow,Corwall Allrights resered.No partof this bookmaybereprinted or reproducedor utilized in anyformor by anyelectronic,mechanical or other means,nowknownorhereafter invented,including photocopyingandreording,orin any informationstorageor retrievalsystem,without permission inwritingfromthepublishers. Publisher's Note This bookhasbeenpreparedfromcamera-ready copyprovided by theauthors British Librar Cataloguing in PublicationData Acataloguerecord forthis bok is availablefrom the BritishLibrary Librr of CongressCataloging in PublicationData A catalogrecordforthis bookhasbeen requested. ISBN0-415-2506-1(hbk) 0-415-25065-x(pbk) %lContents Ackow ledgements Intoduction ! Preliminariesto tanslationas aprocess 1.1 1 .2 1 . 3 1.4 Basic definitions Inter-smiotic translation Intralingual translation Interlingual translation Practical 1.1Intralingual translation:'TodayI attempted' Practical1.2Gisttanslation: ILI 2 Preliminariestotanslationasa product 2.1 2.1.1 2.1.2 2.1.3 2.1.4 2.1.5 2.2 2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.2.1 2.2.2.2 2.2.2.3 Degrees of fredom in translation Interlinear translation Literal translation Freetanslation Communicative translation From interlinea to free translation Euivalenceand translationloss Euivalence Translation loss Translationby omission Traslationby addition Controlling translation loss Practical2.1Literal vsbalancedtranslation:WI_Practical2.2Degrees of fredom in translation: _ I.cX!66 7 8 10 12 13 I15 15 16 16 17 17 18 19 21 23 24 25 25 27 viContents 3 Culturaltansposition 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Basic principles Exoticism Calque Cultural tansplantation Cultural borrowing Communicativetranslation Transliteratingnames 2929 29 31 32 32 35 35 Practical3.1Cultural transposition:,_U 36 Practical3.2Cultural transposition:_c L 38 Compensation404.1 4.2 Basicprinciples Categoriesof compensation Practical4.1Compensation:' ' L',Practical4.2Compensation: ''__ _ Denotative meaningandtanslationissues 5.1 5.1.1 5.1.2 5.1.3 5.1.4 5.2 5.2.1 Denotativemeaning Synonymy Hyperonymy-hyponymy Particularizing tanslationandgeneralizingtranslation Partiallyoverlapping translation Semantic repetition in Arabic Other formsof parallelism Practical 5.1Denotativemeaning:g ' 'gPractical 5.2Denotativemeaningandsemantic repetition: _,_Y''_6 Connotative meaningandtranslationissues 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 Basicprinciples Attitudinalmeaning Associativemeaning Affectivemeaning Allusivemeaning Collocationandcollocativemeaning Reflectedmeaning 40 44 49 51 252 52 54 56 57 59 62 63 64 6666 66 68 69 70 71 72 Contentsvii 6.8Othertypesofconnotativemeaning73Practical6.1Collocation:(a) 1J ",(b).1 74 Practical6.2Collocation:(b) LI__I _,(b)LL_I 75 Practical6.3Connotativemeaning:_I 75Intoduction to the formal propertiesoftexts777 Phonic/graphic and prosodic issues in translation07.1 7.1.1 7.1.2 7.2 7.2.1 7.2.1.1 7.2.1.2 7.2.2 Thephonic/graphiclevel Alliteration,assonance,andrhyme Onomatopoeia Theprosodiclevel Rudimentsof English and Arabicversifcation English Arabic Translating Arabic verse Practical7.1The phonic/graphic and prosodiclevels: CPractical7.2Thephonic/graphiclevel:l lL Gramatical issuesin translation 8.1 8.2 8.2.1 8.2.2 8.2.3 8.2.3.1 8.2.3.2 8.2.3.3 8.2.4 8.2.4.1 8.2.4.2 Introduction Thegrammatical level Words Grammatical arrangement Morphological repetition Patterrpetition Rootrepetition Suffx repetition Lexical repetition Lxical item rpetition Phrase repetition Practical 8.1Lexical itemandother formsof rpetition: QI

|9 Sententialissues intanslation 9.1 9.2 Thesentential level Textualvariablesonthesententiallevel 8081 85 86 88 899091 93 95 969696979710 10 103 108 108 109 111 112 113 113 114 viii 9.2.1 9.2.2 9.2.2. 1 9.2.2.2 9.2.2.3 9.2.3 9.2.4 9.2.5 Contents Prosodicfeatures114 Themeandrheme116 Sentencestress11 7 Emphaticprposing118 Basic theme-rhemetranslation issues119 Foregroundingandbackgrounding119 Interaction oftheme-rhemeandmain-subordinate elements121 Translation of Arabiccoordinateclauses124 Practical 9.1Theme adrheme,andmainnessandsubordination: -u, 125 Practical9.2Themeandrheme,mainness andsubordination, coordination: _,' _' 126 10 Discourse and intertextualissuesintanslation!2710.1 10.2 10.2.1 10.2.1.1 10.2.1.2 10.2.1.3 10.3 10.3.1 10.3.2 Introduction Thediscourse level Cohesion andcoherence Sentencesplitting Textual restructuring Paragraphing Theintertextual level Genre membership Quotation andallusion 12 7 12 7 128 136 13 7 138 138 139 141 Practical 10. 1Thediscourselevel:cohesive-devicerevisionof | _l7 142 Practical l0.2The discourselevel:'__._ 144 11Metaphor!4611.1 11.2 11.2.1 11.2.1.1 11.2.1.2 11.3 11.3.1 11.3.2 11.3.3 11.3.4 11.4 11.5 Introduction146 General defnition ofmetaphor14 7 Lexicalizedmetaphor andnon-lexicalizedmetaphor14 7 Categoriesof lexicalizedmetaphor149 Categories of non-Iexicalizedmetaphor149 Basictranslation techniques formetaphor150 Deadmetaphors 150 Stock metaphors151 Recent metaphors152 Non-Iexicalized(conventionalizedandoriginal)metaphors152 Extendedadmixedmetaphors155 Metaphordowntoning158 Contents Practical 11.1Metaphor downtoning:English translatorsmightdo professionalwork:technical(scientific)translation,constitutionaltranslation, andconsumer-orientedtranslation.Finally,Chapter 17dealswithrevision andediting. Chapterbychapter,then,thestudentisprogressivelytrainedtoask,and toanswer,aseriesofquestionsthatapplytoanytextgivenfortranslation. Pre-eminentamongtheseare:'Whatisthepurposeofmytranslation,and what!rethesalientfeaturesofthistext?'Notranslationisproducedina vacuum,andwestressthroughoutthecoursethattheneedsofthetarget audienceandtherequirementsoftheprsoncommissioningthetranslation areprimaryfactorsintranslationdecisions.Forthissamereason,wealways includeatranslation briefin theassignment.P forthesalientfeaturesofthe text,thesearewhatadduptoitsspecificityastypicaloratypicalofa particulargenreorgenres.Onceitsgenre-membership,andthereforeits Introduction3 purpose,hasbeenpinneddown,thetranslatorcandecideonastrategyfor meetingthetranslationbrief.Thestudent'sattentioniskeptfocusdonthis issuebythewidevarietyofgenresfoundinthepracticals:inadditionto technical,legalandconsumer-orientedtexts,studentareaskedtoworkon varoussortof jouralistic,literary,andacademictext,politicalspeeches, tourist brohures, etc. Thesortsofquestionthatneedtobeaskedindeterminingthesalient featuresofany texta listedintheschemaof textualmatricesattheendof thisIntroduction.Theschemaamount toacheck-listofpotentiallyrelevant kindsoftextualfeature.Onthewhole,thefeaturesinteschemaoftextual matricesapresntd in the order in which theyae inthe course.However, therearetwoexceptions.Firstly,metaphorisincludedwithinthesemantic matrix,whereitmost coherently belongs(itsplacingatChapterII,afterthe chapters on the formal proprties of txt, is motivated by the fact that metaphor isacomplexissue,withabearingonstylisticandgenericissues,discussed inChapters12and13,aswellassmanticones).Secondly,asa reminderof theprimeimportnceof purposeandgenre,thegenrematrixisplacedatthe topof theschema. Thereare two rasons forkeping discussion of genre as suchuntil Chapter 13,eventhoughitdecisiveimportanceisstressdthroughout.Thefirstis thatthegenre-membrshipofatextcannot befinallydecided untiltheother salientfeatureshavebeenisolated.Thesecondisthatwehavefoundthat students amore confdentand successful in responding to genrrquirement afterworkingonsemanticandformalpropertiesoftextsandonlanguage variety than before. This is particularly tue of text with hybrid genre-features. Apartfromgenre,theschemaoftextualmatricesoutlinestheinvestigation, inChapters3and5-11,oftranslationissuesraisedbytextualfeatures. (Compensation,thesubjectof Chapter 4 ,isnotatextual featur,andso does not fgur in the shema. ) Student aadvisd to rfer the schemawhenever theytackleapractical:itisaprogressivereminderofwhatquestionstoask of the textset for translation. Whilethecoursesystematicallybuildsupamethodologicalapproach,we arenottryingto'mechanize'translationbyofferingsomeinflexibleruleor recipe.Verymuchtheopposite:translationisacreativeactivity,andthe translator'sprsonal responsibilityis paramount. We therefore emphasize the needtorecognizoptionsandalteratives,theneedforrationaldiscussion, and the need for decision-making.Each chapter is intnded for class discussion atthestartofthecorrespondingseminar,andalotofthepracticalsarebest donebystudentsworkinginsmallgroups.Thisistohelpstudentskeepin mindthat,whateverapproachthetranslatoradopts,itshouldbeself-aware andmethodical. Thecourseisintendedtofitintoan academictimetablelastingoneyear. Eachchapterneedsatleast2hoursofseminartime.Itisvitalthateach studentshouldhavethenecessaryreferencebooksinclass:acomprehensive 4Thinking Arabic translation Arabic-English di cti onary(werecommendWehr),asi mi lar-sizedEnglishArabic dictionary, a monolingual Arabic dictionary (such as |' _=' JI

_' This has been translated (Hetherington1996: 23) as follows (we haveadded curly brackettohighlight correspondences betweenoccurrences of (j| in theST and it translation equivalents here): Fathi al-Shaqaqi, the leader of the scond largest Palestinian fundamentalist organizationafterHamas,waskilledinMaltabyMossadbullets.{ A couple of days later}the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabinwas killed by 0mbullet fred by Yigal Amir, a Jewish extmist his grandchildren's age.{ Mere days after this} ,a charge of dynamite of at leastUkilograms explodedin theSaudi National Guard barracks inRiyadhclaimingboth American andIndianvictims.{ Dayslater}the Egyptian trade attacM to SwitzerlandwasassassinatedinGeneva,and{ this wasfollowedby}a 1 12Tinking Arabic translation suicidebombplatedbytheJihadorgaizationintheEgyptianembassy buildingi thePakistani capital,Islamabad. P withlexicalitemrpetition,itwillbeseenthatEnglishtendstogofor variationinphrases,whileArabicfrequentlyprefersrepetition. PRACTICAL8 Practcal8. 1Lexical itmrepetton and other form of repettion Assignment (i)Payingparticular attentionto lexical itemrepetitionand other formsof repetitionintheST,discussthestrategicdecisionsthatyouhaveto takebeforestartingdetailedtranslationof thefollowingtext,andoutline andjustifythestrategyyouadopt.TheSTisanacademicbook.The Iisalsointendedtobepublishedasabook.Youshouldtakeitthat theIaudiencewillalsobepeoplewithanacademicinterestinthe subject (and thereforesome specialist knowledge). (ii)Translate the text into English. (iii)Explainthe decisionsof detailyoumadein producing your translation. Contextual information Thisextractistakenfromthebackcoverblurbto| by_LY| i' ( 1 997). ThebookdealswithrelationsbetweentheAraband Islamicworlds,andthe West. ST _'',i .Y 'l : '_=' _',i :==')| ,i~'

j|' _|i = +! | _5]'i . ' g _L _. _Y '' ' . ' i +=1 ' ,1 ' L_ I " " :Y=''_ ,|_| _ :c3 __~ ==:l 'i| _ | - . . : '| ' ~ i.| l| _ u:& ,| . Q ' jL _j|g)__ , .,__g .,_' _7' __ . ,_' , . ' . j| .,c _gG`1 ' l L' ;'Ua :I ' > a O c . . +O_ |_| L'U I ' gY| | Um .

LO O3 O L. __' _ ,u `1'_gy' j,'9 j|VSententialissuesin translation 9.1THE SENTENTIL LEVEL We can use the lines from'To Autumn'to show how differnt grammatical arrangements create different assumptions in the listener or reader as regards the communicative purpose of an utterance. Keats's own lines -Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; [ . . . J-are partly an address to Autumn and partly an exclamation about it:the very structure of the utterance leads the listener/reader toexpect an expressionof wondermentandenthusiasm(asdoesthetitle,ofcourse).Adifferent grammatical arrangement,however, would most likely announce a different communicativepurpose.For instance: Autumn is a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. It is' a close bosom-friend of the maturing sun. This structure,despite the title, announces a more purely informative text -even though, in the event,phonic and lexicalfeatures do give the utterances somethingmorethansimplyinformativevalue.We cansaythat,ineach version,thegrammaticalarrangementmarkstheutterancesashavinga particular communicativepurpose,whateverovertonesmayturnouttobe involved. When, as her, one looks at the comunicative purposeof a given grammatical arrangement in its own right, one is looking at the utterance on the sentential level. On this level are considered sentences. We defne a sentence as a complete, self-contained and rady-made vehicle for communication:nothingneedstobadded beforeit canbe utteredand understood in concrete situations.The starter's one-word command'Go! 'is 1 14Tinking Arabic translation asentence.Sois'Noway! ' asanexpressionofrefusalordisbelief,or 'Good'inresponse toconfirationthat a room has a bath. Weshouldnoteherethat,althoughthischapterdealswithsentential issues intranslation, it is oftenimpossibleboth in traslation and in linguistc analysis to consider one sntence in isolation from other surounding sntences. Discussion at variouspointsin the chapterwilltherforesometimesgo beyond thelevelofthesinglesentence,withtheintention,however,of explicating features at the level of the individual sntence. 9.2TEXTUAL VARIABLES ON TH SENTENTIAL LEVEL Fromthepointof viewof ArabiclEnglish translation, thereare threemajor non-syntacticfeaturesofthesentence,whichweshallconsiderinturnin subsequent sectionsof this chapter.Theseare:(i) prosodicfeatures,suchas intonation orstss;(u) themeand rheme; that is,the prntation of information asmor or les predictable typically through the choice of a particular sequential order of elements within the sentence; (iii) foregrounding and backgrounding; thatis,thepresentationof i nformationasmoreorlessimportantforthe overalldevelopment of thetext. 9.2.1Prosodc features In spoken texts, a numbr of differnt sntences, marked for differnt purposes, can b crated purly through intonatonand stes - eventhough they compris the samewords, inexactly the sameorder.Comparethe following inEnglish: The salt. The salt? The salt! The salt! [with falling intonation: statement] [with rising intonation: question] [with fall-rise intonation: demand [with high, level intonation: co0nd] The sametwo words could be spokeninother ways toexprss encouragement (topassthesalt,etc.), waing (that thesalt-potis abouttofall,etc.), andso on. Astheseexamplessuggest,thesententiallevelof spokenlanguageis extremely rich, with fine shadesof intonation distinguishingsntenceswith subtlydifferentnuances.StresscansimilarlybeusedinEnglishtoexpress differentshadesof meaning.Englishisabletostresswordsfairlyfreelyin speech;e.g.the neutral'I know that man' , vs'know that man' ,vs'Iknow thatman' , vs' Iknowthatman' , vs' Iknowthatman' .Althoughstressis usedinArabicinthisway,neitherStandardArabicnorthedialectsexhibit thesamefreedomtoshiftstresswithinthesentenceasEnglish.Toachieve Sentential issues in translation1 1 5 similareffects,twootherdevices areavailable.Firstly,Arabiccanshiftword order fairlyfreely, e.g..l _| ,:(or,morelikely,l _|=:)Secondly,it canmakeuseofadditionalelements.So,'Iknowhim'couldbe renderedas tlwiththeadditionalindependentpronounattheend of thesntence. Alotofthefeaturesofthespokensententiallevelsimplydisappearin writtentexts,becausethesententiallevelinwrittenlanguageisrelatively impoverished.WrittenEnglish,ofcourse,haspunctuationmarks.Most obviously,sentencesaremarkedbyacapitalletteratthestartofthefirst word,andafullstop,questionmark,orexclamationmarkattheendof the finalword.Theselatterfeaturesidentifythesentenceinbroadtermsasa statement,aquestionoranorder,etc.However,theydonotallowforfiner distinctionswithinthesepossibilities.Tus,it isnot possible,for example,to distnguishinwritingbtween'Tesalt! 'asademandwithfall-rise intonation, and'Thesalt ! ' asacommandwithhigh,levelintonation;norbetweenlarge numbrsof other similar possibilitieswhichofferedbythespokenlanguage. Of teremaining punctuation usesinEnglish,some carry spcificmeaning, andareobligatorywherethismeaningisintended.Thereis,forinstance,a differencebetween'MycousinwholivesinBristolvisiteduslast week' ,and 'Mycousin,wholivesinBristol,visiteduslatweek' . Inthefirstofthese sntences,therelativeclaus'wholivesinBristol'identifieswhichout of a numberofpossiblecousinsisintended.Thisisknownasadefining(or restrictive)relativeclause.Inthescondsentence,bycontrat,therelative clause'wholivesinBristol'merelyprovidesfurtherinformationabouta cousinwhois alreadyassumedtobeidentified.Thisis knownasadescribing (or non-restrictive)relativeclause. OtherpunctuationusesinEnglisharesubjecttogreatervariation,the commabeinga caseinpoint.Thus,insomecontexts,there willbeverylittle differenceinmeaningbetween'Lastweekmycousinvisitedus',and'Last week,mycousinvisitedus'. Inothercontexts,however,thetwosentences willnotonlysounddifferent but have aquitedifferent communicativeimpact. PunctuationinArabic is evenlesssystematicthanpunctuationinEnglish. Traditionally, Arabichad nopunctuationwhatover;andone stilloccasionally comes across moder bookswithoutpunctuation.Conversly,modereditions ofClassicalArabictexts,whichoriginallyhadnopunctuation,oftenhave punctuation added.Even where punctuation exist,theconventions for Arabic are far less standardizd thantose of English.Tere isobviouslyno equivalent ofLatin-scriptcapitallettersinArabic.ModemArabictextsdotypically make us of full stops.However,the orthographicsntencein Arabic, defned as astretchof text endinginafullstop(andprecededbyanother fullstop,if the sntence isnot text-initial),is frequently much longer than theorthographic sentenceinEnglish.m English,teortographic sntencetypicallycorsponds directlytothespokensentence.Thatistosay,ifoneweretoreadawritten Englishsntenceoutloud,onewouldtypicallygeta complet spokensentence 1 16Tinking Arabic translation witha completeintonationpatter.Bycontrast.in Arabica single orthographic sntencefairlyfrequentlydosnotcorrespondveryhappilytoa single spoken sentence;readoutloud,thesingleorthographicsentencewouldbelikelyto bsplitupintotwoorevenmorespokensentences(Le.withtwoormore completeintonationpatters,eachofthesepattersmarkingoffaseparate sentence). EvenwhereasingleorthographicArabicsentencecanreasonablybe regardedacorrspondingto asingle spoken Arabicsntence,Arabic sentences areoftenmuchlongerthantypicalEnglishones,forcingtheArabic>English translatortofindappropriatewaysofaddingadditionalsentencebreaksin theI.ThefrequentdifferencesinlengthbetweenArabicandEnglish sentencesareonereasonwhydiscussioninthischapter mustsometimesgo beyond televelof the individualsentence. OtherpunctuationmarkersinArabic,suchasthecomma,areusedeven lesssystematicallythanthefullstop.It isalsoworthnotingtheacceptability, eveninformalArabic,ofmultiplequestionmarksor exclamationmarks,or evenacombinationof questionmark(s)andexclamationmark(s),wherethe writerwantstoconveystongemphasis.SuchusagesinEnglishare confned to informal writing. Apartfromtheuseof punctuation,theonlywaysof conveyingintonation andstressinEnglishwritingarethroughtypography.Themostpopular typographical device i italics,but capitals or boldtypefacearealso sometimes used.NoneofthesedevicesiswidelyusedinArabic,andcapitalsdonot exist.Sometimes,wherepunctuationandtypographycannotgivethedesired nuance,thewriter or translator hastofallbackonadding explicit information abouthowthesentencesarespoken,asin'sheexclaimedinsurprise', 'she saidangrily' ,andsoon. 9.2.2Theme ad rheme Thefollowingisabriefaccountofthenotionsofthemeandrhemewith respecttoEnglishandArabic,andisbasedontheideasofanumberof differentauthorsandapproaches.Forafullerdescriptionofthemajor approachesto thistopic,see Baker( 1 992:1 19-79).Inrelationto Arabic, cf. alsoDickinsandWatson(1999: 337-51 ,377-87). Thebasicideabehind themeandrhemeisthat sentencescanbedivided up into some elementwhichprovide at least relativelypredictable information andotherswhichprovideatleastrelativelyunpredictableinformation.The elementwhichprovideatleastrelativelypredictableinformationareknown asthetheme,whilethoseelementswhichprovideatleastrelatively unpredictableinformationareknownastherheme.Considerthefollowing froma text onAyatollahKhomeini(fromDickins andWatson1999: 461 ): Sentential issues in translation1 17 AyatollahKhomeiniwasthesonof acleric.Hewasborin1 903 inthe smalltownofKhomeinin Isfahan province. mthe secondsntenceher the infonation givenby'He'i highlypredictable, because'AyatollahKhomeini'(whom'He'alsorefers)has beenmentioned intheprevious sentence.'He'accordinglyidentifessomeonealreadyknown aboutinthetext,andisthethemeof thissentence.'Wasborinthesmall townofKhomeininIsfahanprovince' , bycontrast,isunpredictable;the infonnationhereisallnew,andthis element is accordingly the rheme. Thefirstsentenceinthisextractissomewhatmoreinteresting.Letus imaginethesituationinwhich'AyatollahKhomeiniwasthesonof acleric' wasthefirstsentenceofthistext.Inthiscase,wecanseethatneitherthe element' AyatollahKhomeini'northeelement'wasthesonofacleric'is knownbeforethesentence,andthereforeneitherisabsolutelypredictable.mthiscase,however,wemaysaythattheauthorchoosestotreat'Ayatollah Khomeini'asrlatively prdictableandthereforethematizesit(i.e.makesit theme).Thereare tworeasonsfor doing this.Firstly,it i fairlylikely through their previousknowledgeof theworldthatthereadersof thistextwillknow thenameAyatollahKhomeinibutnotknowthathewasthesonof acleric. Secondly,since the wholetext is about AyatollahKhomeini, wemay saythat thechoiceof'AyatollahKhomeini'asthemeis justifiedbythesubsequent developmentofthetext;i.e.lookedatglobally'AyatollahKhomeini'or wordssuchas'He' ,whentheyrefertoAyatollahKhomeini,aregoingtob predictable elementsthroughout. Boththe sentences'AyatollahKhomeiniwasthesonofacleric'and'He wasborin1903 in the smalltownof Khomeinin Isfahanprovince'illustrate ageneraltendency,whichistrueofArabicaswellasEnglish,forthemeto precederheme.Thiscaberegardedasa'natural'orderinthatit mirrorsthe orderofthingsintherealworld;whenwearetryingtoworkout something new,westartwithwhatisknownandproceedfromtheretowhatisnot known. 9. 2.2. 1Sentence stress InspokenEnglishandArabic,themeandrhemecaberelatedtonotionsof stress.Ifyouradthesentence' AyatollahKhomeiniwasthesonof acleric' outloud,youwillhearthatthesentence-stressfallson'cleric' .Thegeneral tendencyinbothArabicandEnglishisforstresstofallonawordinthe rheme. Thiscorrelationbetweenrhemeandsentencestresscanalsobeseenon therelativelyrareoccasions inEnglish whererheme comes frst in the sentence. Consider the following: 1 1 8Tinking Arabic tanslation What happened toyou? (a)Igot stungbyab.(b)Abstungme. Response(a)followsthestandardtheme-frstteme-rhemeorder,andthe sntence-stress fallson`b . Respons(b),however,hasthereverse'rhemetheme'order;hereagain,however,sentence-stressfallson'bee' .WhererhemeprecedesthemeinEnglish,asin'Abeestungme' ,the sentencetendstocarryacertainemotionalcharge.Itwouldbeperfectly possible- infactprobablynormal- toutterthesntence'Igotstungbya bee'inamatter-of-factway.Anutterancealongthelines'Abeestungme' , however,ismuchmoreassociatedwithannoyance,orsomeotherstrong emotion. 9.2.2.2Emhatic preposing It isimportanttodistinguishbetweeninitialrhemes,whichinvolvesentencestress,andpreposedemphaticelements.Consider the followingsntence: IntheearlysixtiesAyatollahKhomeiniledthemovementagainstthe Shahof Iran' s'WhiteRevolution' .Thissentencei si nfactthestartof thenextparagraphof theAyatollah Khomeinitextwhichwequotedfromearlier.Herthemainsentence-stress fallson'Revolution' ,i.e.the end of the rheme.Theris,however,asecondary stress(signalledbyarisingpitch)whichfallson'sixties' ; suchsecondary stresscabetermed phrasalstress(or clausalstressinthecaseof aclause). Inthissentence,'m theearlysixties'isclearlynotthemaintheme.Itcan betermedapreposedemphatictheme.'Preposed'withrespecttoEnglish means'placedbforethesubject' ;inEnglishanyelementwhichisplaced beforethesubjectinadeclarativesentencecanbedescribedaspreposed. 'Emphatic'meansthatthereissomesenseof'pickingout'theelementfora specialpurpose;herethepurposeisforlinkageandcontrastwithanumber ofsimilarlypreposedtime-phrassinsubsequentsentences.Latersentences inthesameparagraph,forexample,begin'Followinganagreementbetween IranandIraq'and'On2 February1 979'. Arabic,likeEnglish,makesuse ofpreposedemphaticthemes.InArabic, however,anythingwhichcomesbeforetheverbina sntencewhichcontains averbmaybeapreposdemphatictheme.Thusinsentenceswhichhavethe wordorder Subject- Verb-(etc.),thesubjectmaybeemphatic(cf.Dickinsand Watson1 999:337-5 1 ).Itwouldalsoappearthatinsentenceswhichdonot containamainverb,thesubjectisoptionallyemphatic.Weshallconsider furtherissuesrelatingtosentenceshavingthewordorder Subject- Verb-( etc. } inthefollowingsction. Sentential issues in translation1 19 9.2. 2.3Basic theme-rheme translation issues Intermsof Arabic>Englishtranslationthedistinctionbetweenthematicand rhematicinformationis most problematicwher it proves diffcult or impossible toreproduceroughlythesamewordorderi nEnglishasi ntheoriginal Arabic.If the word order of theoriginalArabiccanberoughlymaintainedin theEnglish,thiswilloftenreproducetheoriginaltheme-rhemestructure, becauseEnglishandArabicbothhaveatendencytostartwiththemost thematicelementandendwiththemostrhematicelement.Thisgeneral principle is illustratedbythe following: __ __ ' | This bridgewas built by Egyptianengineers Here,theArabicandEnglishstructuresseemratherdifferent;theArabicis activeandtheEnglishpassive.However,thesamebasicorderofideasis maintainedinboth- 'bridge'frstand'engineers'next.Theonlydifference hereisthatArabichastheverb rightatthebginning,whereasEnglish 'wasbuilt'comesafterthesubject.InthecaseofEnglish,however,itisin virtuallyallcasesobligatorytohavetheverbafterthesubjectindeclarative sentences(inArabictheverbmaycomefrst,orthesubject).Wordorderin this respect isnot thereforealterablefortheme-rheme considerations. 9.2.3Foregrounding and backgrounding The term'subordinate'in'subordinateclause'or'subordinateelement'may besaidtoindicateanumberofthings.Fromagrammaticalpointofviewa subordinateclauseissubordinateinthatitfallsoutsidethemainpartof the sntence,and can only ocur togeter withthis mai part. Fromaninformational pointofview,asubordinateclausemaybesaidtobeinformationally subordinate. This canbe shown fromthepassage about AyatollahKhomeini, which we brieflydiscussedin 9.2.2.2 (cf. Dickins and Watson1999: 462). IntheearlysixtiesAyatollahKhomeiniledthemovementagainstthe ShahofIran' s'WhiteRevolution' . P aresult,hewasexiledin1963, firsttoTurkeyand thento theIslamicholy city of Najaf in Iraq.Following anagreementbetweenIraqandIranhewasexpelledfromNajaf and was forcedto tke up residencenear Paris in the late seventies.On2 February 1979,afterashortstayinFrance,hereturedtoTehranuntilafterthe Islamicrevolutionon1 1February1979. Noticehowallthe timephrasesaresubordinate,whilethematerialcarrying themainlineofthestoryisinthemainclauses.ThisistypicalinEnglish. Now compare the text with thisalterative version, inwhichthetimephrases 1 20Tinking Arabic translation are made into the subject of the main clause: TheearlysixtieswasaperiodofleadershipforAyatollahKhomeini against te Shahof Iran' s 'White Revolution' .As aresult,1963 saw him exiled frst toTurkeyandthentotheIslamicholycityof Najaf in Iraq. ThepriodfollowinganagreementbetweenIraqandIraninvolvedhis expulsion fromNajaf, and the late sventies fored him to take up rsidence nearParis.The2ndofFebruary1979,whichwasprecededbyashort stay in France, witnessed Khomeini's retur to Tehran;1 1February1979, the date of the Islamic revolution, marked the end of this period. Thisversionofthetextisdistinctlyodd.Onereasonforthisisthatit consistently upgrades the time element from the subordinate, ancillarystatus whichithadintheactualtext,toa main statusdiscoursally.While theideas inthetexttellusthatitmustbeaboutAyatollahKhomeini' slife,the organiztionof theseideassuggeststhat thelisteddates ought tobethe topic of the text. Subordinateelementsaresometimessaidtoconveybackground information,i.e.the kindof informationwhichisnotcentralto the overall topicof te text or sectionof text inquestion.Mainclauses,by contrast,are said toconvey foreground informaton, i.e.informationwhichiscentralto theoverall topic. This situationiswell illustatedbytheKhomeini text. Theforegrounding-backgroundingdistinctionwhichischaracteristicof subordinationcanbe contrastedwiththesituationwhichobtainsin casesof clausalcoordination. Consider the following: 1. Disputes break out and people tend to blame one another. 2. Whendisputes break out, people tendtoblame one another. Withoutanycontext,example1seemsoddbecausetheinformationthat 'disputesbreakout'is trivial.Itis thencoupledby theuseof'and'withthe much more significant (i.e.worthyof foregrounding) informationthatpeople tendtoblameoneanother.Theimplicationof using'and'tolinkthesetwo piecesof information, however, is that they areof roughly equalsignificance totheoveralltopicof thetext. There is a contradiction - or atleast a tension - betweenthediffernce in the significance of thetwopiecesof information conveyedbythetwoclauses,andtheimplicationintheuseof'and'that these two pieces of inforation are of at least roughly equal significance. Thistensionisresolvedinexample2.'Whendisputesbreakout'ishere presentedasrelativelyinsignificantsubordinateinformation,whichsimply provides background to the main point being made. Insayingthatthetwoclausesconnectedbyacoordinatingconjunction such as'and'are of roughly equal signifcance to the overall topic of the text or text-section,wearenotsuggesting thatonecould reverse theorder of the twoclauses andretainthesamemeaning.Thus, thereisa clear differencein Sentential issues in translation1 21meaningbetween' Disputesbreakoutandpeopletendtoblameoneother' ,and'Peopletendtoblameoneother anddisputesbrakout' .In thefrst cas, theobviousinterpretationof thesentenceistatthedisputescomefirst and leadtotheblaming;inthesecondtheblamingcomesfirstandleadsto disputes. Notealsothat'Disputesbreakoutandpeopletendtoblameoneaother' isnot intrinsicallyoddinEnglish.Allthatis required torenderit aperfectly reasonableutteranceisacontextinwhich'Disputesbreakout'ismade non-trivialbybeinglinkedtoaspecifctimeor place, for example in:'If theweather's bad orthe order-book'snot full,disputesbreakout andpeople tendtoblame eachother' . 9.2.4Interacton or theme-rheme ad main-subordinate element Inthe previoussectionswehave lookedindependentlyatthemeandrheme elements,andmainandsubordinateelements.Elementsfromthesetwopairs cancometogetherinfour possible ways: Main-themei.e.athemewhichisamainclause,orpartofa mainclause Subordinate-themei.e.athemewhichisasubordinateelement,orpart of asubordinateelement Main-rhemei.e.arhemewhichisamainclause,orpartofa main clause Subordinate-rhemei.e.arhemewhichisasubordinateelementorpart of asubordinateelement Wewould expct these elements to express the following kindsof information: Main-theme Subordinate-theme Main-rheme Subordinate-rheme predictable,foregroundinformation predictable,backgroundinformation unpredictable,foregroundinformation unpredictable,backgroundinforation Wehavealready lookedatsomeexamplesof main-themeandsubordinatethemeinthetextonAyatollahKhomeini.Inthistext,theelementwhichis mostclealybotmainandthemeandhenceprdictableandforegroundedis 'AyatollahKhomeini'inthe first sentence,and'he'in everyother sentence. Inthesametext,thesubordinate-themesaretypicallyinitialtemporal phrases:thus`mthe early sixties' , 'Followinganagreement' , 'On2 February 1979, after a shortstayinFrance' .Pnotd( 9.2.2.2), suchinitialnon-subject themesarealsoemphatic. Main-rhemesinbothEnglishandArabicseemtofulfltheexpectation that they expressinformationwhichisbothunpredictableandsignificantto 1 22Tinking Arbic translation the overalltopicof thetextorsctionof text. ThemostinterestingcategoryinbothEnglishandArabicissubordinaterhemes.Theexpectationisthatteseshouldconveyinformationwhichis bth backgrounded andrlatively unpredictble. mmany ca,this expectation isfulflledinbothEnglishandArabic.AgoodexamplefromEnglishisthe following(Leith1 983:1 3; citedin Sekine1 996: 78): In short,theRoman empire witnessdaprocess known to sociolinguistics as language shit. TheevidenceforthisisthatLatinformedthebaseof French,Spanish,Italian,Portuguese,andRomanian{ astheyarespoken today} .Here,' astheyarespokentoday'i s relativelyunpredictable;oratleastwhat predictabilityithasisentirelydepndentontepreviousmentionofthe languagesconcered.Atthesametime,it isalsobackgroundinformation;it isincludedonlytomakeplainthatwhatarebeingreferredtoarethe contemporaryversionsof French,Spanish,Italian, Portuguese andRomanian, not earlier versions of thesamelanguages.However,this wouldprobablybe theinterpretationreachedbythereaderevenwithouttheinclusionof'as they spkentoday'. phrase,terefor, is of littleimporanceinforationally, andit isnoteworthythatthetextinfactgoesonsubsequentlytotalkfurther aboutLatin,ratherthanpursuingissuesrelatedtothemodemRomance laguages. Sometimes,however,subordinate clausesinrhemeposition(i.e.towards theendof thephrasor sntence)conveyforegroundratherthanbackground information.This tendencysemsmorpronouncedi Arabicthanin English. Consider the following from.U|_| by_m. . ..I ...: t' I ..1_ 5 1! | | __g| _ q__JI I J e | Afairlyliteraltranslationof thiswouldbe: Thegirls'laughterrose,{ whileFawaz'srageexploded} . Hestopped walking,turedaround,stoodfeetapart,andstaredatthefourgirlsin angerand challenge. Thistranslationseemsslightlyoddforanumberof reasons.Theaspectof thisodditywhichconcersus here,however,isthephrase'whileFawaz's anger exploded' .The fact that thisisasubordinateclausecomingafter'The girls'laughterrose' , suggeststhatitshouldconveyunpredictablebut backgroundinformation- andthis isindeedwhat it does seemto convey.In the context, however,it would makebettersns if the informationconveyed Sentential issues in translation1 23 werenotonlyunpredictable,butalsoforegrounded.Thereasonforthisis that Fawaz' s explosion isanimportant featureof thetext's development; as wecansee fromthefollowing quotedlines,thetext goesonimmediatelyto describe Fawaz's behaviour asa result of his explosion of anger. Aactual translation of this section (St John1 999:32)rads: Whenheheardthegirls'laughter,{ Fawazexplodedwithrage} . He stoppd, spun round, and stood, glaring furiously at the four young women. Ignoring other differncesbetweentis I and the more literal I proposed earlier (since thes are not relevant tothecurent discussion), we can se that the translator has reversedthesubordination structure of thephrase .:l.'_ ': '. ThemainArabicclause L,' has been converted intoanEnglishsubordinateclause(with some other changes)'When he heard the girls'laughter' ,whilethe subordinate clause ' ' hasbeenconvertedintoanEnglish main clause (alsowithsomeotherchanges)' Fawazexplodedwithrage' .Oneeffectof thisistoforegroundtheinformationconveyedby'Fawazexplodedwith rage' ,andthusproduceamorenatural-soundingrenderingthanthatof the more literaltranslation. Reversalofthesubordinationstructureisafairlycommonstrategyfor dealingwithcasesinwhichrhematicsubordinateclausesinArabicconvey foregroundinformation.Asecondregular strategyis totranslatethe Arabic rhematicsubordinateclauseasa separatesentenceinEnglish.Thisstrategy is illustrated by the following fromCalderbank ( 1 990: 23): |' ' U| _ 1_\y 1' _u,.l _. ' ' _j' ' L ' ''l ' ' . { g g J . . ._,1 )_,' _' '_ _ , [}. . cL1[,'Y' }L '_ 91'This couldbe translated asfollows: Sincethe strongbytheir verynaturedidnotacceptblindobedienceto theSupremeGuidethevenerableHasanElBanna,andindeed,actively attempted to question some of his judgement, he termed them'malicious' , and went sofar asto expelthem fromtheBrotherhood. { Asa result }the onlyremainingmembersof ElBanna'sinnercirclewerethosewhose extremeweaknessmeantthattheywereunabletoopposehim.{ These people }he called'the trustworthy'. Herethetwosubordinate clausesintroducedby ''''..:andl' _ Y' in Arabic are relayedby separate sentences in English. 1 24Tinking Arabic translation 9.2.5Translaton of Arabic cordinated clauses OftenthetranslationintoEnglishofArabicsentencesinvolvingthe coordinatingconjunctions and= ~ andlesscommonly presentno problem;,forexaple,issometimestranslatableas'and' .Whereit begins asentencem Arabic,itwilltypicallyhavenocorrespondent inEnglish;and whereocursasacoordinatingconjunctioninalongArabicsentence,it maybappropriateinEnglishtomaketwosentences.otherwiseomitting any equivalentof .Sometimes, however.Arabiccoordinatingconjunctionspresentmorof a tanslationproblem.Considerthefollowing.whichis takenfmthestartof thenovel| bytheSudanesewriterg' (gn.d.:1 1):,_' | . | _,lW_ .jLY' ,j|. ,1__y| L| ,|' . _' _' __.s.LL ' ._1 | LThis might btranslatedas: Whenchildrn 8 bor,teygreet lifewithascream;thisiswellknown. However,according his moter andthewomenwho attendedhisbirh. assoonasZein came into the world he burst out laughing. Here,ArabicusesthecoordinatingconjunctionL tolinkthetwophrases jLY| ,ad,' _l+. Given that coordinating conjunctionstypicallypresenttheinformationgivenbytherelevant clauses asequallyforgrounded,onemighthaveexpectedthetranslationtoread somethinglike:'Childrenaebor,andtheygreetlifewithascream' .This. however,soundssomewhatoddinEnglish,justasasentence' Disputes breaout,andpople tendtoblameoneanother'cansoundodd. The reason inbothcassisthatthestructuraccordstoomajor a statustotheinformation givenin thefist claus,i.e.it makesthefrst clausetooforegrounded.Thus, inthecaseoftisexample,thenotionthatchildrenareborisobvious. (Indeed,onewouldprobablyonlywanttousethisformulationinthe 1 if theauthor weredeliberatelyinviting the rader tor-examine the notionthat childrenarebor,andaccordtoitfreshsignifcance.Thisisnotthecae here.)AmorenaturaleffectisachievedintheEnglishbysubordinatingthe phrae'childrn bor' ,byintoducingit withthesubordinating conjuncton 'When' .Sentential issues in translation125 PRACTICAL9 Practcal9.1Theme and rheme, and mainnes and subordination Assignment (i)Discussthestrategicdecisionsthatyouhavetotakebeforestarting detailedtranslationof thefollowingtext,andoutlineandjustifythe strategy youadopt.You are totranslate the text aspart of an'Fromthe ArabPress'sectionoftheEnglishversionoftheEgyptiandaily newspaper''v'.The intended readership umaily expatriate EnglishspeakersinEgypt,plussomeotherreadersworldwidewhoarelikely to have quitea good knowledge of Middle Easter culture and affairs. (ii)Translate the text into English. (iii)Explainthedecisionsof detailyou madein producingyour translation whichareofrelevancetotheme-rhemeissuesandmainnesssubordination issues. (iv)Explainotherdecisionsofdetailwhichyoumadeinproducingyour translation. Contextual information Thispassageis takenfromanaticleintheweeklyEgyptiannewsmagazine ,' _(no.3521 , 4 December1995). The article by . j.is entitled L1 ' _'~' _G' _,|. Tegeneral theme of the article is the negative political effects of religious fundamentalism in theMiddleEast (text taken from Hetherington1996: 34-5). ST v. ' _v, ' _' _ V V' _ .| . -_1._. _..=.. L__' g l _.' l__'_' - ' ' ,._v._qY. ' | L' _' ' , '_ _ _L' j' .'` ` ` '.j` i.' . t' L' '- 'c_j- t' =_1,

}-` L~| '* ' ' x ' ' |- .L I '

'c_|Fairly literl I Since the American{ maeto' } frst uttered that, simila and corrsponding statementshaveproliferated on the part of theall the{ playeri}on the { discordant tune} ,whetertheywerethosewho{ formedpartof the orhestra }itlf, or thos who { were part of the accompanying choruss } ! ! !Thenthe{ discordantmelodies7 }{ becamequicker} ,andindeedthe subsquent/connected{ discordantrecalcitran} actions,Itwasnot long beforetheastonishedworldbegantohearnewfabricationsfromthe United Sttes - God preserve it! - whose basis, on the level of its arbitrary attack, wasthe equivalence between the PLO and it leader,such that the Organizationhadlostmuchofits{ credif }intheAmericanpolitical { bank'O } ,Idiomatic I SincetheAmericansfirst{ orchestrated' }thiscampaign,similarly { discordant notes have been struck3} by all the minor { players2 } ,whether theywereactually{ membersofthealliance }ormerely{ stoodby applaudini}USactions.These{ discordantvoices7 }haverecently { reachedacrescend06}andhavegivenrisetoincreasingly{ violent action/I .Now,abwilderedworldhasbegunto hear newallegations fromthegloriousUnitedStates,whoseabusivetonesaredirectednot onlyagainst Arafat, but against thePLO ingeneral,and which suggest that the PLO ha { lost whatever crdif" o}it had with the Americans. Metaphor1 61Practcal11.2Metphor Assignment (i)Discussthestrategicdecisionsthatyouhaveto take beforestarting detailedtranslationof thefollowingtext,andoutlineand justifythe strategy youadopt.You are to translate the text part of a translation of the whole novel which you are undertaking. This is to bepublished one in a series of translations of moder Arabic novels. The intended readership compriseseducatedEnglish-speakerswithagoodgeneral knowledgeofEnglishliterature,butnospecialistknowledgeof the Middle East. (ii)Translate the text into English. (iii)Explainthedecisionsof detailyoumade inrespect ofmetaphorin producing your translation. Contextual information This extract is takenfrom the novel by the Palestinian writer t_. The central character-of thenovelis a young jouralist called _L who lives in the.of the title, which can be taken to b Jerusalem(or afictional-equivalent) ._L feelsoppressedbythearmy which is blockadingthe city, and which on one level canbe understood a referencetotheoccupyingIsraeliarmy.Healsofeelsoppressed,however, bythefact thatwhere there shouldb harmony,respect andpeace between peopleinthecity, thereis hatredanddistrust.Inthisextract(fromBrown 1996: 36), .L i contemplating his predicament. 1ZLanguagevarietyand translation:register, sociolectand dialect 12.1BASIC PRINCIPLES Inthischapterwelookatanelusive,butimportant,aspectofmeaning: characteristics in the way the message is formulated that revealinformation about the speaker or writer. We shallcall this'speaker-rlated information' .For simplicity's sake,weshallapplytheterms'speaker'and'listener'to spoken andwrittentext alike. There ar two broad categories of speaker-related information that can be revealedthrough themanner, or style, inwhichthemessageis formulated. The frst comprisesthingsthat speakersintend to reveal,notably the effect theywanttheirutterancestohaveonthelistener.Thesecondcomprises tngs that they do not necesarily intend to rveal, notably the soial sterotyps they appear to belongto,and their regionalandclass affiliations. Any or all of these things can occur together, but, in analysing style, it is useful to keep themasclearlydistinctaspossible,becauseithelpsthetranslatortopin down what features are textually imporant. 12.2REGISTER 'Register'is a termused in somany different ways that it can be positively misleading. It is possible to isolate at least four theoretically distinct types of register that mightbeusedintheanalyticdescription of language (Hervey 1992). For our purposes, however, these fall into two types of register which it is methodologically useful for translators to distinguish. Lnguage variet and translation1 63 12.2.1Tonal register The first is what weshall call tonalregister.Thisis thefeatureof linguistic expressionthatcarriesaffectivemeaning,whichweexaminedinCh,6.4. That is, it is the tone that the speaker takes - vulgar,familiar, polite, formal, etc.Theaffectivemeaningofafeatureof tonalregisterisconveyedbya more or lessdeliberate choice of oneout of a range of expressions capableof conveying a given literal message - comparefor example c-=a...,| as opposed to or,orin English'Wouldyoumind being quiet'or ' Silenceplease' , asopposedto'Shutup! ' . Astheseexamplessuggest,the effectof tonalregisterson listenersissomethingforwhichspeakers canbe held responsible, in so far as they are deliberately beingobscene,polite,etc. In handling tonal register, it i clearly important for the translator accurately to assess wheretheST expressioncomeson theSL'politeness scale' ,andto renderitwithanexpressionascloseaspossibletoacorrespondingTL degre of politeness.But it is not enough just have a rprtoire of expressions capableof injectingvariousaffectivemeaningsintoagivenliteralmessage. Equallyimportantisthe situationinwhichtheexpressionisused:different sortsof social transaction - preaching in a mosque or ina church, defending a clientincourt,sllinga car toamale customer, etc.- allimplydifferent tonalregisters.ThusatthestartofapoliticalspeechinArabicthephrase _ , c. is more likely to be translatedbythe relatively formalclich'Iwouldliketotakethisopportunitytosay[ . . .] ' thantheless formal'On this occasion I want to say[ . .. ]'(Dickson1 999:1 2). A case in which tonal register presnts a more complex tanslation problem isthefollowing,fromarather'gushing'accountof avisittoMoroccobya jouralist from magazine(Boothby1 996:1 01 ) ..[l | . . .,' And so we do not say"adieu"toMorocco but"aurevoir"' . Heretheuseof theFrenchismsintheEnglishtranslation conveys the rather orate and mannered nature of the original. Afurther complicationisprsntedbythe factthat the source culture and the target culturemayhavedifferent expectationsregardingtheappropriate tonalregister(s)for agivensituation.As the example_.l(Ch. 6.4)showed,itisasimportanttobeawareofculturaldifferencesasof situation. 12.2.2Social register Asocialregisterisaparticularstylefromwhichthelistenerconfidently inferswhat socialstereotype the speaker belongsto.Of course,astereotype bydefinitionexcludesindividualidiosyncrasiesofpeoplebelongingtothe stereotype;but, however unfortunate this may be, we do tendtoorganizeour interactionswithotherpeopleonthebasisofsocialstereotypes.These 1 64Tinking Arabic translation stereotypes cover thewholespectrumof social experience.Theyrangefrom broad value-judgemental labels, such as'pompous' ,' down-to-earth' , 'boring', etc.toincreasinglyspecificstereotypicalpersonality-types,suchas'the henpeckedhusband' , 'thesix-pints-before-the-kick-offfootballfan' , 'the middle-agedGuardian-readingacademic' , etc.Insofaraseachofthese stereotypeshasacharacteristicstyleof language-use,thisstyleiswhatwe meanbysocialregister.Oneimportantwayinwhichsocialregisterdiffers fromtonalregister,therefore,is thatthespeaker-relatedinformationisnot usually intentionally revealed by the spaker. Soial register caries information about suchthingsasthespeaker' s educationalbackground,socialpersona (i.e.a social role the prson is used tofulfilling), occupationand professional standing, and so on. Asocialregister is,in other words, astylethat isconventionallyseenas appropriatetobothatypeofpersonandatypeofsituation.Thisisone reasonwhya givengenre,ortext-type,requiresa specificstyle,andoftena specificjargon.(Weshalllookatthequestionofgenreinmoredetailin Chapter13. ) Selectingthe appropriatestyleand jargonis toa great extenta matteroffulfillingexpectationswithregardtosocialregister:selectinga wrongsocialregisterrisksunderminingthespeaker'ssocialpersonaasa credible authority on the subject. Clearly,intranslatinganST thathasspeaking charactersinit,or whose author uses socia register for self-projection,a major concer is constructing anappropriate register.Inpurelyinformativetexts,thisisrelatively straightforward,themain problembeingtofind the conventional TL style for thegenre.Themor jouralisticorliterarytheST,however,thegreaterthe importanceofcharacterization,andthereforeofsocialpersona.Whenthe translator isoperating betweenclosely related cultures - suchastwo Wester Europeanculturesforexample- itissometimespossibletomatchsocial stereotypesreasonablyclosely- footballfans,perhaps,orguestsatan aristocratic ball, or university students.However,whenthe culturesare more distant fromoneanother - for exaple British cultureandEgyptianculture-mattersbecomemoreproblematic.Itis,forexample,difficulttosaywhat wouldbethe British'equivalent'of apeasantfromsoutherEgypt,or of a populistIslamicpreacher,justasonecouldhardlyimaginetheEgyptian equivalent of a New Age'guru' .Socialandtonalregisterarenotalwaysfullydistinguishable,fortwo reasons.Firstly,itisnotalwaysclearwhetherastyleof expressionrefects social stereotypingor thespeaker' s intentionstowards thelistener.For some speakers, an utterance'Iamnot prepared to put up with further prevarication' mightbeareflectionoftheirsocialstatus;certainhighlyeducatedolder people in particula tend to have a soial register which is consistently formal. For many other speakers, however, this style of languagewould bea function of tonalregister;it isaformoflanguagewhichtheywouldonlyusewhen they were deliberatelyadoptinga tone of formality and authority. Language variety and transLation 1 65 Secondl y,characteristics of particular social registers often include features oftonalregister. 'Theboysdonewel l ' saidbyafootbal lmanagertoa television interviewer after a winning matchnot only refects a social persona ofthemanageras'down-to-earth'and' straight-speaking' ,butisalsoan instanceofatonalregisterinwhichthemanagerpresentshi msel fasan authoritative butkindly father fi gure. Inthe case of StandardArabicit i s easier to identifytonal register thanit is to identify social register. The intrinsic formal ity of Standard Arabic makes itdiffi cul ttoestabl ishclearl i nksbetweentheki ndof l anguageusedand socialstereotypes.In translating StandardArabici nto Engl ish, however,this doesnot mean that social register shoul d necessaril y beignored.In order to achieve a form of English which is contextually acceptable, it may be necessary toimpose a social register on the translation, even where thereisno obvious social register i n the ST. Incaseswherei ti simpossibletodi sentangletonalandsoci alregister wi thoutlengthyanalysis,i t isacceptable fortranslation purposes si mplyto use' register' as a cover-term. 12.3SOCIOLECT Whereasasocialregisterbelongstoafai rl ynarrowlystereotypedsocial persona, a sociolectisdefinedi n termsof sociologicalnotionsof cl ass.A sociolectisal anguagevarietytypicalofoneofthebroadgroupingsthat togetherconstitutethe' cl assstructure'ofasociety. Examplesofmajor sociolectsintheUKarethoselabelled' urbanworking cl ass' ,' whi tecol l ar' ,etc.However, mixed sociolectal/regional designations are often morehelpful inrecognizingl anguagevariantsthanpurelysociologicalones- e. g. ' Leith urbanworki ngcl ass ' , or' Bermondseyurbanworki ngcl ass' . Further complications are thrown up by the oftenmarked differences i n the speech of men and women.Despitethesereservations,sociolectalfeaturescanconveyi mportant speaker-related information. If they are salient features of the ST, the translator cannotignorethemwhendeciding onastrategy.Thefirstcrucial factorto consideriswhattheirfunctioni s in theST.So, for example, transl ati ng an eye-witness account of a crimeforInterpol, onewould veryl i kely decide to subordinate sociolect to getting the factsclear.On the other hand,if sociolect is not incidental one might need to find a way of showi ng this in the TT. Eveninsuchcases,however,thetransl atorhastoweighanumberof questionsinforming astrategy:Whatisthe function of the ST soci ol ect(s)? What is thepurpose of the TT? Would i tnotbesafest to producea TT in a bland'educatedmiddlecl ass' sociolect?Ifthestrategyistoincorporate some TL sociolectal features corresponding to those in the ST, the requirements are similar tothoseinvolvedinchoosing socialregister:it hastobedecided 1 66Tinking Arabic translation what soiolects the most appropriate, and there must b no inconsistencies in I soiolet (assuming there a none in the ST soiolects). Theinherentformality of StandardArabicmeansthatStandardArabic cannotreallybsaidtohavedifferent sociolect.LikeEnglish,however, collouialAabicsdohavesociolets.Thismeansthatintranslatingfrom Arabic to English one only needs to worry about sociolect in the ST if the ST iswrittenwhollyorpartlyincolloquialArabic.However,aswithsocial register,it may sometimes be necessary to impose a sociolect onthe I in order toachieve a formof Englishwhichis contextuallyacceptable.Where differnt collouial Arabic sociolects are related to education, these will tend to be fttable into oneof the thre levels of as described in Ch.12.4. 1 .12.4DILECT The fourth type of speaer-related information that can be inferred from style concerswhat part of the country speaersare from - where theygrewup, or where they live, and so on. This inference is based ondialect,a language varietywithfeaturesofaccent,lexis,syntaxandsentenceformation characteristic of a given region. Marginally at least, both standard varieties of English and Standard Arabic canbe said tohavedialect forms. Thus,evenin formal writinginScotland 'outwith'is the standad equivalent of English'outside' ,American' diaper' istheequivalent of British'nappy' ,etc.InStandardArabic,the wordfor 'training'is_ (calquedon French' formation' )inNorthMrica,but _elsewhere. Similarly, in Moroccothe normal Standard Arabic form for'noon'iswhile inmost Arabcountries itis ..Neologisms are also frequently subject to regional variation within the Arab world, as different forms a proposed in different countries.Thus'mobile phone'is |in Saudi Arabia, OinKuwait, andinthe Emirates, aswellas_j (or .L)and _,this last being a cultural borrowing which uin general use. In many Europan languages, some speakers have as their own dialect the so-called standard language. Technically a standard language canbe defined asa language variety which'cut[s]acrossregional differences, providinga unifiedmeansof communication, and thusaninstitutionalized normwhich can be used in the mass-media, in teaching the language foreigners, and so on'(Crystal1991 :286). In English, most educated speakers share a standard language,albeitwithsomeregionalinfluenceespeciallyintheareaof pronunciation. Lnguage variet and translation1 67 12.4.1Diglosia ArabicdiffersfromEnglishinthatthestandardlanguage- i.e.Standard Arabic - isnotthenative languageofanyspeakers;that istosay,nobody is broughtupspeakingStadardArabic.Rather,everyonestartsoutlearing thedialect()of the areainwhich they live,andif they goon to achieveliteracy,theysubsequently learStandardArabic_ < \ inan educational environment. The language situation of Arabic i sometimes rferred a one of diglosia. Diglossia can be defined as a situation wher two very different vaieties of a language co-occur throughout a communityof speakers, each having a distinct rangeof socialfunctions. These varieties are felt tobalterativesbynative speakers andusuallyhave special names.It is customary to talk in terms of a highvarietyandalowvariety,correspondingbroadlytoadifferencein formality; the high varietyis leat in shool, and tends tob used ireligious contexts,onradioprogrammes,inseriousliterature,formallectures,etc. Accordinglyithasgreatersocialprestige.Thelowvariety,bycontrast,is usedin family conversations, and other relatively informal settings. WithinthebasicdiglossicdistinctionbetweenStandardArabicand colloquialArabic,itispossibletomakefurtherdistinctions.Ithasbeen proposed by theEgyptianlinguistEI-SaidBadawi(Badawi andHinds1986: viii-ix)that,witinStandardArabic,onecandistinguishbetweenwhat he terms(i) _'StandardArabicof the classical heritage' , and (ii) 'contemporary Standard Arabic' .The former is specifically thelinguisticvehicleofthelegacyofIslamichighcultureandreligion, whilstthelatterisusedtodealwithmoderncultureandtechnology.In Egypt, which isthe focusof Badawi' s account, ~ W islittle different from the classical descriptions of = + s,as might be expectedin what is nowin effecta liturgicallanguage._ = = +< , on theother hand,exhibitsfeatureswhichcontrast withtheusualclassical conventions -particularly,Badawisuggests,amarkedpreferenceforsentencesbeginning with a noun rather than a verb. When spoken, = +< sshows other departures(phonological,morphologicalandsyntactic)fromthenormsof ,m < , most of whichreflect formsfoundinEgyptcolloquial Arabic. Badawibelievesthatthreelevelsof colloquialArabiccanusefullybe distinguished in Egypt:(i) Y'L 'colloquial Arabicof the illiterate' ;(ii) _ 'colloquial Arabic of the"enlightened"(i.e. literate)' ;and(iii)al! | J 'colloquial Arabicof thehighly educated' .The mother tongueof anyEgyptian childisalways either Y or _,depending normallyonwhether thechild comes froma literateorilliteratebackground.If thechildthengoestoschool,heorshe leas and begins tofunction either in (in secular schools) or ,(withintherligioussystem).Mastery of thethird,acquired, 168Tinking Arabic translation levelof | ] isrestricted toa small percentge of the population. ThislevelofcolloquialArabicisineffectthespokencounterpartofthe written| _ s W a .(Wehrdoesnot in factlistthe pluralform,|,butthetranslator couldprobablyguessthis).Thetranslator wouldneedtobeawarethat' yeasts'is intendedhere,ratherthan'enzymes' , for example. L | Y | . .u basal cell layer' Basalcelllayer'isatechnicaltermto denote the deepest cell layer of the dermis. WehrlistsJL initstandardnontechnical sense of 'witness', but not in the technicalsenseof' control'(inan experiment).Cf.also .;|| _ _L_ q J >|,subsumedundersenseof 'control test' . control Type3lexicalproblemsarethemostdagerous,becausethetranslatorcan easily fail torecogniz the term asatechnicalone, andmistakenlyrnder it initordinarysense.The followingterms,allfoundin Wehr, aeactually usedhereinatechnicalsensewhichisnotimmediatelyapparentinthe context. ST IAdditional note bacteria'Bacteria'isatechnicalterm;'germs'is animprecise layterm. intradermal cellsTheglossfor La givenin Wehr,'skin' ,could wellmislead the translator hereinto thinking the termL;i isbeing usedin a standardnon-technicalway.(Althoughthe 1 88Tinking Arabic translation spirit scratch scratch astutetranslatorshouldperhapshave guessd that this is a technical usage from theuse of :A =JY| as contrasted with earlier in the same sntence.) Wehr gives to mean'ether' . Wehr gives_ as meaning'scratch, scratchmark;graze,abrasion' .Theterm isusedhereinthesenseof'scratch' ,a specific technique used in vaccination and skin tests. See prvious note. 14.3CONCEPTUAL PROBLEMS I TECHNICAL TRANSLATION Conceptual problems mtehnical tslation aris from ignorance of underlying knowledge taken for granted by experts, but not understood by non-spcialists and not explicit in the ST.Her are threeexamplesfrom the Syrian medical text. food allergy _' L' gY ]drug [allergy] The standard term in English is 'skin tests' .A formsucha'cutaneous tests'conveys the snse in Englishbut is not the normal formused;itwouldsuggestatranslator who is not sure of the field. Wehr gives _.as meaning'alimental, alimentary, nutriti onal , nutri tious, nutritive' . Aformsuchas'nutritional allergy' isatbestambiguous,but would certainlysuggestanon-specialist translator. Wehrgives .as meaning 'medicinal, medicative,curative'(. islistedas meani ng' remedy, medi cament ,medi cat i on, medi ci ne, drug ' ) .'MedicinaVcurative allergy'amounts toa contradictioninterms,andimpliesa translator ignorant of the field. As these examples suggest, conceptual problems are the most intractable of all those that facethe technical translator.Non-specialistsare always likely to reacha conceptualimpasse fromwhich no amount of attention to syntax or vocabularycanrescuethem.In that casethey haveonlytwooptions:to learthe conceptsof thefieldinwhichtheywishtotranslate,or workin Translating technical texts1 89 closeconsultationwithexperts.Inpractice,traineetranslatorsgenerallydo boththesethings,quicklybecomingexpertsthemselveswiththehelpof specialist supervisors. 14.4LEGALITY AND ACCURACY Theseremarksabouttheneedforconsultationare not tobetakenlightly. Theyraisetheimportantquestionof theresponsibility- andperhapsthe legalliability- of thetranslator.Therisadifferenceherebetweenliterary translationandtechnicaltranslation.It isnotthatliterarytranslatorsarenot heldresponsible fortheirwork,buttheimplicationsofmistranslationare generallylessseriousforthemthanfortechnicaltranslators,whereone mistake could cause financialdamage or loss of lifeandlimb.This is another respect inwhichtechnicaltranslationisexemplary,bringingout extremely clearly a goldenrule which is in fact essentialtoall translation:never betoo proud or embarrassed to ask for help or advice. Thespectreof legalliabilityis arminder that eventheminutest error of detail onanylevelof textual variablesistypicallymagnifiedinatechnical text.Agoodexapleisthedangerof confusingcloselysimilartechnical namesinchemistry.Considerhowsimilararesomeoftheprefixesand suffixesthatcanbeattachedtotheroot'sulph' , andhowmanypossible permutations of temthere are: perbi-dehypohydro-{ suI ph } -ate -ide -ite -onate Obviously,theslightest errorinaffixationherewillbea major factualerror, whereas,in non-technicallanguage,affixationmaysometimes bea matter of style.Forinstance,thereisgenerallylittledifferenceinpracticebetween 'disbelieving'and'unbelieving' ,or between'inexcusable'and'unexcusable' ,while' dissociate'ad 'disassociate'aresynonyms of one another.I n literary texts, thechoicebetweenaffixes canoftenbebasedon euphony or style.But with technicaltermsinspecialist textsof any kind,thattemptationmust be rsisted absolutely. Some parts of technical texts may bformulatedin mathematicalsymbols. Thesenormallyneedminimaleffortintranslation,althoughtheycannot always b literally tanscribd. Careful attention must b paid to any differences betweenSLandJconventions.For example,whereEnglishhasa decimal point in figures, Arabichas a comma. 190Thinking Arbic translation Thetechnicaltranslator'sparamountconcers,then,areaccuracyand conformity with therquirementsof genre.Inso far as therequirementsof genreimplystyle,registerisalsoimportant:thewrongtonalregister may alienatethereaderandundermineconfidenceintheJ, thewrongsoial registermaymisrepresentasocialpersonathattheSTauthorhasbeenat pains to project. The relationship between accuracy and style is not always straightforward, however.If an ST ibadlywritten or ungrammatical, should these infelicities bereflectedintheJ, orshouldtheybe ironedout?This isageneraland controversialissue.Inour view,translatorsarenotinprincipleresponsible for'improving'defectiveSTs.However,thisissometimesnecessarywith technicaltexts(asindeedwithanypurelyinformativetext),becausethe crucialthingisfactualaccuracy.If thereisanypotentiallymisleadingor dangerous ambiguity or obscurityintheST,theriseveryreasontokeepit out of the I if necessary after consultation with the author or an exper. 14.5GENERIC FEATURESOF ENGLISH TECHNICAL TEXTS Beforeembarking onthePractical,itwillbe usefultosharpen awareness of technicalgenresbynotingsomeof thecharacteristicsoftechnicaltextsin English. Weshalltake as an example texta British medical text on bacillary dysentery (AI-Muhammad1993: 1 8 1-2). Bacillary dysentery ThebacillibelongtothegenusShigellaof whichtherearethreemain pathogenic groups, dysenteriae, fexneri,and sonnei, the first two having numerous serotypes. In Britain the majority of cases of bacillary dysentery arecausedby Shigella sonnei althoughinrecentyearstherehasbeena signifcant increase in imported infections caused by Sh. fexneri whereas sonnei dysentery has decreased. Epidemiology Bacillarydysnteryis endemicall over theworld.It occursin epidemic formwhereverthereis acrowdedpopulationwithpoorsanitation,and thus has been a constant accompaniment of wars and natural catastrophes. Spreadmayoccur by contaminatedfoodor fliesbut contact through unwashedhandsafterdefecationisbyfarthemostimportantfactor. Hence the modem provision of hand basins, disposable towels and hot air driers gos a long way towards the prevention of the faecal-oral spread of disease. Outbreaksoccurinmentalhospitals,residentialschoolsandother closed institutions. The disease is notifable in Britain. Pathology There isinfammationof thelargebowelwhichmayinvolvethelower part of the small intestine. Translating technical texts1 91Sigmoidosopy shows that the mucos urd and swollen, the submucous veinsareobscuredandthemucopusisseenonthesurface.Bleeding points appear radily at the touch of the endosope. Ulcers may form. Cliniclfeatures There is great variety insverity.Sonneinfectionsmaybe so mild asto escap detection ad the patient rmains ambulant with a few loose stools andprhapsalittlecolic.Flexnerinfectionsareusuallymoresevere while thos due to dysenteriae may be fulminating and caus death within 48 hours. ma moerately sver illnes, the patient complains of diarrhoa, colicky abdominal pain and tenesmus. Te stols usually smal, and after the frst few evacuations, contain blood and purlent exudate with little faecal material. Ther is frequently fever, with dehydration and weakness uthe diarrhoa persists. Onexamination therewillbetenderessover the colon more easily elicited in the left iliac fossa.msonne infection the patient may develop afebrileillnessanddiarrhoeamaybemildorevenabsent;thereis usuallysomeheadacheandmuscularaching.Arthritisoriritismay occasionallycomplicatebacillarydysenteryasinReiter'sdisease. Diagnosis depends on cultur of faeces. The following are typical features of technical texts in English: 1. The language is usually informative. Thus, although the Bacillar dysenter text deals with a rather nasty and potentially fatal disease, ther is little in it which expresss the emotional feelings of the writer towards te disease. AsPinchuknotes,'the controlled language of scienceismanipulatedin the dirction of insipidity and colourlessness' (Pinchuk1 977:165). Perhaps theonlyphraseinthetextwithsomeemotionalchargeis' a constant accompaniment of wars and natural catastrophes' ,insection2. Here an emotional effect is achieved - whether deliberately or not - by the rhythm of the phras, and alliteration and assonance. 2.Animpersonalstyleisused.Accordingly,thefollowingfeatures are likely to be encountered: a.Thesubjectsof sentencesarelikelytobeabstract.Thus,insection 2oftheBacillardysentertext,thesubjectsof thesentencesare: 'Bacillary dysentery' , 'It'(usedtorefer back to'Bacillary dysentery' insentence1), 'Spread' , 'themodernprovision' , 'Outbreaks' ,'The disease' . b.Thepassiveislikelytobeextensivelyused.Thusinsection1of Bacillar dysenter, we fnd 'are causd by' and'causd by' .In section 3,we fnd'is sen'and'are obscured' .There are alsomany examples of verbswhicharepassive-likein Bacillar dysentery,inthattheir subjects arenot theagents(or'doers' ) of anaction,as is typicalof subjects of active verbs in English. Examples insction1are'belong , 'has ben' ; in sction 2'ocur(s)' (mtimes); in section 3'involve' ,'appear' ,'mayform' . Inaccountsofexperimentsorresearch 1 92Tinking Arbic translation programmes,thepassiveisusedextensively.Theuseofpassiveor passive-likeverbsfocusesattentionontheeffect orresultratherthan on theperson performing theaction. 4.Where texts involve procedures perfored by humanbeings in particular, formulationsof causeand effect arenormal,reflectingtheimportanceof thelogicanddevelopmentofsuchtexts.Causeandeffectformulations mayinclude connectives suchas'consequently' ,'hence'and'thus' ,verbs such as'cause' , ' determine'and' result in' ,andtheuseof'by+ -ing'to signalmethod.Therearesome examplesintheBacillar dysenter text: insection1'causedby' , ' arecausedby' ;insection2'thus' ,'hence' ;and insection4' dueto' , 'cause' .However,ingeneral ,Bacillar dysentery followsapattermoretypicalofpurelydescriptivetechnicaltexts,in whichsentencesbeginwithsubjects,andrelations betweensentencesare oftennotmarked byany connectives. Asarule,technicaltranslationintoEnglishrequireseconomyof language, precision and clarity, and clear use of standard cohesion markers, such as'moreover' ,'likewise' ,'however' ,etc. 5.Nominalization is common. Thereanumerous examples in the Bacillary dysenter text,including:insection1' [a significant]increase'(contrast theuseof ' decreased'later inthesame section);insection2'population' ,'accompaniment' ,'spread' , 'provision' , 'Outbreaks' . P Pinchuknotes, 'Thenominalizedstyleiseasiertowriteanditsimpersonalityavoids commitmenttotense,unliketheconversationalstyle'(Pinch uk1977:1 65). 6.Compoundnounsarealsoa featureof manytechnicaltexts.Examplesin theBacillar dysentertext:insection1'sonneidysentery' ;insection2 ' handbasins' , 'hot airdriers'(cf.also'oral-faecalspread' );insection3 'bleeding points' ;in section 4' Sonne infections' . 14.6INFORMATION SOURCES Pinchuk ( 1 977: 246-51 )pointsout that beforeembarkingonatranslationit isimportantto ascertainwhethertheworkhasalreadybeentranslated.He provides alist of organizations which have registersof available translations, includingAslib(TheAssociationofSpecialLibrariesandInformation Bureaux).Andof coursetechnicaltranslation,liketranslationinanygenre, requiresfamiliaritywithST and TLmaterialofa similar type,toserveasa sourceofinformationandasastylisticmodel.Translatorsmaywellneed sometimetofindtheinformation(e.g.conceptsorlexis)theyareseeking. Usefulsourcesof information include monographs,abstractingandindexing jourals, encyclopedias, standards and trade jourals,theses, and dissertations. Most of these sources are availablein paper form,but increasingly electronic sources,suchasmaterialonthe World WideWeb,are coming tobe usedfor Tnslating technical texts1 93 up-to-datetechnicalinformation.Someorganizations,liketheEuropean Commission,keepdatabasescontainingcentrallyagreedtranslationsof technicalexprssions. These databasesare continually added to, and translators areexpectedtoconformtotheagreedrenderings,intheinterestsof organization-wideconsistencyand clarity.Othersourcesmaybefoundin specificcountries.An exampleistheSaudi-basd BASIM (| | _I+ , > =' |- _j . ,,' .| .l _ qL-,..iJ | >-_ _y =I|' .| j . - _|# .._ c._ . g' __.,q ] ' Practcal14.2Tenicaltranslation Assignment (i)Discussthestrategicdecisionsthatyouhavetotakebeforestarting detailedtranslationof thefollowingtext,andoutlineand justifythe strategyyouadopt.Youareto translate thetext for English-speaking doctorswhoareworkingonadevelopmentprojectinSyriawhich involvespracticalin-servicetrainingofSyrianhealthworkers.The Syrian health workers have studied the ST aspart of their training, and the English dotors rquiran English translationin order to help them asess what the health workers know. (ii)Translate the text into English. (iii)Explain the decisions of detail which you made in producing your I, concentratingonthose relatingto technical questions;you should also write brief notes on any expressions whose translation you are not sure about, explaining what the problemis. (iv)After class discussion of the exercise, discuss thedifferences between your I and that of anexpert,whichwillbegivenyou by your tutor. Contextual inormation This text is taken froma medicaltextbook used at the University of Damascus (fromA-Muhammad1993:233-5).Youmayfinditusefultorefer tothe text entitled Bacillar dysenter, in1 4.5. Translating technical texts1 95 ST 1Translating constitutionaltexts 15.1 DEFIITION Bya constitution we mean anagreed set of principles and rules bywhich an organization is run. Constitutional texts are thus a sub-type of legal or quasilegaltext,andincludeallkindsofconstitutions,rangingfromthoseof internationalorganizationsandstatestothoseof sportsandsocialclubs. Theyalsoincludecommuniques,statements,etc.whichhavethegeneral formof constitutions, as described below.Constitutional texts therefore offer anaccessibleintroductiontosomeof themoregeneralproblemsoflegal translation. 15.2GENERAL STRUCTURE Typical consttutional text can b divided into two parts: an optional preamble, followed by te main text. 15.2. 1Preamble The preamble dosnot formpart of the constitution as such,andtherefore doesnot havethesamelegalstatusastheconstitutionitself.However,it presents the rationale for and/or situation of the proclamation of the constitution. ThenoralArabictanslationof' Preamble'is Li|. Itis commonin English tohavea preamble without atitleline' Preamble' .TheConstitution oftheUnitedStates,forexample,begins'WETHEPEOPLEOFTHE UNITEDSTATES,INORDERTOFORMAMOREPERFECTUNION [ . . .] ' . TheConstitutionofIndia,bycontrast,usesthetitle'PREAMBLE' Translating constitutional texts1 97 followed by the opening statement,' We,the People of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Democratic Republic [ .e . ] ' .Preambles often begin with a frst-person pluralsubject'We'followed by aparentheticalstatementofwhoismakingtheconstitution.TheUnited States constitution, for example, has as its preamble: WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES,IN ORDER TO FORM AMOREPERFECTUNION,ESTABLISHJUSTICE,INSURE DOMESTICTRANQUILITY,PROVIDE FOR THECOMMON DEFENSE,PROMOTETHEGENERALWELFARE,AND SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIERTY TO OURSELVES AOURPOSTERITY,DOORDAINANDESTABLISHTHIS CONSTITUTION FOR THE UNITEDSTATESOF AMERICA. The preamble to the Indian Constitution is as follows: We,the Peopleof India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Democratic Republic and to secure to all its citizens: Justice, social, economic and political; Libert of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; Equality of status and opportunity; and to promote among them all Fraterityassuringthedignityof theindividualandtheunityof the Nation; Inour Constituent Assembly this twenty-sixth day of November,1949, do hereby Adopt,Enact and Give to Ourselves this Constitution. The JordanianConstitution is introduced bythefollowing (whichisperhaps technicallynottoberegardedasapreamble,havingrathertheformof a royaldecreecommandingtheputtingintoeffectof theconstitution:thisis known in Arabic as a _.). q'.: ,`x'' = ,' 1bTranslatingconsumeroriented texts 16.1INTRODUCTION Wehavestressedthatalltexts,includingtranslations,areproducedfora purpose.Thepurposof theIisalwaysamajor factortobtakeninto account indecidinga strategy. This truthis particularlyclear intranslating what can broadly b classedasconsumer-orientedtexts. This, together with the fact that many translators ea their living with these sorts of text, is why we agiving them a chapter to themslves. By'consumer-oriented texts' ,we mean texts which either try to persuade thepublictobuysomething,ortellpurchasershowtousewhattheyhave bought,or advis on commodities that might bebought or courses of action that might b taken. range of texts most obviously includes advertisments, but it alsoincludesthingslike tourist brochures, publicnotices,information leaflets,usermanuals,consumerorhobbymagazines,recipebooks,CD booklets,andsoon - evena lot of propaganda canb classifiedunder this heading. 16.2TOURIST MTERIAL Agoodexample of theproblemsinvolvedin translatingconsumer-oriented texts i provided by tourist material. mfact there aofen quite clea differnces betweentourist material in English andthat in Arabic. 208Tinking Arbic translation 16.2.1English-language tourist material Here for clas discussion i an excerpt from a British tourist brohure advertising theCostaBlanca inSpain. Typical features worth discussing areregister, the choice of adjectives and adverbs, andsentence structure. Sunshine, bright lights and superb sandy beaches, blue-green seas, orange grovesandpicturesquevillages,mountains,oldfortressesandstarry evenings - all par of te Costa Blanca's charm. The weather is exceptional. m spring it' s warm and sunny and the colours of citrusfruits,flowersandblossomsplashthecountryside.Insummer it's gloriously hot andin autumnthe balmydaysmergeslowly into one another.This is perhaps why the Costa Blanca hasbecome so incredibly popular with holidaymakers. 16.2.2Arabic tourist material Compare theEnglishtext with the following extract froma tourist brochur, and an Englishtranslation, bothpublished bythe Yemeni General Authority of Tourism(title of Arabic version: .- __L.',and of English version:'A-Jouf - Marib - Shabwa) (Republic of Yemen, General Authority of Tourism1 997: 2, 3): ST I | l ' q ' .' ,g g' ' ' '' ' _|' _-' , '+=+ ._ {'| '-.l''. ..i ' L_ O_|. ' ,' =' -l' ' _',,. _.' ,.'_ '1'.| -|.,== ___' _='=. ''=)'.' _' =' ' ~ \_=' 1 =l ' =' .' ' ,'__,.'c',_,'L'm M. O' L_'_'Translating consumer-oriented texts209 I Dear Visitor, ThistouristicpublicationisdevotedtointroducetoyouthreeYemeni provinces, which are all situatedin the geographicalscope,lyingin the inner angle of the coastalmountainrangesof Yemen, which was called by mediaeval Arab geographers as the ' Sayhad desert and today as Ramlat al-Sabaatain' . Itis theabodeof theAncient Yemeni Civilizationswhichstartedto flourish since thebeginningof te first millenniumBC,alongthe banks of the valleys. The tropical climateprvails this area, i.e., it is hot and dry in summer but coldin winter. Somepartofitaredominatedbynomadiclife.Inthispartofthe Republicof Yemen,manycompaniescarryoutdrillingworksandoil production, which by the will of Allah, will contibute the development of the country and the upgrading of the standard of living. This Englishtranslationobviouslysuffersfromanumber of linguisticand stylisticproblems; here is a more idiomatic version: Revised I Dear Visitor, This tourist brochur aims to introduce you to thre Yemeni provinces all of whichliewithintheinlanddesertregionbetweenthesoutherand wester Yemeni highlands. This area was known historically as the Sayhad Desert and today is calledRamlat al-Sabaatain. This is the home of the ancient civilizations of Yemen which flourished atthebeginningofthefirstmillenniumBConthebanksoftheriver valleys. The region enjoys a continental climate - hot and dry in summer, and cold in winter. In some areas thelocalpeople followa Bedouin life-style. In this part of the Republic of Yemen, a numbr of companies are engaged in oil-dlng and oil-production. It uto b hopd that the rvenues from thes activities will contribute to the development of the country and theraisingof living standards. The revisedEnglishtranslationdealswithmostof theobvious problemsin the officialEnglishtranslation.However,thegeneralstyleis rather fonal foratouristbrochure.Eventheopeningwords,'DearVisitor' ,whilenot impossibleinaBritishtouristbrochure,seemalittleoutofplace;they perhaps suggest anoffcial notce from a hotel to its clients, rather than a text which will entice visitors to explore. Similarly, the start of the first main paragraph,'This tourist brochure aims 2 1 0Thinking Arabic translation tointroduceyouto[ . . .J'ismorereminiscent of thei nitial ' Abstract' section ofanacademi carticle(e. g. 'Thispaperdealswithanumberofcurrent problemsinplantmorphology[ . . . ] ' ) thanofanEnglish-languagetourist publication. I nthesecondparagraph,thesecondsentence'Theregionenjoysa continentalcl i mate - hotanddryinsummer,andcoldinwinter'isalmost technicalintone comparedwiththedescriptionof theweatherin the Costa Blanca text.Closel y relatedto the generallyformaltone of the Arabicbrochureisits rather academic subject matter. British tourist brohures do sometimes contain hi storicali nformation- ' Thi sisthehomeoftheancientci vi l i zationsof Yemen[ .. . ] 'might not be out of placein a British tourist brochure. However, it islessl ikely that a British touristbrochure would devotesignificant space tooil-explorationandproductionandthei mplicationsofthesefor national development, is done in the thi rd and final paragraph here. The use of the phrase :.O

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I i 17Revisingand editing TTs 17.1INTRODUCTION Throughout this book, we have considered translation sometimes asa proess, andsometimesasaproduct(T).Theassssment of existingTshasbeen animportantfeatureinpracticals,evenbeforewestarteddiscussingthe questionof genre.In this chapter,wetumour attentiontothe fnalstageof translationasaprocess,where theproposedTisactuallyexaminedasa product. Any formof post-translationprocessisintrinsicallyanoperationcarried out inwritingonapre-existenttext.There aretwobasic kindsof operation to b carried out on a preliminary T. The frst involves cheking for accuracy; thiswe shall refertoasrevision The secondinvolves the'polishing'of the Taftertherevisionprocess;thisweshallrefertoaseditng.Itisworth distinguishingbtweenthesetwooperations,sincetheycorrespondtothe phaseswhichprofessionaltranslators standardlygothroughin bringingtheir work up toanacceptablestandardfordelivery to a client.However,the two operationsoverlaptosomeextent:itmaynotalwaysbeclearwhether T peculiaritiesareerrorsorjustfeaturesofstyle;andinanycase,whatis theoreticallyan edit may welloccur tothe reviser/editor duringthe revising stage. As elsewhere inthisbook,therefore, the guidelinesgiven here aremeant toprovideaframeworkwhichallowstheapprenticetranslatortoadopta coherentapproachtotheprocessoftranslation.Theyarenotmeanttobe applied insuchawaythat they hinder the translatorby puttingobstaclesin the way of creative problem-solving. 21 8Tinking Arabic translation 17.2RVISION The main task durng the revision stage is checking the I foradherence to the ST iterms of accuracy: the rviser focuses on errors, omissions, additions, inconsistencies, names andtitles,figuresandtables,etc.Errors of accuracy canbe rlatively minor, such asspelling mistakes or punctuation, or lexical andphrasalerrors.However,theycanalsoincludemorecomplexerrors suchas ungrammatical constructions,orobscure,ambiguous ormisleading confgurations on te sntential and discourse levels. At the revision or checking stage,greateremphasisisusually placedonaccuracythanonterminology. Theobjectivityof the reviser should ensurethat any ambiguitiesorunclear phrasings ar dealt with before passing on to the editing stage. Thefollowingextract,whichistakenfromabilingualArabiclEnglish tourist brohure about the island of Socota off the souther coast of mainland Yemen,is a good example of an English I which requires basic revision of this type (Republic of Yemen,Ministry of Culture and Tourismn.d. : r,3): ST .| ~( t| _t a '.'1 | _.'' __ t'_| ,_._. ' l q v|' [ ___'.v' LLy. ' ' '

='_+,=' -'Published I (unrevised) 4TeWads(Valleys): Theplains areintersspersedby many vallies .Some of whichpour at the northerpart of theIslandandsomeofwhichpouer atitssoutherpart andthemost importantof whichisAzrooValleywhichintersectsthe Islandfromnorthtosouthin additiontothevalleysspringingoutfrom theHajhar Mountainous Range which are characterized for their running water all along the year. ThisIcontainsthreespellingerrors( ' intersspersed' ,'vallies' ,'pouer' ).Therearealsoerrorsof capitalizationandpunctuation( ' Island'shouldbe ' island'(two occurrnces);'vallies .Some' should be'valleys. Some' ;'Valley' inthesecondsentenceshouldprobablybe'valley' , 'MountainousRange' shouldbe'mountainrange' ;seealsosubsequentdiscussion).Therearea number of basiclexicaland phrasal errors:'interspersedby'wouldbebetter as' interspersedwith' ; 'pourat'couldbe'fowoutat'(twooccurrences); 'springingout'couldbe'leadingout' ,'characterizedfor'couldbe Revising and editing Is21 9 'characterized by' ;' all along the year' could be'throughout the year' .Finally, 'Azoo'should probably b'te Oi Azroo'(or'the OAzo' ,etc. depending onwhatformoftransliterationisadopted),giventhattheArabichas__andthat there areno standard English fons for Socotrannameso( a type which might lead tothe'dropping'of elementwithinnames. Taken together, thes proposed change to the I would yield the following: 4The Wads (Valleys): The plains are interspersed with many Valleys. Some of which flow out at the norther part of the island and some of which flow out at its souther partandthemostimportantofwhichistheOiAzroovalleywhich intersect the island fromnorth to south in addition to the valleys leading outfromtheHajharmountainrangewhicharecharacterizedbytheir running water throughout te year. Somewhat mor difficult to deal with problems relating tote discourse andsententiallevels.Themostobviousoftheseistheelement' Someof which[ . . . Jandsomeofwhich[ . . . Jandthemostimportantofwhich[ . . . J throughout theyear' .Sucha sentence wouldonly be plausible in aninfonnal context.Therelative fonalityof thepresentpieceof writingrules thisout. Thiselement canbe converted easilyenoughintoa contextuallyacceptable Englishsentencebyreplacingtheftrst'which'with'these'andthesecond and third with 'them', giving a scond sentence, incorporatig also previously discussd changes, as follows: Someof theseflowoutatthenortherpartof theislandandsomeof themflowoutatitssouther part andthemostimportantof themis the Oi Azroo valley which intersects the island from north to soutin addition tothevalleysleadingoutfromtheHajharmountainrangewhichare characterized by their running water throughout the year. However,thisstillleavesanumber of otherproblemsonthesententialand discourselevels.Themostobviousisthelackof commasafter'OiAzroo valley'and'mountain range' :in each case, the relative clause is a describing clause,not a deftning one, andthusrquires a comma beforeit.Also notable is theuse of 'and'in the phrase'andthemost important of them' .In Arabic, itisperfectly reasonableinthiscontext to usethecoordinatingconjunction .followingaprevioususeof thecoordinating_ inthephrase_# ,iY| .However, in English, suchpilingup of coordinated clauses is typically avoidtd(cf.Ch.9.2.5). A common means of dealing with this problem is to starta newsntence in English.With some additional changes tothe English wording, this gives a I for the main part of the text as follows: 220Tinking Arabic translation Someoftheseflowoutat thenortherpartoftheislandandsomeof themfowoutat itssouther par. The most important of theseis the Di Azroo valley, which interscts theislad fromnorth to south inaddition tothevalleysleadingoutfromthe Hajhar mountainrange,whichare characterized by their running water throughout the year. Thefinalsentenceofthisversion,however,isstillratherodd.Themain reason for this is that it involves multiple subordinate elements:the relative clause beginning'which intersects'followed by the subordinating phrase'in additionto' , followedbyafurtherrelativeclause,beginning'whichare characterized' .Arabicseemstotoleratesuchmultiplesubordinationmore readily than English (cf.Ch,9.2.4). One solution to thisproblemwould be to change the subordinating'in additionto'tothe coordinating'and' ,with the concomitant chage of 'The most important of tese is' to'The most important oftheseare'tomaketheverbagreewiththepluralsubjectinthenew version. This would give a fnal sentence in the English I as follows: The most important of these are the Di Azroo valley, which interscts the island fromnorthto south,and thevalleys leadingout fromthe Hajhar mountain range, which acharacterizd by their running water throughout the year. We shall rtur this text later, when we consider the issue of editing. Sofar we have consideredaccuracyin relationtolinguisticfeaturesof various kinds. However,accuracyalso has a factualaspect:it is not only the language of the I which may be wrong or unsuitable, the concepts themselves mayhavebeendistortedintansmission.The Iisthe sumnotonlyof a translator's kowledge of the two linguistic systems concered and the ability to interfaceandapplythem,butalsoof knowledge of the subject matter in question.Thus, a translator may be linguistically equipped to tackle a text on computer software,butnothavetheexpertisenecessarytomaketheright terminological and practical decisions,terby undermining the I's register and lexis and, ultimately, its quality and autoritativeness. Inthislight,considerthefollowingfromthesamebrochureaboutthe islandof Socotra discussd above (Republic of Yemen,Ministry of Culture and Tourismn.d.: -,7).Tis section is discussing caves on Socotra: ST ' ._' ) ' '_' ,- .]

- | .i' < '-'

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-- - ,^+ } - _l ilu' _L .lu' ' . _'x ' _lRevising and editing Is221 I They areformedby the erosion factors (Geo-hydro)for theunderground waterduringitsmovementdissolvestheLimefromtherocksand precipitates it on the roof of the grotto forming big perpendicular columns and on the ground of the grotto other climbing columns that met sometimes and draw wonderful coloredpicturesof extreme beauty. LeavingasidethelinguisticproblemsinthisI,thetextismarred,and made somewhat obscure,bythefactthat the translator hasfailedtoidentify the correct technical equivalent for L| 'hydrogeological' .He or she hasalsofailedtoidentifythestandardEnglishterms'stalactite[s] ,(for _L .)and'stalagmite[s) '(for .I ). Iz.1 EDITIG Thesecondstageandfinalstageofthepost-translationprocess,thatof editing,focusesontheend-useroftheI,andattemptstoachievethe 'optimumorientationof thetranslatedtexttotherequirementsof thetarget readership'(Graham1983: 1 04). Therearenohardandfastrulesforediting,thoughcriticalfactorsare certainlyappearance,appeal,impact,harmony,taste,registerandstyle.If revisionisconcernedwiththe'barebones'of theI,theeditingprocess willperform'remedialsurgery'(Graham1 983: 1 03),whichshouldconsist of 'upgrading the terminology, clarifying obscurities, reinforcing the impact, honingtheemotiveappealtosuit the target reader' .Afnal'cosmetic'stage shouldbetoensurethattheappearanceandlayoutoftheIrespectthe requirments as stated by the client. With particularly difficult texts,it issometimes worthdoingtherevision processitselfintwophases.Duringthefirstphase,theeditormayfocus entirely onte J,considering it fromte point of viewof style, terminology, etc.as if it were anoriginalEnglishtext.Duringthesecondandfinalstage, the I may be comparedagainwiththeST,to check that concerwith style ha not led to unacceptable translation loss. A knotty issueis always that of style,as style and language-useobviously vary fromonetranslatortoanother.Thus,caremust be takenthat editsare onlymadetoitemswhicharein some wayincorrectorunsuitable,notthose whicharemerelyphraseddifferentlyfromthewaythetransl