Translating the passive voice - univ- · PDF fileThis study is about translating the passive...

University Kasdi Merbah Ouargla

Faculty of Letters and Languages.

Department of English Language and Letters.

Dissertation:

Academic Master

Domain: Letters and Foreign Languages

Major: Translation and Translation Studies Title:

Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Master Degree in Translation Studies

Submitted by: Khaldi jamel

Moulay Khaled

Supervisor: BELARBI Ahmed

Academic Year: 2014/2015

Translating the passive voice

“Rendering the stylistic features“

Dedication

To my mother's soul

To all my family

For their help and support

I dedicate this work.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank my supervisor Mr BELARBI Ahmed Noureddine for his countless

hours of helping, encouraging,

and most of all patience throughout the entire process. A special thanks to Dr.

Halimi for his guidance and precious advices,

I would like to acknowledge and thank all my colleagues for their help

with references and information. Special thanks go

to all our respected teachers and

administrators of English Department.

List of tables

Table01: English Passive Verbs Translated by Arabic Passive Verbs

-Text 1 -Building a Brainier Mouse

Table02: English Passive Verbs Translated by Arabic Passive Verbs

-Text 2- The Coolest Gas in the Universe

Table 03: English Passive Verbs Translated by Arabic Active Verbs

-Text 1 Building a Brainier Mouse

Table 04: English Passive Verbs Translated by Arabic Active Verbs

-Text 2 the Coolest Gas in the Universe

Table 05: English Passive Verbs Translated by Nominalized Constructions with the Infinitive.


Table 06: English Passive Verbs Translated by Nominalized Constructions with the Infinitive.

-Text 2 The Coolest Gas in the Universe

Table 07: Arabic Nominalized Constructions with the Passive Participle


Table 08: Arabic Nominalized Constructions with the Passive Participle


Table 09: Frequency of Passive voice

-Text 1 -Building a Brainier Mouse

Table 10: Frequency of Passive voice


Table11: sub corpus "The gravity"

Table12: Passive Sentence Translated into English Passive Sentence

-Excerpt 1

Table 13: Passive Sentence Translated into English Passive Sentence

-Excerpt 2

Abstract

This study is about translating the passive voice from English into Arabic in scientific texts, as

well as analyzing the stylistic features used in both languages. In this study we aimed at showing

the differences in using the passive voice, notably in scientific texts. The passive voice is one of

the problems that face translators when translating from English into Arabic and vice versa, since

they belong to two different language families they have different grammatical rules and stylistic

features in the passive voice. Arabic doesn‘t use too much passive voice, however English uses

much passive voice particularly in technical text, therefore translators ‗task seems difficult and

they would find themselves puzzled in translating some passive sentences from English into

Arabic; which are sometimes untranslatable For fear that they may, in case of translation, their

flavor and stylistic features in the target language, so that they will be obliged to look for other

options.

Key words: Translation, Passive, Active, Stylistic features, Scientific text.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgment

List of tables

Abstract

خص

Table of contents

Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study 8

1.2 Statement of Problem 8

1.3 Questions of the Study 8

1.4 Hypothesis 8

1.5 Definitions of Terms 9

Chapter one: Passivisation in English and Arabic

2.1 Passive voice in English 11

A- Use 11

B- Form 12

C- Stylistic features 14

2.2 Passive voice in Arabic 15

A- Use 15

B- Form 17

C- Stylistic features 18

2.3 Contrastive Analysis English / Arabic 20

A- Common points 21

B- Different points 21

Chapter Two: Methods, Procedures and Data Analysis

3.1 Introduction 24

3.2 Description of Study Corpus 27

3.3 Methods of Analysis 68

3.4 Data Analysis 68

3.5 Results of Analyzing the Corpus 77

Chapter three: Translating the passive voice

4.1 Difficulties 85

4.2 Techniques 86

General Conclusion 89

Bibliography 91

93 اجحث خص

Introduction

Chapter Introduction

8

Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study.

Translators meet some problems which may affect on the quality of the translation. Some

translators are not aware of the fact that each language has its own grammatical structures and

stylistic features. One of the problems they encounter is translating the passive voice from

English into Arabic and vice -versa. English uses passive voice frequently, especially in

scientific texts, where the agent is usually of lesser importance than the facts themselves.

Arabic, on the other hand, tends to avoid making much use of passive forms.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

English and Arabic are known to represent two genetically distant languages. For one

thing, they use widely divergent frequencies of passive voice in their texts. That is why we

raise this question, how can we deal with the problem of translating the passive voice from

English into Arabic especially in scientific texts although they have different grammatical and

stylistic features.

1.3 Questions of the Study

1. Do we always translate the passive sentences in English by passive sentences in Arabic?

2. Does English keep its stylistic features when translated into Arabic?

1.4 Hypothesis

- We do have many alternatives in translating passive voice in scientific texts from

English into Arabic.

Chapter Introduction

9

1.5 Definition of Terms

In this study, the following definitions will be adopted:

Passivisation : - a grammatical category in which the subject is the recipient or ―goal‖ of the

action denoted by the verb, and not the agent or the initiator of the action. It emphasizes the

fact that it is not the actor who is more important, but the process being described is of

ultimate importance.

Scientific text: A scientific text is an article written specifically to explain or explore a

scientific idea.

Stylistic feature: is the interpretation of texts in regard to their linguistic style.

Chapter I

Chapter I Passivisation in English and Arabic

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Chapter one: Passivisation in English and Arabic

Introduction

In English, all sentences are in either ―active‖ or ―passive‖ voice:

ACTIVE: Thomas Edison invented the light bulb.

PASSIVE: the light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison.

In an active sentence, the person or thing responsible for the action comes first. In a

passive sentence, the person or thing acted on comes first, and the actor is added at the end,

introduced with the preposition ―by.‖ The passive form of the verb is signaled by a form of

―to be‖.

In a passive sentence, we often omit the actor completely:

The uncertainty principle was formulated in 1927

(Corson& Smollett, n.d )

2.1 Passive voice in English

A- The use of passive voice in English

In some sentences, passive voice can be acceptable. You might use it in the following

cases:

It is used when we want to change the focus of the sentence:

e.g: The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. (We are more

interested in the painting than the artist in this sentence)

It is used when who or what causes the action is unknown or unimportant or obvious

or 'people in general'

e.g:

- He was arrested (obvious agent, the police).

- My bike has been stolen (unknown agent).

- The road is being repaired (unimportant agent).

- The form can be obtained from the post office (people in general)


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It is used if the speaker is afraid to mention the doer.

It is used when the subject is indefinite pronoun.

e.g: someone opened the door.

It is used when the action is irrelevant

e.g: An experimental solar power planet will be built in the Australian desert.

(We are not interested in who is building it).

You want to be vague about who is responsible.

e.g: mistakes were made. (Common in bureaucratic writing).

You are talking about a general truth.

e.g: Rules are made to be broken. (by whomever, whenever).

In formal writing instead of using someone/ people/ they (these can be used in

speaking or informal writing)

e.g: The brochure will be finished next month.

You are writing in a scientific genre that traditionally relies on passive voice. Passive

voice is often preferred in lab reports and scientific research papers. Most notably in

the Materials and method section.

e.g: The sodium hydroxide was dissolved in water. This solution was then

titrated with hydrochloric acid.

In this sentence you can count on your reader to know that you are the one who did the

dissolving and the titrating. The passive voice places the emphasize on your experiment rather

than you. (Corson& Smollett, n.d )

B- The form of the passive voice in English

We make the passive by putting the verb 'to be' into whatever tense we need and then adding

the past participle. For regular verbs, we make the past participle by adding 'ed' to the

infinitive. So ‗play‘ becomes ‗played‘. (Seonaid, n.d)


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Tense Acive Passive

Present simple I make a cake A cake is made (by me)

Present coninuous I am making a cake A cake is being made (by me)

Past simple I made a cake A cake was made(by me)

Past continuous I was making a cake A cake was being made (by me)

Present perfect I have made a cake A cake has been made (by me)

Present perfect continuous I have been making a cake A cake has been being made (by me)

Past perfect I had made a cake A cake had been made(by me)

Future simple I will make a cake A cake will be made(by me)

Future perfect I will have made a cake A cake will have been made (by me)

Verbs with two objects

Some verbs that have two objects can make two different active sentences, and so two

different passive sentences too. For example, the verb ‗give‘ is like this:

- Active: He gave me the book / He gave the book to me.

You can choose either of the two objects to be the subject of the passive sentence.

- Passive: I was given the book (by him)/ The book was given to me (by him).

Other verbs like this are: ask, offer, teach, tell, lend, promise, sell and throw. (Seonaid, n.d)

Personal and Impersonal Passive

Personal Passive simply means that the object of the active sentence becomes the subject of

the passive sentence. So every verb that needs an object (transitive verb) can form a personal

passive.

e.g: They build houses. – Houses are built.

Verbs without an object (intransitive verb) normally cannot form a personal passive sentence

(as there is no object that can become the subject of the passive sentence). If you want to use

an intransitive verb in passive voice, you need an impersonal construction – therefore this

passive is called Impersonal Passive.


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e.g: he says – it is said

Impersonal Passive is not as common in English as in some other languages (e.g. German,

Latin). In English, Impersonal Passive is only possible with verbs of perception (e. g. say,

think, know).

e.g: They say that women live longer than men. – It is said that women live longer than

men.

Although Impersonal Passive is possible here, Personal Passive is more common.

e.g: They say that women live longer than men. – Women are said to live longer than

men.

The subject of the subordinate clause (women) goes to the beginning of the sentence; the

verb of perception is put into passive voice. The rest of the sentence is added using an

infinitive construction with 'to' (certain auxiliary verbs and that are dropped). (Passive voice,

n.d)

Passive infinitive

An infinitive construction in which the agent (or performer of the action) either appears in

a prepositional phrase following the verb or is not identified at all.

The passive infinitive is made up of the marker to + be + a past participle (also known as

the en form) e.g: "The case is to be decided by a judge."

C - Stylistic Features of English passive voice

The tendency of English language is to use the passive voice as possible as one could do.

The English passivization tends to cover some areas that typically belongs to the very

language in question, for instance, this voice may tell us many things that another voice may

not and all these are included within the stylistic feature of English.

When the doer of the action is merely grammatical and cannot do the action, this may only be

expressed in passive voice. However, if the subject is logic, the active is more appropriate in

this regard. Eg: Someone is hit by a stone, here it is clear that the stone cannot hit by itself

and there must be a logic doer of the action. Hence a transition to the passive voice is

http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/prephraseterm.htm

http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/pastpartterm.htm


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obligatory. While the same idea can be expressed in Arabic using a different voice that is the

active one. We can say in Arabic: ضشث حجش .

We have a lot of illustrations that pour in the same source : Peter is hit by a car. The accident

that took place here is caused by a logic doer that is the driver of the car , however and since

we do focus on the accident itself and the poor man being hit we have used the passive voice

instead. The same idea here may be expressed in Arabic using the active voice for a simple

reason that Arabic is unlike English in this regard.

One more important stylistic feature in the use of the passive voice in English is the focus on

the process rather than the beginning or the end line of the process; in this case , the passive

voice is preferred and given the priority to express the idea.

Oil is refined in Skikda. If we analyze the very sentence being expressed passively we find

that what is important for the English speaker is the process and not the one who does it or

performs it .

Briefly , English has a very distinctive use of the passive voice that is stylistically

distinguished from any other language, ―Arabic‖ for instance.

The stylistic features of this voice show itself heavily in the process of translation when the

load values are to be put also into account. Regardless the use , the style plays a primordial

role in making this voice what it is and build up a structure that expresses the same ideas

differently for the simple reason we may site here: languages are different and they basically

differ in the stylistic side they convey.

2.2 Passive voice in Arabic

The use

Passive voice in Arabic has different functions. However, we satisfy mentioning just some:

Used for Brevity

Passive constructions are used for brevity and conciseness through the omission of the agent

participant (actor) for example: إ " / لإجنزت ثإ ب ت و إ إ ن ا ثإ بلإجت ن و و بلوجنزت ن و ( 126: اح) "و إ ―And if you

desire to punish oppressors ,then punish them to the extent to which you have been

wronged‖(Anahl: 126) .(Khalil,2011)


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The rhetorical advantage of passivization is achieved through brevity and conciseness because

it intensively affects the recipient as the attention is focused on the process rather than the

details.

(3: صذ) ت / " وذن آ٠وبرت "وإزوبة تص ―A book ,the verses of which have been expounded in detail‖

(Fusilat:3) , if we transform this sentence into active we‘ll add words so that the sentence

became longer than the previous one " زا وزبة ص هللا ا٠بر"

Hiding facts about somebody for fear

Is when the speaker is afraid to mention the doer of the action and he knows him for

example: سشق اصشف / ذ اجبء

Concentration on the process

In the following verses, the passive verbs are used to concentrate on the process, but not on

the agent.

ح ذو احإ و خ و زوب دو جوبيت وذتو نجإ ا و ضت وسن وذإ الن إ حت و ح ذو احإ و خ سإ وفنخو ا تفإخو إ اص (14:احبلخ) وإإرو " / ―And when a single

blast is sounded on the trumpet , and the earth and the mountains are heaved up and then

crushed in a single crash‖ (Al Haqqah:14)

"ارا لشئ امشا بسز ا اصزا ى رشح "/ « And when the Quran is recited ,give ear to it

and keep silence, that you may be shown mercy » (Al aaraf : 204). (Khalil, 2013)

Explicit Agent

The passive is used when the agent (the Almighty Allah) is already known and there is no

need to mention Him. That is to say, the agent can be easily recovered from the linguistic /

situational context: (37:الج١بء) ك االسب ـإ " جخت "/Man is made of haste‖ (Al anbiya:37)

(216:اجمشح)"ياوتزإت ١ى امذ" / ―fighting is ordained for you‖ (Al baqarah:216). (Khalil, 2011)

Used for glorification

The passive is also used to glorify or dignity the agent participant, in this case the Almighty

Allah: ( 10:ازاس٠بد )" Cursed be the liars‖ (Al- Zāriyāt :10) instead of saying" / لز اخشاص

" لز هللا اخشاص١ " /Allah cursed the liars. (Khalil, 2013)


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نضإي اى١ بسد بسدب " (102:اجمشح )"أت / « And they pursue what was revealed to the

two angels in Babylon Harut and Marut » (Al baqarah : 102)

Used for Degradation / humiliation

Sometimes we omit the doer of the action because we don‘t want to mention it taking into

account the feelings of the listener for example: ط ش ، لز احس١ ، أر ثالي ,

(108:اجمشح ن لوجن) ( إ تسو و ئإ ب ست و ن وو ستىت ا سو ت أو ن روسن و أو ن رتشإ٠ذت (أو / ―Would you question the Messenger

sent to you as Moses was questioned before‖(Al baqarah : 108) , Here the doer is obvious

(Moses‘ people ), but Allah didn‘t mention them considering this as an underestimation.

ن١وب ١وبحت اذ نحو ان ا فوشت و وو ٠ زإ و إ ٠ (112:اجمشح)"صت "/ « the life of this world is made to appear attractive to

those who disbelieve » (Al baqarah : 112). (Khalil, 2013)

The form

Students are often uncomfortable with the passive voice when reading Arabic texts because

the unvoweled passive conjugations often look exactly like active voice conjugations, and

since they are usually very weak in grammar, sentences in the passive often are totally

misunderstood.

In Arabic passive voice we have just the past and the present tense, in order to change the past

tense verb from the active into passive voice; we have to do two things as follows:

1. Change the vowel of the first radical into اضخ.

2. Change the vowel of the pre-final radical intro اىسشح.

Study the following example and notice the changes in the first radical and the pre-final

radical.

Active translation Passive translation

wrote Was written

Ate Was eaten

Brought in Was brought in

Offered Was offered

extracted Was extracted

received Was received


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If we look at these verbs, we find that the past tense verb may be composed of three radicals

such as ( ك ك ك ك ك ك كزك ك ) or four radicals such as ( ك د ك ك ك د ك ك اك ك ) or five radicals such as ( جك زك اكسد كخد

(اكسد ك د ك ك . The same technique is used to change all these verbs from the active to the passive

voice through changing the vowel of the first radical into đammah and the vowel of the pre-

final radical into kasrah. For example, the verb (kataba ك ك ك ) becomes (kutiba ك ك ك ) and the verb

(adkhala ك د ك ) becomes (‗udkhila ك د ك ك ). (Active and Passive voice, n.d.p4)

In order to change the present tense verb from the active into passive voice, we have to do two

things as follows:

1. Change the vowel of the first radical into đammah.

2. Change the vowel of the pre-final radical intro fatħah.

Active translation Passive Translation

Write Is written

Eat Is eaten

ت ت offer ٠تموذ Is offered ٠تموذ

Receive Is received

extract Is extracted

If we study some of the these verbs, for example the verbs ( زكجك ك د ك ك ك we find that ( ك د ك د ك ك ك د كخد

the vowel of the initial radical of these verbs is fatħah while the vowel of the pre-final letter is

kasrah. In addition, the verbs ( ت ، ٠وأنوت زتتت (٠وىن has an initial fatħah vowel and a pre-final đammah

vowel. (Active and Passive voice, n.d p7)

The stylistic features

Passive voice is a universal linguistic phenomenon since it is found in most languages,

although passive constructions are optionally used in Arabic, there are some passive

constructions in the Holy Qur'an that are situationally and contextually used; they are used for

certain purposes intended by His Almighty Allah, Quran is one of the references in Arabic

language that is why we have chosen many examples from it to show the stylistic features of

passive voice .

A passive construction is used through the Holy Qur'an to serve different functions:


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Show criticism and blame

Passive constructions are used in Quran to express the disapproval of Allah. The following

are illustrative examples:

( 16:ازثخ)"أ حسجز أ رزشوا ب ٠ هللا از٠ جبذا ى" / "Do you think that you would be left

alone while Allah has not yet known those among you who strive with might

and main" (Al Tauba:16).

(36:ام١بخ)"أ٠حست االسب أ ٠زشن سذ " / "Does Man think that he will be left uncontrolled,

(without purpose)?"(Al qiyama: 36). (Khalil, 2013)

Show multitude

As in this example: ( 11:اجمشح) "ارا ل١ الرفسذا" / ―And when it is said to them: not disorder

on the earth‖(Al Baqarah: 11), (13:اجمشح) ― : And when it is said to them― / ―ارا ل١ أا

believe‖(Al Baqarah: 13)

In the verses below the speaker is unspecified he could be Allah, the prophet or any person

wants to advise people.

Show constancy and stability

(154:اجمشح)"ال رما ٠مز سج١ هللا أاد ث أح١بء ى الرش ش " / ―And say not of those who

are killed in the cause of Allah that they are dead; nay ,they are living ;only you perceive not‖

( Al Baqarah: 154) , in this example the passive verb used to show constancy in the action as

if Allah said that the killed person mentioned in the verse is usually living and not dead

without referring to any time and place .

Show supplication

Sometimes the passive voice used to show supplication as in this example:

(64:ابئذح)" غذ أ٠ذ٠ ا ثب لبا" / ‗‘Be their hands tied up and be they accused for the

blasphemy they utter‘‘(Al maida:64),in these passive verb forms in the above verses indicate

either supplication or curses . (Khalil, 2013)


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Show irony and mockery

Passive verbs forms sometimes are used to show mockery / irony / sarcasm :

( 147:اال شاف)" از٠ وزثا ثب٠برب مبء االخشح حجطذ أ ب ٠جض اال بوبا ٠ / " "Those who

reject Our Signs and the Meeting in the Hereafter, vain are their deeds: Can they except to be

rewarded except as they have wrought?" (Al Araf: 147).

(29:اىف)" اب ا زذب ظب١ بسا أحبط ث سشادلب ا ٠سزغ١ ا ٠غبثا ثبء ٠ش اج ‘‘ / "If they (the

wrong – doers) implore relief they will be granted water like melted brass that will scold

their faces". (Al Kahf: 29).

Commonly, the passive verb forms ٠جض (be rewarded) and ٠غبثا(be granted) are

collocationally used with right – doers, but they are used with الذ ن ذبوا (those who reject Our

Signs)) and الظ لمين (tyrants) because they are mocked. (Khalil, 2013)

Common and different points in passive voice use

Common points Different points

The speaker avoids to mention

the doer

E.g : Zaid was killed

E.g : لز ص٠ذ

In English when we want to change

the focus of the sentence it is better to

use the passive voice as in this

example : The Mona Lisa was painted

by Leonardo Da Vinci. while Arabic

takes more attention on the subject so

the active voice is preferred in this

sentence سس ١بسد دا ١ش حخ

اب١ضا

Vaguness about who is

responsible for the acion

E.g : Mistakes were made

E.g : أسرىجذ أخطبء

The doer is unknown

E.g : The bank was stolen

E.g : سشق اصشف

When talking about a general

truth

E.g : Rules are made to be broken

E.g : خك االسب


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Common and different points in the passive voice form


In English passive constructions, the

object of the active sentence becomes a

subject in the passive sentence.

E.g: ‗my friend wrote a book‘/‗the book was

written by my friend‘

In Arabic, passive works in the same way e.g:

صذ٠م أف وزبثب

In English we form the passive by

putting the verb 'to be' into whatever

tense we need and then adding the

past participle, . But in Arabic there

are just tow tenses the past and the

present.

In English, it is not uncommon to

express the agent of the passivized

action using a by-phrase, e.g. ―this

book was written by a famous

author‖/ .أف زا اىزبة لج وبرت شس

In Arabic, the passive construction is

used mostly without the by-phrase

and the agent remains unknown e.g:

أف اىزبة

Common and different points in the stylistic features of the passive voice:


In English if the subject is logic, the

passive is more appropriate in this

regard e.g. Tom is hit by a stone , the

same thing in Arabic خك االسب ض ١فب

it‘s obvious that the mankind is

created by Allah.

English tends to make a lot of use of

passive voice unlike the Arabic

language, But when we make a

comparison between them in terms of

the stylistic values we found that

Arabic has the power on this respect,

Arabic uses the passive voice to

express many features such as brevity

and multitude ..ect


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Chapter II Methods, Procedures and Data

Analysis

Chapter II Methods, Procedures and Data Analysis

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Chapter three: Methods, Procedures and Data Analysis

3.1 Introduction:

Definition of Scientific Translation

Scientific translation is mainly about translating terms in the fields of science and

technology of all kinds, medicine, physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer

sciences...etc from one language into another.

Scientific translations do not involve literary texts; they only deal with texts from the

world of electronics, medicine, law, economics, engineering, chemistry, computer

science, automotive engineering, geology, etc. The number of technical fields is

infinitely large, and terminology is expanding and changing daily.

The scientific translation is considered as one of the most important issues, as the

world develops, new technology appears, and along with them emerge new terms to

which finding an equivalent may pose a problem. It is not easy at all to translate

scientific terms that emerged in western developed countries languages into a language

of third world countries which are still having financial and social problems.

The Aim of Scientific Translation

Byrne (2006) claims that, scientific translation primary goal is to deliver scientific

information; it aims at presenting well expressed information, that may be used easily,

properly and effectively. He referred to scientific translation as a communicative

service, which offers new information for new audience, since scientific translation is

regarded as communicative service; it certainly involves three main people, which are

the author, the translator and the reader. He added also, that it is much more than just

rendering source text language and style. Its main concern is to ensure delivering

information accurately and correctly, in that it insures that the reader may use this

information easily.

Scientific and technical translation has always played a pivotal role in

disseminating knowledge. Today, translators accounts for the lion's share of the total


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volume of translation with the domain of science and technology forming the main

arena for translation work development in the exchange of information and in the

transfer of knowledge appropriate to the internationalization of science and

technology, the globalization and diversification of industry and commerce, and the

greater sophistication of industrial products has also led to a growing demand for high

quality translation . Still, there is a discrepancy between this growing need for high-

quality translation and the short supply of competent technical translators to produce

them a situation which may itself be due in part to the recent neglect of the

equivalence concept in the theoretical descriptive and applied branches of TS.

Technical and scientific translation, more than any other mode of translation

perhaps, is an instrument of cross-fertilization, transformation and progress. Without

translation, the modern phenomenon of "technology transfer" would not exist.

English-Arabic Scientific Translation

Translation of science from English into Arabic poses huge linguistic obstacles.

One of these obstacles, yet a significant one, runs as follows: Translation of scientific

terms is considered by (Al-Hassnawi n.d) as a real intellectual challenge. It requires

skills, intelligence, and mastery of both English and Arabic.

Arabic suffers a serious shortage of vocabulary that covers the fields of technology

and science; therefore, translators should consider this problem before anything else.

Moreover, terminology is responsible for the technical translator‘s errors,the

importance of having new terminology for the scientific field is :

The need for a large new vocabulary dealing with technological and scientific matters

is, however, the least interesting feature of the new lexical development; more

fascinating, though more elusive, is the evolution of new words for intellectual

concepts.

Thus, scientific translation has become a crucial step towards the acquisition of new

technologies and spread of technology all over the world, hence, the coinage of new

scientific vocabulary is seriously required to enrich the Arabic language.


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Characteristics of scientific writing:

Scientific writing follows these conventions

1. It is conventional

2. It is clear

3. It is concise

4. It is accurate

5. It uses formal language

6. It is objective

7. It exercises caution

8. It avoids direct quotes

9. It gets to the point

10. It is often illustrated with figures

Methods, Procedures and Data Analysis

The present study has used scientific texts in both English and Arabic for its corpus

because it is well-known that such texts make more use of passive constructions than

others.

The coolest gas in the universe

Published in the Scientific American journal in December 2000

The author:

Author: Graham P. Collins Born in New Zealand in 1962

Graham p.collins Science writer & editor

Tthe board of editors of Scientific American,


27

A Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter of a dilute gas of weakly

interacting bosons confined in an external potential and cooled to temperatures very

near absolute zero. Under such conditions, a large fraction of the bosons occupy the

lowest quantum state of the external potential, at which point quantum effects become

apparent on a macroscopic scale.

"Building a brainier mouse"

Published in the Scientific American journal in April 2000

JOE Z. TSIEN has been an assistant professor in the department of molecular biology

at Princeton University since 1997.He came to the U.S. in 1986 after graduating from

East China Normal University in Shanghai and working for two years as an instructor

at East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai. He received his

Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology in 1990 from the University of

Minnesota.

He has consulted for several biotechnology companies seeking to develop therapies

for age-related memory disorders His work describes a genetic engineering project to

build an intelligent mouse. Cites understanding the molecular basis of learning and

memory as a very important step. Concludes that while science will never create a

genius mouse that plays the stock market, it can turn a mouse into a quick learner with

a better memory.

3.2 Description of Study Corpus:

In this research we used scientific texts in both English and Arabic for the

reason that its corpus texts make more use of passive constructions than others.

The research corpus is a comparable process consisted of two Original English

texts which belong to the same scientific text type of their translated Arabic texts.

The two ST Original English scientific articles are entitled: - "Building a brainier

mouse", and "The coolest gas in the universe". All were available and published in the

Scientific American journal in Apr. 2000, and Dec. 2000,correspondingly .


28

Their Arabic translations correspondingly " زبج ئشا او ش روبء ا "and " اثشد غبص اى "

were available and published in Majjallat Al-Oloom in May. 2001, and May. 2001

respectively.

while for the Original Arabic text, it is a scientific article entitled: " سش خ اجبرث١خ

thus, it can be observed that all the texts used in the corpus belong to the ."االسض١خ

scientific type and all were available and published in acknowledged academic

journals.

Builiding a brainier mouse

When I decided to become a scientist, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that

my work would provide fodder for CBS‘s LateShow with David Letterman. But last

September,after my colleagues and I announced that we had doctored

the genes of some mice to enhance their learning and memory skills, I turned on my

television to find that my creations were the topic of one of Letterman‘s infamous Top

Ten Lists. As I watched, the comedian counted down his roster of the Top Ten Term

Paper Topics Written by Genius Mice. (My personal favorites are ―Our Pearl Harbor:

The Day Glue Traps Were Invented‖ and ―Outsmarting the Mousetrap: Just Take the

Cheese Off Really, Really Fast.‖)

My furry research subjects had become overnight celebrities.I received mail by the

bagful and was forwarded dozens of jokes in which ―smart‖ mice outwitted duller

humans and their feeble traps. It seemed that the idea of a more intelligent mouse was

something that everyone could identify with and find humorous.

But my co-workers and I did not set out merely to challenge the inventiveness of

mousetrap manufacturers. Our research was part of a decades-long line of inquiry into

exactly what happens in the brain during learning and what memories are made of. By

generating the smart mice—a strain that we dubbed Doogie after the boy genius on the

TV show Doogie Howser, M.D.—we validated a 50-year-old theory about the

mechanisms of learning and memory and illustrated the central role of a particular

molecule in the process of memory formation. That molecule could one day serve as a


29

possible target for drugs to treat brain disorders such as Alzheimer‘s disease or even,

perhaps, to boost learning and memory capacity in normal people.Understanding the

molecular basis of learning and memory

is so important because what we learn and what we remem.ber determine largely who

we are. Memory, facial ntific American April 2000 Building a Brainier Mouse Inc.

and physical appearance, defines an individual, as everyone who has known someone

with Alzheimer‘s disease understands all too well. Furthermore, learning and memory

extend beyond the individual and transmit our culture and civilization over

generations. They are major forces in driving behavioral,cultural and social evolution.

The ABCs of Learning and Memory

The human brain has approximately 100 billion nerve cells, or neurons, that are linked

in networks to give rise

to a variety of mental and cognitive attributes, such as memory,intelligence, emotion

and personality. The foundations for understanding the molecular and genetic

mechanisms of learning and memory were laid in 1949, when Canadian psychologist

Donald O. Hebb came up with a simple yet profound idea to explain how memory is

represented and stored in the brain. In what is now known as Hebb‘s learning rule,he

proposed that a memory is produced when two connected neurons are active

simultaneously in a way that somehow strengthens the synapse, the site where the two

nerve cells touch each other. At a synapse, information in the form of chemicals called

neurotransmitters flows from the so-called presynaptic cell to one dubbed the

postsynaptic cell.In 1973 Timothy V. P. Bliss and Terje Lømo, working in Per

Andersen‘s laboratory at the University of Oslo, discovered an experimental model

with the hallmark features of Hebb‘s theory.They found that nerve cells in a sea horse–

shaped region of the brain, appropriately called the hippocampus (from the Greek for

―horse-headed sea monster‖), become more tightly linked when stimulated by a series

of high-frequency electrical pulses. The increase in synaptic strength—a phenomenon

known as long-term potentiation (LTP)—can last for hours, days or even weeks. The

fact that LTP is found in the hippocampus


30

is particularly fascinating because the hippocampus is a crucial brain structure for

memory formation in both

humans and animals.Later studies by Mark F. Bear of the Howard Hughes Medical

Institute at Brown University and other scientists showed that applying a low-

frequency stimulation to the same hippocampal pathway produces a long-lasting

decrease in the strength of the connections there. The reduction is also longlasting and

is known as long-term depression (LTD), although it apparently has nothing to do

with clinical depression. The strengthening and weakening of synaptic connections

through LTP- and LTD-like processes have become the leading candidate mechanisms

for storing and erasing learned information in the brain. We now know that LTP and

LTD come in many different forms. The phenomena also occur in many brain regions

besides the hippocampus, including the neocortex—the ―gray matter‖—and the

amygdala, a structure involved in emotion. What is the molecular machinery

controlling these forms of synaptic changes, or plasticity? Studies in the 1980s and

1990s by Graham L. Collingridge of the University of Bristol in England, Roger A.

Nicoll of the University of California at San Francisco, Robert C. Malenka of Stanford

University,Gary S. Lynch of the University of California at Irvine and other

researchers have found that the changes depend on a single type of molecule. The

researchers demonstrated that the induction of the major forms of LTP and LTD

requires the activation of so-called NMDA receptors, which sit on the cell membranes

of postsynaptic neurons.

NMDA receptors are really minuscule pores that most scientists think are made up of

four protein subunits that control the entry of calcium ions into neurons. (The name of

the receptors derives from N-methyl-D-aspartate, an artificial chemical

Building a Brainier Mouse Scientific American April 2000 63

JANA BRENNING (digital illustration); PHOTODISC (maze); CORBIS (lamp);

PETER MURPHY (mouse)

Copyright 2000 Scientific American, Inc.


31

that happens to bind to them.) They are perfect candidates for implementing the

synaptic changes of Hebb‘s learning rule because they require two separate signals to

open—the binding of the neurotransmitter glutamate and an electrical change called

membrane depolarization. Accordingly,switches to function as ―coincidence detectors‖

to help the brain associate two events.Although LTP and LTD had been shown to

depend on NMDA receptors, linking LTP- and LTD-like processes to learning and

memory turned out to be much more difficult than scientists originallythought. Richard

G. M. Morris of the University of Edinburgh and his colleagues have observed that

rats whose brains have been infused with drugs that block the NMDA receptor cannot

learn how to negotiate a test called a Morris water maze as well as other rats. The

finding is largely consistent with the prediction for the role of LTP in learning and

memory. The drugs often produce sensory-motor and behavioral disturbances,

however, indicating the delicate line between drug efficacy and toxicity.

Four years ago, while I was workingin Susumu Tonegawa‘s laboratory at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I went one step further and developed a new

genetic technique to study the NMDA receptor in learning and memory.

The technique was a refinement of the method for creating so-called knockout mice—

mice in which one gene has been selectively inactivated, or ―knocked out.‖ Traditional

knockout mice lack a particular gene in every cell and tissue.

By studying the health and behavior of such animals, scientists can deduce the

function of the gene.

But many types of knockout mice die at or before birth because the genes they lack are

required for normal development. The genes encoding the various subunits of the

NMDA receptors turned out to be similarly essential: regular NMDA-receptor

knockout mice died as pups. So I devised a way to delete a subunit of the NMDA

receptor in only a specific region of the brain.

Scoring a Knockout

Using the new technique, I engineered mice that lacked a critical part of the NMDA

receptor termed the


32

NR1 subunit in a part of their hippocampus known as the CA1 region. It was fortunate

that we knocked out the gene in the CA1 region because that is where most LTP and

LTD studies have been conducted and because people with brain damage to that area

have memory deficits. In collaboration with Matthew A. Wilson, Patricio T.

Huerta,Thomas J. McHugh and Kenneth I.Blum of M.I.T., I found that the knockout

mice have lost the capacity to change the strength of the neuronal connections in the

CA1 regions of their

brains. These mice exhibit abnormal spatial representation and have poor spatial

memory: they cannot remember their way around a water maze. More recent studies in

my own laboratory at Princeton University have revealed that the mice also show

impairments in several other,nonspatial memory tasks.

Although these experiments supported the hypothesis that the NMDA receptors are

crucial for memory, they were not fully conclusive. The drugs used to block the

receptors could have exerted their effects through other molecules in addition to

NMDA receptors, for example.

And the memory deficits of the knockout mice might have been caused by another,

unexpected abnormality ndependent of the LTP/LTD deficits.

To address these concerns, a couple of years ago I decided to try to increase the

function of NMDA receptors in

64 Scientific American April 2000 Building a Brainier Mouse

A MOUSE NAMED DOOGIE

The author reviews the qualities of ―smart‖ mice—and their implications for people

How are Doogie mice different from other mice? They have been genetically

engineered to make more than the usual amount of a key subunit of a protein called the

N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor.


33

What does the NMDA receptor do? It helps to strengthen the connection between two

neurons that happen to be active at the same time. Scientists theorize that such

strengthening is the basis for learning and memory.

How smart are Doogie mice? They will never do differential equations or play the

stock market,but they are better than normal mice at distinguishingbetween objects

they have seen before and at recalling how to find a platformin a tank of murky water,

for instance.

How does their genetic alteration make them smarter? The NMDA receptors of

Doogie mice stay open nearly twice as long as those of normal mice.

The extra time somehow helps them form a new memory more effectively.Could the

same technique be used to enhance people‘s ability to learn andremember?

Theoretically,the possibility exists.But learning and memory inhumans are much more

complex than recognizing objects or remembering a

water maze.Besides the scientific and technical barriers,the safety and ethicalissues

surrounding human genetic engineering would also need to be addressed.

It is much more likely that pharmaceutical companies will first attemptto develop

drugs that interact with the NMDA receptor to boost memory ability in people with

memory deficits.

PETER MURPHY

The idea of a more intelligent

mouse was something that everyone

could identify with and find humorous.



In the initial tests of Doogie mice, we found that they were more likely than normal

mice to recognize a familiar object over a novel one,such as the red toy in the


34

photograph above. But that test, which is called an object-recognition task, assesses

only one type of memory.

To further evaluate whether Doogie mice have enhanced learning and memory

abilities,we used a more complex laboratory test called the Morris water maze. In this

test we put a mouse into a circular pool that was 1.2 meters in diameter and filled with

murky water. We placed into the pool a nearly invisible, clear Plexiglas platform that

was almost—but not quite—as tall as the water was deep, so that it was just hidden

beneath the surface.

We surrounded the pool with a black shower curtain that had certain landmarks on it,

such as the red dot in he top photograph at the left.Mice do not like to get wet, so in

these tests they generally swim around until they find the platform,where they can pull

themselves almost out of the water and rest.

We found that the Doogie mice located the submerged platform faster than normal

mice,so we took the test a step further:we removed the platform to see if the animals

would remember where the platform had been

in relation to landmarks such as the red dot.When we put them back into the pool,

Doogie mice spent more time than normal mice in the quarter of the pool where the

platform had been, indicating that they remembered where it should be.What did they

get as a reward? A toweling off and a stint under the heat lamp. —J.Z.T.

TESTING DOOGIE

Putting the Smart Mouse through Its Paces

PETER MURPHY


66 Scientific American April 2000 Building a Brainier Mouse

mice to see whether such an alteration improved the animals‘ learning and memory. If

it did, that result—combined


35

with the previous ones—would tell us that the NMDA receptor truly is a central player

in memory processes.

This time I focused on different parts of the NMDA receptor, the NR2A and NR2B

subunits. Scientists have known

that the NMDA receptors of animals as diverse as birds, rodents and primates remain

open longer in younger individuals than in adults. Some researchers,including my

colleagues and me, have speculated that the difference might account for the fact that

young animals are usually able to learn more readily—and remember what they have

learned longer—than their older counterparts.As individuals mature, they begin

toswitch from making NMDA receptors that contain NR2B subunits to those that

include NR2A subunits. Laboratory studies have shown that receptors with NR2B

subunits stay open longer than those with NR2A. I reasoned that the age-related switch

could explain why adults can find it harder to learn new information. So I took a copy

of the gene that directs

the production of NR2B and linked it to a special piece of DNA that served as an on

switch to specifically increase the gene‘s ability to make the protein in the adult brain.

I injected this gene into fertilized mouse eggs, where it was incorporated into the

chromosomes and produced genetically modified mice carrying the extra copy of the

NR2B gene.

Working in collaboration with Guosong Liu of M.I.T. and Min Zhuo of Washington

University, my colleagues and I found that NMDA receptors from the genetically

engineered mice could remain open for roughly 230 milliseconds,almost twice as long

as those of normal mice. We also determined that neurons in the hippocampi of the

adult mice were capable of making stronger synaptic connections than those of normal

mice of the same age. Indeed, their connections resembled those in juvenile mice.

What Smart Mice Can Do

Next, Ya-Ping Tang and other members of my laboratory set about evaluating the

learning and memory


36

skills of the mice that we had named Doogie. First, we tested one of the most basic

aspects of memory, the ability to recognize an object. We placed Doogie mice into an

open box and allowed them to explore two objects for five minutes.

Several days later we replaced one object with a new one and returned the mice to the

box. The genetically modified mice remembered the old object and devoted their time

to exploring the new one.

Normal mice, however, spent an equal amount of time exploring both objects,

indicating that the old object was no more familiar to them than the new.

HOW TO MAKE

A DUMB MOUSE

LoxP



repeating the test at different intervals,we found that the genetically modified mice

remembered objects four to five times longer than their normal counterparts did.In the

second round of tests, Tang and I examined the ability of the mice to learn to associate

a mild shock to their paws with being in a particular type of chamber or hearing a

certain tone. We found that the Doogie mice were more likely to ―freeze‖—an

indication that they remembered fear—

than were normal mice when we returned the animals to the chamber or played them

the tone several days later.

These tests suggested to us that the Doogie mice had better memory. But were they

also faster learners?

Learning and memory represent different stages of the same gradual and continuous

process whose steps are often not easy to distinguish. Without memory, one cannot

measure learning; without learning, no memory exists to be assessed. To determine


37

whether the genetic alteration of the Doogie mice helped them to learn, we employed a

classic behavioral experimental paradigm known as fear-extinction learning.

In the fear-extinction test, we conditioned the mice as we did before in a shock

chamber, then placed the animals back into the fear-causing environment—but without

the paw shocks—again and again. Most animals take five repetitions or so to unlearn

the link between being in the shock chamber and receiving ashock. The Doogie mice

learned to be unafraid after only two repetitions. They also learned not to fear the tone

faster than the normal mice.

The last behavioral test was the Morris water maze, in which the mice were required to

use visual cues on a laboratory wall to find the location of a submerged platform

hidden in a pool of milky water.

This slightly more complicatedtask involves many cognitive factors, including

analytical skills,

learning and memory,and the abilityto form strategies.

Again, the genetically modified mice performed better than their normal counterparts.

Our experiments with Doogie mice clearly bore out the predictions of Hebb‘s rule.

They also suggested that the NMDA receptor is a molecular master switch for many

forms of learning and memory.

Although our experiments showed the central role of NMDA receptors in a variety of

learning and memory processes, it is probably not the only molecule involved. We can

expect many molecules that play a role in learning and memory to be identified in the

coming years.

Everyone I have encountered since the publication of our results has wanted to know

whether the findings mean we will soon be able to genetically engineer smarter

children or devise pills that will

make everyone a genius. The short answer is no—and would we even want to?


38

Intelligence is traditionally defined in dictionaries and by many experimental Although

learning and memory are integral parts of intelligence, intelligence is a complex trait

that also involves many other factors, such as reasoning, analytical skills and the

ability to generalize previously learned information. Many animals have to learn,

remember, generalize and solve various types of problems, such as negotiating their

terrain, foreseeing the relation between cause

and effect, escaping from dangers, and avoiding poisonous foods. Humans,

too, have many different kinds of intelligence, such as the intelligence that makes

someone a good mathematician, an effective CEO or a great basketball player.

Because learning and memory are two of the fundamental components of problem

solving, it would not be totally surprising if enhancing learning and memory skills led

to improved intelligence. But the various kinds of intelligence mean that the type and

degree of enhancement must be highly dependent on the nature of the learning and

memory skills involved in a particular task. Animals with an improved ability to

recognize objects and solve mazes in the laboratory,for instance, might have an easier

time finding food and getting around from place to place in the wild. They might also

be more likely to escape from predators or even to learn to avoid traps. But genetic

engineering will never turn the mice into geniuses capable of playing the piano.

PETER MURPHY

Genetic engineering will

never turn mice into geniuses

capable of playing the piano.


treating various age-related memory disorders.An immediate application could be to

search for chemicals that would improve memory by boosting the activity or amount

of NR2B molecules in patients who have healthy bodies but whose brains have begun

to be ravaged by dementia during aging. Such drugs might improve memory in mildly


39

and modestly impaired patients with Alzheimer‘s disease and in people with early

forms of other dementias. The rationale would be to boost the memory function of the

remaining healthy neurons by modulating and enhancing the cells‘

NR2B activity. Of course, designing such compounds will take at least adecade and

will face many uncertainties.

The possible side effects of such drugs in humans, for example, would need to be

carefully evaluated, although the increased NR2B activity in the Doogie mice did not

appear to cause toxicity,seizures or strokes.

But if more NR2B in the brain is good for learning and memory, why has nature

arranged for the amount to taper off with age? Several schools of thought weigh in on

this question. One posits that the switch from NR2B to NR2A prevents the brain‘s

memory capacity from becoming overloaded. Another,which I favor, suggests that the

decrease is evolutionarily adaptive for populations because it reduces the likelihood

that older individuals—who presumably have already reproduced—will compete

successfully against younger ones for resources such as food. The idea that natural

selection does not foster optimum learning and memory ability in adult organisms

certainly has profound implications. It means that genetically modifying mental and

cognitive attributes such as learning and memory can open an entirely new way for the

targeted genetic evolution of biology,

and perhaps civilization, with unprecedented speed.

SA

How close are researchers to devising a pill to help you remember where you put your

car keys? The short answer is ―not very.‖But that doesn‘t mean they aren‘t working on

it—and hard.Less than eight months after Joe Z.Tsien of Princeton University (the

author of the preceding article) and his colleagues reported genetically engineering a

smarter mouse,Tsien has teamed up with venture capitalist Charles Hsu to form a

company based on the discovery.


40

The newly incorporated firm is called Eureka Pharmaceuticals,and its home for the

time being is Hsu‘s office at the Walden Group in San Francisco.The company‘s first

order of business is to use gene technology called genomics to identify molecules that

are potential targets for drugs to treat central nervous system disorders such as

memory loss and dementia.―We believe the tools that Joe and his colleagues have

developed can be translated pretty quickly into a basis for discovering therapies for

human disease,‖Hsu says.Hsu is the CEO of Eureka;Tsien is the company‘s scientific

adviser but will remain at Princeton.

Eureka‘s first target is the so-called NMDA receptor—which Tsien and his co-workers

manipulated genetically to make their smart Doogie mice—although the company will

also look for other targets.The receptor is essentially a pore that allows calcium to

enter nerve cells, a prerequisite for strengthening the connection between two nerve

cells.Such strengthening is thought to be the basis for learning and memory.

Over the past decade, several pharmaceutical companies have tested as possible stroke

drugs various compounds that decrease the activity of the NMDA receptor.

When the brain is starved of blood, such as happens when the blood clot of a stroke

blocks an artery, nerve cells can release too much glutamate, a chemical the cells use

to communicate. In a phenomenon called excitotoxicity,the excess glutamate binds to

NMDA receptors on other nerve cells, allowing a tsunami of calcium to flood into the

other cells.Together with the lack of oxygen,this causes the cells to die.

So far, however, the search for NMDA-receptor blockers that could serve as stroke

drugs has been ―incredibly disappointing,‖ comments neuroscientist Robert C.Malenka

of Stanford University. The problem, he explains, is finding a chemical that binds to

precisely the right spot on the NMDA receptor and in just the right way,without

causing other neurological effects. (After all, the illicit hallucinogenic drug

phencyclidine— also known as PCP or ―angel dust‖—also binds to the receptor.)

The lack of success with NMDA-receptor blockers against stroke—together with the

possibility that agents that bind to the receptor might be toxic—has blunted some

scientists‘enthusiasm for developing drugs that might boost learning and memory by


41

activating the receptor.―Nobody is seriously considering upregulating the activity of

the NMDA receptor to boost memory, to my knowledge,‖Malenka says.―But maybe

some clever person will come up with that magic drug that will tweak the receptor just

so.‖ A more likely scenario—and one being pursued by Tsien—might be developing

drugs that subtly modulate the activity of the NMDA receptor,without binding to it

directly,according

to Ira B. Black of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Black

studies a naturally occurring chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor

(BDNF),

which increases the likelihood that parts of the NMDA receptor will have a phosphate

group tacked onto them.NMDA receptors with phosphate groups are more likely to be

active than those without such groups.

Still,most neuroscientists concur that the search for a drug that enhances learning and

memory without side effects will take time

. —Carol Ezzell,staff writer


The Author

JOE Z. TSIEN has been an assistant professor in the department

of molecular biology at Princeton University since 1997.

He came to the U.S. in 1986 after graduating from East China

Normal University in Shanghai and working for two years as an


42

instructor at East China University of Science and Technology in

Shanghai. He received his Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular

biology in 1990 from the University of Minnesota. He has consulted

for several biotechnology companies seeking to develop

therapies for age-related memory disorders. The Doogie mouse

was a hit in his seven-year-old son‘s class during show-and-tell. The Organization of

Behavior: A Neuropsychological

Theory. Donald O. Hebb. John Wiley, 1949.

Memory and Brain. Larry R. Squire. Oxford University

Press, 1987.

Long-Term Potentiation—A Decade of Progress?

Robert C. Malenka and Roger A. Nicoll in Science, Vol.285, No. 5435, pages 1870–

1874; September 17, 1999.

Enhancing the Link between Hebb‘s Coincidence Detection and Memory Formation.

Joe Z. Tsien in Current

Opinion in Neurobiology, Vol. 10, No. 2; April 2

Translation:

The coolest gas in the universe

Scientific American December 2000 The Coolest Gas in the Universe QUANTUM

WHIRLPOOLS called vortices are the only way that a superfluid can rotate. This

theoretical simulation shows four vortices threading through a condensate and two

new vortices forming at the edge. Colors indicate the quantum ―phase‖ around each

vortex. Trends in Physics DAVID FEDER AND PETER KETCHAM National

Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Copyright 2000 Scientific American,

Inc. KIRK MADISON École Normale Supérieure, Paris magine that you could


43

magically shrink yourself down to the size of a large molecule and watch the motion

of atoms in a gas. The atoms might appear to be unbreakable glass marbles, darting

around an almost empty space before you, ricocheting off one another incessantly.

You might nod to yourself, recognizing the scene from descriptions of an ―ideal gas‖

from high school or college. Now you notice that the marbles are flying around less

frenetically than they were when you stepped out of the miniaturizer. Aha! Some

process is cooling the gas down. At first the marbles merely lose speed and become

somewhat less widely spaced; the density of the gas is rising as it cools. But then,

contrary to expectation, you see that the marbles themselves are changing. The

slowest-moving ones are growing thousands of times in size, and their formerly

mirror-sharp surfaces have become indistinct. These increasingly wraithlike atoms

pass through one another, sometimes without deflection, sometimes rebounding as if

something hard inside collided. Near the center of the region, two of the slowest,

cloudiest atoms overlap and seem to merge, forming a single large globule. This

ellipsoid absorbs other atoms in ones and twos and by the dozen, and with a startling

suddenness only it remains, a huge motionless blimp.

What has happened to all the individual atoms? What is this mysterious object? It is a

quantum-mechanical entity called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), the coldest form

of gas in the universe. And although the atoms still exist within it, composing it, they

have lost their individuality. Quantum mechanics rules the world. Most of the time the

bizarre features of quantum mechanics are hidden behind a facade of classical physics.

We mistake the facade for the substance of reality, and from it comes our comBose-

Einstein condensates are one of the hottest areas in experimental physics by Graham P.

Collins, staff writer I VORTEX LATTICES have been imaged in a stirred condensate

of rubidium atoms. The condensate does not rotate (a) until the stirring is strong

enough to generate a whole vortex (b), in which each atom has one quantum of angular

momentum. Faster stirring increases the rotation by adding more vortices. The

examples here have eight (c) and 12 (d). In the dark vortex cores, the rotation is fastest

and the gas density is lowest. a b c d Copyright 2000 Scientific American, Inc.

monsense understanding of how things work: objects have definite locations, motions

and identities, and their behavior is rigidly prescribed by deterministic laws. The very


44

heart of quantum mechanics, in contrast, defies our everyday intuition. The locations

and motions of particles are fundamentally equivocal and ruled by probabilities. Even

the idea of objects having distinct identities is radically modified for quantum

particles. A Bose-Einstein condensate is a collection of matter behaving in one of the

purest quantum-mechanical fashions known. What‘s more, condensates are huge—

100,000 times larger than the biggest ordinary atoms, larger even than human cells—

so physicists can watch the quantum behavior of a condensate in ways ordinarily

unthinkable.

As Steven L. Rolston of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in

Gaithersburg, Md., emphasizes, ―The pictures we show of BECs are true pictures of

quantum-mechanical wave functions—we can actually see quantum mechanics at

work.‖ Gaseous Bose-Einstein condensates were first created in the laboratory in

1995, a full 70 years after the phenomenon was predicted by Albert Einstein based on

work by Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose [see ―The Bose-Einstein Condensate,‖

by Eric A. Cornell and Carl E. Wieman; Scientific American, March 1998].

Experimenters create these condensates in atom traps—constructions of laser beams

and magnetic fields that capture, hold and cool a very dilute cloud of atoms inside a

vacuum chamber [see box on page 97]. The distinguished atomic physicist Daniel

Kleppner of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calls the creation of these

condensates ―the most exciting single development in atomic physics since the

development of the laser.‖ Research groups around the world, some headed by Nobel

laureates and laureates-to-be, have been working furiously for five years to explore the

exotic realm opened up by that breakthrough.

They have poked and prodded the condensates with laser beams, jiggled the traps that

hold them, and watched as the gas has bounced, sloshed and vibrated in the expected

quantum ways. In addition to being exemplar quantum systems, condensates embody a

curious amalgam of several broad fields of physics: atomic physics (individual atoms),

quantum optics (laser beams and their interactions) and many-body physics

(collections of matter that make up solids, liquids and gases, including the

technologically vital realm of electrons flowing in metals and semiconductors). The


45

study of condensates not only draws on all those fields in an interdisciplinary way, it

contributes directly to our understanding of the basic laws that govern them. This

article can sample only a few of the amazing and diverse experimental achievements

that physicists are obtaining with BECs. The results highlight some of the many faces

that a condensate presents to experimenters: its behavior as a superfluid akin to liquid

helium, as a finely controllable atomic gas and as a kind of laser beam made of matter

instead of light. BECs, Superfluids and Vortices When liquid helium is cooled to

within 2.2 kelvins of absolute zero, a number of strange things happen. As Soviet

physicist Pyotr Kapitsa and Canadian John F. Allen discovered in 1938, below that

temperature helium becomes a superfluid, flowing completely without viscosity and

capable of The Coolest Gas in the Universe The condensates made in 1995 were not

the first examples of Bose-Einstein condensation, but several properties distinguish

them as uniquely pure examples of the phenomenon. To be precise,the new

condensates are dilute, gaseous and made of atoms.

Prior condensates and related systems include: Superfluid helium. When liquid helium

4 is cooled below 2.2 kelvins, it takes on the astonishing property of superfluidity. The

liquid flows totally without viscosity, enabling feats such as the helium fountain

(right). The superfluid state occurs because a fraction (up to about 10 percent) of the

helium atoms undergo Bose condensation. The strong interactions among the atoms in

the liquid make it very hard to study the intrinsic quantum properties of the condensate

fraction in detail, either in theory or experiment. Lasers. Light from a laser shares

many features of a BoseEinstein condensate. Light is made up of wavelike particles

called photons.In ordinary light,as from a lightbulb,the photons‘ waves are

unsynchronized. In a laser, all the waves are ―in phase,‖meaning that the crests and

troughs are aligned; the photons march in lockstep, like soldiers on parade.That is, the

photons are all in the same quantum state. The amplification process that produces a

laser beam makes use of bosons‘propensity to collect in the same quantum state.

Superconductors. Bose condensation of pairs of electrons generates superconductivity,

the flow of electric current without resistance.

Unpaired electrons cannot Bosecondense, because they are fermions, not bosons.

Loosely bound pairs of electrons form only under certain conditions, such as in


46

aluminum cooled to 1.2 kelvins. Such pairs are bosons, and they immediately Bose-

condense. The pairing process and the electric charge of the pairs conspire to make

superconductors a very different system from a neutral, dilute condensate. A similar

pairing and condensation occurs in superfluid helium 3, whose atoms are fermions.

Excitons. In semiconductors,the absence of an electron can behave like a positively

charged particle,called a hole.A hole and an electron,generated by a laser pulse,can

pair up briefly as an entity called an exciton. In 1993 physicists observed evidence of

such excitons forming a short-lived gaseous condensate in a copper oxide

semiconductor. —G.P.C. Cousins of BEC Other Condensates HELIUM FOUNTAIN,

triggered by the heating coil, is a spectacular example of superfluidity. Up to one tenth

of the helium atoms are in the form of a liquid Bose-Einstein condensate. 94 Scientific

American December 2000 JOHN F. ALLEN University of St. Andrews;COURTESY

OF RUSSELL DONNELLY University of Oregon Copyright 2000 Scientific

American, Inc. tricks such as slithering up the walls and out of an open container.

BoseEinstein condensation in the helium produces these effects [see box on opposite

page].

Experimenters have been eager to see if the gaseous condensates could exhibit

superfluidity, but doing so has not been a trivial task. Superfluid helium can be

produced in large enough quantities for one to watch its tricks with the naked eye. The

new condensates, in contrast, are minuscule wisps of gas barely more substantial than

a vacuum, held in place by magnetic fields for a scant few minutes at best. What

would it mean for such a gossamer vapor to be a superfluid? A dramatic effect

involves producing vortices in a rotating superfluid. If you rotate a bucket of ordinary

liquid helium on a turntable, the helium rotates with the bucket, much as water would.

Superfluid helium, in contrast, forms an array of quantum whirlpools called vortices.

The minimum rotation allowed has a single vortex, spinning rapidly in the middle of

the helium and slowly at the edges. If you try to rotate the superfluid more slowly, it

will remain motionless.

These effects occur because the atoms in a condensate are in the same quantum state,

and therefore all must have the same angular momentum. But angular momentum can

exist only in discrete units, or quanta. In the motionless state the atoms all have zero


47

angular momentum; in a vortex they each have one unit of it. In 1999 a research group

at JILA (formerly the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics) in Boulder, Colo.,

led by Carl E. Wieman and Eric A. Cornell produced vortices in BECs using a

technique that their colleagues James E. Williams and Murray J. Holland had

proposed. They started with a double condensate, a highly versatile system pioneered

by the group involving two overlapping condensates made of the same element

(rubidium) but in slightly different quantum states. The researchers shone microwaves

and a laser beam on the double condensate, with the effect of imprinting one

condensate with the precise circular quantum phase required for a vortex. This process,

which to anyone but a quantum physicist does not seem to be moving any of the

atoms, produces the rotating vortex state. By looking at how the two condensates

interfered with each other, the group was then able to verify the quantum phase

properties of the vortex, something that had never been achieved so directly in 60

years of work on superfluid helium. Later in 1999 a group at the École Normale

Supérieure in Paris, led by Jean Dalibard, succeeded where previous efforts had failed

in emulating the ―rotating bucket‖ approach to generating vortices. To produce the

rotation, Dalibard‘s team moved a laser beam around the edge of the trap, creating the

semblance of a rotating distortion in its shape.

These investigators have imaged arrays of up to 14 vortices. In a paper published this

past September, they reported measuring the angular momentum of their condensates:

in agreement with theory, the momentum is zero until the first vortex appears, at which

point it jumps to one whole unit. Beyond its interest as fundamental physics, the

quantum dywww.sciam.com Scientific American December 2000 95 Key Concepts

Quantum mechanics describes how nature works at the scale of atoms and has many

features that are counterintuitive to our everyday experience. One feature of quantum

mechanics is that particles have wavelike properties—the ―wave function‖of a particle

defines its quantum state. Also, every elementary particle is intrinsically either a

fermion or a boson. Fermions behave claustrophobically—two fermions cannot

occupy identical quantum states in the same location. Electrons, protons and neutrons

are fermions. [See ―Quantum Claustrophobia,‖ News and Analysis, SCIENTIFIC

AMERICAN,November 1999.] Bosons behave gregariously. Bosons of a particular


48

species tend to gather together in identical states if given the opportunity. Photons

(particles of light) are bosons. Composite particles such as atoms are also either bosons

or fermions. An atom made of an even number of protons,neutrons and electrons is a

boson. Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) occurs when a collection of bosons of one

species is made sufficiently cold and dense without locking together as a solid. Wave

functions enlarge at extremely low temperatures, and when the bosons‘ wave functions

overlap, all the bosons accumulate in one quantum state. Behavior of BECs sheds light

on the fundamentals of an assortment of subfields of physics. These include quantum

mechanics, superfluidity, superconductivity, the properties and interactions of atoms,

laser physics and nonlinear optics. —G.P.C. Physicists can modify the interactions in a

condensate at will—an experimenter‘s dream FORCES acting among the atoms of a

condensate alter its size and proportions. Here researchers adjusted the forces from

strongly repulsive (top) to almost zero strength (bottom). Tuning the forces further and

making them weakly attractive caused the condensates to collapse and explode like

miniature supernovae. ADAPTED FROM S. L. CORNISH ET AL., PHYSICAL

REVIEW LETTERS,VOL. 85, 2000 Copyright 2000 Scientific American, Inc. namics

of vortices is important for high-temperature superconductor technology: Magnetic

fields penetrate these materials by creating an array of vortices of electric current in

the material.

The motion of such flux vortices dissipates power, spoiling the highly desirable ―zero-

resistance‖ property of superconductors. Studies of the BECs may help tame this

problem. Malleable Atomic Interactions Vortices in superfluid helium have cores only

a tenth of a nanometer in diameter, making them virtually impossible to examine in

detail. The cores of the Colorado and Paris vortices are about 5,000 times larger,

because compared with liquid helium the gaseous condensates have extremely low

density and their atoms interact very weakly. Essentially nothing can be done about

liquid helium‘s density and interactions, but the density of gaseous BECs can be

adjusted by tightening or loosening the magnetic traps that hold the gas. In addition,

physicists have the remarkable ability to modify the interactions in the gaseous BECs

at the turn of a dial. Such an ability is an experimenter‘s dream—imagine how

chemistry could be studied if we could weaken or strengthen the bonds between atoms


49

at will. The atoms in a gaseous condensate experience a small mutual repulsion or

attraction, depending on their species. For example, atoms of sodium, rubidium 87 and

hydrogen repel their own kind. Lithium 7 and rubidium 85 atoms attract. These forces,

though tiny, modify innumerable properties of a condensate, such as its internal

energy, its size, its modes of oscillation and its rate of formation. Most important, a

repulsion stabilizes a condensate, whereas an attraction is destabilizing. Consequently,

experiments using repulsive rubidium 87 or sodium routinely condense millions of

atoms at a time, and the condensates can be 20 times larger than they would be in the

absence of the repulsion.

Conversely, the attraction limits lithium 7 condensates produced by Randall G. Hulet‘s

group at Rice University to about 1,500 atoms. Above that size, the condensate

contracts and becomes too dense, triggering collisions that spill atoms out of the trap.

These results are now well understood by sophisticated theoretical modeling, but as

recently as the early 1990s physicists doubted that attractive atoms could form a

condensate at all. The atoms‘ interactions can be modified by so-called Feshbach

resonances, named after nuclear theorist Herman Feshbach of M.I.T., who studied an

analogous phenomenon in colliding nuclei in the 1960s. In a gas, a strong magnetic

field distorts the atoms and at certain strengths causes two atoms to resonate when they

collide. In a condensate the atoms continuously feel the effects of these resonances

because their quantum waves overlap; the resonances modify the forces between the

atoms, with the largest effects occurring near the resonant magnetic-field strength. One

difficulty is that a strong magnetic field can ruin the magnetic trapping of the atoms.

Wolfgang Ketterle‘s group at M.I.T. solved that problem in 1998 by transferring

sodium condensates from a magnetic trap to a laser-based one. But although the M.I.T.

group was able to observe the effects of Feshbach resonances, extended studies were

impossible: to the researchers‘ great surprise, when the magnetic fields were tuned

close to a resonance, the sodium condensates disintegrated within microseconds.

Long-lived condensates with tunable interactions were developed earlier this year by

Cornell and Wieman‘s group, usA laser knocks atoms out of the trap through the

―circle of death‖ 96 Scientific American December 2000 The Coolest Gas in the

Universe ATOM LASERS are in essence moving condensates, material analogues of


50

optical laser pulses or beams. The first atom laser (left) was ―powered‖ by gravity.

Pulsed radio waves hitting a trapped condensate (circle at top) released clumps of

condensate (crescents). Repulsion between the sodium atoms produces the crescent

shape and accelerates the crescents‘ expansion. In the first directed atom laser (above),

atoms were propelled sideways out of the trap by laser beams. STEVEN L.

ROLSTON NIST DALLIN DURFEE AND MICHAEL ANDREWS Massachusetts

Institute of Technology Copyright 2000 Scientific American, Inc. ing rubidium 85 and

a conventional magnetic trap. Ordinarily, rubidium 85‘s attractive interactions prevent

its condensate from growing beyond a measly 80 atoms. But by using Feshbach

resonances to switch these forces to be repulsive, the Colorado group achieved stable

condensates of up to 10,000 atoms with lifetimes as long as 10 seconds.

The most spectacular effects occurred when the group gradually decreased the

artificial repulsion. As predicted by theory, the giant condensates shrank smoothly in

size and became dense. Finally, about five milliseconds after the interactions crossed

back to attractive, the condensates exploded—a phenomenon that Wieman has

whimsically dubbed a ―Bose nova,‖ by loose analogy with the implosion that fuels

exploding stars. The explosions blasted perhaps a third of the condensate atoms

completely out of the trap, leaving behind a remnant condensate surrounded by a hot

cloud of atoms (if a temperature of 100 billionths of a degree can be called ―hot‖).

Atom Lasers Apossible application of the interaction tuning is the delicate control of

beams of atoms emitted from condensates. Such beams are known as atom lasers.

Atomic beams are already used in a variety of scientific and industrial applications,

including atomic clocks, precision measurements of fundamental constants and

production of computer chips.

But all those beams lack the brightness and ―coherence‖ of an atom laser, just as

ordinary light lacks the brightness and coherence (and thus the versatility) of a laser

beam. (Coherence means that all the atoms or photons in the beam move in a kind of

quantum synchrony, with their associated waves closely aligned.) It took the laser

decades to go from being an esoteric experimental device in 1960 to an almost

ubiquitous element of consumer electronics. Some researchers suggest that in the

decades to come, atom lasers could have an equally fruitful future, in ways as


51

inconceivable now as today‘s uses of lasers were in the 1960s. Major obstacles lie in

the path of this prophecy, of course, not least being the need to send atom beams

through a vacuum instead of through air.

The earliest atom lasers generated their pulses and beams in a fashion completely

unlike optical lasers (prompting some to insist that atom ―laser‖ was a misnomer). In

essence, an atom laser is any coherent, freely moving lump or stream of BEC. The

atoms of a BEC are confined in a magnetic trap by their own tiny magnetic dipole, or

spin. Correctly tuned radio waves will flip the spins of atoms and make them immune

to the trapping fields. Ketterle‘s group took advantage of this effect in 1997 to create

the first atom laser. They pelted a sodium condensate with pulses of radio waves.

Atoms whose spins had been flipped dropped out of the trap—crescentLaser

cooling.To create a gaseous BoseEinstein condensate, experimenters must cool a dilute

gas of atoms in a vacuum chamber to an extremely low temperature.The first step in

almost all the experiments is laser cooling, in which laser beams slow down the

motion of atoms, cooling them from perhaps room temperature (300 kelvins) or much

higher to about 50 microkelvins—one twenty-thousandth of a degree above absolute

zero. Magneto-optical trap (MOT). The most common precooling device used in BEC

experiments is the magneto-optical trap, which combines laser cooling with trapping

of the atoms by magnetic fields.The magnetic fields help to compress the gas to a

higher density.Many groups use a sequence of two MOTs, optimized respectively for

collecting atoms and then for cooling them. Evaporative cooling. The final cooling

stage in BEC experiments is analogous to the cooling of a cup of coffee. While a

magnetic trap holds the atoms,the hottest fraction of atoms is continuously removed,

so that increasingly lower-temperature gas remains.Unlike laser cooling,evaporative

cooling works best at higher densities. TOP trap. Used by the group of Eric A. Cornell

and Carl E. Wieman at JILA to create the first gaseous atomic condensate in 1995, the

time-averaged orbiting potential magnetic trap has been adopted by several groups.

Its coils produce a magnetic field that has a zero point from which atoms can leak. By

moving the field rapidly around in a circle, the trap con- fines the atoms in an

ellipsoidal region inside the orbit of the leak (the ―circle of death‖). Ioffe-Pritchard

(IP) traps.Named after Russian physicist M. S. Ioffe (whose Ioffe trap was for trapping


52

plasmas of charged ions) and David Pritchard of M.I.T., IoffePritchard traps produce a

trapping field without a leaky zero point.

They are the main alternative to TOP traps and come in a diverse array of designs,

with condensates ranging from nearly spherical to long cigar shapes. Their magnetic

fields are produced by running current through four parallel bars or through coils

shaped like letter D‘s, the seams of a baseball or fourleaf clovers. Permanent magnet

trap. This style of IP trap employs permanent magnets to produce the fields.Randall

G.Hulet‘s group at Rice University uses it to produce condensates in lithium. The

permanent magnets cannot be turned off, so the condensate can only be imaged in situ.

—G.P.C. GLOWING SODIUM ATOMS are held in a magneto-optical trap and

watched by Kristian Helmerson of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Coils produce a magnetic field, and laser beams enter from six directions, holding and

cooling the atoms. Machines for Cooling and Trapping Atoms Quantum Coolers

STEVEN L. ROLSTON NIST www.sciam.com Scientific American December 2000

97 Copyright 2000 Scientific American, Inc. shaped pulses of moving condensate

propelled by gravity! In late 1998 Theodore Hänsch‘s group at the University of

Munich demonstrated a similar system that emitted a continuous beam of rubidium

atoms. The Munich group estimated that its atomic beam was more than a million

times brighter than similar (but nonlaser) beams of atoms produced by other

techniques. Around the same time, William D. Phillips, Steven Rolston and their co-

workers at NIST finally produced an atom laser that could be pointed in a direction

other than down. Optical-laser pulses knocked atoms out of the condensate and

through a circulating hole on the outskirts of their trap (a location known as the circle

of death).

A sequence of laser pulses carefully synchronized with the circle of death produced a

finely collimated, essentially continuous beam—described in one report as ―an atomic

ray gun with laserlike precision,‖ which sounds like hyperbole but is technically

factual. The ―a‖ in ―LASER‖ stands for ―amplification,‖ but in the atom lasers

described so far, the only amplification to speak of occurs in the initial creation of the

BEC, when the population of atoms in the single quantum state is ―amplified‖ by Bose

condensation. Amplification of atom-laser beams, also known as matter-wave


53

amplification, was only achieved in late 1999, by an M.I.T. group led by Ketterle and

Pritchard and, independently, by Takahiro Kuga and his co-workers at the University

of Tokyo. Matter-wave amplification does not mean that matter is created out of

energy by the amplifier. Rather a small atomlaser pulse is created in a BEC, and that

pulse is amplified I n the year or two after the creation of BEC, Daniel Kleppner of

M.I.T. would be introduced at conferences as ―the godfather of BEC.‖ He couldn‘t be

―the father of BEC,‖ after all, because his own group,distressingly,still hadn‘t

produced a condensate. And yet he loomed paternally over the field as both pioneer

and continuing participant and as a mentor to the young upstarts who had seized the

grail as their own. The three groups that first demonstrated BECs in 1995 and 1996

were led by Kleppner‘s students and ―grandstudents.‖ Wieman worked in his

laboratory as an undergraduate in the early 1970s. Cornell was a graduate student of

Pritchard‘s, who in turn was a graduate student of Kleppner‘s. Ketterle first worked on

cold atoms as a postdoc of Pritchard‘s. Hulet was a grad student in Kleppner‘s group,

as was Nobel laureate Phillips, whose group made a BEC in 1998.

Like any teacher, Kleppner takes great pride in his students‘ accomplishments.―But

they can overdo it,‖he quips. When his former students were making their spectacular

condensates of rubidium, sodium and lithium (alkali atoms), Kleppner was battling

with his career-long atom of choice: hydrogen. He has been studying hydrogen since

he was a graduate student and postdoc at Harvard University in the late 1950s.

Working there with Norman Ramsey, Kleppner helped to invent the hydrogen maser,a

kind of laser operating at microwave frequencies that has seen applications in

extremely precise measurements, including tests of Einstein‘s general relativity. (The

maser was among the work cited when Ramsey won the Nobel Prize in 1989.) In 1966

Kleppner moved across town from Harvard to M.I.T., where he is now acting director

of the Research Laboratory of Electronics. Kleppner got into the Bose-Einstein game

around 1976, working with a form of hydrogen called spin-polarized. ―I thought the

idea was nutty,‖ Kleppner recalls, but a young professor named Thomas Greytak

persuaded him of its merits.

They have worked together ever since. In spin-polarized hydrogen, all the atoms have

their spins aligned the same way (think of the spin as a tiny magnetic compass needle


54

that each atom carries around). Such a gas is as inert as helium because two hydrogen

atoms must have oppositely aligned spins to form a molecule. Alone among all the

elements, this form of hydrogen should remain a gas all the way down to absolute

zero. Inspired by these predicted properties, in the late 1970s Kleppner and Greytak at

M.I.T. and competitors at the University of Amsterdam began work to create a BEC in

spin-polarized hydrogen, never dreaming how long the quest would take or that

condensates in metallic atoms, of all things, would beat them to the punch. Although it

wasn‘t first to the prize, Kleppner‘s group made several key advances on the road to

BEC, such as demonstrating evaporative cooling in spin-polarized hydrogen in 1987, a

feat that the alkali-atom groups only duplicated seven years later.

By 1991 the Kleppner-Greytak group had pushed to within a factor of three of the

temperature and density needed for a condensate (alkali atoms were about a factor of a

million behind). Alas, some perverse properties of hydrogen threw up roadblocks at

this point, including difficulties in observing key properties of the gas to confirm

creation of a condensate. In the alkali-atom gases, visible light and standard laser

techniques can be used. The corresponding light for hydrogen is ultraviolet and

requires a more sophisticated approach. Finally, in June 1998, Kleppner received a

late-night phone call from two of his current students to come into the lab. A Bose-

Einstein condensate in hydrogen had been observed at last! A month later, at a

conference in Varenna, Italy, Kleppner announced his group‘s success.The assembled

experts—colleagues, competitors and former students—gave the proud new parent a

long standing ovation. —G.P.C. SAM OGDEN DANIEL KLEPPNER began pursuing

Bose-Einstein condensation in hydrogen back in 1976, racing against a Dutch group:

―It took a little longer than any of us expected.‖ Hydrogen Man The Godfather of BEC

98 Scientific American December 2000 The Coolest Gas in the Universe Copyright

2000 Scientific American, Inc. when additional BEC atoms follow their Bose nature

and join it. Concurrent scattering of light from a pump laser beam ensures that

momentum and energy are properly conserved. The M.I.T. group realized that matter-

wave amplification by this process was possible when, earlier in 1999, they hit one of

their cigar-shaped condensates with a polarized laser beam and were startled to see

clumps of atoms emerging at 45 degrees and light beaming out of each end of the


55

―cigar.‖ The process was a form of scattering called superradiance that involved

rudimentary amplification. These processes amount to condensates acting in their most

lightlike manner, in sharp contrast to their liquid behavior as superfluids. A

tremendously active field in optics over the past decade has been nonlinear optics,

involving the interactions of light with itself. Nonlinear effects are increasingly

important, for example, in optical fibers operating at the highest data rates. Normally,

light barely interacts with itself, so high intensities or special media are needed to

achieve these nonlinear effects. The weak interactions of atoms in condensates

automatically produce nonlinear effects, which makes them ideal for studying such

processes. The simple classical notion of atoms as particles colliding like tiny marbles

utterly fails to account for the observed results of these experiments.

Ersatz Black Holes? One feat of nonlinear optics is to slow light down to a stunning

degree. In a vacuum, electromagnetic waves— including radio, x-ray and light

waves—travel at the ultimate speed limit: 300,000 kilometers (186,000 miles) per

second. Light zips along less swiftly in a medium, moving at about three fourths of its

top speed in water and two thirds in a typical glass. In 1999, by shining a beam

through an ultracold and optically modified gas, Lene Vestergard Hau of the Rowland

Institute for Science in Cambridge, Mass., slowed light down to 17 meters per second,

the pace of a speedy bicycle. In a November paper, Ketterle‘s group reported

observing light traveling at one meter per second through a condensate, a walking

pace. One does not need a condensate to produce such effects, but the intense cold of

condensate gases has features that are ideal for inducing the most extreme examples.

Intriguingly, Ulf Leonhardt and Paul Piwnicki of the Royal Institute of Technology in

Stockholm suggested in 1999 that slow light propagating near a vortex in a condensate

might serve as a tabletop analogue for processes near rotating black holes. For

example, the light could be dragged into the core of a vortex, particularly if the beam

was moving ―upstream‖ against the rotational flow. In unpublished papers Peter

Zoller, Ignacio Cirac and their co-workers at the University of Innsbruck in Austria

show that with current state-of-the-art technology, it should be possible to build sonic

models of black holes—that is, ersatz black holes in which sound waves take the place

of light. Their calculations indicate that such black holes would explode in a burst of


56

phonons, the quanta of sound waves. Such explosions might be analogous to the

evaporation of microscopic gravitational black holes via Hawking radiation, a thermal

mix of particles predicted to emerge as a result of quantum effects.

In an August paper, Wayne Hu and his co-workers at Princeton University speculate

that the unseen ―dark matter‖ that makes up perhaps 90 percent of the universe could

exist in the form of a Bose-Einstein condensate of exceedingly low mass particles

permeating space. Such a condensate form of dark matter might, they suggest, solve

some problems that dog the otherwise quite successful ―cold dark matter‖ cosmology

theories. If that remarkable hypothesis is true, the coolest gases in the universe may

also turn out to be the most abundant. www.sciam.com Scientific American December

2000 99 Sound waves near vortices might mimic black hole phenomena SA

―TRILOBITE MOLECULE‖ of two rubidium atoms, 1,000 times larger than a typical

diatomic molecule, could be formed within a condensate by appropriate laser

excitation. Gold curves indicate the density of the calculated electron cloud forming

the bond. The green ball is one atom; the other is obscured under the ―twin towers.‖

Groups have produced more ordinary ultracold molecules in condensates by similar

laser techniques but have not yet demonstrated a condensate of molecules. CHRIS H.

GREENE University of Colorado at Boulder Further Information The Yin and Yang of

Hydrogen.

Daniel Kleppner in Physics Today, Vol. 52, No. 4, pages 11–13; April 1999. Atom

Lasers. Kristian Helmerson, William D. Phillips, Keith Burnett and David Hutchinson

in Physics World, Vol. 12, No. 8, pages 31–36; August 1999. Bose Condensates Make

Quantum Leaps and Bounds. Yvan Castin, Ralph Dum and Alice Sinatra in Physics

World, Vol. 12, No. 8, pages 37–42; August 1999. Experimental Studies of Bose-

Einstein Condensation. Wolfgang Ketterle in Physics Today, Vol. 52, No. 12, pages

30–35; December 1999. Bose-Einstein Condensation Homepage at Georgia Southern

University is at http://amo.phy.gasou.edu/bec.html Copyright 2000 Scientific

American, In

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THE YIN AND YANG OF HYDROGEN. Daniel Kleppner in Physics Today, Vol.

52, No. 4, pages 11-13; April 1999.

ATOM LASERS. Kristian Helmerson, William D. Phillips, Keith Burnett and David

Hutchinson in Physics World, Vol. 12, No. 8, pages 31-36; August 1999.

BOSE CONDENSATES MAKE QUANTUM LEAPS AND BOUNDS. Yvan Castin,

Ralph Dum and Alice Sinatra in Physics World, Vol. 12, No. 8, pages 37-42; August

1999.

EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES OF BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATION. Wolfgang

Ketterle in Physics Today, Vol. 52, No. 12, pages 30-35; December 1999.

BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATION HOMEPAGE at Georgia Southern University

is athttp://amo.phy.gasou.edu/bec.html

Scientific American, December 2000

http://amo.phy.gasou.edu/bec.html


68

The Coolest Gas in the Universe (*)

. ب ٠زج رج١ع رساد صش ب ذ رجش٠ذcondensate( ثض اىبف)اىت ب خ (1)

". سب٠زف١ه أش٠ىب" ض ١ئخ رحش٠ش جخ (2)

(3 ) cloudies (4)[ اظش :by L. R. , "Searching for Shadows of Other Earths" Doyle

- H.-J. Deeg - T. M. Brown; Scientific American, September 2000 .]

3.3 Methods of Analysis

This study compares record and investigates the frequency and the use of the

passive verbs in each one of the four texts in the corpus. moreover, the study also

compared the use and frequency of the passive in English and Arabic, as well as within

Arabic itself.

The study of this corpus is based on using descriptive-contrastive approach.

The descriptive phase of the research methodology began with the examining

identifying and underlining all finite passive verbs in the two Original English texts

The English source texts (ST) were then placed along with their Translated Arabic

(TT) texts and the translation equivalents of the English finite passive verbs were

specified and underlined in the two translated Arabic texts.

After that began the contrastive part in which all the translation alternative in Arabic of

the English finite passive verbs were noted down, classified and counted. These gave

four translation alternatives, as will be discussed in the next section on data analysis in

this chapter.

For the English-Arabic frequency of passive verbs, as well as for the frequency of

finite passive verbs within Arabic itself. Contrastive tables were then organized out in

the comparable corpus

3.4 Data Analysis

We divided the process of analysis into two main points:


69

(a) Analysis of the fourth texts i.e. the two Original English texts and the two

Translated Arabic texts.

b) Analysis of the Original Arabic text and its translational English counterpart.

The process of analyzing the corpus is reported in detailed contrastive tables for each

Original English text and its Translational Arabic equivalent text, as well as for

each of the four translation alternatives mentioned below

In other terms, there are four detailed tables for each original English -Target Arabic

pair:

1- Translating the original English passive verbs by Target Arabic passive verbs,

2- Translating the Original English passive by Target Arabic active verbs

3- Translating the Original English passive by Target Arabic nominal structures with

an infinitive.

4- Translating the Original English passive by Target Arabic nominal structures with

passive participles.

As a result there are a total of eight contrastive tables on the analysis of the corpus

mentioned below:


70

1-English Passive Verbs Translated by Arabic Passive Verbs

Text 1 Building a Brainier Mouse

ST TT

1-To explain how memory is represented

and stored in the brain

2-In what is now known as Hobbs's

learning rule

3-The reduction is also long – lasting and

is known as long – term depression

4-…that rats whose brains have been

infused with drugs that block the NMDA

5-Without memory, one cannot measure

learning; without learning, no memory

exists to be assessed.

6-But that test, which is called an object-

recognition task, assesses only one type of

memory.

7-The newly incorporated firm is called

Eureka pharmaceuticals.

8-We believe the tools that Joe and his

colleagues have developed can be

translated pretty quickly into a basis for

9-When the brain is starved of blood


71

Text 2: The Coolest Gas in the Universe

ST TT

1- …, and their behavior is rigidly

prescribed by deterministic laws.

2-When liquid helium is cooled to

within 2.2 Kelvin's of absolute

3-Such beams are known as atom lasers,

4-Atomic beams are already used in a

Varity of scientific and …

5- …, and that pulse is amplified when

6- The hottest fraction of atoms is

continuously removed,

7- Their magnetic fields are produced by

running current through

8-Glowing sodium atoms are held in a

magneto-optical trap and …

9-Daniel Kleppner of M.I.T. would be

introduced at conferences …

10-A Bose-Enstein condensate in

hydrogen had been observed at last …

11-The green ball is one atom, the other

is obscured under the "twin towers"


72

2- English Passive Verbs Translated by Arabic Active Verbs


ST TT

1-I received mail by the bagful and was

forwarded dozens of jokes.

2- The human brain has approximately 100

billion nerve cells , or neurons , that

are linked in networks to give rise

3- … to explain how memory is represented

and stored in the brain .

4- …., he proposed that a memory is

produced when .....

5- Although LTP and LTD had been shown

to depend on NMDA receptors,

6- And the memory deficits of the knockout

mice might have been caused by another,

7- I injected this gene into fertilized mouse

eggs, where it was incorporated into the

chromosomes

8- …and (was) produced genetically modified

mice carrying the extra copy of the…..

9- Intelligence is traditionally defined in

dictionaries and by many experimental

biologists as problem-solving ability.

10- We placed into the pool a nearly invisible,

clear Plexiglas platform that was almost but

not quite as fall as water deep, so that it was

just hidden beneath the surface


73


ST TT

1- The locations and motions of particles are

fundamentally equivocal and ruled by

probabilities

2- Even the idea of objects having distinct

identities is radically modified for quantum

particles.

3- Long-lived condensates with tunable

interactions were developed earlier this year

by Cornell and …

4- Atoms whose spins had been flipped

dropped out of the trap – crescent shaped

5- Matter-wave amplification does not mean

that matter is created out of energy by the

amplifier.

6- Rather a small atom laser pulse is created

in a BEC,

7- The time-averaged orbiting potential

magnetic trap has been adopted by several

group

8-The three groups that first demonstrated

BECs in 1995 and 1996 were led by

9- In the first directed atom laser, atoms were

propelled sideways out of the trap

10- Trilobite Molecule" of two rubidium

atoms, 1,000 times larger than a typical

diatomic molecule, could be formed within a

condensate by appropriate laser


74

3- English Passive Verbs Translated by Nominalized Constructions with the

Infinitive.


ST TT

1- and memory were laid in 1949.

2- ... In which one gene has been selectively

inactivated

3- ... because that is where most LTP and

LTD studies have been conducted and

because people.

4- We can expect many molecules that play a

role in learning and memory to be identified

in the coming years.

5- The possible side effects of such drugs in

humans, for example, would need to be

carefully evaluated,

6- They have been genetically engineered to

make more than the usual amount of a key

subunit….

7- Could the same technique be used to

enhance people‘s aability to learn and

remember?

8- The safety and ethical issues surrounding

human genetic engineering would also need

to be addressed,


75


ST TT

1- Gaseous Bose-Einstein condensates were first

created in the laboratory in 1995,

2-a full 70 years after the phenomenon was

predicted by Albert Einstein based on

3- Superfluid helium can be produced in large

enough quantities for one to watch

4- Sometimes that had never been achieved so

directly in 60 years of work on Superfluid

helium.

5- Essentially nothing can be done about liquid

helium's density

6- But the density of gaseous BECs can be

adjusted by tightening …

7- … imagine how chemistry could be studied if

we could weaken or strengthen

8- The atom's interactions can be modified by

so-called feshbach resonances

9- … finally produced an atom laser that could

be pointed in a direction other than Down.

10- When the population of atoms in the single

quantum state is amplified by …

11- Concurrent scattering of the light from a

pump laser beam ensures that momentum and

energy are probably conserved.

12- a. Vortex Lattices have been imaged in a

stirred condensate of rubidium atoms

13- The permanent magnets cannot be turned

off,

14-So the condensate can only be imaged in Situ

15-Visible light and standard laser techniques

can be used.


76

4-Arabic Nominalized Constructions with the Passive Participle

Text 1:Building a Brainier Mouse

ST TT

1- But many types of knockout mice die at or

before birth because the genes they lack are

required for normal development.

2- …., in which the mice were required to

use visual cues…


ST TT 1- Most of the time the bizarre features of

quantum mechanics are hidden behind a

facade of classical physics.

2- These results are now well understood by

sophisticated theoretical modeling …

3- The atoms of BEC are confined in a

magnetic trap by their …

4- The first atom laser was powered by

gravity …

5- The photons' waves are unsynchronized.


77

3.5 Results of Analyzing the Corpus

This chapter highlights the four options that are likely to be selected by English-

Arabic translators when translating passive sentences from English into Arabic.

The description of the passive voice found in the corpus some of which are

investigated here - is based on the following counting mode:

Frequency of passive voice Total of sentences Percentage

English passive text 1

« Building a brainier mouse »

201 58.11%

Table above shows that there are 201 sentences found in the scientific text― Building a

brainier mouse"‖. They consist of 201 (58.11%) passive sentences in SL that translated into

Arabic 9 (18.09 %) English Passive Verbs Translated by Arabic Passive Verbs and 10(20.01

%) English Passive Verbs Translated by Arabic Active Verbs. And 10( 20.01%) English

Passive Verbs Translated by Nominalized Constructions.

Frequency of passive voice Total of sentences Percentage

English passive text 2

« the coolest gas in the universe »

184 75.44%

Table above shows that there are 184 sentences found in the scientific text "The coolest gas in

the universe". They consist of 184 (75.44.11%) passive sentences in SL that translated into

Arabic.11 (20.24 %) English Passive Verbs Translated by Arabic Passive Verbs and

10(18.4%) English Passive Verbs Translated by Arabic Active Verbs. And 20 ( 36.8%)

English Passive Verbs Translated by Nominalized Constructions.

English Passive Verbs Translated by Arabic Passive Verbs

The two passivized Arabic sentences in which the agent is deleted because it is unknown in

the Arabic passive sentences in which the verbs are formally passivized, the agents are deleted

because they are obvious and predictable. In all these examples, the agents are understood to

be "scientists" or "doctors".

1-The newly incorporated firm is called Eureka pharmaceuticals


78

2- A Bose-Enstein condensate in hydrogen had been observed at last

Finally, it can be concluded that in all of the above instances in the above table where the

English passive verb has been also translated by passive verbs in Arabic, the agent have been

deleted because they are "obvious", and can therefore be easily retrieved, or they are

"unknown" and cannot therefore be expressed

English Passive Verbs Translated by Arabic Active Verbs

It is well known that Arabic tends not to use too many passive forms in its structures and tries

to avoid using them. This tendency can partly be achieved by English-Arabic translators

through replacing English passive verbs by Arabic active verbs.

As for the remaining sentences, the English passive verbs are translated by Arabic active

verbs the grammatical subject in all of them is the agent . Moreover, Arabic does not tolerate

agentive passives used in the English ST.

1-Matter-wave amplification does not mean that matter is created out of energy by the

amplifier.

2- The three groups that first demonstrated BECs in 1995 and 1996 were led by

kleppner's students.

English Passive Verbs Translated by Arabic Nominalized Constructions

with the Infinitif

The nominalized constructions with the infinitive can be seen ::

With the infinitive preceded by an initial verbal element which belongs to a list of

verbs among which are 'to be', completed', and 'could be',

The following are the instances found in the study corpus.

1-Gaseous Bose-Einstein condensates were first created in the laboratory in 1995,

2- Finally produced an atom laser that could be pointed in a direction other than down


79

From all of the above examples, it is quite clear that the translator tends to render the

passive form from the English source text by nominalized construction forms in

Arabic. Since Arabic does not favor using many passive verbs, using a nominalized

construction with the infinitive as a translation equivalent of the source English

passive verb will give the translator the chance to preserve passivity in the source

English sentences, as was explained above.

English Passive Verbs Translated by Arabic Nominalized Constructions with the

Passive Participle

It was observed when analyzing the study corpus that English passive verbs

Can also be translated into Arabic by nominalized constructions with the passive

participle as well.

The following are the instances found in the study corpus.

1- …., in which the mice were required to use visual cues…

2-These results are now well understood by sophisticated theoretical modeling

It can be observed that the ST passive verbs, as well as the TT passive participle

constructions in all the following sentences refer to a state rather than to a process


80

SUB CORPUS

The Original Arabic text in the sub corpus, is reported in the detailed table below that

reports all the sentences of passive verbs in Arabic and its translational English

counterpart .

ST TT

ثاسطخ جبرث١خ "ت "اىشاد -1

-اىزخ

1--The balls are not pulled in by the

mass‘s

ثذ أ رغ١ش "س "شبو اسجج١خ ز -2

.- اص١غخ

2--These causality problems would be

solved without any change .

which has never been experimentally--3 . ثشى رجش٠ج " ميزت"از بسجك أ -3

distinguished

Is indicated by all existing--4 ا١ ثى الدخ ازجش٠ج١خ "ر ي" او -4

experimental evidence

This force is called gravity--5 اجبرث١خ "ت عى"ثمح غ١ش شئ١خ - 5

FINDING AND DISCUSSION

Finding

This chapter tells about data analysis and its results. The analysis was based on the

data taken from the scientific article " الج ذبية االرضيةسزعة "and its translation" The

speed of Gravity" The results are the answers to the problems that arise in this

research.

As was mentioned above, Arabic generally tends to use fewer passive verbs in its

structures. In order to confirm this statement, a comparison was also conducted

between the frequency of passive verbs in the Translated English text and that of

Arabic source text .The findings of this comparison showed that the frequency

percentage of passive verbs in Translated English texts was (%7.5) whereas that in the

Arabic source text was (%5,8) .


81

Discussion

Arabic Passive Sentence Translated into English Passive Sentence

Excerpt 1

ST TT

The balls are not pulled in by the mass‘s جبرث١خ اىزخل ت بواسطةاىشاد

The passive construction in is formed by auxiliary verb be + past participle (are +

pulled). It can be seen the tense that used in TT is simple present, the characteristics of

passive in simple present is be (am/is/are) + past participle. Translator translated ST

into English passive that has characteristics subject (patient) + verb + agent (actor).

From the text above translator translated the SL passive voice رتسحت " " translated

into are not ―pulled‖ in by in TT. The passive construction in ST follows the

grammatical rules in the Arabic language (diacritical signs) ,thing receiving action] +

[be] + [past participle of verb] + [by] + [thing doing action] .

Excerpt 2

ST TT

These causality problems would be ثذ أ رغ١١ش اص١غخس شبو اسجج١خ ز

solved without any change

From the text above, the translator translated the SL passive voice ل زتحن by into would سو

be solved in TL. The passive construction in SL is formed by by prefix رح+ ط)ط ),

The tense that used in SL is present and in TL is formed by The passive construction

in SL is formed by the modal would + auxiliary verb be + past participle. The tense

that used in TL is present perfect tense.


82

Original Arabic texts are to be analyzed not only for their use of passive verbs but also

for other linguistic means of expressing the passive in Arabic, e.g. by using some

active verbs, nominalized structures

The passive voice is typically used in arabic when the agent is either unknown or

when itis obvious and thus "the attention of the hearer or reader is directed more to the

person affected by the act (the patient) the the doer of it (the agent) two out of the

above mentioned four are used in sentence where the agent is obvious.

2-These causality problems would be solved without any change

3-which has never been experimentally distinguished

It is clear that the agent in the three of them is obvious since it can only refer to"

scientists" or "people" in general.

In the sentences 2 an 3 above shows that the agents in all of them are obviously

understood to be scientists.

in the others two Arabic verbs in sentences (1) and (2) the agents are overtly expressed

in each of these sentences.

ثاسطخ جبرث١خ اىزخ" تك "اىشاد 1-

1-The balls are not pulled in by the mass‘s

ل االدخ ازجش٠ج١خ ك يزك وب -4 ١ ثىت

4-is indicated by all existing experimental evidence .


83

Conclusion

The present chapter tries to find answers for the already mentioned questions of the

research.

It tackles the analysis of translated examples from English into Arabic in the passive

voice in scientific texts.

English passive voices are translated by an Arabic passive verbs ; this is due to the fact

that the process of translation creates this kind transfer.

Some verbs pattern in Arabic do not take in passivised forms: the active verbs may be

used at the same time to keep the semantic aspects of passivisation within the

sentence. Here , the nominalised structure with the infinitive .

We can use the nominalised structure with passive participle when we translate from

English into Arabic; this constructure refers to a state rather than a process . We have

found that all the Arabic's NPs sentences used the same in all their features as the

English ones. Arabic sentences using nominalized constructions with the passive verbs

succeed thus in maintaining the notion of passivity of their source translationally

equivalent English sentences.

The Arabic structures enjoy very various and alternative choices in the sentence

structure and hence they tend to adopt constructions other than passive voice.

Arabic in the present study shown to be a one that also use passivisation , however it

expresses it in other words and structures.

Chapter I II

Translating the passive

voice

Chapter IV Translating the passive voice

85

Chapter four: Translating the passive voice

4.1 Difficulties

Passive is one of the most difficult phenomenon when it comes to translating, and

therefore it is well worth some investigation .The aim of the present study is to map the

difficulties translators encounter when translating the passive voice from English into Arabic

and vice versa, notably in scientific texts, and also to present some techniques used in this

regard.

When we want to translate a scientific text from English into Arabic and vice versa, we

confront many difficulties such as the requirement of skills, intelligence and the mastery of

both languages (Arabic, English) .English uses much more passive voice than Arabic, and this

may cause a problem in the process of translation; if the translator insists on translating every

passive voice in the English text with a passive voice in Arabic, the result will be an unnatural

text in Arabic.

Another difficulty is translating English agentive passive sentences, Arabic passive

construction is used mostly without the 'by-phrase' and the agent remains unknown. It is

worth mentioning that Arabic has no agentive equivalent to English 'by'. Thus, translators will

face a problem in dealing with the agentive passive e.g : Bill was killed by John / لز ص٠ذ

We cannot say: لز ص٠ذ طشف ش , but instead we use the active form e.g : لز ش ص٠ذا

One could claim that the doer of the action is mentioned in the English sentence unlike the

Arabic sentence, because this may affect the amount of information in the original sentence.

In dealing with the problem of the frequency of the passive in English and Arabic, we

revealed that there were many options available to the English Arabic translator for translating

passive into English. These alternatives are supposed to be:

1. Translating the English passive verb with an Arabic passive verb.

2.Translating the English passive verb with an Arabic active verb.

3.Translating English passive verbs with Arabic nominalized constructions with the infinitive.

4. Translating English passive verbs with Arabic nominalized constructions with the passive

participle.


86

4.2 Techniques

We have adopted some techniques when came to translate the passive sentences from the

texts we have chosen; they are modulation, transposition and literal translation.

Modulation

Modulation consists of using phrases that are different in the source and target languages

to convey the same idea. It changes the semantics aspect and shifts the point of view of the

source language. Through modulation, translators generate a change in the point of view of

the message without altering meaning and without generating a sense of awkwardness in the

reader of the target text. (Bosco, n.d)

We have used this technique while translating English passive sentences into Arabic

active ones; to conveying the same idea in different ways, because Arabic tends not to use too

many passive forms in its structures and tries to avoid using them. This tendency can partly be

achieved by English-Arabic translators through replacing English passive verbs by Arabic

active verbs.

e.g :

…and was produced genetically modified mice carrying the extra copy of the…..

Transposition

This is the process where parts of speech change their sequence when translated .It is in a

sense a shift of word class. Grammatical structures are often different in different languages.

Transposition is often used in English and Arabic due to the preferred position of the verb in

the sentence: English often uses the verb after the subject of a sentence; Arabic uses it at the

beginning before the subject. This requires that the translator knows the possibility to replace

a word category in the target language without altering the meaning of the source text, for

example: I bought a blue car / اشزش٠ذ س١بسح صسلبء (Bosco, n.d)

This technique used in translating English passive sentences into Arabic nominalized

constructions with the infinitive / with the passive participle,

These are some examples found in the corpus:


87

English Passive Verbs Translated with Arabic Nominalized Constructions with the infinitive:

Gaseous Bose-Einstein condensates were first created in the laboratory in 1995 / ر ازبجمذ

اشزب٠ اغبص٠خ شح ال -و ب بد ثص

English Passive Verbs Translated by Arabic Nominalized Constructions with the Passive

Participle:

…., in which the mice were required to use visual cues...

Literal translation

Literal translation: in which the SL grammatical constructions are converted to their

nearest TL equivalents, but the lexical words are again translated singly, out of context

(Ordudari, 2007).

We have used this technique in a normal case which is translating the English passive

sentences into Arabic passive sentences, in order to get a natural product.

e.g: A Bose-Enstein condensate in hydrogen had been observed .

General Conclusion

General Conclusion

89

General Conclusion

The present study was carried out to describe and analyze the passive structures

employed in scientific texts, which were written in English and translated into Arabic

language and vice versa.

By doing the contrastive study based on the theory of English and Arabic grammar

particularly on the passive voice, (Use, Form, Stylistic features); they share common points as

well as different points.

The practical part of this research revealed that there are four alternative options for

translating the English passive verbs into Arabic where the first translation alternative was

commonly used since translators normally tend to use the literal translation approach in the

translation process and hence translate SL passive verbs into Arabic passive verbs. The

techniques adopted in translating the texts chosen are modulation, transposition and literal

translation.

The frequency of the passive voice in English scientific texts is higher than in their

Arabic translations. This is in accordance with the general assumption that the passive voice is

used more frequently in English than Arabic.

One more important point in this study is the Stylistic Features of the passive voice in

the scientific texts, the style plays a primordial role in making this voice what it is and build

up a structure that expresses the same ideas differently for the simple reason we may site here:

Languages are different and they basically differ in the stylistic side they convey.

Moreover, it is worth-mentioning, the difficulties and problems that encounter

translators when translating the passive voice from English into Arabic and vice versa, the

requirement of skills, intelligence and a good mastery of the two languages. On the other hand

it was proved that English uses much more passive voice than Arabic, and this may cause a

problem in the process of translation.

This should be taken as a sign, that Arabic language suffers a serious lack of scientific

vocabulary, thus one should pay more attention and give higher importance to scientific

translation theory and its methods that would ensure the enrichment of Arabic language.

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