Translation Problems Amongst Arab Translators

Translation Problems Amongst Arab Translators

By Mr. Imad Ali Almaghary

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Translation problems amongst Arab translators may above all and more than anything else widen, enlarge, expand and enhance not only mankind knowledge but also awareness that can potentially trigger a wide range of factual points on this topic. There are a variety of points that are going to be spelled out as this study drags on such as clarification of the notion of translation, semantic obstacles, structure, word for word translation, the use of scientific expression, dealing with literary language, the difficulty of subtitling, and the problem of syntax and so on.

Before embarking on the analysis, explanation and discussion of further controversial matter on this field it would be far more worthwhile to define translation so as to put a positive gloss on the entire study, put in its simplest, according to Advanced Oxford Dictionary, “Translation is the process of changing something that is written or spoken into another language: an error in translation He specializes in translation from Danish into English. The book loses something in translation and it is a text or work that has been changed from one language into another: to make / do a translation of a documentThe usual translation of ‘glasnost’ is ‘openness’. a rough / a literal / an exact translation I have only read Tolstoy in translation. a copy of Dryden's translation of the Aeneid and it is the process of changing something into a different form: the translation of theory into practice the translation of sporting potential into Olympic gold medals”.

In the aftermath of having the definition of translation it would be of a pivotal importance to kick-start explanation by further concentration on semantic troubles that are out there amongst Arab students who on one form or another have specialty in the field of translation. When having to translate a text from the English language that is the source language into Arabic that is the target language those translators have some sort of misunderstanding over the text they deal with in the sense that they tend to interpret the text in a way that is not correct but in a way that is completely wrong in no uncertain terms. An example that might bring about clarification of that is as follows, take into account the following expression, the United States secretary of States, this expression will be dealt with semantically wrong because it means prime minister but in the American English they say the United States secretary of States. The translator lacks this knowledge consequently he or she undoubtedly translates this word or this expression in a way the is quite painstakingly wrong therefore there will be a kind of gap semantically within the text itself. This is in one side or another trigger a form of misunderstanding over the text the translator deals with.

Taking about this semantic error what is the reason behind all this? This question might remain unanswered for many people who are doing intensive study on this field or who are having an awful lot of concern on this field but once can say far from being disadvantaged that the whole matter is due to having limited practice or insufficient knowledge over this field of science as one might have put it.

Structural problems is there among student or translators because having to ignore the structure of the text is going at the end of the day to lead to a text the is not as clear as it should be in case of taking structure into account. Structure is as important is semantic is unequivocally. No one can turn a blind eye on that whatsoever. Ignorance of this knowledge of structure is going to bring about failure in the proper introduction of clearer meaning, pure language, perfect understanding, typical transfer of meaning, best convey of ideas and so on so forth and the list is endless. Translator is considered as a person or as an artist because he or she has a great deal of skills not only science this is entirely because of the idea or the fact that science has exceptions and certain defective scientific rules. Skills must be there as translators deal with the text. On the basis of what has been mention so far both scientific rules of grammar and skills that translators have are regarded as complementary, indivisible and interdependent. There is no potential separation between them all and if they are not united as translation takes place then the translator runs the risk of failure to convey the perfect message, facts and ideas to the recipient. There will be an example about the structure and the construction of the sentence in order to provide a so much more transparent meaning of this structure and construction of sentences. Consider the following example as far as experience is there. This example is taken from the British Broadcasting Corporation , BBC, which is in effect a quite genuinely reliable source of information and more than anything else it is trusted because news presenters and journalists are native speakers of English. The example is as follows, “Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union there have been fears that bomb-making materials or even nuclear war heads might be smuggled out to would be nuclear powers the United States is already heavily involved in helping Russia to secure and store nuclear materials retrieved from its massive stock pile of weapons but by far the most serious proliferation threat is the spread of nuclear know-how the danger that poorly paid Russian weapons scientists may simply leave the country and sold their talents to the highest bidder”. Analysis of this journalistic report is going to shed the light on the interpretation of how translation takes place in accordance with knowledge of structure and construction. “Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union there have been fears that bomb-making materials or even nuclear war heads might be smuggled out to would be nuclear powers” is a long sentence which in essence tends to produce confusion for some if not all translators specially those who are not experienced enough. “ever since” is difficult to translate for some translators because they say that since is used with the present perfect tense and here it is not used with the present perfect tense so it lead to some sort of confusion as well as misunderstanding. “ever since” means ever so this semantic problem in addition to this long structure might complicate the problem further and more than one would expect. “Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union” can not stand alone because the meaning is not complete. “there have been fears that bomb-making materials or even nuclear war heads might be smuggled out to would be nuclear powers” gives a complete meaning but this meaning is considered as a gap having a glimpse on the whole reports this is because it is associated with the first sentence. On the basis of what has been mentioned one can say that understanding the structure of the sentence is important in order to be a better translator.

Another problem of structure is found in the following sentence: “the United States is already heavily involved in helping Russia to secure and store nuclear materials retrieved from its massive stock pile of weapons”. The problematic area is there is “which” omitted. It might be difficult to get the idea that there “which” not included in this sentence. This might rise the difficulty. There is the helping verb “is” the is omitted as well. One can say that lack of knowledge here might bring about a disaster or say a disastrous calamity in case of having to translate an important text or a governmental and official one that is related to financial affairs. This sentence can be written in a different and dissimilar way that is as follows, the United States is already heavily involved in helping Russia to secure and store nuclear materials which are retrieved from its massive stock pile of weapons.

Then we understand that this similarity makes it difficult to distinguish and having said that mistakes take place.

There is almost certainly stark problematic area translators have that is word for word translation to put bluntly. Due to the existence of cultural differences among nations the translator results to word for word translation unintentionally and this engulfs him or her with mistakes. Those mistakes are not vehemently noticeable to the translator from one hand and from the other hand the translator think or feels that translation is more than perfect. This is regarded as applicable to scores of translators. The reason behind this might go something like this, the translator does not have enough ideas or knowledge about the text he or she deals with therefore word for word translation takes place. The potential solution to iron out this problematic matter is to have an idea exhaustively on the topic he or she addresses and that is considered as part and parcel of far more acceptable translation. One can say that the best translation and the perfect translation is the one that is based on a written form that is as exactly similar as a text that is originally written by native speaker of the TL the target language. The reader of the translated text must not feel that the text is translated instead there should be a feeling that the text is originally written by a native speaker of the target language. For instance, if there is an Arabic text and this Arabic text will be translated into English then the English reader of the translated text must not feel that the text is originally written in another language. The English reader should get the impression that there is an English writer who wrote this text. In other words the text must appear as if it is originally written in English.

One problem also is that translators do not consider the scientific expressions but they use expressions that do not belong to science or may be partially similar to the correct ones. This idea for the most part and tremendously is because of what has become known as generalization and over generalization. This is in one side or another known among linguists as a serious problem for those embarked on and indulged in learning another language. Those people who are bilinguals and translators tend to adhere to what is known as generalization. Difficulty is out there therefore translators find out a potential solution in order to get out of this problem and they find it is easy to over generalize as a solution. This actually does occur when the translator does not find the right equivalent for certain vocabulary or say for certain terminology of the selected text of translation. As far as experience is there, one of translators did translate the following expression "the international boozing criticism". Actually this is not something correct. He wanted to refer to that organization or institution that donates money to investors and financial schemes or for poorer countries of the developing world. Criticism is related to literature and arts. Instead of saying boxing he should have said fund. Instead of saying criticism he should have said monitory. The right translation is international monitory fund that is known economically as IMF among financial dealers and on financial grounds and in the field of business.

Furthermore, not committing to literary language is one of the problems that is out there in case of doing this type of translation. The adverbs of degree should be used in order to be able to convey the same degree as translation goes on. The use of language of emotions and feelings that is peppered with adverbs of degree has a pivotal importance to render a quite strong meaning to readers, audience and so on so forth. If one says the sea is thundered like a storm, the sea sounded like a sandpaper cleaning wood, the sea whispered in your ears as a friend telling you secrets, the sea roared like a tiger, the sea hissed like a change in your pocket. In the aftermath oh having a look at this literary language, one can come to the conclusion that it is an extraordinarily strange language and it is not well-known one. Here it is fraught with metaphors and similes. Those figures of speech. Figures of speech are not as simple as one might have thought at all. There should be further concerns and thoughts over this consequently meaning could be made clear for people who would more appreciate the language of literature. The idea that this literary language is dissimilar from ordinary language of the ordinary members of the public has become quite clearly important this is entirely because the kind of language has a major role in translation and the best translator is the one who knows the kind of people he or she addresses. Old English or the English language of Shakespeare is much more difficult if compared with recent English language and language of news and ordinary people. The perfect translator must take this into account. Steadily though, one can refer to the idea of identification of the kind of language before the translator rekindles his or her translation process. The translator must avert being not one-sided. For instance, shall he or she be objective or subjective? Shall he or she transfer the kind of the original writer's attitude? Shall the translator interfere within the inner meaning or the outer shape of the literary work? Shall the translator be very typical when carrying out translation work? Shall the translator be not honest in terms of doing some sort of changes that may tarnish the value of the original literary work such as a novel, a novella, a poem, a short story, a sonnet, a play and tale? Shall the translator follow straightforward pattern? Shall the translator keep translation on the basis of simpler language? Shall the translator be further committed to difficult language that is full of and beefed up with uncommon vocabulary? Shall the translator stick to one kind of language in a way that turns out to be dull? Shall the translator follow one form of slippery language of different levels? There are a great deal of questions that are remained unanswered. The good translator might be the one who tends to pick up his or her own approach over the perfect kind of acceptable translation. There is no one clear-cut or deep-seated approach of unique translation. The translator might be as the same as the good teacher in terms of selection of the most suitable way of conduction the work.

Surprisingly enough, one should shed the light on what is known as subtitling. Subtitling might immensely be beyond translator's expectations or abilities. It might be unusual to deal with it because it is a mixture of a variety of different levels of language. Before starting the explanation, clarification and analysis of the term subtitling it would be more worthwhile to define it. Subtitling is the translated language of films, movies and story line. This translated language appears on the bottom of the TV screen so it is the translated speech of actors and actresses that particularly is written on the TV screen so that other people of different cultures can understand the language. In the wake of having an idea about this form of translation one can say that translation mistakes in this form outnumbers those mistakes actually of other forms of translation. The reason why it has more potential mistakes is because of the need to ask for help of a native speaker. Translators who do not ask for help of native speakers make lots of mistakes because of the existence of colloquial language, informal language and street language that is mixed with relatively strange accent. This difficulty is almost certainly there in spite of exerting efforts and endeavours to produce the most perfect translation that is no less easy when dealing with a written text. With the help of native speaker in subtitling the translation is easier due to familiarity with language as well as accent. Having a complete idea about the entire topic, having consideration of facial gestures and body movement, having knowledge of the culture of certain society and having scientific understanding of both SL and TL could help introduce a very acceptable kind of language to audience so that they appreciate the film they are highly likelto enjoy so the burden is upon the shoulders of translators to produce a very reliable form of translation to those who want to appreciate other cultures and other people's lives, habits, customs and last but not least traditions. On the basis of that it is the heavy task of those who have specialty of translation to redeem and render the ideas, facts and information to other people who slightly have knowledge about other languages and cultures as well.

One should understand both semantics and syntax have a large role in order to be able to deal with translation without any problems and in order to understand the way translation goes on it is of a great importance to know more information about semantics as well as syntax because they are considered as the basics of a better translation. To get a clear idea about that it is vital to identify the meaning and the definition of both semantics and syntax as well.

Specified v

V complement adjunct

I P

Specified I

I adjunct

complement

I P

Specified NP

Adv. PP

directly to them

responded

Agsp

Spec AgrS

John

Agrs Tp

Spec T

Agrop

Spec VP

Spec V

V DP

One can say that this shows the complexity of structure and then translation become so difficult to deal with.