Mohammad Ahmad Thawabteh

United Arab Emirates University | UAEU · Department of Languages and Literature

The present article examines how English grammatical gender is handled in Arabic translation as can be illustrated in a gender-loaded English text taken from the Gulf News English website. To diversify and corroborate our argument, the text was given to a group of forty students enrolled on Translation Studies course for the academic year 2017/2018...

This article deals with the naming of ecology-related objects in Arabic, as illustrated in the naming of the snowstorms “Storm Huda”, “Storm Jana” and “Storm Zina” which whipped through the Middle East countries on January 6 and February 19, 2015 respectively. The article analyses a corpus of headlines taken from four online newspapers and one news...

This article draws on three American movies to illustrate censorship in English-Arabic subtitling. The paper argues that in translating languages of little cultural affinity, censorship serves as a remedy that can narrow the potential cultural gap. However, the paper shows that the films have been exposed to excessive censorship in the Arabic subti...

The present article investigates our proposed approach for subtitler training namely a Pedagogical Research-Based (PRB), defined as a professionally-oriented approach utilised in Audiovisual Translation (AVT) translator training to theoretically and practically strengthen the subtitling skills of trainees. The data of the present study is derived f...

This article aims to explore the earlier seeds of fragmentary translation theories in the Islamic era. It first presents some renowned philologists, grammarians, writers and linguists who have prominently contributed to translation and articulated their thoughts of translation. The study reveals buried inheritance of Islamic era by means of gaining...

The present paper explores the translation of English neologisms into Arabic. The paper first highlights the significance of keeping abreast of English neologisms and exerting efforts to translate them into Arabic to give renewed impetus to the language since introducing new, unestablished arcane terminologies and concepts into the language would p...

The present paper carefully examines the translation of gender-neutral 'firefighter' into Arabic, as can be illustrated by the translations of 13 undergraduate students enrolled in an Advanced Translation course at Al-Quds University in the academic year 2023-2024. The approach we shall use is Majd Al-Najjar's (1989) Arabicization techniques to ren...

The present paper aims to unveil various types of humor utilized in Toy Story (1995), define the linguistic and cultural limitations in translating humor, and finally to assess the quality of two translated versions in Arabic, in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Egyptian dialect translation. The data was plausibly sorted into two main relevant cate...

The present paper discusses the status of translation in Occupied Palestine. The paper first provides a theoretical framework to set and expand the scene of the translation movement in Occupied Palestine. Methodologically, a questionnaire has been properly designed to carefully examine the status of translation, and then it is shared on social medi...

Available online online at https://www.asjp.cerist.dz/en/Articles/155 Abstract Translation Studies comprises different approaches to translation, e.g., linguistics-oriented, functionalist, discourse register analysis, philosophical, reception theory, among many others. As for reception theory, it is found that when and where a given text is transla...

This study is designed to evaluate the two academic translation training master's programs at two local public universities in Palestine in view of burgeoning market demands. The study reveals the weaknesses and strengths in both training programs , a step which is believed to be necessary to evaluate trainers' current practices and provide formati...

This study is designed to evaluate the two academic translation training master’s programs at two local public universities in Palestine in view of burgeoning market demands. The study reveals the weaknesses and strengths in both training programs, a step which is believed to be necessary to evaluate trainers’ current practices and provide formativ...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e11953.].

The present article explores one of the most unexpected and unpredictable changes of taboo language by language users and its translation into English as can be illustrated in the analysis of a Lebanese movie entitled West Beirut. The article first argues that taboo language is surely far more difficult than any other types of language to deal with...

It is oft-truism that translation has long been practiced and widely been considered as a vehicle for all major cultural exchanges throughout history.

Proverbs are deemed to be the products or by-products of the culture, a predominant type of which is, what we may term, Month-Related Proverbs (MRPs). The present article examines sociolinguistic (MRPs) utilised by the doyen(ne) of Palestinians, consisting of a corpus of thirty MRPs which are drawn from ṣaḥīfat al-Quds (Al-Quds Daily Newspaper), Di...

The case study selected for analysis in this chapter is the Egyptian comedy film Noom El Talat, subtitled into English and shown on Netflix. For the purpose of this study, a comparative linguistic analysis of the dialogue and the English subtitles has been utilised in order to identify all metaphorical expressions that would likely pose difficultie...

The present paper is designed to shed some light on one of the main subfields of audiovisual translation, namely voice-over, and mainly attempts to capture the intricacies involved in English–Arabic translation of a BBC television documentary entitled NW Great. The sample of the study consists of 10 MA translation students at Al-Quds University, en...

The present paper examines two notions in the ideology of translation, namely biased and unbiased tones as can be illustrated in 10 examples taken from the BBC website along with their translations into Arabic by BBC Arabic in 2018 and 2019. The paper first argues that BBC bulging with news items and their translations provided by BBC Arabic should...

Journal of linguistics, philology and translation ONOMÁZEIN 50 (December 2020): 124-148 Ekrema Shehab and Mohammad Ahmad Thawabteh Undergraduate translation teaching: a pedagogical perspective 125 In institutions across the world, translation training is accorded sacrosanct status in translation studies. Recent developments in translation and techn...

It is oft-truism that translation has long been practiced and widely been considered as a vehicle for all major cultural exchanges throughout history. The bulk of Greek philosophy transmission into Arabic in the early medieval was an epitome of the exchange whereby translation was governed by norms, roughly defined as sociocultural constraints acqu...

Translator training has dramatically increased the world over for the past decades. In Palestine, translator-training institutions are singularly increasing in strength to arm the considerably large and robust job market with qualified translators. However, the demand for translators has outstripped the supply of translators, and it continues to th...

The leading edge of technological development which translators up to now have only dreamed of is perhaps the shift to Translation Memories (TMs). Since they came onto the market in the 1990s, TMs have gained importance in translation training for enhancing speed, productivity and quality. The translator's demanding job goes far beyond mere knowled...

Translator training has made a significant contribution to translation in the job market world-wide. The issue of curriculum development has always been part of such training which can pave the way for employability. This issue should then be given due attention in view of recent developments in the field of translation and technology, and the cons...

The present article investigates our proposed approach for subtitler training namely a Pedagogical Research-Based (PRB), defined as a professionally-oriented approach utilised in Audiovisual Translation (AVT) translator training to theoretically and practically strengthen the subtitling skills of trainees. The data of the present study is derived f...

This article explores intertextuality as a rhetorical device in the making of argumentation in Arabic as illustrated by a speech by Osama Bin Laden. The analysis shows that, in order to make an argument in his speech, Bin Laden has employed three major forms of intertextuality: Qur’anic intertextuality, prophetic intertextuality and anecdotal inter...

Translation theorists and practitioners have gravitated towards Audiovisual Translation (AVT) for the past decades, with too much emphasis on linguistic and technical dimensions at the expense of other yet neglected interdisciplinary topics combining semiotics, translator training, ideology, etc. The data of the present study comprises English subt...

The pervasiveness of poetry in most cultures is crystal-clear. Connoisseurs of poetry in the Arab World, for instance usually enjoy a higher status in society. The paramount importance of poetry in cultures necessitates meticulous attention to the transference from one language into another. Many translation theorists and practitioners take cognisa...

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From time immemorial, translation has always been described as an exercise of intercultural communication. Undoubtedly, this exercise requires more and more training of translators to fulfill different translation tasks as effectively and efficiently as possible. Translator training has thus received undivided attention in training institutions all...

Text is deemed as a minimal unit of communication in intercultural transaction, and should be fully borne in mind in any translation activity as translation is first and foremost thought to be a project for maintaining communicative thrust between the Source Language (SL) and the Target Language (TL). This can be achieved by observing minimal denot...

Throughout history, the Arabic language has been buffeted by social and political upheavals, giving rise to the eclipse of the language. Nevertheless, the language has always enjoyed a decent revival for the sacrosanct and sublime status it has been accorded. The paper explores Arabicisation as one of the oldest and most frequent institutionalised...

Translation has always been viewed as a virtuous circle throughout history. The present paper examines one of the oldest translation strategies, namely borrowing which also come to be employed by language users to fulfill communicative transaction in daily use of the language. The paper also explores re-borrowing as a translation method used by tra...

In subtitling, communication is seen as more than a matter of linguistic representation on screen. To relay the perceived meaning to the Target Language (TL) audience, other polysemiotic channels should then be taken into full consideration. This paper analyses a corpus of three scenes taken from a thriller entitled Crash (2004), broadcast on MBC4...

Training Legal Translators and Interpreters (TLTI) is gaining weight and momentum in many translator/interpreter-training institutions all over the world, and it has become an integral part of Translation Studies (TS). In Palestine, however, TLTI has been a neglected area until quite recently. The establishment of Palestinian Authority, pursuant to...

Unlike other discourses, legal discourse should be very simple, straightforward and unambiguous, and so should legal translation. However, legal translation implies multifarious challenges. Though, it is still under-research in the Arab World and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The present article attempts to shed some light on the deve...

Abstract: Although dictionaries are of paramount importance in academic translation course, they are always thought of as a double-edged sword. Voluminous grotesque translations are obviously indicators that translation students have used dictionaries incompetently. The data of the present study consists of translations by twenty undergraduate Engl...

Translation Memory (TM) technology has been enjoying a good deal of popularity among translation theorists and practitioners since it came onto the market in the 1990s. A theoretical framework for TM vis-à-vis Machine Translation (MT) is first discussed. The paper then examines the applicability of a TM tool, namely Translator’s Workbench (TWB) to...

A cost-effective solution in intercultural communication has been subtitling from English into Arabic for the past few decades. Subtitling stands as one of the most and oldest translation practices in the Arab World. However, the practice is done with blithe disregard for the technical dimension (e.g. space, segmentation, colour, synch etc) and pol...

The present paper explores how a third language is dealt with in the translation from Arabic into English, illustrated with al-Qamar il-Murabaʻ: Qiṣaṣ Ghrāibyia by Syrian writer Ghada as-Samman (1994), translated by Issa Boullata (1998) as ʻThe Square Moon: Supernatural Talesʼ (SMST). The paper adopts particularized a theoretical praxis approach. T...

The present paper is designed to shed light on the intricacies of Arabic-English translation caused by linguistic interference (LI) when the translators recourse to their mother tongue in the translation from Arabic into English. The data comprises three works, namely Qiṭṭah bi-Sabʻiti ar-Rwāḥ (1982) ʻA Cat with Seven Livesʼ, Arkhaṣ Layla (1954) ʻT...

This paper explores the translatability of Arabic amelioration and pejoration in English subtitling, illustrated with a subtitled Egyptian film, Ramadan atop the Volcano by Arab Radio and Television (ART). The paper first examines the nature of euphemism and dysphemism. Both concepts are approached from the perspective of technical and translation...

Abstract: The present paper is designed to shed some light on the intricacies involved in translating Arabic kinship terms into English, as illustrated by three translations of the Qur’an, namely Pickthall, Shakir and Ali. The paper reveals that the problems in translation are threefold: (1) the Source Language (SL) putative kinship terms can be re...

This paper sheds some light on the Palestinian narrative dated from the Israeli occupation of Palestine in 1948, and the birth of the case of the Palestinian refugees driven out from Palestine. Israel has initiated a counter-narrative to that of Palestine. The paper conflates two different notions: the analysis of the narratives that have a bearing...

The fact that culture and language are two sides of the same coin makes translation activity quite challenging. This is due to the fact that translation is seen as transference of meaning between two languages; however, translation goes far beyond the transfer of meanings. For instance, intertextuality is a rhetorical device employed by text produc...

This paper explores how Arabic gestures are dealt with in English subtitles, illustrated with a subtitled Egyptian film: Ramadan atop the Volcano, subtitled by Arab Radio and Television (ART). The study shows that nonlinguistic bodily movements, such as gestures, facial expressions, etc. are as important for the flow of communication as linguistic...

The present paper is designed to shed some light on the lexical problems in Arabic-English subtitling as illustrated by the translation output of 15 MA translation Arab students at Al-Quds University for the academic year 2010/2011. The data comprises an Egyptian movie entitled is-Safara fil-‘Imarah translated as ‘The Embassy is in the Building’. T...

This paper investigates Arabic lexical borrowings in terms of the new signifieds accrued in the receptor language (English) drawing on Lawrence Venuti's (1998) notions of ‘domestication' and ‘foreignization.' The paper shows that Source Language (SL) meanings are sometimes at odds with those in the Target Language (TL). The paper argues that lexica...

The present paper is designed to shed light on the intricacies of English-Arabic subtitling. The data comprises a video clip of an interview with Mr. Galloway conducted by the Sky News TV station. The sample of the study consists of twenty MA translation students enrolled in the second semester of the academic year 2008/2009 at Al-Quds University....

This paper explores the difficulty of translating prosodic features from Arabic into English, illustrated with two subtitled Egyptian films, Ramadan fawqa il-Burkān and ’Amn Dawlah subtitled by Arab Radio and Television into ‘Ramadan atop the Volcano’ and ‘State Security’ respectively. The study shows that Arabic prosodic traits, such as length, rh...

This paper examines the translatability of Arabic interjections into English subtitling, illustrated with a subtitled Egyptian film, State Security subtitled by Arab Radio and Television (ART). Theoretical framework regarding both Audiovisual Translation (AVT) and interjections is first discussed. The significance of interjections is approached fro...

Translator Training (TT) is considered a crucial part of translation activity in many translator-training institutions. In the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OTPs), however, TT has been a neglected area until quite recently. As a result of recent developments in the field of translation, and in technology, TT has gained a place all over the worl...

The present paper is designed to shed light on the function of Arabic cultural references, within the scope of hermeneutic circle of the translator, illustrated with selected examples in the translation of The Square Moon: Supernatural Tales by Ghada As-Samman. Steiner’s (1975/1992) four-move model is adopted. The English translation of As-Samman’s...

Tesis Univ. Granada. Departamento de Traducción e Interpretación. Leída el 30 de enero de 2007