The Linguistics of Translation

• The semantics of a language mainly consists of

lexical as well as phraseological features. They
• SEMANTICS FEATURES cover both meaning that is compositional in
nature as well as meaning that is unitary in
nature.
*meaning is derived from individual lexical items which are
connected according the grammar of the language or following the
idiom principle.

Ex:
The boy chased the cat
It gets its meaning from the content words, boy,
chase, cat with the function word/markers.
• Ex:
• Mary is flogging a dead horse.
• It has a conventional unitary meaning which
comes to mind once encountered in
communication.
Word level and phraseology level translation

• Lexical gap refers to that a language lack some

lexemes ,whereas the second language
contain one word to represent the lexeme.
• Word level :- • The translator needs to unpack the sense of
that lexeme to render its right meaning.
• Gaps
involving both lexical and referential gaps. • Ex:‫الخنصر‬,‫البنصر‬,‫الوسطلى‬,‫السبابة‬,‫االبهام‬usually
undergo lexical
• unpacking when rendered into English, viz.
thumb, the index finger, the middle finger, the
ring finger and the little finger, respectively.
lexical approximation
e.g. :-‫عم‬paternal uncle' and ‫' خال‬maternal uncle'
are usually rendered as uncle and ‫' عّم ة‬paternal aunt' and ‫' خالة‬maternal aunt' as aunt

• On the other hand ,lexical approximation can

• it is understood from some American native
speaker as:-
be problematic to the coherence of the text.
• E.g:-
• family is everything.

• The Arabic proverb ‫ثلثين الولد لخاله‬

• - Apples don’t fall far from the tree.

(Tow thirds of the boy for his

• - A boy learns from his family around him.

maternal uncle)
• - People trust their uncles
• *not cohere with the surrounding co-text and
context
To solve this problem, the translator needs to be emerged in both
cultures, TLC,SLC,So he would approximate it to the English
proverb (like father, like son)
 Translation from English into Arabic

• some English lexemes correspond

to lexical gaps in Arabic.
• The most important step is to locate the
• like 'spouse:-
• relevant hyperonym, and then to modify it by a
• which translates into husband ‘’‫زوج‬ lexical descriptor in order to communicate the
‫'اوزوجة‬wife', and 'parent' which translates into unlexicalized sense component.
‫' الوالد‬father' or ‫' الوالدة‬mother’
• The translator needs to read a full part to get
the right translation.
 Referential gaps:-represent partially shared or completely
unshared
concepts. They are found partially in one language or they might
be totally missing in the other language.

E.g:- ُ‫وَأِقيُم وا ٱلَّص َلٰو ةَ َوَء اُتواَ الَّز َك اةَو َم ا ُتَقِّد ُم وا النفسكم ِّم نْ َخ ْيرٍ َتِج ُد وه‬
Religious terms that are partially shared between ‫البقرة‬، 110 ﴿‫) ِع ندَ َّٱهَّلل ان هللا ِبَم ا َتْع َم ُلون َبِص ير‬The Cow, 110)
Islam and Christianity
*charity :‫ )زكاة او صدقة‬differentiate between
them)
*pilgrimage:‫الحج‬
*ablutions:‫الوضوء‬
 And be constant in prayer, and render the purifying dues; for, whatever good deed you send
ahead for your own selves, you shall find it with God: behold, God sees all that you
do. (110) (Asad, p. 32

• 66) And perform the prayer, and pay the alms;
whatever good you shall forward to your souls'
• account, you shall find it with God; assuredly
God sees the things you do. (110) (Arberry,
• vol. 1, p. 42)
• Keep up prayer and pay the welfare tax; you
will find any good you have sent on ahead for
• your own souls' sake is already [stored up] with
God. God is Observant of whatever you do.
• (110) (Irving, p. 9)
* the translation strategies used are

*approximation,(the different in word zakka in both languages and its referential context in each culture.
*descriptive translatio,

• ‫لهذا قال أحدهم قبل البدء في اللعب‬:

• -‫ال نريد غشا‬.

• a variety of translation strategies • ‫فقال حسن‬:

including transliteration, approximation, • -‫طبعا‬.

descriptive translation, definition, omission could • ‫فقال الشاب‬:
be used to convey the message .
• -‫فلنقرأالفاتحة‬.
• ‫وقرءو الفاتحةحةجرعا بصوت مسموع ولعل حسن حفظها‬
‫حول هذه المائدة‬
 Thus before they started the deal, one of them said, "No cheating".
"Of course not", answered Hassan.
The young man said, "Let’s recite the opening exordium of the Koran".
They recited Al Fatihat audibly; it was possible that Hassan had learned it at that
gambling table. (p. 53

*ROCK AND ROLL

• Some words has its international reference
that doesn’t need a great effort of the *IMAM
translator to illustrate its referent as they are *MAC-DONALD
universally known.
HUMUSS AND FALFEL
 Phraseological Features
• collocations and idiomatic expressions stand
out as two important types of multi-word units
• * collocations are more communicatively
useful than idioms because they are more
familiar in discourse.
*e.g:
Public support and its Arabic equivalent ‫الدعم‬
‫الشعبي‬.
• Pay and its colocations,pay the bill,pay
rent,pay ransom ,they related with money.
* Pay attention,pay respect,pay a visit has
nothing to do with money inn its secondary sense.
To have a good bank of those collocations in both
languages might be the only option to get the
right translation

• a. heavy rain ‫[أمطار غزيرة‬pouring rains] • heavy sea ‫[بحر مائج‬wavey sea]
• b. heavy sleep ‫[نوم عميق‬deep sleep] • g. heavy industry ‫[صناعة ثقيلة‬heavy industry]
1- we have semantic correspondence in lexicalization where the
primary sense is kept.
2-the translator’s ability to call up TL collocations

• *********Idiomatic expressions***
• thierunitary meaning cannot be
• It started raining cats and dogs when Peter
• worked out from the dictionary met his blind date at the park
meaning of the individual words in
them.
 ‫بدأتتمطر كأفواه القرب‬
‫عندما قابل بيترفتاته التي يجهل هويتهافي المتنزه‬

• Many Americans thought that Hillary Clinton would be the

democratic nominee for

• strategies of calling up a TL
idiomatic expression and
paraphrasing the idiomatic
expression are used
president, but a dark horse, Barak Obama was instead.
• (94)‫اعتقد الكثير من األمريكيين أن هيليري كلنتون ستكون مرشبح الحبرب‬
‫البديمقراطي لمنصبب البرئيس ولكن اوباما‬
‫وهوشخص‬
‫هو من أصبح مرشحاً لهم‬،‫لم يكن معروف‬