The Routledge Course in Arabic Business Translation

Arabic-English-Arabic

Mahmoud Altarabin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000432794
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The Routledge Course in Arabic Business Translation: Arabic-English-Arabic is an essential coursebook for university students wishing to develop their skills in translating different types of business texts between English and Arabic. Practical in its approach, the book introduces translation students to the concept of translation and equivalence in the context of business texts, business translators, and the linguistic and syntactic features of business texts. It also highlights translation tools and technology in addition to the translation strategies which can be adopted to render business texts between English and Arabic. Key features in the book include:

• Six comprehensive chapters covering (after the Introduction) the areas of economics, management, production, finance, and marketing in the translation industry;

• Detailed explanation of the lexical and syntactic features of business texts;

• Practical English and Arabic business translation texts featuring a vast business vocabulary bank;

• Authentic business texts extracted from English and Arabic books containing economic, management, production, finance, and marketing texts;

• Great range of English and Arabic translation exercises to enable students to practice their familiarity with business vocabulary they learned throughout the book; and

• Glossaries following all English and Arabic business texts containing the translation of main vocabulary items.

The practicality of the approach adopted in this book makes it an essential business translation coursebook for translation students. In addition, the carefully designed content helps students to easily explore different types of business texts, familiarize themselves with main words, and do translation exercises. University instructors working on English and Arabic business translations will find this book highly useful.

1
Business translation: Basic concepts

DOI: 10.4324/9781003170846-2

1.1 Introduction

Translation is a driving force in modern society which enables and promotes effective communication between different nations around the globe. In addition to the role it plays in protecting cultural heritage, translation is an invaluable tool for transmitting knowledge and sharing ideas, expertise, and information. It continues to facilitate scientific and technical advancement in today’s globalized and fast-paced information era. Furthermore, the advancement in various fields has dramatically changed the way we experience different aspects of our lives, including education, culture, science, economy, and business. Translation in its capacity as a means of disseminating knowledge has always paved the way for advancement in various academic fields. Byrne (2012, p. 1) highlights the significance of translation as follows:

Virtually every aspect of our lives from education and work to entertainment, shopping and travel has been swept along by a seemingly unstoppable wave of new inventions and technological advances. What many people do not realize is that these inventions and advances are accompanied at almost every step of the way by translation in its capacity as a vehicle for disseminating scientific and technical knowledge.

Reflecting its indispensability, translation proves to be an absolutely reliable means devised to promote business between not only individuals but also public and private business institutions in countries speaking different languages around the world. Furthermore, translation connects the legal and economic aspects of international business through the translation of contracts, company laws, meeting minutes, various types of agreements, business plans, business and market reports, financial documents as well as regulatory and insurance documents.

Economy in the Arab world is largely connected to the international economy (El-Zaim, 1991; Al-Shaer, 2015; and Al-Bursan, 2011). In addition, the daily volume of business transactions between Arab businesses and those in non-Arab countries can be beyond measure. Business documents of diverse types are translated between English and Arabic to promote business or determine the rights and duties of the parties to business transactions. Adding to its critical significance to individuals and companies, business translation can be used in academic disciplines at various levels.

The nature of business texts may considerably differ from other types of translation texts. The type of equivalence sought in business translation is generally determined by linguistic factors rather than paralinguistic factors which basically relate to non-lexical elements of texts. This indicates that functional equivalence can be the dominant type of equivalence aimed at when rendering business texts. In addition, translating business texts is subject to temporal, financial, and reliability parameters which govern the translation of such texts and the criteria against which they are evaluated.

With regard to the temporal (time) parameter, the translation of business texts is carried out under time constraints or deadlines which can sometimes entail higher costs on the part of the clients requesting fast translations. Due to the strictness of time, many translators would be tempted to resort to machine translation, which can be impractical especially when dealing with particular languages such as English and Arabic. However, it should be noted that machine translation – which, in the case of English and Arabic, most notably includes web-based platforms such as Google Translate, Reverso Context, and Almaany¹ – can be used to render individual words or phrases “accurately.” However, one needs to ensure editing the translations to reflect the meaning of the source language’s terms. Some online platforms such as Google Translate do not classify word meanings according to specific domains such as legal, technical, financial, economic, religious, and so on. It is therefore difficult for undergraduate students and beginner translators to determine the accuracy of translating words like depression, which has domain-based meanings when translating into Arabic. Almaany online dictionary classifies the Arabic equivalents of depression according to domain: انهيار، اكتئاب (psychology), كساد، ركود (economic), and منخفض جوي (weather forecast). This draws our attention to the fact that such differences in meaning should be taken into careful consideration when selecting specific word meanings and excluding others.

Reliability of texts and translators is another decisive parameter in business translation. In the light of temporal constraints, business translation often involves a compromise over reliability, speed, and cost (Chiper, 2000). Generally, translated business texts can be judged reliable when they reflect all source text details and information, on the one hand, and provide an accurate basis for their users’ actions, on the other.

Translators’ reliability is “judged in relation to the text, to clients, and to technology” (Chiper, 2000, p. 218). While text reliability is achieved by paying attention to details, use of academic resources, and editing of texts, translators’ reliability is judged against the ability to work on different text types, meeting deadlines, and negotiating abilities. With reference to technology, translators’ reliability is judged against the ability to use computer software and internet to deliver their translations. Other concepts of immense significance to business translation include the very basic terms such as translation, equivalence, translation strategies, and translator’s tools.

1.2 Translation and equivalence

Although this book is confined to translating business texts, it is necessary to link business translation to basic translation concepts which are central to most text types. One of these concepts is the basic definition of translation itself. The key terms in various translation definitions include, but are not limited to, “process” and “rendering” (Simpson & Weiner, 1989), “reproducing” (Nida & Taber, 1969), and “replacement” and “equivalent text” (Catford, 1965).

Translation is primarily a process following which translators decode the syntactic and semantic components of the source text to search for target text equivalents and then render the source text. In addition, translation involves a reproduction or replacement of the source text according to the norms of the target language. Let us consider the following example from English business texts.

ST: A business cycle is a short-term pattern of economic expansions and contractions.

Syntactic and semantic decoding of the sentence:

A business cycle is a noun phrase meaning دورة اقتصادية/دورة الأعمال, is (verb be) cannot be translated into Arabic when it is present, and translators therefore should search for a natural equivalent by turning the whole sentence into verbless sentence جملة اسمية or using a verb such as تعتبر in case the translator decides to render it into a verbal sentence جملة فعلية. Short-term pattern is an adjective and noun construction meaning نمط قصير الأجل and of economic expansions and contractions is a prepositional phrase meaning من التوسع والانكماش الاقتصادي. Note that translators can use the plural sense and say فترات التوسع والانكماش الاقتصادي. Given this explanation, the ST sentence can be rendered as:

• .تعتبرالدورة الاقتصادية أحد الأنماط قصيرة الأجل لفترات التوسع أو الانكماش الاقتصادي
• .الدورةالاقتصادية هي أحد الأنماط قصيرة الأجل لفترات التوسع أو الانكماش الاقتصادي

Translators may for example replace تعتبر with تمثل at the lexical level and الاقتصادية الدورة with الأعمال دورة at the phrase level. الاقتصادية الدورة and الأعمال دورة are two accurate translations of business cycle and can be used interchangeably without semantic differences. Having more than one target language equivalent is usually discussed under equivalence, a central concept in translation which is briefly discussed below.

Equivalence

Translation theorists and scholars have not yet agreed on one definition of equivalence, nor have they agreed on classifying its types and textual levels, which include word level equivalence, phrase and clause level equivalence, sentence equivalence, and text equivalence. It is, however, commonly agreed that what complica...