Linguistic and Cultural Knowledge as Prequisites to Learning Professional Translation

2.2.3.4.1. English-Arabic Translations' Evaluation Qualitative Description

The same procedure has been followed for English-Arabic translations' evaluation. There were only some slight differences regarding levels' characteristics. Levels description is summarised in table N. 16 presented in the following page.

Level	Comprehension of the ST	Accuracy of transfer of ST content	Quality of expression in Arabic		Dealing with translation prbms	5
Complete and deep understanding of the source text's content and characteristics	Complete transfer of source text information; almost no revision is needed to reach professional standard Almost complete transfer; there may be one or two insignificant inaccuracies; requires minor revision to reach professional standard.	All the translation reads like a piece originally written in Arabic; no errors of whatever kind are there	Successful		4
Almost complete understanding of the source text's content and characteristics; only some subtle details are overlooked.			Almost completely successful		3
Many comprehension gaps are perceivable	Transfer of the general idea(s) but with a number of lapses in accuracy; needs considerable revision to reach professional standard	Certain parts read like a piece originally written in Arabic, but others read like a translation. There are a considerable number of stylistic errors, and few errors of other categories.	Adequate		2
Considerable comprehension gaps	Transfer undermined by serious inaccuracies; thorough revision required to reach professional standard.	Almost the entire text reads like a translation; there are many grammatical, lexical or spelling errors.	Inadequate		1
Failure in comprehension of the source text	Totally inadequate transfer of ST content; the translation is not worth revising.	Too many grammatical, lexical, stylistic or spelling errors.	Totally inadequate

Table 16 : Levels for Translations Evaluation. Source: Adapted from Waddington (2001)

Level One

Level one translations altered dramatically the content of the ST. We assume that this was the result of students' incapacity to properly understand English. Here is an example of a translation of the first ST sentence:

gqi ^JS gr^li-49,P ce^lii a.""4 (^..)⁵
·^{1 4}J-4 4-? (^..ià'Y. (D^iS .^4-S'^eli-4 (D.9) 4^-e

11_...e_.

Although students were writing in their first language, a considerable amount of serious errors were found. The following table presents some examples:

Table 17: Examples of Linguistic Errors Found in Level One English-Arabic Translations

Error	Category		Correct form	eiji L.4-^1! .19-A^11
Lexical	eiji L.4-^1! .19^1à^1		ed^1"`q
Spelling	ed^-"""^1-.'		.441.31 elsuJI
grammatical	'41. leil elsu.JI		C..J..eifili el..-.
grammatical	Là+)...Iiiii eià.-.

Level two

Level two translations altered the meaning as well but on a smaller scale. Lack of understanding led to inadequate translations that influenced smaller sections of the text. The following table presents some translation errors that influenced parts of the original meaning.

Table 18: Examples of Meaning Transfer Inaccuracies in Level Two EnglishArabic Translations

ST item			Translation	"the paling of the stars"
	,,e_e_iii ciu,,,,		"their grass-roofed bouses"
	"Li..11L... ^-44L411e,s.litun		"while the others sat on the tree roots"
	3.39 .i.à^.ti L.i.-Ai u4 4-à" ",...)1.....e.^til		"but Jasmine Valley still remained wrapped in a blanket of the steaming summer heat"
"ki.	L,L.-.Y. LIU-. C2-4.4.^145.^1ii C)-çl" 44-à
	...)511* .J.11..51....u...4à1.1:4.;.k L..)SI" " 4e.;.1.411		"they gathered under the greying sky"
	"4^1:^11144^1u-lc- Cl.e.."		"Some of them were leaning against tall tees"
	"Z^1.4.,Lii " J-jii t)--.Y. ed-.

Grammatical, spelling and lexical errors contained in some of this level's translations were similar to those of level one.

Level Three

Level three translations conserved the ST's general ideas. However, parts of the ST seemed to be barely understood. The majority, for instance, failed to understand the phrase " waving their straw fans". Translations such as: "Ziy..iià rel,à.i/rAJ4.53 were frequent.

As to grammatical, spelling and lexical errors, they were not too frequent in this level. Still, a considerable number of inaccuracies seemed to result from lack of sound linguistic competence in both English and Arabic. The following table will make the idea clearer.

Table 19: Examples of Level Three Inappropriate Translations of Some English Source Text Items

ST item	Translation		Comment	"The steaming summer heat"
"kiiali L4L......11*.i..-.11" "e ·Lii L-g+-..^11 eL-^11"	Confusion: hot vs. warm		"Valley"
"A" "^4-15"	Lack of knowledge of the appropriate equivalent "45.1ii", probably because of the meaning of this word in the Algerian language		"Tree roots"
"..)^1÷.1`ii ti:l."	Confusion: "...)..;" vs. ut jw,		"Grass-roofed"
4.1.411 Lii..1" ^,,,..)t..z:,..1_,	Algerian background: 42,.ii=ut..t-1		"Relaxing"
"eilii,) Lb:14."	Algerian background		"Day began...and ended..."
èl: J....}4.^111.^1" "...^1-(§^3	Inappropriate transfer of past tense use. In Arabic, general facts are expressed in present tense.

Another problem was of a stylistic order. Many students belonging to this level translated this literary text in a journalistic or academic style. This revealed a lack of awareness of style importance, which might be sign of unawareness of other important text characteristics. Indeed, elements like register, degree of formality and the like are integral parts of the meaning of a text (Hatim & Mason 1990). Following is an example of this kind of errors:

c_... C3^' J _j.,..._%11 _u:._₎4 -S13 _{j e.}_₃44 ^.i.41.. 41... _{j e}l.A.,., .'çà._i c_ji.S.11_t.c.:_à*..."

".... _{j j}i.:111 _j .i..`b _JA_.à ù _j... ja.à^... LAS (...) _e9.111 ,_ill 4₄ÿl1 ₍..).A el.j.L.b* ')/1 _j rtl _j11

Level Four

Only two translations of the whole sample could be considered to fall into the fourth level. As mentioned in the level's description, there are minor inaccuracies that do not alter the ST main content.

Finally, no translation was found to fit into the firth level.

It is worth mentioning that a problem was present in most of the translations of all levels. It concerned whether or not to translate "Jasmine Valley" and "Pearl River". Some did not notice that the words were capitalised. As a result they did not notice the presence of a problem at all; they automatically translated the words according to their knowledge of their meaning, e.g. _D" "L>1.1^. noticed that the words were capitalised, and applied "the rule of thumb" saying that proper nouns are not translatable. Therefore, they transcribed the words in Arabic letters. The third category, which constituted a small percentage, analysed the situation. The text was a translation itself. These proper nouns were in English, hence translated. The logical deduction is that there should be a reason behind translating these proper nouns. The very meaning of these proper nouns must have a role in the story.

Consequently, "Pearl River" and "Jasmine Valley" should be translated into Arabic as well: "c:)÷4 çs.1_3"and ":51:51M _)(13" .

Quantitative Description

Frequency distribution of translations in relation to the five levels is presented in the following table.

Table 20: Distribution of English-Arabic Translations Levels

							Levels
1	2	3	4	5		Students number Percentage
6 21%	11 36%	11 36%	2 7%	0 0%

n = 30

D Students' Percentage

40%- 30%- 20%- 10%

0%

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5

Figure 8: Distribution of English-Arabic Translations Levels