نقاش ويكيبيديا:برنامج ويكيبيديا للتعليم/مناهج دراسية/ترجمة، خالد الشهاري/مسودة ترجمة الفريق الرابع

Introduction

The text the translator is dealing with talks about a myth that might had happened in the 17th century in Sweden. The story talks about a girl, Margareta, who claimed that she had visions, had contact with devils and angels, and even was a “channel of the words of the angels”. According to the myth she made some prophecies about certain events as well.

Target Readership

The target readership of the source text is historians, mythology students, and English Literature students who would be interested to read about the myths and the religious beliefs and phenomena that emerged in the 17th century. The text would help the students and researchers analyse the sociological and psychological aspects of events or literary works that mentioned or were affected by the old myths in away or another. The target readership falls under the same categories; Arab historians, methodology students and English literature students.

Strategic Decisions

1) Given the fact that the text has a narrative style with various differences in the syntactic aspects between English and Arabic, it is necessary to avoid the literal translation in order to produce a natural idiomatic translation. For instance, expressions like ‘high rank devils’, has been translated as شياطين عظام instead of شاطين ذو رتبة عالية; ‘ the channel of the words of the angels’ has been translated as حلقة الوصل في الحديث بين الملائكة instead of قناة حديث الملائكة; and , ‘ what she said’ has been translated as ما جاء على لسانها instead ما قالته. Such translation added more idiomaticity to the text and avoided awkward expressions.

2) Grammatical problems: The text has both active and passive voice; the passive voice was used for no good reason in many places such as “she was visited by three angels” and “she had been visited by a litany of angels”. Baker (2011,p.113) points out that “one must weigh this potential change in content and focus against the benefits of rendering a smooth, natural translation in context when the use of the passive might, for instance, be stylistically less acceptable than the use of the active or any alternative structure in the target language”. The translator has changed the voice to an active voice to make the translation more idiomatic and maintain the cohesion in the text, and only used the passive voice when it is necessary. The text also includes shifts from past to present simple; however, the translator reasonably kept the past simple tense for consistency.

3) Translation shifts: It has been necessary to use Catford’s (1965) structural and class shifts in many places in the text to create a more acceptable translation that fit the right Arabic language structure and style. (Consider footnote 1,7 and 9)

4) Translation by addition: The translator opted for translating by adding some words either to maintain the cohesion of the sentence, make the language more natural and idiomatic, or compensate a loss in the source text.(Dickins, Hervey and Higgins, 2002) (Consider footnote 4, 8, 12, and 13).

Decisions of Detail

1) The Latin word floruit means flourish which is to ‘develop quickly and be successful or common’ (Oxford dictionaries). It is unlikely to leave the word in it is case ‘noun’ in Arabic, thus structural and class shift have been necessary to maintain right Arabic structure. (Catford, 1965, 73-81)

2) وهي has been added for the cohesion of the sentence.

3) Changing the voice from active to passive seems more idiomatic in this place.

4) The addition of اعتبر for the cohesion of the sentence.

5) A change in sentence tense, from present simple to past simple, for consistency.

6) ‘That year’ has been omitted as meaning is understood from the previous sentence. (Baker, 2011, p.42)

7) Structural shift has been made as it is more common in Arabic to start the sentence with a verb rather than a prepositional phrase. (Catford, 1965, 73-81)

8) The verb يحملون has been added to cover the preposition ‘with’. (Dickins, Hervey and Higgins, 2002)

9) Class shift from adjective to verb to maintain idiomatic language and cohesion. (Catford, 1965, 73-81)

10) Translation by addition as it is unlikely to start the Arabic sentence with the preposition بين only. Thus في الفترة has been added to make the sentence smooth and more readable. (Dickins, Hervey and Higgins, 2002)

11) وأن has been added as a coordinator conjunction and a cohesive device to make the sentence readable and maintain right Arabic structure.

12) The addition of the word وباء makes the translation more idiomatic.

13) مصنوعة من has been added to cover the loss of the verb in the source text.

Bibliography

1) Baker, M. 2011. In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation, 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge.

2) Catford, J. 1965. A Linguistic Theory of Translation, An Essay in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

3) Dickins, J., and Hervey, S. and Higgins, I. 2002. Thinking Arabic Translation: A Course Book in Translation Methods: Arabic to English. London and Canada: Routledge.

4) Oxford dictionaries. Available at: http://oxforddictionaries.com/ [Accessed: 10/ 1/2015].

5) قاموس المعانيAvailable at: http://www.almaany.com/ [Accessed: 10/ 1/2015].

Reviser's Comments

Although I think it was a good translation, I would to like to suggest some improvement: 1- In the First paragraph, the word "obsessed" was translated as "الجنون" which could change the meaning, thus I think it should be translated as "ملبوسه".

2-In the second paragraph, I think you should start the last sentence "At the same time, both the vicarage and the church begun to experience the phenomena of poltergeist." when it rendered with "وتزامنًا مع ذلك بدأت بيوت الكهنة والكنائس تشهد ظاهرة الروح الشريرة.

3- In the third paragraph, I think the word "blasphemies" should be translated as "لعنت". Also, I think it would be better if you translate the sentence "She was then unconscious for 24 hours" as "ومن ثم فقدت الوعي لمدة 24 ساعة".

Translator's Response

Comment 1: I have checked the word ملبوسه/ ملبوس and I found that it doesn't give the meaning of this context in standard Arabic. The word you suggested is colloquial.

Comment 2: It is common in Arabic to start with the verb

Comment 3&4: Accepted

Teacher's Comments

The introduction and TR are good. Strategic decisions are fine, but they need improvement. In this section, you need to support your arguments and decisions with theory. Your arguments sound rather superficial; be more specific and thorough. The translation is very good, yet there are still some minor grammatical errors. Good interaction with the reviser's comments. No references are mentioned. Decisions of detail are missing.