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The Routledge handbook of Arabic translation
 9781138958043, 1138958042

Table of contents :
INTRODUCTION The reality of Arabic translation and interpretingPART I TRANSLATING THE SACRED CHAPTER ONE Debates around the translation of the Qur'an: between jurisprudence and translation studies CHAPTER TWO Translating the Divine: A relevance-theoretic account of lexical-pragmatic adjustment in translating some Qur'anic concepts CHAPTER THREE Translating sacred sounds: encoding tajwid rules in automatically generated IPA transcriptions of Quranic Arabic CHAPTER FOUR On the periphery: translations of the Qur'an in Sweden, Denmark and Norway CHAPTER FIVE The Bible in Qur'anic language: Manuscript Sinai Arabic 310 as a case study PART II TRANSLATION, MEDIATION AND IDEOLOGY CHAPTER SIX Reframing Conflict in Translation CHAPTER SEVEN Ideological and evaluative shifts in media translation/trans-editing CHAPTER EIGHT Translation, Twitter, and the 3 July 2013 military intervention in Egypt CHAPTER NINE The socio-dynamics of translating human rights news: a critical discourse analysis approach CHAPTER TEN Translating Tahrir: from praxis to theory with Tahrir Documents CHAPTER ELEVEN Translating images of the 2011 Syrian Revolution: a contratextual approach CHAPTER TWELVE Audiovisual translation studies in the Arab World: the road ahead PART III TRANSLATORS' AGENCY CHAPTER THIRTEEN Egyptian interrogation records: considerations for translation CHAPTER FOURTEEN Translating Political Islam: Agency in the English translation of Hassan Al-Banna's Towards the Light into English CHAPTER FIFTEEN Kalila and Dimna as a case study: the Ibn al-Muqaffa' and Nasrullah Munshi translations CHAPTER SIXTEEN Beyond assimilation and othering: theatre translation and the translator's agency PART IV TRANSLATION HISTORY/HISTORIOGRAPHY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Mapping an Arabic discourse on translation CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Theorizing about translation in the Abbasid era: an alternative account CHAPTER NINETEEN The archaeology of translating for Arab children (1950-1998) PART V INTERPRETING: THEORIZING PRACTICE CHAPTER TWENTY Modern Standard Arabic as a target language in simultaneous interpreting: cognitive strains and pedagogical implications CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Specificities of Training and Professional Practice of Arabic Simultaneous Interpreting: the Arabic-Spanish Language Combination CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO An investigation of cognitive efforts in simultaneous interpreting into Arabic: A case study of Egyptian undergraduate students PART VI TECHNICAL TRANSLATION: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Translating Arabic Named Entities into English and Spanish: translation consistency at the United Nations CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR A survey of the uptake of CAT tools in Oman: facts and implications PART VII LANGUAGE, GENRE AND TRANSLATION CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Translating tropes between Arabic and English CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Translation of Self-Help Literature into Arabic: A Preliminary Inquiry CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Hoana n al-Shaykh's Innaha Lundun Ya 'Azizi: when voice-granting canonicity subverts the writer's voice

Citation preview

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF ARABIC TRANSLATION

Translation-related activities from and into Arabic have significantly increased in the last few years, in both scope and scale. The launch of a number of national translation projects, policies and awards in a number of Arab countries, together with the increasing translation from Arabic in a wide range of subject areas outside the Arab World – especially in the aftermath of the Arab Spring – have complicated and diversified the dynamics of the translation industry involving Arabic. The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Translation seeks to explicate Arabic translation practice, pedagogy and scholarship, with the aim of producing a state-of-the-art reference book that maps out these areas and meets the pedagogical and research needs of advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as active researchers. Sameh Hanna is Associate Professor in Arabic Literature and Translation at the University of Leeds. His research interests include sociology of translation, Shakespeare in Arab culture and translating sacred texts, on which he has published numerous articles in peer- reviewed journals and chapters in edited volumes. His book, Bourdieu in Translation Studies: The SocioCultural Dynamics of Shakespeare Translation in Egypt, was published with Routledge in 2016. He is currently working on a book on the translation of the Bible into Arabic and the construction of Arab Christian identity. Hanem El-Farahaty is a lecturer in Arabic, Arabic/ English Translation and Interpreting at the Centre for Translation Studies (CTS) and Arabic, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Leeds (AIMES). She is AIMES Research Leader and PGR representative. In 2011, El-Farahaty was awarded a PhD for her research into Arabic translation studies with a particular focus on legal translation. She has taught Arabic and translation at a number of UK universities and English Linguistics and English/ Arabic Translation at the University of Mansoura. El-Farahaty is the author of Arabic- English- Arabic Legal Translation, a groundbreaking investigation of the issues found in legal translation between Arabic and English. She has also published a number of journal articles and book chapters in comparative Arabic/ English linguistics, Arabic language teaching, translation studies and Arabic/ English legal translation.

Abdel-Wahab Khalifa is a lecturer in Translation and Interpreting at Cardiff University. Prior to Cardiff, he lectured at Tanta University, with which he is still associated, and other universities in Austria, Egypt and the UK. He has also been working as a professional translator and interpreter for nearly ten years. Khalifa has published and reviewed several articles and is the editor of Translators Have Their Say? Translation and the Power of Agency. He is also the recipient of the 2019 Alfred A. and Blanche W. Knopf Fellowship and a member of the Executive Board of the Association for Translation Studies in Africa. Khalifa is currently working on a monograph on the sociocultural determinants of translating modern Arabic fiction into English.

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF ARABIC TRANSLATION

Edited by Sameh Hanna, Hanem El-Farahaty and Abdel-Wahab Khalifa

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Sameh Hanna, Hanem El-Farahaty and Abdel-Wahab Khalifa; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Sameh Hanna, Hanem El-Farahaty and Abdel-Wahab Khalifa to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hanna, Sameh, 1969– editor. | El-Farahaty, Hanem, 1973– editor. | Khalifa, Abdel Wahab, editor. Title: The Routledge handbook of Arabic translation / edited by Sameh Hanna, Hanem El-Farahaty, and Abdel-Wahab Khalifa. Description: New York : Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019034219 (print) | LCCN 2019034220 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138958043 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315661346 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Arabic language–Translating. | Translating and interpreting. Classification: LCC PJ6170 .R68 2020 (print) | LCC PJ6170 (ebook) | DDC 492.7/802–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019034219 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019034220 ISBN: 978-1-138-95804-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-66134-6 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Newgen Publishing UK Visit the eResources: www.routledge.com/9781138958043

CONTENTS

Notes on contributors 

ix

Introduction: the reality of Arabic translation and interpreting  Sameh Hanna, Hanem El-Farahaty and Abdel-Wahab Khalifa

1

PART I

Translating the sacred 1

2

3

4

5

7

Debates around the translation of the Qur’an: between jurisprudence and translation studies  Salah Basalamah and Gaafar Sadek Translating the Divine: a relevance-theoretic account of lexical-pragmatic adjustment in translating some Qur’anic concepts  Mai Zaki

9

27

Translating sacred sounds: encoding tajwīd rules in automatically generated IPA transcriptions of Quranic Arabic  Claire Brierley, Majdi Sawalha and Hanem El-Farahaty

46

On the periphery: translations of the Qurʾān in Sweden, Denmark and Norway  Nora S. Eggen

65

The Bible in Qurʾanic language: Manuscript Sinai Arabic 310 as a case study  Vevian F. Zaki

81

v

Contents PART II

Translation, mediation and ideology

97

6 Reframing conflict in translation  Mona Baker

99

7 Ideological and evaluative shifts in media translation/trans-editing  Ashraf Abdel Fattah

115

8 Translation, Twitter, and the 3 July 2013 military intervention in Egypt  Neil Sadler

145

9 The socio-dynamics of translating human rights news: a critical discourse analysis approach  Zafer Tuhaitah 10 Translating Tahrir: from praxis to theory with Tahrir Documents  Levi Thompson, Emily Drumsta and Elias G. Saba 11 Translating images of the 2011 Syrian Revolution: a contratextual approach  Manal Al-Natour 12 Audiovisual translation studies in the Arab World: the road ahead  Muhammad Y Gamal

163

176

189

205

PART III

Translators’ agency

221

13 Egyptian interrogation records: considerations for translation  Neveen Al Saeed

223

14 Translating political Islam: agency in the English translation of Hassan Al-Banna’s Towards the Light ‫ ﻧﺤﻮ ﺍﻟﻨﻮﺭ‬into English  Ahmed Elgindy

239

15 Kalīla and Dimna as a case study: the Ibn al-Muqaffa’ and Nasrullāh Munshī translations  Christine van Ruymbeke

253

16 Beyond assimilation and othering: theatre translation and the translator’s agency  Mohammed Albakry

270

vi

Contents PART IV

Translation history/historiography

283

17 Mapping an Arabic discourse on translation  Myriam Salama-Carr

285

18 Theorizing about translation in the Abbasid era: an alternative account  Rafik Jamoussi

297

19 The archaeology of translating for Arab children (1950–1998)  Sabeur Mdallel

312

PART V

Interpreting: theorizing practice

331

20 Modern Standard Arabic as a target language in simultaneous interpreting: cognitive strains and pedagogical implications  Marwa Shamy

333

21 Specificities of training and professional practice of Arabic simultaneous interpreting: the Arabic–Spanish language combination  Bachir Mahyub Rayaa

350

22 An investigation of cognitive efforts in simultaneous interpreting into Arabic: a case study of Egyptian undergraduate students  Sama Dawood

366

PART VI

Technical translation: issues and challenges

379

23 Translating Arabic Named Entities into English and Spanish: translation consistency at the United Nations  Carmen Sainz-Quinn and Manuel Feria

381

24 A survey of the uptake of CAT tools in Oman: facts and implications  Rafik Jamoussi and Isam Shallal

397

PART VII

Language, genre and translation

415

25 Translating tropes between Arabic and English  James Dickins

417

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Contents

26 Translation of self-help literature into Arabic: a preliminary inquiry  Hazar Alkheder

437

27 Ḥanān al-Shaykh’s Innahā Lundun Yā ‘Azīzī: when voice-granting canonicity subverts the writer’s voice  Sanaa Benmessaoud

447

Index 

465

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CONTRIBUTORS

Mohammed Albakry is Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University and a literary translator from Arabic. His research often takes up the intersection between language and identity, discourse and society, and translation theory and practice. He is the author and editor of several books and book chapters, and his refereed articles appeared in such journals as World Englishes, Educational Theory and Text & Talk, among others. His 2016 co- edited anthology of translated drama, Tahrir Tales: Plays from the Egyptian Revolution (Seagull Books/ University of Chicago Press), was supported by a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) translation grant. A recipient of the Outstanding Teacher Award from MTSU Foundation, he has taught and lectured extensively at universities in North Africa and East Asia. Hazar Alkheder is a graduate of the MA in Translation Studies at Glendon College, York University, and holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Kuwait University. She worked as an audiovisual translator for Kuwait TV. Her scholarly interests include translation studies, cross- cultural communication and self- help literature. She currently is a freelance translator at MCIS Language Solutions. Mona Baker is Professor Emeritus of Translation Studies at the Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies, University of Manchester. She is editor of Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian Revolution (Routledge, 2016) and with Bolette Blaagaard Citizen Media and Public Spaces: Diverse Expressions of Citizenship and Dissent (Routledge, 2016), author of In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation (Routledge, 1992, 2011; third edition in preparation) and Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account (Routledge, 2006) and editor of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (1998, 2001; second edition, co-edited with Gabriela Saldanha, 2009); Critical Concepts: Translation Studies (Routledge, 2009); and Critical Readings in Translation Studies (Routledge, 2010). She is also founding Editor of The Translator (St. Jerome Publishing, 1995– 2013, now published by Taylor & Francis), former Editorial Director of St. Jerome Publishing (1995– 2013) and founding Vice- President of IATIS (International Association for Translation & Intercultural Studies, 2004–2015, www.iatis.org).

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Salah Basalamah is Associate Professor at the School of Translation and Interpretation, University of Ottawa. His research focuses on Translation Studies (including the philosophy of translation, translation rights, ethnographic translation and translation as metaphor), Postcolonial, Cultural and Religious Studies, as well as the study of Western Islam and Muslims. He is now working on a forthcoming book on the philosophy of translation and its applications in the fields of the human, social and natural sciences. Sanaa Benmessaoud is currently Assistant Professor in Translation at the American University of Ras al Khaimah. Her fields of interest include the sociology of translation, postcolonial literature and issues of (gendered) identity formation and cultural representation in translation. Her work has appeared in such journals as The Translator and Turjuman: Journal of Translation Studies. She has also co-authored a chapter to appear in The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Culture. Claire Brierley is a visiting researcher in the School of Computing and also in Arabic, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Leeds. She was Research Co-Investigator on the EPSRC-funded ‘Working Together’ project involving Text Analytics over Quranic tajwid (EP/ K015206/ 1). She has also held senior postdoctoral research positions in Security and Health Informatics: on the EPSRC-funded ‘Making Sense’ project (EP/H023135/1), detecting suspiciousness in language as behaviour; and for anonymization of patient records in cloud computing (JISC-funded). She has over 20 years’ experience as Senior Lecturer in Computing at the University of Bolton (mostly) and at Leeds Beckett. Dr Brierley is a Computational and Corpus Linguist, with current research interests in language processing and machine learning over religious texts, and formulaic legal language in English and Arabic. Her PhD in Computing from the University of Leeds (2011) involved automatic prosody prediction over English corpora, including Milton’s verse. Sama Dawood is Assistant Professor of Translation and Interpreting at the Faculty of AlAlsun (Languages & Translation) at Misr International University. Her present research interests include simultaneous interpreting, AVT, multidisciplinary approaches to translation and feminist translation. James Dickins is Professor of Arabic at Leeds University. He obtained his BA in Arabic and Turkish from the University of Cambridge and his PhD in Arabic linguistics from HerriotWatt University. He taught Arabic, Arabic linguistics and Arabic/English translation at a number of universities, including Cambridge, Heriot- Watt, St Andrews, Durham, Salford and Leeds. His publications include Standard Arabic: An Advanced Course (1998, with Janet Watson), Extended Axiomatic Linguistics (1999), Thinking Arabic Translation (2002; 2nd edition 2016, with Sandor Hervey and Ian Higgins) and Sudanese Arabic: Phonematics and Syllable Structure (2007). Emily Drumsta is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Brown University specializing in modern Arabic and Francophone literatures. Her current book project, Ways of Seeking: The Arabic Novel and the Poetics of Investigation, traces detective fiction’s influence on the development of the modern Arabic novel. Her book Revolt Against the Sun: The Selected Poetry of Nazik al-Mala’ika was the recipient of a 2018 PEN/Heim Translation award and is currently under contract with Saqi Books. She has articles published or forthcoming

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Contributors

in Middle Eastern Literatures, Social Text and Research in African Literatures, and her translations from Arabic have appeared in McSweeney’s, Jadaliyya, Arabic Literature (in English) and the Trinity Journal of Literary Translation. Nora S. Eggen is a researcher in Arabic and Islamic studies with a PhD from the University of Oslo (2012) in Arabic-Islamic intellectual history. She has conducted postdoctoral research focusing on translations of the Qurʾān. Eggen is also a translator from Arabic to Norwegian. Her most recent translation is al-Sharif al-Radi, Den åndfulle vei. Fra Nahj al-balagha: taler, brev og visdomsord fra Ali ibn Abi Talib (Bokklubben, 2014). Among her most recent publications are Philologists in the World: A Festschrift in Honour of Gunvor Mejdell (co-edited with Rana Issa; Novus forlag, 2017) and ‘Universalized versus Particularized Conceptualizations of Islam in Translations of the Qurʾān in Scandinavia’, Journal of Qurʾanic Studies, 18(1): 49–91. Hanem El-Farahaty is a lecturer in Arabic, Arabic/English Translation and Interpreting at the Centre for Translation Studies (CTS) and Arabic, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Leeds (AIMES). She is AIMES Research Leader and PGR representative. In 2011, Hanem was awarded a PhD for her research into Arabic translation studies with a particular focus on legal translation. She taught Arabic and translation in a number of UK universities and she taught English linguistics and English/Arabic translation at the University of Mansoura. Hanem is the author of Arabic-English-Arabic Legal Translation, a groundbreaking investigation of the issues found in legal translation between Arabic and English. Hanem has also published a number of journal articles and book chapters in comparative Arabic/English linguistics, Arabic language teaching and Arabic/English legal translation. Ahmed Elgindy is a lecturer of Arabic language and translation studies at the University of Leeds. He completed his master’s degree in 2007 at the University of Salford where he was offered a PhD scholarship for a thesis entitled ‘Translation and the Construction of the Religious Other: A Sociological Approach to English Translations of Islamic Political Discourse’. Dr Elgindy’s special area of interest is sociology of translation, with focus on the analytical tools introduced by Bourdieu and their implications for the study of the translations of Islamic political discourse. Having started his academic career at the University of Salford, he gained experience from working as a lecturer at other universities in the UK, such as the University of Central Lancashire, Manchester Metropolitan University and Huddersfield University, to name but a few. Dr Elgindy has been working at the University of Leeds since 2013. Dr Elgindy has a few publications in translation studies and has reviewed books in teaching Arabic as a second language for the BBC. Currently he is working on a book for teaching Arabic as a second language, entitled Simply Arabic. Ashraf Abdel Fattah is currently Assistant Professor in Translation Studies at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hamad bin Khalifa University, Qatar. He has a PhD in Translation Studies from the University of Manchester. He formerly worked as an editor for Amnesty International, then Middle East bulletin editor at the Associated Press (APTN) in London for 13 years. His research interests include contrastive analysis of conjunctive resources in English and Arabic; contrastive appraisal analysis of news discourse; and corpusbased translation studies.

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Contributors

Manuel Feria is a senior lecturer at the University of Granada, where he contributes his expertise in legal translation. For six years, he provided services as a court interpreter (Arabic/ Spanish) at the District Court of Malaga. He also worked for 15 years as a sworn translator (Arabic/Spanish) and, since 2009, as an external freelance translator and a temporary translator for the Spanish Section of the United Nations Office in Geneva and in New York. He is the author of a few books and more than 30 articles on translation and Islamic law and terminology, among other subjects. He particularly enjoyed writing his Diccionario de términos jurídicos árabe- español (Ed. Ariel, 2006) and Los traductores de árabe del Estado español. Del Protectorado a nuestros días (Ed. Bellaterra, 2012). Muhammad Y Gamal is an Egyptian-born, Australian-based translation researcher, practitioner and consultant in Arab world affairs. He graduated from the Faculty of Al- Alsun at Ain Shams University. He holds postgraduate qualifications in translation studies, Egyptology and applied linguistics from universities in Cairo, Sydney and California. In his PhD, from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, he examined the audiovisual translation (AVT) scene in Egypt – an interest he continued in his postdoctoral research activity where he now covers the AVT scene in more than ten Arab countries. His research interests include the applications of AVT, Arabic content online, digital humanities, translation policy, pedagogy and practice. Dr Gamal taught Arabic translation and interpreting in Sydney for 20 years. As an adjunct associate professor at the University of Canberra, he developed the research idea of interpreter-mediated training, an emerging area in international relations and cooperation particularly in Australia’s relations with the Indo-Pacific region. Dr Gamal is a senior Arabic diplomatic interpreter and works for the Australian Federal Government and the United Nations. Rafik Jamoussi is Assistant Professor of Translation Studies at Sohar University. He teaches courses on translation theories, terminology for translators and computer-assisted translation. His current research interests include the investigation of the translator’s voice in the late medieval Middle East, the impact of technological advances on the translation profession and translator training, and the development and optimization of terminology tools for the Arabic language. He has published theoretical and empirical articles on translation direction, explicitation and language management. Sabeur Mdallel (PhD) is Assistant Professor at the Higher Institute for Human Sciences in Tunis where he teaches general translation, specialized translation and translation studies. He published in Meta (2003) and the online journal The Looking Glass (2004). He contributed three entries to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature (2006) and also contributed a chapter to the book Situations de l’Edition Francophone d’Enfance et de Jeunesse (l’Harmattan, 2008). His current research interests include the sociology of translation and the strategies of ideological manipulation in Arabic translations of children’s literature. Manal Al-Natour is Associate Professor and Director of the Arabic Studies in World Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics department, West Virginia University. She published several articles in refereed journals and books. Her research and teaching interests include modern Arabic literature and language, literary translation and contemporary feminist writings.

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Contributors

Bachir Mahyub Rayaa is a lecturer of translation and interpreting at the University of Granada and freelance translator and interpreter from Arabic, Spanish, English and Italian. He has extensive teaching experience, most of which focuses on teaching translation and interpreting from Spanish to Arabic and vice versa, on both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. He worked from 2007 to 2013 at the School of Translators of Toledo (University of Castilla- La Mancha) and from 2013 up to the present at the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting (University of Granada). His work provides a strong link between Arabic language studies and culture, as well as translation and interpreting from/ into Arabic, and also promotes research and teaching collaborations. He is a member of the ECIS- Quality Evaluation in Simultaneous Interpreting research group, and he has participated in several national and international research projects, as well as in international conferences and symposia. He has published extensively on both translation and interpreting. Christine van Ruymbeke (PhD 1997) is Ali Reza and Muhamed Soudavar Reader in Persian Literature and Culture at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies in Cambridge. She obtained her PhD in Persian studies at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and taught for several years at her home university before moving to Cambridge in 2002. She works on classical (medieval and pre- modern) Persian literature, with a special focus on the masnavis of Nezami of Ganja (twelfth century) and on the Persian versions of the Kalila and Dimna fables (twelfth to sixteenth centuries). She has published extensively on these and other topics related to Persian literature. Her new monograph, Kashefi’s Anvar-e Sohayli: Rewriting Kalila and Dimna in Timurid Herat, was published by Brill (Leiden) in 2016. A previous book, Science and Poetry in Medieval Persia: The Botany of Nizami’s Khamsa, received the World Prize for the Book of the Year of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in February 2009. Elias G. Saba is a senior lecturer in the History and Religious Studies departments at Grinnell College. He received his PhD from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Pennsylvania in 2017. His first monograph, Harmonizing Similarities: A History of Distinctions Literature in Islamic Law, was published by De Gruyter in 2019. His research focuses on the changing uses and interpretations of the classical AraboIslamic heritage in a variety of chronological and geographic contexts. He is especially concerned with the legacies of the literary and legal traditions in Arabic writing. In addition, Elias has a particular interest in the theory and practice of Arabic/English translation. Gaafar Sadek is a translation studies scholar with interest in intellectual property law, globalization, digital economies and information/knowledge societies. He is also a researcher in Islamic thought. He currently teaches at the University of Ottawa. Neil Sadler is Lecturer in Translation and Interpreting at Queen’s University Belfast. His current research focuses on theorizing multilingual narration on social networking sites in Egypt and the wider Arab world, exploring the role of bilingual social media users as linguistic and cultural mediators. He has forthcoming articles in New Media & Society and The Journal of North African Studies. Neveen Al Saeed is Lecturer in Linguistics at Ain Shams University. Her doctoral thesis, awarded by the University of Leeds, focused on interrogations of suspects in the Egyptian judicial system. Her research interests are focused on language and law/ forensic linguistics

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Contributors

with a special interest in the language of interrogations and prosecutors’ discourse. Her research is informed by pragmatics, discourse analysis and corpus linguistics. Carmen Sainz- Quinn is a PhD student in translation studies at the University of Granada. Simultaneously, she works as a proofreader of English scientific articles written at the Scientific Unit of Excellence on Exercise and Health at the University of Granada. Carmen also lectures in the master’s degree of Secondary Teacher Training at the University of Granada. Myriam Salama-Carr is Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies, University of Manchester. Her research focuses on the history of translation, with particular interest in the translation of science and the transmission of knowledge. She is the author of La Traduction à l’époque abasside (Didier Erudition, 1990) and the editor of Translating and Interpreting Conflict (Rodopi, 2007) and of a special issue of Social Semiotics on translation and conflict (2007). She has co- edited a special issue of Forum (2009) on Ideology and Cross- Cultural Encounters, and of The Translator (2011) on Science in Translation. She is investigator in a QNRF- funded project on the construction of an anthology of the Arabic Discourse on Translation (2015– 2018) and co- editor of a The Palgrave Handbook of Languages and Conflict (2019). She was the Director of the National Network for Translation (www.nationalnetworkfortranslation.ac.uk) from 2007 to 2017, and Chair of the Training Committee on IATIS (www.iatis.org) from 2011 to 2016. Majdi Sawalha is Assistant Professor in the Computer and Information Systems Department, King Abdullah II School for Information Technology, at the University of Jordan. He has recently been successful in obtaining research funding from the University of Jordan, and the Arabic Language Academy, as a Co-Investigator on several projects involving: building a syntactic parser for Arabic; an index for documenting Arabic language processing research; and Corpus Linguistics for investigating the perception of Arab women in the Western (German) press. Dr Sawalha was a visiting researcher on the EPSRC-funded ‘Working Together’ project (2013– 2015) in the School of Computing, University of Leeds, where he also obtained his PhD in 2011 involving automated, fine-grained morphological analysis of Arabic. Isam Shallal is a lecturer of translation studies and a translator trainer at Sohar University. He joined the field of academic training after several years of working as a professional translator. The author’s research area is multifaceted with a special focus on the translation technology domain including training novice translators to use technology and the integration of translation technology in translator training curricula. Marwa Shamy is an Arabic conference interpreter at the United Nations in New York. She studied translation and interpreting at the School of Translation and Interpreting Studies, Linguistics and Cultural Studies in Germersheim, Johannes- Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany and Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. She then obtained her PhD in Interpreting Studies at Heriot-Watt University. Before joining the United Nations, Marwa Shamy was a freelance conference interpreter and translator for Arabic, English and German. She is an accredited conference interpreter to the institutions of the European Union and worked for various public bodies, non- governmental organizations and private companies. Her research interests lie in interpreting pedagogy, strategic competence in simultaneous interpreting and cognitive processes in simultaneous interpreting.

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Contributors

Levi Thompson is Assistant Professor of Arabic in the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he teaches courses on modern Middle Eastern literatures and cultures. Levi is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled Re-Orienting Modernism: Mapping a Modernist Geography Across Arabic and Persian Poetry. He has published or forthcoming articles in the journals Middle Eastern Literatures, Transnational Literature and College Literature, and his translations of poetry from the Middle East have appeared in Jadaliyya, Transference, Inventory and elsewhere. Zafer Tuhaitah is Assistant Professor at the Department of Foreign Languages at Taif University, Saudi Arabia. Prior to that, he taught audiovisual translation at the University of Leicester at BA and MA levels. In 2019, Zafer was awarded a PhD from the University of Leeds for his research into ideology and translating human rights discourse. Since his postgraduate studies at the University of Manchester and the University of Salford, he organized and participated in many conferences. He was also the organizer and coordinator for the Arabic Translation reading group at the University of Leeds for the last three years. He has also organized and directed a number of online voluntary translation groups. He also worked on the Arabic corpus in the Genealogies of Knowledge project at the University of Manchester. Mai Zaki is Associate Professor at the Department of Arabic and Translation Studies, American University of Sharjah, UAE. She has a PhD in linguistics from Middlesex University. She has taught linguistics, translation and Arabic for non- native speakers in Egypt, the UK and the UAE. Her research interests include semantics and pragmatics, translation studies, corpus linguistics and Arabic for non- native speakers. She particularly focuses on the practicalities and challenges of using corpora in linguistic research and in teaching Arabic, in addition to corpus-based translation analysis using parallel corpora. Vevian F. Zaki is a research assistant and doctoral student in the Bible in Arabic Project, LMU-Munich. Her current research focuses on the transmission history of the Pauline Epistles in Arabic. She obtained her BA in Theological Studies from the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo. From the same seminary, she obtained an MATS in Christianity in the Middle East with a thesis entitled ‘Al- As’ad Hibat Allah Ibn al- ’Assāl: His Contribution to the Formation of New Identity of Copts in Egypt Through his Critical Translation of the Gospel of Luke’. She also studied at Princeton Theological Seminary for a ThM degree in New Testament.

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INTRODUCTION The reality of Arabic translation and interpreting Sameh Hanna, Hanem El-Farahaty and Abdel-Wahab Khalifa

Translation-related activities from and into Arabic have significantly increased in the last few years, in both scope and scale. The launch of a number of national translation projects, policies and awards in a number of Arab countries, together with the increasing translation from Arabic in a wide range of subject areas outside the Arab World – especially in the aftermath of the “Arab Spring” – have complicated and diversified the dynamics of the translation industry involving Arabic. Alongside an expanding Arabic translation market, Arabic translation pedagogy witnessed remarkable progress, with the launch of many Arabic translation programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, both inside and outside the Arab world. This gave rise to a new generation of Arabic translation scholars who embraced the double challenge of critically engaging with developments in the epistemology and methodology of translation studies and developing at the same time their own research tools and conceptual apparatuses that would effectively describe and theorize the unique and fast- evolving realities of Arabic translation. This handbook seeks to explicate Arabic translation practice, pedagogy and scholarship, with the aim of producing a reference book that maps out these areas and meets the pedagogical and research needs of advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as active researchers in the field. With this in mind, the handbook is designed to achieve a number of objectives: •

• •



putting Arabic translation practice and scholarship on the translation studies map through making visible a wide range of translation activities and research involving Arabic as both a source and target language; critiquing available scholarship on Arabic translation practice and pedagogy and filling the gap left unplugged by this scholarship; negotiating the research methods and conceptual tools developed in translation studies with the purpose of using them to describe and explicate translation from/ into Arabic; shaping the future research agenda of Arabic translation studies and identifying the key research questions and research priorities for the next few years.

1

Introduction

This handbook comprises seven parts, each covering a cluster of interrelated issues: I. Translating the sacred; II. Translation, mediation and ideology; III. Translators’ agency; IV. Translation history/historiography; V. Interpreting: theorizing practice; VI. Technical translation: issues and challenges; and VII. Language, genre and translation. Although each part has a common research focus that runs through its chapters, or a set of assumptions which are tested in different research contexts, no fixed boundaries are set between the sections. Overarching questions, common epistemological assumptions and methodologies are at play. However, a number of considerations have motivated the development of this project, starting from the commissioning of the chapters and the thematic division of the volume. The scope of scholarship on Arabic translation, inside and outside the Arab World and by scholars from different research backgrounds, has significantly expanded in recent years in ways that make it almost impossible to capture the complexity and diversity of this scholarship in a single volume. Representativeness has always been a pressing question during the process and the selected chapters echo the editors’ best efforts to represent the plethora of research done on translation from and into Arabic in the last few years. Assuming full representation of research developments in this area would be, beyond doubt, misleading. This volume is only meant to highlight the potential of Arabic translation studies and the evolving synergies in this area between theory and practice, text and context, individual agencies and institutional practices and finally theorising translation in an Arab context vis-à- vis the “western” theorisation of translation. Part I, “Translating the sacred”, echoes the centrality of sacred texts and sacred language for speakers of Arabic. The five chapters chosen for this section illustrate the key questions motivating research in this area and point towards future directions. The four chapters focused on the Qur’an address specific, though interrelated, aspects of Islam’s foundational text and the challenges encountered when translating it into different languages. In Chapter 1, “Debates around the translation of the Qur’an: between jurisprudence and translation studies”, Salah Basalamah and Gaafar Sadek address the fundamental question of the “translatability” of the Qur’an, drawing on perspectives from both translation studies and the Islamic jurisprudential tradition. Insights from historical debates around the sacredness of the Qur’an, the status of the Arabic language and the perceived linguistic inimitability of the Qur’an are brought to bear on translation-related issues, as well as contemporary concerns around the relationship between religion and politics. In Chapter 2, “Translating the Divine: a relevance- theoretic account of lexical- pragmatic adjustment in translating some Qur’anic concepts”, Mai Zaki uses relevance theory to discuss the different strategies used in translating anthropomorphic language in the Qur’an. Focusing on the two concepts of HAND and FACE when attributed to Allah, six widely used English translations of the Qur’an are investigated. Moving from the lexical to the phonemic levels, Chapter 3, “Translating sacred sounds: encoding tajwīd rules in automatically generated IPA transcriptions of Quranic Arabic”, construes automated phonemic transcription of Quranic Arabic as a form of translation, with computation as a translation intermediary. Informed by insights from such interfaced disciplines as tajwīd, traditional Arabic linguistics and modern phonetics, Claire Brierley, Majdi Sawalha and Hanem El- Farahaty present a mapping algorithm for automated Arabic-IPA transcription over Quranic and Modern Standard Arabic. One key outcome of this mapping is a full-form phonemic transcription of each Arabic word in the Qur’an pronounced out-of-context as an independent unit and transcribed via the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

2

Introduction

Limited scholarship has been done on translations of the Qur’an into languages other than English. In addition to Chapter 1, which offers a glimpse of Qur’an translations in French, Chapter 4, “On the periphery: translations of the Qurʾān in Sweden, Denmark and Norway”, provides an extensive discussion of translations in Scandinavian languages. Nora S. Eggen’s contribution is not a mere chronology of the Scandinavian translations of the Qur’an; it rather engages with the socio- historical context of each translation, the agency of its translator and the function it performed at its moment of production. More scholarship on Qur ’an translation in languages other than English should provide us with fresh insights into the socio- cultural and historical dynamics of translating sacred texts. Chapter 5, “The Bible in Qur’anic language: Manuscript Sinai Arabic 310 as a case study”, is another contribution in this section that highlights new directions in Arabic translation studies and points to research potential that need to be taken up and invested in by interested researchers. Serious scholarship on the Arabic translations of the Bible has only started a few years ago and has already yielded some fascinating results. What this scholarship underlines is the urgency of developing research networks and raising funds in order to map and give researchers access to the thousands of manuscripts including Arabic translations of the Bible, both Christian and Jewish, from Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Latin and Coptic. In Chapter 5, Vevian F. Zaki investigates one of the earliest Arabic translations of Paul’s epistles, Sinai Arabic 310, and tries to interpret the use of Quranic terminology in this translation. Part II, “Translation, mediation and ideology”, explores questions around translation practices in unconventional contexts which have been significantly under- researched. The role of media, print, audio-visual and social, in promoting new political discourses and challenging mainstream ones, is hard to overemphasize, especially in the aftermath of the “Arab Spring”. New conceptual tools are needed to attend to the complexity of translation phenomena in these contexts. Chapter 6, “Reframing conflict in translation”, is a slightly edited version of an already published text by Mona Baker. In this seminal chapter, Baker argues for the theoretical adequacy of a narrative approach to translation and foregrounds the relevance of that approach to the study of translators’ agency in contexts involving ideological conflicts. Using illustrative examples of translation between English and Arabic, in the context of the Middle East conflict and the so-called “war on terror”, she delineates the explanatory force of the concept of “framing” in understanding the role of translators in activist discourses. In Chapter 7, “Ideological and evaluative shifts in media translation/trans-editing”, Ashraf Abdel Fattah looks into the genre of “hard news report” to test the axiological and ideological criteria for the selection and transformation of news. In this complex activity, generally known as “trans- editing”, the boundaries between translating and (re)writing are blurred and the agency of trans-editors is active, though masked in the professional codes of “objectivity” and “professionalism”. Using the “appraisal framework”, the author analyses two BBC English and Arabic news reports, covering the same news story and using the same Arabic content for their source. Another perspective on the ideological implications of translation in unconventional media is offered by Neil Sadler in Chapter 8, “Translation, Twitter, and the 3 July 2013 military intervention in Egypt”. This chapter clearly demonstrates that translation by Twitter users has different dynamics from conventional translation, simply because of the fragmentary nature of Twitter language and the multiple functions they are meant to play, especially in such politically charged situations as the 2013 military intervention in Egypt. With focus on bilingual Twitter users, who translated their and other tweets, Sadler looks into three modes of translating, i.e. the linguistic, the narrative and the affective.

3

Introduction

If some chapters in this volume test new theoretical frameworks on conventional translational phenomena, Chapter 9, “The socio-dynamics of translating human rights news: a critical discourse analysis approach”, explores the viability of an already tested theoretical framework, i.e. critical discourse analysis (CDA) in analysing a translational phenomenon that is significantly under- researched, especially in an Arabic context. Using a modified version of Fairclough’s three- dimensional model of CDA, Zafer Tuhaitah looks into the representation of human rights-related issues in two news outlets with different ideological orientations. Similar to the data analysed in Chapter 7, translation of news in this chapter involves active intervention from trans-editors for different effects. Like Chapter 8, Chapter 10, “Translating Tahrir: from praxis to theory with Tahrir Documents”, takes interest in translation in a revolutionary context. Levi Thompson, Emily Drumsta and Elias G. Saba, the authors of this chapter, are the founders and editors of Tahrir Documents, an online archive of paper documents collected, translated and edited during and after the 25 January uprising in Egypt. In this chapter, the authors reflect on the detailed translation and editorial practices adopted in the building of this archive and then reflect on this process with the ultimate aim of theorising Arabic–English translation in a political context. In another revolutionary context, Manal Al- Natour looks into the translation of cartoons used in the 2011 Syrian revolution, especially the images used during the protests in the Syrian town of Zabadānī. Chapter 11, “Translating images of the 2011 Syrian Revolution: a contratextual approach”, introduces the concept of contratextuality and explores its implications for the study of translating cartoons, the challenges encountered by translators and the role played by these translated images in challenging and deconstructing the power structure of Syrian iconography. Chapter 12, “Audiovisual translation studies in the Arab World: the road ahead”, still focuses on non- print translation, though in a different context. Muhammad Y. Gamal brings his expertise in audio- visual translation, as practised in different parts of the Arab World, to an extensive discussion of its history in an Arab context, the present challenges experienced and future directions. The chapter does not limit itself to discussing the theory of audio- visual translation and attempts an understanding of both its practice and pedagogy in different Arab institutions. Despite common denominators in audio-visual translation practices and pedagogy, the chapter underlines a few differences. If there is one aspect that has been overlooked in Arabic translation scholarship, it is the role of translators in shaping the translation process and product and negotiating the professional and socio- cultural contexts in which they work. Part III, “Translators’ agency”, includes four chapters that address questions of translatorial agency from different perspectives and in different contexts. In Chapter 13, “Egyptian interrogation records: considerations for translation”, Neveen Al Saeed looks at the multifaceted character of Egyptian investigation records and the different responsibilities this puts on the translator. The agency of the translator is deployed to address issues related to the legal language/context of the text, the dynamics of scripting the record by relevant clerks, the register shifts that often occur in the interrogation process and the use of archaic language. This distinct text type makes the translator’s decision- making process relatively more complicated when compared to other text types. In a different context, Ahmed Elgindy draws his understanding of translatorial agency from Bourdieu’s sociology of cultural production. In Chapter 14, “Translating political Islam: agency in the English translation of Hassan al- Banna’s Towards the Light ‫ﻧﺤﻮ‬ ‫ ﺍﻟﻨﻮﺭ‬into English”, the translator’s agency is activated in an intricate field where religion and political activism are closely intertwined. Al- Banna’s book is a foundational text that has

4

Introduction

set the agenda for movements of political Islam and translating it has always been caught between different interpretations of the man, his time and the movement he led. In Chapter 15, “Kalīla and Dimna as a case study: the Ibn al- Muqaffa’ and Nasrullāh Munshī translations”, Christine van Ruymbeke discusses two translation cases where the boundaries between translation and rewriting, source text and target text are blurred. In such cases, the agency of the translators is most evident in their authorial prefaces where a number of issues are addressed, and which give us insights into the migration of Kalīla and Dimna back and forth between Persian and Arabic. Moving from fiction to drama, Chapter 16, “Beyond assimilation and othering: theatre translation and the translator’s agency”, focuses on the translator’s agency in rendering lexical items with specific cultural connotations. Reflecting on his own experience of translating drama for the stage in the wake of the Egyptian revolution in 2011, Mohammed Albakry discusses the strategies followed in relaying these culturally fraught words from Arabic into English. Part IV, “Translation history/historiography”, includes three chapters that engage with different aspects of historical research of translation within the Arabic tradition. In Chapter 17, “Mapping an Arabic discourse on translation”, Myriam Salama- Carr poses the questions involved in producing an anthology of Arabic discourse on translation she co- edited. With focus on two key historical periods, the Classical Age of Arab Science (ninth–tenth centuries) and Nahdah (nineteenth century), the anthology critiques the available historiography of translation during these periods. The author discusses the epistemological and methodological considerations involved in constructing a historical narrative of translation and the questions the co-editors had to pose when producing the anthology. Chapter 18, “Theorizing about translation in the Abbasid era: an alternative account”, is focused on the Abbasid period where Rafik Jamoussi questions the long-held assumption that this period lacked in theoretical writings on translation. Redefining theorisation of translation and critiquing the separation of theory from practice, the chapter offers new insights into this historical period. Focused on a more recent period, Chapter 19, “The archaeology of translating for Arab children (1950– 1998)” by Sabeur Mdallel, explores translation initiatives during that period, identifying the translation strategies used in these projects and what they tell us about translation policies and policy-makers. Qualitative analysis is corroborated by quantitative interpretation of the only bibliographic guide available on Arab children’s books for this period. Part V, “Interpreting: theorizing practice”, includes three chapters, all focused on simultaneous interpreting, and offering interfaced perspectives on interpreting practice, its cognitive constraints and professional challenges, directionality and the implications these have for pedagogy. In Chapter 20, “Modern Standard Arabic as a target language in simultaneous interpreting: cognitive strains and pedagogical implications”, Marwa Shamy argues for languagepair- specific problems in SI, with focus on English and Modern Standard Arabic. Given the scarcity of research on this language combination, the author underlines the need for serious scholarship on the constraints and challenges involved in SI from English and Arabic and exploring the implications this scholarship would have for pedagogical practice. Chapter 21, “Specificities of training and professional practice of Arabic simultaneous interpreting: the Arabic–Spanish language combination”, explores related issues with focus on Arabic and Spanish. For his data, Bachir Mahyub Rayaa uses surveys conducted on teachers and students at the University of Granada, Spain, as well as professional Arabic conference interpreters. The study reveals the asymmetry between Arabic and Spanish in linguistic as well as sociocultural factors and the impact of this on training and pedagogy. In Chapter 22, “An investigation of cognitive efforts in simultaneous interpreting into Arabic: a case study of Egyptian undergraduate students”, Sama Dawood tests Gile’s Effort Model in studying the cognitive

5

Introduction

effort needed when interpreting from English into Arabic. Interestingly, the author challenges the long-held assumption that the effort needed when interpreting into one’s mother language is less than that needed when interpreting out of it. Theoretical insights from Gile’s model are corroborated by surveys of students of interpreting at Arab universities. Part VI, “Technical translation: issues and challenges”, includes two chapters which look into the technical aspects of translation, whether these are related to the translation of “technical” language or using technological tools in facilitating the translation process. In Chapter 23, “Translating Arabic Named Entities into English and Spanish: translation consistency at the United Nations”, Carmen Sainz-Quinn and Manuel Feria address a real challenge in connection with Arabic translation, especially in the context of international organisations. Using a UN tri-lingual corpus of national reports related to human rights, the authors examine the consistency of translating Arabic Named Entities and come up with conclusions as to how to develop a more consistent translation approach. In Chapter 24, “A survey of the uptake of CAT tools in Oman: facts and implications”, Rafik Jamoussi and Isam Shallal study the adoption of CAT tools among translation practitioners in Oman and explore the impact this has on translation stakeholders, especially higher education institutions in Oman. In Part VII, “Language, genre and translation”, the dynamics at the interface of language, genre and translation are explored through three chapters. In Chapter 25, “Translating tropes between Arabic and English”, James Dickins provides a detailed analysis of the translation of tropes between Arabic and English. Through a meticulous linguistic analysis, supported by examples from different genres, the author identifies key challenges in translating tropes, addressing such issues as metaphor translation, congruence and incongruence, metaphorical exuberance and density. In Chapter 26, “Translation of self-help literature into Arabic: a preliminary inquiry”, Hazar Alkheder looks into a significantly under- researched genre and its translation from English into Arabic. As the author rightly observes, the position occupied by this genre in the English and Arabic polysystems, as well as in translation studies, is marginal. The chapter tracks the history of self- help books in Arabic and offers insights into future research. In Chapter 27, “Ḥanān al- Shaykh’s Innahā Lundun Yā ‘Azīzī: when voice- granting canonicity subverts the writer’s voice”, Sanaa Benmessaoud takes interest in the mediation of Ḥanān al-Shaykh’s agency and voice when her well-known novel, Only in London (2001), is translated from Arabic to English. A wider discussion is made of how al- Shaykh negotiates her position as an Arab- British author and as regards Arab and international discourses on women. As the author concludes, the tension between al- Shaykh’s intention to challenge mainstream conceptions and get recognition in the western canon is compromized in the English translation. This volume is a labour of love that was only possible through the work of contributors and editorial staff at Routledge. Looking back at the challenges experienced in commissioning and editing the chapters and looking at the diversity of approaches, translation phenomena and theoretical insights covered, we only hope that this effort will enrich our understanding of Arabic translation and shape future research directions in this area.

6

PART I

Translating the sacred

1 DEBATES AROUND THE TRANSLATION OF THE QUR’AN Between jurisprudence and translation studies Salah Basalamah and Gaafar Sadek

Since the end of its revelation (632 ), the preservation of the Qur’an quickly gave rise to important concerns as the influence of Islam grew outside of Arabia. While Muslims were already well established by the time of the caliphate of ‘Uthmān (577– 656) in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, and at the borders of Azerbaijan, divergent manners of reciting the Qur’an had already started appearing. According to Hudhayfah ibn al-Yamān,1 new Muslims were reciting it in a manner that was altering its meanings. In response to the solicitation of his companions, the caliph decided to reproduce the Qur’an, which had been compiled and preserved by his predecessors, by making multiple copies available, in order to provide an official reference to be distributed in all the major centers of the Islamic state, still in expansion (von Denffer, 1994: 61–62). Even though the preservation of the rigorous pronunciation of the Qur’an based on the Meccan dialect was guaranteed through its written reproduction, the contact of the Arabic language – for which the Qur’an became the archetype – with other cultures constituted an even greater challenge. How was the Qur’an, which had been revealed in a “clear Arabic language” (Qur’an, 16:103), whose very name means “expression,”2 going to withstand transformation as a result of its contact with other languages? Can the sacred text of Islam, whose claimed universality seems contradicted by its linguistic specificity, be translated? In this chapter, it is proposed to deal with the question of the translation of the Qur’an from two different, yet complementary, angles. The first consists in presenting this question from an historical point of view, from the dawn of Islam until the contemporary era. In this non- exhaustive overview, the aim is to reveal the sociopolitical motives behind the translation of the Qur’an throughout history, as well as the disagreements between its proponents and detractors. This will be accompanied, as relevant, by summarized assessments of some of the representative translations of the Qur’an, based on textual comparison and an analysis of their introductions and prefaces. The second angle will attempt to elaborate on the analysis of the debate and to look at it from a translation studies perspective. In what way does Qur’anic translation offer a particular perspective on the representation of translation in the field of sacred texts? What are the issues at play in translation according to Muslim jurists? And ultimately, how is translation understood between the initial linguistic conservatism of Arab Muslims and the universality of Islam?

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Salah Basalamah and Gaafar Sadek

A brief history of Qur’anic translation Qur’anic translation is not a new topic of discussion; in fact, it goes all the way back to the time of its revelation. In order to propagate its universal message, Prophet Muhammad (570– 632 ) sent messengers and letters to the kings, leaders and chiefs of other peoples. When messengers were used, they were well acquainted with the language of their recipient, and it was up to them to interpret the content of the letters, which were often punctuated with Qur’anic verses. Islamic history tells us that some of the companions of the Prophet translated parts of the Qur’an in his lifetime. For instance, Salmān al-Fārisī, born in Persia, would have translated the first chapter of the Qur’an in Persian, while Jaʻfar ibn Abī Tālib would have translated into Ge’ez, Abyssinia’s language, the verses related to the story of Jesus and Mary to the Negus of Ethiopia, when he was sent as ambassador at the beginning of the prophetic mission (Al-Maraghi, 1936: 24). However, the internal debate concerning the translation of the Qur’an became much more serious after the passing away of the Prophet, when large numbers of people unable to speak Arabic embraced Islam. At the time of the death of Muhammad, Islam had spread almost everywhere in the Arabian Peninsula and to some parts of Iraq. Between 632 and 660 , Islam established itself as the religion all the way to the borders of Persia on the East, all across Turkey to the North, and had reached Libya to the West. Over the next 70 years, this expansion continued, covering Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, parts of Russia, all of North Africa as well as Spain. The expeditious pace of this expansion and its geographical reach were necessarily going to favour the translation of the Qur’an in order to make its meanings accessible to all non-Arab Muslims.

Early and partial translations The first translations of the Qur’an were therefore made into the languages of the new Muslims, but this did not happen without some resistance. For a Muslim, the Qur’anic language is one of the most miraculous aspects of the book. What fueled the debate around the translation of the Qur’an was, on the one hand, a motivation to translate it to make it accessible, while on the other hand, a resistance stemming from a strict religious position. The questions of whether it is linguistically possible and religiously permissible to translate the Qur’an had practical ramifications for Muslims: can prayers be observed using a translation? These are some of the questions with which jurists, exegetes and theologians had to contend. More conservative thinkers expressed a categorical disapproval of Qur’an translation; at the opposite end, some jurists not only allowed Qur’anic translation in general, but also the recitation of the translation during prayer, as we shall see. Between these two extremes there were many nuanced positions. Of course, all these opinions were of a technical religious nature, based on Islamic theology, as opposed to being of a purely rational and practical nature, but they are worth mentioning because they are still relevant in the contemporary discourse on the topic. The religious dimension of the debate, however, is not the only one to consider: by looking at extra- religious and extra- linguistic factors, we can identify general tendencies that lead to an increase or a decrease of Qur’anic translation across history, as well as an openness or a reluctance from the religious thinkers on the topics. Partial translations of the Qur’an appeared quite early. For instance, a Syriac translation would have been completed in the seventh century, in Berber in 738 , in “Indian” (probably Sindhi) in 883 , and in Persian in 956 (see Binark & Halit, 1986; Mingana, 1925; Hamidullah, 1995; Qarra’I, 1999). 10

The translation of the Qur’an

Translations by non-Muslims Already with the Syriac translations, we find an understandable tendency from non-Muslims to translate the Qur’an for polemical reasons, Islam being the new and fast- spreading religion. To counter this expansion and protect one’s own religion against it, there was a need not only to study Islam through secondary sources, but through its own sacred text. It is, however, in medieval Europe that this interest was developed at a much larger scale. In this spirit, we encounter the Latin translation of Robert of Ketton ( 1143), the Italian translation of Andrea Arrivabene from Ketton’s Latin ( 1547), and André du Ryer’s French translation (published in 1647). Given that it was a religious fervour that triggered these translation projects, it is legitimate to wonder about the reliability of such translations. In his article “Tafsir and Translation,” Burman explains that while Ketton’s Latin translation of 1143 became the standard version accessible to European readers until the eighteenth century, it was also heavily criticized since the fifteenth century to the point of being considered the worst Latin translation of the Qur’an, given the licentious liberties taken by the translator in misleading the reader and reordering the text (1998: 705–706). A similar assessment is provided by others, including André Chouraqui, translator of the Scriptures of all three monotheistic religions. He considers Ketton’s translation extremely polemical and done with the sole purpose of being used as a tool of ideological war, therefore completely betraying the original: ‘From the sonority of the Qur’an, from its throbbing rhythms, and from the poetic splendour of the original, there remains almost nothing’ (Chouraqui, 1990; our translation). As for the translation of Du Ryer, edited five times in five years and then translated into English, German and Dutch, it carried the same traits as that of Ketton’s. In the preface to his own translation, George Sale says of it that it is ‘far from being a just translation, there being mistakes in every page, besides frequent transpositions, omissions, and additions, faults unpardonable in a work of this nature’ (Sale, 1882: 7). The first English translation of the Qur’an, completed by Alexander Ross in 1649, is in fact a translation from Du Ryer’s French translation. The fact that the translator did not know Arabic and that even his understanding of French was not that of a specialist, already gives an idea of the quality of his translation. While the subtitle refers to the Qur’an as “Turkish vanities” (Ross, 1649), the Admonition of the next few pages further reveals the intentions behind the translation and announces its tone: so viewing thine enemies in their full body, thou mayst the better prepare to encounter, and I hope overcome them … Such as it is, I present it to thee, having taken the pains only to translate it out of French, not doubting, though it hath been a poyson, that hath infected a very great, but Most unsound part of the Universe, it may prove an Antidote, to confirm in thee the health of Christianity. (Ross, 1649: A1–A4) Despite the presence of other translations, such as that of Marc of Toledo (completed in 1211), it was those highly criticized translations that became the foundation and the reference for the Western translations of the Qur’an, especially between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, because they were in line with the general positioning and attitudes of the time towards Islam. From the eighteenth century onward, most of the Qur’anic translations were done directly from Arabic. This is the case, for instance, of the translations of George Sale (published in 1734), the French translation of Claude-Étienne Savary (1786) and F.E. Boysen’s German 11

Salah Basalamah and Gaafar Sadek

translation (1773). And although these translations were remarkably more reliable than previous attempts, they still suffered from major problems. To mention only one example, George Sale does not dissimulate his intentions or his attitude. While his is often cited as being one of the more “impartial” (to use Sale’s own term) and less fanatical translations in tone, on the first page of his preface he begins by saying that, while the Qur’an is a “manifest forgery,” Muhammad’s law was still met with an “unexampled reception” adding that ‘they are greatly deceived who imagine it to have been propagated by the sword alone.’ And since those who have attempted to refute it have done such a disservice to Christianity, his translation was to provide to the Protestants the tool to finally overthrow it. In short, his aim was ‘to enable us to effectually … expose the imposture’ (Sale, 1882: 3–4). After making these intentions clear, Sale then proceeds in formulating rules to facilitate the conversion of Muslims, further revealing the functional purpose of his translation. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Qur’an was translated into many other European languages, and a number of orientalists undertook to translate the Qur’an as an academic project, for their self- edification. Among the important translations of this period are those of E.H. Palmer (1880), Richard Bell (1937–1939) and A.J. Arberry (1953), the latter still being among the best translations done by a non-Muslim. In the nineteenth century, missionaries started translating the Qur’an, but this time, into oriental languages and dialects. Godfrey Dale translated it into Swahili (1924), Michael Samuel Cole into Yoruba (1906), William Goldsack into Bengali (1908) and A. Shah Masihi into Hindi (1915). In this period, followers of certain sects, the Ahmadis for example, also proceeded with their own translations, which were based on their respective theological beliefs and interpretations. While the intentions of the missionaries translating the Qur’an were usually clearly announced, other translations started appearing which were presented as being more neutral and reliable, when they were in fact considered as unreliable. Many of the translations of the orientalists fall in this category. Muslims found them appalling because they seemed to treat the Qur’an as nothing more than an ancient work of literature, without any respect for its sanctity or sacredness for Muslims, who view its ordering and language as part of its sacredness. There are numerous examples of translations that Muslims considered distorting the Qur’an because of the liberties taken by the translators, and which were viewed as being ideologically motivated. The translation of Niseem J. Dawood (The Koran, 1956) took many liberties with the original, contained many inaccuracies and rearranged the Qur’anic text somewhat chronologically and from the shortest to the longest chapters in its first edition. The translation of Aharon Ben Shemesh (The Noble Qur’an, 1971) contains many clearly polemical modifications, and its main purpose is to demonstrate that the text is derived from the Old Testament, which is in itself a recurrent theme often found in polemically slanted works on the Qur’an, including reviews of translations (e.g. Mohammed, 2005). The translation of Rashad Khalifa (Qur’an: The Final Scripture, 1981), based on much mathematical and computer analysis of the text especially around the number 19, never gained much credence in the Islamic world or in academic circles, most likely because the translator made claims that the archangel Gabriel had told him that he was a messenger himself, that a few verses of the Qur’an were apocryphal, and the translation in many instances seems to be biased for the purpose of promoting his own teachings. Thomas Cleary’s translation (The Qur’an, 2004) uses uneven English in style and register, ranging from the most poetic to the simply conversational almost randomly. Muslims were increasingly aware of the activities of orientalists and missionaries, and it is in reaction to these, as well as to these sectarian Islamic translations, that some Muslims began 12

The translation of the Qur’an

translating the Qur’an themselves with the aim of producing a translation that is representative of “mainstream” Islam. Collectively, these translations gave the impression to Muslims that translators were allowing themselves to question the authenticity of their holy book, reorder its chapters and verses, and criticize its grammar and terminology. Furthermore, Muslims who belonged to minority sects that are sometimes not recognized by the majority ones as belonging to Islam proceeded with their own translations, oftentimes to justify their respective divergence and beliefs. In reaction to these attempts, sometimes viewed as direct attacks against their religion, some Muslims began translating the Qur’an themselves with the aim of producing a translation that is representative of “mainstream” Islam, as can be seen from the prefaces and introductions of these translations.

Translations by Muslims Three English translations, completed by Muslims wanting to defend the Qur’an against the translations of the missionaries, appeared between 1905 and 1912.3 The apologetic intentions of these translators were openly stated. Between 1930 and 1960, more mature, professional and scholarly translations were published. In fact, two translations of this period are still the most well- known today. The first is that of Pickthall (published in 1939 in London) and the second belongs to A. Yusuf ‘Ali (completed between 1934 and 1937). Although Pickthall’s language is archaic and he provides very few annotations, while Yusuf ‘Ali’s is heavily annotated, both of these works are highly respected translations by Muslims and non- Muslims alike, and they have become a reference to subsequent translation attempts. Another reliable translation completed at the same time is that of Abdul Majid Daryabadi (in Lahore 1941 to 1957), but it is nowhere near the popularity of Pickthall’s and Yusuf ‘Ali’s. Since 1960, numerous English translations of the Qur’an have appeared, but none of them presenting any elements that truly stand out as substantially novel. Muhammad Asad’s translation (1980), which, although of a high linguistic consistency and readability, diverges at times from the interpretations that are generally accepted by Muslim exegetes towards more allegorical and Mu’tazilite (or rationalizing) biases. There is, however, good merit in the substantial commentary accompanying the original text, in addition to its translation and transliteration. There are also a few other recent translations that are reliable and which offer a high level of readability, such as those of Sarwar (1981) and Irving (1985), but they provide no explanatory notes.4 And there is of course the translation commissioned and published by Saudi Arabia, which is the most common one in use in the world today as a result of its free distribution, and which promotes a Salafist and literal interpretation of the Qur’an, reflecting the country’s official religion of Islam as understood by the followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al- Wahhab (1703–1792).5 Three recent works do stand out in terms of the accuracy of their rendering of the meanings, and their non-sectarian interpretations. In order of publication, these are Ali Quli Qara’i’s The Qur’an: With a Phrase- by- Phrase English Translation (2003); Muhammad A.S. Abdel Haleem’s The Qur’an: A New Translation (2004); and The Study Qur’an (2015), which was prepared by a team of scholars led by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. The latter attempts to position itself as the main translation for academics and scholars and provides a substantial amount of exegetical commentary from beginning to end, displaying references to a broad selection of commentaries from the main Islamic schools of thought. This, however, may give the impression that these interpretations carry equal weight in the Islamic world, when in reality there is almost a consensus on only one of the interpretations, for example. Finally, it is difficult to 13

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miss what seems to be a contradiction between the numerous interpretations and references throughout the work in favour of pluralism, and the fact that it has wilfully excluded ‘modernistic or fundamentalist interpretations that have appeared in parts of the Islamic world during the past two centuries’ (Nasr, 2015: xl), hence favouring “traditional Islamic” scholarship.

French translations6 On the French side, translation by Muslims and non-Muslims also abound. Kasimirski’s translation is interesting in that it remained the only French translation for a long time after its publication in 1840. Régis Blachère reorganized the content of the Qur’an in his translation (1850) according to what he considered to be the order of revelation, and also added numerous notes. The translation of Denise Masson (1967) has the merit of trying to be as useful to the believing Muslim as to the curious non-Muslim. In December 1990, André Chouraqui’s translation saw the light of day. This translation was completed by adopting the method used by the exegetes of the Torah, who derive multiple meanings of the word by permuting the letters of its tri- consonantal root. The method aroused a bit of controversy, because it often ends up making choices that are surprising to anyone who understands Arabic. For instance, he translates the word raḥmān, usually translated as merciful or clement, into matriciant, which he derives from the notion of matrix. In 1991, the translation of the Islamic Studies scholar Jacque Berque was published. He concentrated his efforts in trying to reproduce a part of the rhythm, style and poetics that are found in the original Arabic. Among the French translations completed by Muslims, there are two that are much more commonly used. The important scholar Muhammad Hamidullah published a French translation in 1959 which received the approval of the religious authorities and the respect of Muslims in general. Similarly, Hamza Boubakeur, president of the Great Mosque of Paris, published his own translation in 1990, which was 25 years in the making. More recently, A. Penot has given himself the mandate of ‘making the Qur’an accessible to all without ever betraying the original’ (2004: x–xi). Many francophone Muslims seem to hold in high esteem the translation of M. Chiadmi (2004), which most likely gained its popularity as a result of its high degree of readability. Also of note are the efforts of Y. ‘Alawi (Christian Bonaud) and J. Hadidi, who have provided a shi’ite translation in which they describe their methodology and choices in detailed commentary. Their translation (see Chodkiewicz, 2002) is still partial, since only one volume of their project has been published (in 2000). The volume in question, more than 600 pages long, provides the annotated translation of only the first two sūras, or chapters, of the Qur’an (see also Fouchécour, 2002).7

To translate, or not to translate, the Qur’an Going back to the tendencies of the religious leaders to encourage or discourage the translation of the Qur’an, their decision rests in part on factors that rely purely on fiqh, or Islamic law. But the historical, social and political factors should be explored for a better and more nuanced understanding of the positions of these religious leaders, who also take these factors in consideration in coming up with their verdicts. Certain historical periods can clearly be identified as having provided conditions that are conducive to the production of more Qur’anic translations. The translations of Ketton (1143) and Abraham of Toledo (1264), for example, were completed during the Andalusian period, while the shuʻubiyya8 movement favoured the translation of the Qur’an especially towards Persian. At other points in history, Muslim scholars prohibited the translation of the Qur’an. Swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other 14

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usually happens over long periods, but many significant changes took place during the last century, and it is worth exploring this period specifically, even if briefly. Before the decline of the Ottoman Empire,9 a reformist current had developed within the intellectuals and scholars of Islam. To a certain extent, this was due to Muslim academics who were studying abroad and came back to their native lands with what might be generally described as a ‘modernist agenda’; this took the form of cultural, religious and political reforms (through what was known at the time as the Tanzimat of the Ottoman Empire) (see Hussain, 2011; Yavuz & Esposito, 2003; Palmer, 1995). It is therefore not at all surprising to learn that there was very little resistance to the translation of the Qur’an during this period, which can be correlated with a spike in the number of published translations of the Qur’an. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the abolition of the political system of caliphate in Turkey, and the establishment of committees to translate the Qur’an into Turkish using the Latin alphabet, the majority of Muslim thinkers reassessed their previous position. All these steps suddenly looked like they were part of a larger imperialist plot to get rid of an insurmountable obstacle to the British expansion, namely, the Ottoman caliphate which symbolized the unity of Muslims. Specifically, the translation of the Qur’an into Turkish by the missionaries was seen by Muslims as a sociopolitical means of pressure (Wilson, 2014). Already in 1908, the Arabic journal al- Manār published the fatwa of Muhammad Rashid Rida which, after reconfirming the impossibility of translating the Qur’an, proceeds to prohibit the translation of its meanings even for those for whom Arabic is incomprehensible in the sense of considering it theologically equivalent to the original Arabic (Rida, 1326/1908). He suggests, rather, to provide the translation of a simplified commentary of the Qur’an and to disseminate it among non-Arabic-speaking Muslims, thus allowing them to understand what they are reading10 while avoiding to further endanger the unity of Muslims (Abou Sheishaa, 2001). In 1925, the scholars at the head of al-Azhar University in Cairo prohibited the ownership and circulation of an English translation of the Qur’an and ordered its border services to burn all copies (see Nur Ichwan, 2001; Weigers, 1995). Not only did this divide the Muslim masses, but also scholars. On the one side were those who not only prohibited translating the Qur’an but even possessing a translation, while on the other, voices were advocating a duty to translate to counter the efforts of the missionaries and their hostile translations, as well as to make accessible the true teachings of Islam. In 1936, the debate was animated anew when the Council of al- Azhar wanted to produce and publish a translation of the meanings of the Qur’an in partnership with Egypt’s Ministry of Education. This time, the question was sent to the highest religious authorities in Egypt, and their answer was unequivocal: translating the meanings of the Qur’an is permissible. And since then, numerous translations of the Qur’an have either been published or approved by al- Azhar, including those of Ahamed (1999), Fakhry (2004), Hammad (2008), Ghali (1997) and Khattab (2015). Ahamed’s translation was published in at least eight editions until 2013, with numerous revisions brought to every edition, including the title, which has appeared as The Glorious Qur’an (1999), English Translation of the Message of the Qur’an (2007) and Interpretation of the Meaning of the Glorious Qur’an (2008). Hammad’s translation is a meticulous academic work where the text still flows very well in an English that is neither colloquial nor formal. By opposition, Ghali’s translation is at times difficult to follow for readers who do not have access to the Arabic or who do not have the Islamic context required for the verse in question, but it has clearly been identified by some studies as being one of the most precise in rendering the meaning (see Sadiq, 2010). Khattab’s translation, highly readable and very well researched, provides a paragraph of context for every chapter, as well as a heading for 15

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every verse, which has the benefit of providing selected context, but the danger of misdirecting the reader in limiting their interpretation to that context. The simplicity of the language adopted by Ahamed and Fakhry (see Rippin, 2004) loses nuances that are not missed by other translations, such as Haleem’s, Nasr’s and Khattab’s. The approval and publication of multiple translations of the Qur’an by al-Azhar, one of the most prestigious Islamic universities in the world, has taken away most of the vigour of the previous debate about the translation of the Qur’an, and when it does come up, it is mostly from a theoretical perspective (see Mahmassani, 1961: 66–70).

The debate over the translation of the Qur’an: between inimitability and universality Despite the legal nature of the discussions around the translation of the Qur’an, and beyond the simple statement of its permissibility, these discussions are in fact rarely limited to the legal arguments and often include nuanced considerations such as the specificity of Arabic as a language, Qur’anic rhetoric and its inimitability, and even unsupported opinions about the practice of translation, its nature and its objectives. Presenting an overview of such issues and the very detailed discussions and commentaries they have engendered would require an independent and more voluminous work. This section will therefore be limited to an abridged selection of the most relevant questions raised.

Representations of the Arabic language Regardless of the orientation of the argumentation, all discussions surrounding the translation of the Qur’an recognize the very particular status of Qur’anic Arabic. Muslim scholars are almost unanimous in this regard: ‘There is not the least doubt about the fact that the Qur’an that is not in Arabic is not the Qur’an’ (Al-Maraghi, 1936, in Al-Razzaq; our translation). In other words, when it is not in Arabic, the sacredness of the book is compromised. In fact, one of the main legal arguments cited against the possibility of reciting a translation of the Qur’an during the ritual prayer consists in saying: Muslims have been ordered to recite the Qur’an during the prayer, and since a translation of the Qur’an is not the Qur’an, it may not be recited in lieu of the Qur’an. This argument, however, cannot be extended to the rest of the Islamic ritual prayer, during which the uttered statements come from the prophetic tradition, and not the Qur’anic text (Kuwaiti Ministry, 2004: vol. 27, 73). Some of the loudest voices in praising the Arabic language unapologetically are of those who oppose Qur’anic translation. For many of them, the evidence for the superiority of Arabic rests in the argument that God chose Arabic as the language in which to reveal His last message to humanity (see Qusi, 2016; Umar, 2015). Others have even gone as far as stating that Arabic will be the language spoken in heaven (Al- Tūfī cited in Suleiman, 2003: 44), but this is based on an apocryphal narration from Prophet Muhammad, and therefore rejected by Islamic scholars (Al-Albānī, 1992: 293). However, many others also argue that this value does not only come from this divine privilege, but also from an intrinsic superiority in its lexicon, syntax, structure and expressive power in general (Al- Albānī, 1992; Al-Safi, 1992: 37–53). Further evidence for this argument is often drawn directly from preIslamic poetry (al-shiʿir al-jāhilī), which was considered the ultimate benchmark at the time to assess any linguistic performance (Omran, 1988). Moreover, Arabic language historical references like Al-Jāhiz (1998) posited that the Qur’an had such a powerful rhetorical quality

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that any attempt at translating it would amount to translating poetry and desecrating it (see Kilito, 2008: 21–37). This view of Qur’anic Arabic constitutes a clear argument against the possibility of translating the Qur’an. On one hand, through the prism of rhetoric, it is described as having a very high capacity for concentrating meanings because of its extremely concise manners of expression: [Arabic is] the language of people whose mental images, flowing without effort from association to association, succeed one another in rapid progression and often vault elliptically over intermediate – as it were, “self-understood” – sequences of thought towards the idea which they aim to conceive or express. This ellipticism (called ijâz by the Arab philologists) is an integral characteristic of the Arabic idiom and, therefore, of the language of the Qur’ân – so much so that it is impossible to understand its method and inner purport without being able to reproduce within oneself, instinctively, something of the same quality of elliptical, associative thought. (Asad, 2003: ix) Asad is referring to the elliptic quality of the Arabic idiom and its extensions in the readers’ thought as the features of a text that – if as described – cannot possibly be matched by any alternative language. Here, the interesting part of Asad’s comment is the notion that the movement and conciseness of the language seems to be reflected in the very nature of the Qur’anic thought. An interpretation that necessarily leads to the strong belief among Muslims about the inimitability of the Qur’an. In this regard, Asad is in full agreement with Arab linguists and philosophers of language throughout the ages. And yet, the ellipticism mentioned by Asad constitutes but one of the many distinctive traits of Arabic, some of the others being its descriptive and illustrative power, its precise and rich vocabulary, and its roots and derivations (see Qusi, 2016; Umar, 2015). Oliver Leaman’s concise statement on the Qur’an that ‘it imitates nothing and no one nor can it be imitated’ (2006: 404) best summarizes this position. On the other hand, Arabic holds a very specific status because Muslims believe that, in its Qur’anic form at least, it is the “word of God,” and that it can therefore only have but one form, that in which it was revealed. The form is considered constitutive of the meaning. The language of the Qur’an can therefore not be translated, even if the aim of that translation is limited to the meanings (Al- Safi, 1992: 110– 118). This extreme position makes the Qur’an inimitable not only in form, but also in content. To these critics of Qur’anic translation, translation of the meaning is associated with its exegesis, which is itself prohibited. While we may think that translating exegesis should not be problematic because it is clearly not the Qur’an, it seems that its translation, according to them, is still not justified for numerous reasons, such as the lack of explicit prophetic traditions encouraging or accepting it, as well as the additional distance it creates between the divine enunciation and its interpretation or exegesis in Arabic (Al- Safi, 1992: 119– 131). The fundamental issue in this position against the translation and exegesis of the Qur’an can be summarized as the total rejection of anything that increases the distance with the Qur’anic Arabic enunciation presented as being that of God. Essentially, the value of Qur’anic Arabic rests in being the verbal incarnation of the divine word.

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The inimitability of the Qur’an In spite of this line of thinking which places the Qur’an in a position of benefit from the inherent qualities of the Arabic language, for a majority of authors, the legal value assigned to the Arabic language stems from the Qur’an itself, its divine origin, and its inimitable or insuperable (muʿjiz) character (Al- Rummanani, 1998; Berque, 1995). The notion of inimitability (iʿjāz) of the Qur’an is necessary to understand the difficulty surrounding any debate about Qur’anic translation to the extent that it touches on the mimetic or imitative character of translation, i.e. the long-standing issue of whether to translate literally in order to imitate the rhetoric and sacred qualities of the text. What some have referred to as the ‘theory of inimitability of the Qur’an’ (see Nur Ichwan, 2001: 145) is the uncontested result of the challenge put forward by the Qur’an itself to the Arabs of the seventh century, as well as humanity in general, to elaborate something equivalent to it.11 However, if inimitability only concerns the formal aspect of the Qur’an, as is the opinion of the defenders of Qur’anic translation who now form the majority of scholars, translation becomes possible so long as it is limited to the meanings. So, a semantic translation would be disinterested in phonology, rhythm, prosody,12 concerning itself only with what has been called the second objective of Qur’anic revelation (according to AlNadawi, 1997: 13), namely, the hidāya or “guidance” of humanity (Qur’an, 2:185), or, in the more neutral terms of traditional translation theory, the “message” (Nida and Taber, 1982; Jakobson, 1960). That being the case, even if the translation of the Qur’an cannot transfer its formal inimitability, this impossibility “does not suppose that for the transfer of its meaning, since the latter does not invalidate the argument of the formal inimitability of Arabic nor does it change it. Translation does not, in any way, diminish the value of the argument” (Al-Maraghi, 1936: 17; our translation). In addition to its revolutionary role in the history of Arabic since its compilation in the seventh century (Al- Azami, 2003; Al- Khui, 1998), transforming it from an oral culture to one of reciting a written text, the translational function grants it a second historical presence, since every translation becomes the witness of an era and allows us to understand how the ST is interpreted during that era. Although it is not imitable, not only does the Qur’an lend itself to translation, but it calls for it, in the sense of a Derridean reading of Benjamin: ‘But he wants first to return to the authority of what he still calls ‘the original,’ not insofar as it produces its receiver or its translators, but insofar as it requires, mandates, demands, or commands them in establishing the law’ (Derrida, 1985: 181). Like any great texts of world literature and other sacred texts, the Qur’an compels its retranslation over and over again throughout the ages. While it is possible that defending Qur’anic translation may be seen as part of the necessity to support its proselytic function, or as a response to some competing orientalist translations (attempting to cast an unfavourable representation of Islam), the fact remains that it constitutes the expression of a new challenge for the Muslims living in the era of globalization and information; the challenge of the democratization of reading, of interpreting and of understanding through translation. More than at any other time, and in light of the local and international developments from the Iranian Islamic Revolution onwards, the translation of the sacred text remains a call, a challenge that must be met by Muslims facing the questions of their time. The Qur’anic challenge will not only be intended to those who do not believe in the message, but to those who already claim it for themselves beyond the borders of the Arab and even what is known as the Muslim world.

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Translated Qur’an during prayer While there are some contemporary works that severely criticize the translation of the Qur’an as a “religious innovation” (bid‘ah) and ‘an attack against the divine word … a devious mischief … subjecting the Holy Qur’an to change its actual state’ (Al- Safi, 1992: 26), referring back to early Islamic law reveals that scholars of the first centuries of Islam were tolerant of the translatability of the Qur’an. In order to defend the licit nature of translating the Qur’an, its proponents systematically refer to the legal verdict (fatwa) of the Hanafi school, according to which the ritual prayer – during which the Qur’an must be recited in 12 of the 17 daily cycles – can be performed in a translated language. Abū Ḥanīfa would have based his argument on the fact that, Salmān, the companion of Prophet Muhammad, would have translated the first chapter of the Qur’an to his fellow Persians at their request, which would have allowed them to recite it in translation until their tongue gets used to the Arabic pronunciation (Kuwait Ministry, 2004).13 While this Hanafi line of thinking is more aligned with the realities of pluralist societies, it was rejected by others, who hold that the “Arabicness” of the verses is part of what makes them Qur’anic (Al-Maraghi, 1936: 25; our translation). It is remarkable that the pragmatism of the Hanafite jurists – as well as their awareness of the hierarchy between the different religious duties – led them to declare that reciting the Qur’an in translation in prayer is preferable to abandoning the most important Islamic ritual. But this concession is a very significant one, as it became the preferred argument brought forth by the defenders of the permissibility of translating the Qur’an. For example, this is the case of the study published by Muhammad Mustapha al-Maraghi (1936) on the issue of translating the Qur’an from a legal standpoint, following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire that took place in the 1920s, as well as the establishment of the controversial policies of nationalization of Ataturk: reciting translation in Turkish during the daily prayers and publishing a translation of the Qur’an only written in Latin alphabet, without the co- presence of the Arabic text (Al- Neifer, 2006). In his study, Al- Maraghi relied on the traditional position of the Hanafi school to develop a line of argumentation in the frame of the three other Sunni schools of Islamic law (Maliki,14 Hanbali15 and Shafi’i16).

Conceptualizations of translation Despite this considerable and well- referenced legal corpus that should have settled the case of the translatability of the Qur’an, the debates of the modern era remain current, where some still strive to prove the illicit nature of Qur’anic translation (despite the growing demand) and others attempt a theorization of translation which renders the translated text as an ordinary literary work. Indeed, by laying emphasis on the inseparability of the content and form of the Qur’an, the arguments for its translatability are considerably scaled down. If the only function of the Qur’an is to have the same (but now anachronistic) effect that it had on the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula living in the seventh century, which means affecting them as deeply by its high degree of eloquence as by the core of its message (the reminder of the unicity of God and the entire ethics that can be derived from it), this function is almost impossible to reproduce. This would mean that the sacred text would have no relevance except during the time of its revelation and that its linguistic specificity has priority over its claim to universalism. If Skopos theory were to be applied to Qur’an translation, that is, considering the purpose and the reception context of the translation – which can incidentally be completely different from those of the original – the translations of the Qur’an throughout history would in every

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instance have a function that is entirely different from that of the initial double function of the Qur’an. Proponents of Qur’anic translation have developed an alternative approach in which they speak less of formal inimitability,17 and lay more emphasis on the inimitability of the content.18 In this sense, since the function of translation has changed, the transfer of the different levels of the meaning of the Qur’an takes a central value. Opponents of Qur’anic translation contend that such an understanding of translation (separation of form from content) is no longer tenable in the light of contemporary translation theory. The inseparability of form and content, they argue, is what makes the Qur’anic text fundamentally different from the literary text. However, when looking at modern Western literary studies (theory, history, critique, etc.) as well as all the intersecting disciplines, we notice that the status of the literary text reaches such unattainable heights that it becomes sacrosanct. As a matter of fact, whether one considers Romantic authors as prophets (Gusdorf, 1983; Benchou, 1988) or even how the legal status of authorship has come to be from the 1701 Statute of Ann to the launch of international copyright laws in the nineteenth century (Basalamah, 2009), literary texts and their authors have symbolized the new gods and their sacred books. With the emergence of copyright in France and England during the eighteenth century, we understand that it is by the elevation of the status of the author that such a change in value took place. More recently, through structuralism and especially post- structuralism, and with the call in literary theory for “the death of the author” (Barthes, 1977), the autonomous nature of the literary text becomes radicalized. As a result of this development, no “sacredness” is recognized except in the literality of the text and some in contemporary translation theory considered literality or rhythm (the respect of the forms and the semiotics of the source text) one of its key themes (see Berman, 1998; Meschonnic, 1999). In this perspective, if the sacred text no longer holds a separate status, that it belongs to the large family of literary texts, its translation will be consequently assessed according to this necessary and intimate interdependence between the multiple levels of its content and its form. Hence all of the translational ethics inherited from the hermeneutics of Schleiermacher and the German Romantic translators19 manifests itself by its respect of the form of the source text. This being the case, translating the sacred text (the Qur’anic text at least) according to these same requirements would substantially reduce it. Because, however unique Arabic is and the subtlety and finesse of Qur’anic language, what translation will be in a position to retain is out of proportion with what non- Arab speakers are entitled to demand from a message which is supposed to speak to humanity while claiming universalism (Qur’an, 21:107; 25:1; 87:3820). Would the question then be to wonder if the translated Qur’an maintains the divine word revealed to Muhammad? Or rather, ask the historicized question of whether it is a right for humanity to receive the divine message in the diversity of the surviving languages after Babel?

Contemporary challenges In the aftermath of the Arab revolutions, when the Arab and Muslim worlds are facing one of their most critical moments, there are some questions that are more or less directly tied to the issues surrounding the translation of the Qur’an. As a matter of fact, one of the most important issues is that of the divide between politics and religion in increasingly secularized Arab/ Muslim societies, let alone in the Western ones with large Arab and/ or Muslim populations. Reading Habermas’ Between Naturalism and Religion (2008), one can get a sense of the deep

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gap that Western cultural history has developed (and exported) that even within one language/ society, religious and secular people do not necessarily understand each other anymore. Religious traditions have a special power to articulate moral intuitions, especially with regard to vulnerable forms of communal life. In corresponding political debates, this potential makes religious speech into a serious vehicle for possible truth contents, which can then be translated from the vocabulary of a particular religious community to a generally accessible language … The truth contents of religious contributions can enter into the institutionalized practice of deliberation and decision- making only when the necessary translation already occurs in the pre- parliamentarian domain, i.e. in the political public sphere itself. (Habermas, 2008: 131) In that sense and within this kind of context, translating the Qur’an becomes an essential part of the translation of religion in the public sphere, even within the Arab world in the wake of the Arab Spring when the split between the “Islamists” and the “Seculars” is growing more than ever. How do the politics of the believer and that of the secular21 articulate themselves in the minds of each other? Is there a way they can find a middle ground through the reinterpretation of the Qur’an and its translation into the political realities of today’s world? The other question confronting Arabic speakers, and more specifically among Muslims, is the Arab-centric representation of the idealistic Muslim. As a matter of fact, it is widely spread among Arabs – and even among a large portion of non-Arab Muslims – that being an Arabicspeaking Muslim is necessarily better than being a non- Arabic- speaking Muslim (hence the recourse to translation), a prevalent belief which goes against the very clear injunction of the Prophet: ‘O people! Indeed, your Lord is one and your father (Adam) is one. Indeed, there is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, nor of a non-Arab over an Arab, nor of a white over a black, nor a black over a white, except by piety. Have I conveyed the message?’ (Ibn Hanbal, 1993: no. 22978). Although such a state of affairs would be hardly admitted by those concerned, many settings of mixed ethnic and linguistic origins would have it expressed by the frustrations of peripheral Muslims, e.g. Black Africans, East- Asians, and other minority groups, who often suffer from this typical discrimination. As a natural development of this Arab- centrism, the last few decades have witnessed a vast movement where Arabic- centred Islamic literature has been largely overcome by a growing production of non- Arabic works and translations from Arabic into other languages, mainly Western (Lepeska, 2011). Against all odds, this means that the Muslim world is decentring Arabic-speaking Muslims and Qur’an translations are increasingly being made in the languages of the ever- growing non- Arabicspeaking Muslims, i.e. over 80 per cent of the world’s Muslim population (Cooper, 2013). Paradoxically though, a third question arises as a corollary to the former: if on the one hand the reception of the Islamic sacred scripture is still too centred around the Arabic language despite the expansion of the non-Arabic “peripheries,” why is the Arabic language on the other hand far from being – nowadays and for the last few centuries – able to be a vehicle of knowledge and science? In response to this apparent contradiction, some would argue that Islamic traditional languages such as Arabic are “inadequate” for the development of science (Hoodbhoy, 2007: 53), while others on the contrary are ‘convinced that we cannot but teach science in the national language, that is in the language that people use in their daily lives, the living language of society’ (Rashed, 2004: xxvii). As a consequence to the latter stance, it could be extrapolated that the very revival of Muslim contribution to knowledge has to go

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in the opposite direction of the diffusion and understanding of the Qur’anic message, that is to say, producing original scholarship in Arabic and translating the Qur’an in all possible languages of the world. All in all, it appears that correlation of the translation of the Qur’an to the status of the Arabic language is relevant to and sheds light on the rethinking of the contemporary situation of the Arab/Muslim worlds. As probably never before, the defence of the Arabic language is equally determinant to an Arab/ Muslim Renaissance as the translation of its most valuable literature to other languages.

Conclusion Everything in the religious Islamic message seems to indicate that it is favourable to Qur’anic translation. For instance, at the level of law, we already mentioned that partial translations of the Qur’an took place during the life of Muhammad himself without any objections from him, which is considered a sign of lawfulness in Islamic jurisprudence. But what matters most today is to consider the position of the supreme Islamic authority on the question. All Muslims are in agreement that Islam is a universal religion, and that, since the time of its revelation, it will remain valid, independently of time and space. This is what the Qur’an says in many of its verses: ‘Say: ‘Oh humans! I am the messenger of Allah to you all’ ’(Qur’an, 7:158; see also 4:79; 21:107; 34:28, etc.). The universal message of Islam and the sum of its teachings were communicated to humanity through the Qur’an: ‘And We have sent down the Book to you, making everything clear, and as a guidance, and a mercy, and good tidings to those who submit’ (Qur’an, 16:89). This message has been transmitted to humanity in Arabic. However, if this message remains in Arabic, it will evidently not be useful as a “guidance” and to “make everything clear” to all of humanity, since the majority of the peoples of the world do not speak Arabic. In itself, and from a purely religious point of view, Qur’anic translation is not prohibited as the text testifies in its own terms. However, as demonstrated in this chapter, some of the factors that are considered in addition to the legal dimension may challenge this argument. On one hand, there are important historical legacies and cultural events that are worth studying in depth, from the angle of translation, as sources and instruments of influence and pressure.22 On the other hand, we saw that the legal and linguistic challenges facing the translator who is working on the Qur’anic text are often the result of the diverse conceptions of translation.

Notes 1 One of the companions of Prophet Muhammad, and governor over one of the provinces of Persia under the caliphate of ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (579–644). 2 The tri-consonantal root ‘araba, which is the base of the name of the language, comes from the verb ‘araba, which means “to formulate,” “to express.” 3 Abul Hakim Khan (Patiala, 1905), Dehlawi Mirza Hairat (Delhi, 1912) and Mirza Abul Fadl (Allahabad, 1912). 4 For a brief bibliographical chronology of some English translations, see Kidwai (1998). 5 Translated by Muhammad Taqi- ud- Din Al Hilali and Muhammad Muhsin Khan, this translation has been approved by the Saudi government, which distributes millions of copies of it every year across the world through its embassies. This strong presence is mostly due to the enormous means of dissemination. 6 See Neuve-Église (2006). 7 This amounts to about 1/12 of the Qur’an.

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The translation of the Qur’an 8 Social and cultural movement started by non- Arab Muslims demanding an equal status and equal rights to those of Arab origin. It contributed to the fall of Umayyads and enabled the Abbasids to take advantage of the circumstances and seize political power. For political and strategic reasons, the Abbasids encouraged non-Arabs to display their non-Arab roots with pride. 9 See for instance “Ottoman Empire” in the Columbia Encyclopedia (2001–2004). 10 This is not to use Arabic and the Arab ethnicity in general as an intermediary and conduit for all knowledge, but rather, to rally all Muslims around the unique reference of the original text, which happens to be in Arabic. 11 On the challenge of the inimitability of the Qur’an, see the following verses in the Qur’an: 2:23; 10:38; 11:13; 17:88, 52:34, etc. 12 Elements that Meschonnic considers essential parts of literary works and to which traditional translation does not grant much space, with a willingness to sacrifice them entirely for the sake of faithfulness (see Meschonnic, 1999: 82–96). 13 See Al-Sarkhasi in his Kitāb al-mabsūṭ [The Book of the Unfolded] cited by Al-Maraghi (1936: 24). 14 The Maliki school of jurisprudence was founded in Madinah in the eighth century by Mālik ibn Anas (711–795). 15 The Hanbali school of jurisprudence was founded in Baghdad in the ninth century by Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (780–855). 16 The Shafi’i school of jurisprudence founded in Baghdad and then in Cairo in the eighth and ninth centuries by Imam Al-Shāfiʿī (767–820). 17 Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, there is a new form of inimitability that has imposed itself; the numerical iʿjāz which, by reliance on simple mathematic formulas, allows to demonstrate a numerical distribution of words and letters in the Qur’an that does not seem to be ordinary in its design and balance. 18 Muslim exegetes and Arab linguists are unanimous today that the reception, the listening and the utterance of Arabic today no longer has the ability to produce the same effects and experiences to its speakers that it did during the revelation to the Prophet Muhammad. To the Arabs who lived at the same time as Muhammad, the most profound existential experience took place through the intermediary of language. Poetry was the most important element of life, that which was the most true, and the most sacred. That is why those who listened to only a few Qur’anic verses would be convinced that it is the speech of God and accept Islam immediately, because according to them, this rhythm, style, word and sound combination, these images, this eloquence can simply not be put together by a human being. However, this almost mystical ability of spiritually savouring language has been lost for a long time now. This means that that which Muslims refer to as the miraculous aspect of the Qur’anic language can no longer represent the most important dimension of the Qur’an’s inimitability. This is not to say that they no longer recognize it, as can be witnessed from the consistent output of all sorts of thematic and linguistic studies by Qur’an scholars. But emergent fields, such as scientific analysis, are more popular nowadays: the manner in which the Qur’an talks about the various elements of the natural order and its organization is done with such scientific rigour and truth that it can only have the Creator himself as the source of the text. It is clear that this new approach can lead to wanting to prove the opposite of what many scholars have claimed and want to make of the Qur’an a book of science. It is noteworthy that the Muslim personality of the year in 2006 was none other than Zaghloul al-Najjar, an Egyptian Islamic preacher who specializes in the best-selling topic of the scientific inimitability of the Qur’an. 19 One of the most famous representatives of this movement is the poet Hölderlin (1770– 1843). See Berman (1992). 20 Our translation, as well as for the next Qur’anic passages. 21 Knowing that they are, of course, not mutually exclusive despite the political opposition. 22 To study instances where translation can be used as a tool of sociopolitical pressure, the research would be well served with the methodological means offered by postcolonial approaches, especially in translation theory.

Further reading Abdel Haleem, M.A.S. (2004) The Qur’ān: A New Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Abdul-Raof, Hussein (2001) Qur’ān Translation: Discourse, Texture and Exegesis. Surrey: Curzon. Leaman, Oliver (2006) The Qur’an: An Encyclopedia. Oxon and New York: Routledge.

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References Abou Sheishaa, M.A.M. (2001) A Study of the Fatwa by Rashid Rida on the Translation of the Qur’an. Journal of the Society for Qur’anic Studies 1 (1). Available at: www.quranicstudies.com/ article84. html (accessed on 2 September 2016). Ahamed, S.V. (1999) The Glorious Qur’an. New York: Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an. Al-Albānī, Muḥammad N. (1992) Silsilatul Ahaadeeth Adha’eefah (The Chain of the Weak Traditions). Riyadh: Maktabat Al-Ma’rifah. Al-Azami, Muhammad M. (2003) The History of the Qur’anic Text from Revelation to Compilation: A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments. Leicester: UK Islamic Academy. Al-Jāhiz (1998) Kitab al-Bayan Wa al-Tabyin (The Book of Eloquence and Demonstration). Cairo: Maktabit al Khanjī. Al- Khui, Ayatullah Sayyid A. (1998) Al- Bayan fi Tafsir al- Qur’an: The Prolegomena to the Qur’an. Qum: Ansariyan Publications. Al- Maraghi, Mustafa (1936) Baḥth fī tarjamat al-Qur’ān al- Karîm (A Study on the Translation of the Holy Quran and its Ruling). Edited by M.S. Al-Munajjed. Beirut: Dar Al-Kitab Al-Jadid. Al- Nadawī, Abdallah A. (1997) Tarjamāt maʻānī al- Qur’ān al- Karīm wa Taṭawwur Fahmihī ‘ind al- Gharb (Translations of the Holy Qur’an and the Evolution of its Understanding in the West). Mecca: Rabiṭat al-ʻĀlam al-Islāmī. Al-Neifer, Ahmida (2006) Tarjamat al-Qur’ān wa Muʻḍilat al-Markaz wa al-Aṭrāf (The Translation of the Quran and the Problem of the Center and the Periphery). Available at: www.almultaka.org/ site. php?id=193&idC=1&idSC=1> (accessed on 2 September 2016). Al- Qusi, Muhammad A.-S. (2016) ‘Abqariyyat al- Lugha al-‘Arabiya (The Genius of the Arabic Language). Rabat: Manshurāt al-Munadhdhama al-Islamiyya lil Tarbiyya wal ‘Ulūm wath-Thaqāfa. Al-Razzaq, S.A. (n.d.) La traduction du Saint Coran: de la prohibition à la permission. Available at: www. annoormagazine.com/mag/ar/163–164/deen/deen_01.asp. Al-Rummānī, A.A. (1998) [10th C.] Al-Nukat fî Ijāz al-Quran/Épître sur l’inimitabilité du Coran (Essay on the Insuperability of the Quran), translated from Arabic into French by S. Basalamah, Master Thesis, Lyon, Université Lumière Lyon2, France. Al-Safi, ‘Uthmān A. (1992) Al-Qur’ān al-Karīm. Bidʻiyyatu Tarjamati Alfadhihi wa Maʻanīhi wa tafsīrihi wa khaṭaru al-tarjamati ʻala masāri al-daʻwati wa nashri al-Islām (The Holy Quran: The Religious Innovation of Translating its Words and Meanings and Interpretation; and the Danger of Translation on Islamic Da’wa and the Spread of Islam). Beyrouth/Damas/Amman: al-maktab al-Islāmi. Asad, Muhammad (2003) [1980] The Message of the Qur’ân. Dubai: The Book Foundation. Barthes, Roland (1977) [1968] The Death of the Author. In Image, Music, Text, transl. by S. Heath. London: Fontana Press, pp. 142–148. Basalamah, Salah (2009) Le droit de traduire. Une politique culturelle pour la mondialisation. OttawaArras: Les presses universitaires d’Ottawa & Artois Presses Université. Benichou, Pierre (1988) Les mages romantiques. Paris: Gallimard. Berman, Antoine (1992) The Experience of the Foreign: Culture and Translation in Romantic Germany. Transl. by S. Hayvaert. Albany: SUNY Press. Berman, Antoine (1998) La traduction et la lettre ou l’auberge du lointain. Paris: Seuil. Berque, Jacques (1995) Le Coran, essai de traduction. Revised edn, Paris: Albin Michel. Binark, Ismet and E. Halit (1986) World Bibliography of the Translations of the Meanings of the Holy Qur’an. Istanbul: OIC Research Centre. Burman, Thomas E. (1998) Tafsîr and Translation: Traditional Arabic Qur’ān Exegesis and the Latin Qur’āns of Robert of Ketton and Mark of Toledo. Speculum 73 (3): 703–732. Chodkiewicz, Michel (2002) Le Coran, voilà le Livre, Yahya Alawi and Javad Hadidi, Book Review. Studia Islamica 94: 188–190. Chouraqui, André (1990) Liminaire. In Al-Qur’ān/Le Coran: L’appel. Trad. d’A. Chouraqui, Paris: Robert Lafont. Available at: http://nachouraqui.tripod.com/id16.htm (accessed on 2 September 2016). Cooper, Derek (2013) Christianity and World Religions: An Introduction to the World’s Major Faiths. Philipsburg: P & R Publishing. Derrida, Jacques (1985) Des tours de Babel. In Difference and Translation, ed. Joseph F. Graham. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, pp. 165–248. Fadl, M. Abu’l (1912) The Qur’an Translated into English from the Original Arabic. Allahabad: Asgha & Co.

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The translation of the Qur’an Fakhry, Majid (2004) An Interpretation of the Qur’an: English Translation of the Meanings. New York: New York University Press. Fouchécour, Charles Henri de (2002) Compte- rendu. In Le Coran: Voilà le Livre, ed. Y. Alawi and J. Hadidi. Tome Premier. Al- Fatiha – al- Baqara (sourates 1 et 2). Traduction annotée, accompagnée d’études, de concordances et e lexiques, par Yahya ‘Alawi [Christian Bonaud] et JavadHadidi. Qom: Centre pour la traduction du Saint Coran, 2000. In: Abstracta Iranica. Volume 23. Available at: https://abstractairanica.revues.org/35513 (accessed on 10 September 2016). Ghali, Muhammad M. (1997) Towards Understanding the Ever- Glorious Qur’an. Cairo: Publishing House for Universities. Gusdorf, Georges (1983) Du néant à Dieu dans le savoir romantique, tome X. Paris: Bibliothèque Payot. Habermas, Jurgen (2008) Between Naturalism and Religion. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hairat, Dehlawi M. (ed.) (1912) The Koran: Prepared by Various Oriental Learned Scholars and Edited by Mirza Hairat. Delhi: n.p. Hamidullah, Muhammad (1995) Introduction. In Le Coran, transl. by M. Hamidullah. Paris: Le Club français du Livre, pp. v–xxxviii. Hammad, Ahmad Z. (2008) The Gracious Qur’an: A Modern Phrased Interpretation in English. Cario: Al-Azhar Univeristy. Hoodbhoy, Pervez A. (2007) Science and the Islamic World: The Quest for Rapprochement. Physics Today 60 (8): 49–55. Hussain, Ishtiaq (2011) The Tanzimat: Secular Reforms in the Ottoman Empire. Faith Matters. Available at: www.quranicstudies.com/article84.html (accessed on 2 September 2016). Ibn Hanbal, Ahmad (1993) Al-Musnad (The Reference). Beyrouth: Dar Ihyat Al-Turath Al-Arabi. Jakobson, Roman (1960) Linguistics and Poetics. In Style in Language, ed. T. Sebeok. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 350–377. Khan, A.H. (1905) The Holy Qur’an. Patiala: n.p. Khattab, Mustafa (2015) The Clear Qur’an: A Thematic English Translation. Cairo: Al-Azhar University. Kidwai, Abdul Rahim (1998) English Translations of the Holy Qur’an: An Annotated Bibliography. Available at: www.cyberistan.org/islamic/quranetr.htm> (accessed on 2 September 2016). Kilito, Abdelfattah (2008) Thou Shall Not Speak My Language. Transl. from Arabic by Waïl Hassan. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Kuwaiti Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs (2004) Al- Mawsūʻa al- Fiqhiyya (The Encyclopedia of Fiqh). Kuwait: Publication of The Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs. Leaman, Oliver (2006) The Qur’an: An Encyclopedia. Oxon and New York: Routledge. Lepeska, David (2011) Islamic Publishing House Flourishes in US. The National, 22 July 2011. Available at: www.thenational.ae/ news/ world/ americas/ islamic- publishing- house- flourishes- in- us (accessed on 5 September 2016). Mahmassani, Sobhi (1961) Falsafat al- tashrīʻ fi al- islam: The Philosophy of Jurisprudence in Islam. Transl. by Farhat J. Ziadeh. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Meschonnic, Henri (1999) La poétique du traduire. Paris: Verdier. Mingana, Alphonse (1925) An Ancient Syriac Translation of the Kur’an Exhibiting New Verses and Variation. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 9: 188–235. Mohammed, Khaleel (2005) Assessing English Translations of the Qur’an. Middle East Quarterly 12 (2): 59–72. Available at: www.meforum.org/articles/2005/assessing-english-translations-of-the-quran (accessed on 2 June 2018). Nasr, Seyyed H., Caner K. Dagli, Maria Massi Dakake, Joseph E.B. Lumbard and Mohammed Rustom (eds) (2015) The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary. New York: Harper One. Neuve-Église, A. (2006) Les traductions françaises du Coran. La Revue de Téhéran, 11 October. Available at: www.teheran.ir/spip.php?article470#gsc.tab=0 (accessed on 29 August 2016). Nida, Eugene and Charles Taber (1982) [1969] The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: Brill. Nur Ichwan, M. (2001) Differing Responses to an Ahmadi Translation and Exegesis. The Holy Qur’an in Egypt and Indonesia. Archipel 62: 143–161. Omran, Elsayed (1988) Islam, the Quran and the Arabic Literature. Al- Islam.org 14 (1). Available at: www.al-islam.org/al-serat/vol-14-no1-spring-1988/islam-quran-and-arabic-literature-elsayed-mh-omran/islam-quran-and (accessed on 3 September 2016). Ottoman Empire. The Columbia Encyclopedia (2016). Available at: www.encyclopedia.com/ doc/ 1E1OttomanE.html (accessed on 2 September 2016). Palmer, Alan (1995) The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire. London: John Murray Publishers.

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Salah Basalamah and Gaafar Sadek Penot, AdAllah (2004) Le Coran, Traduit et anoté par A. Penot. Lyon: Éditions Alif. Qarra’I, A.Q. (1999) A Glance at the History of the Translation of the Qur’an. Qom: Centre for Translation of the Holy Qur’an. Rashed, Roshdi (2004) Entretien de Roshdi Rashed. In De Zénon d’Élée à Poincaré: Recueil d’études en hommage à Roshdi Rashed, ed. Régis Morelon and Ahmad Hasnawi. Louvain and Paris: Peeters, pp. v–xxviii. Rida, Muhammad R. (1326/ 1908) Ḥukm tarjamat al- Qur’ān (The Legislation about the Translation of the Quran). Al-Manār Magazine 11 (4): 268–274. Rippin, Andrew (2004) Review of Fakhry, Majid, An Intrepretation of the Qur’an: English Translation of the Meanings and Haleem, M. A. S. Abdel, The Qur’an: A New Translation. H-Mideast-Medieval, H- Net Reviews. December 2004. Available at: www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=10080 (accessed on 5 June 2018). Ross, Jonathan (1649) The Alcoran of Mahomet. Available at: https://ia801408.us.archive.org/27/items/ alcoranofmahomet00dury/alcoranofmahomet00dury.pdf (accessed on 27 May 2018). Sadiq, Saudi (2010) A Comparative Study of Four English Translations of Surat Ad- Dukhan on the Semantic Level. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Sale, George (1882) Preface to the Preliminary Discourse and Translation. In M.A. Wherry, A Comprehensive Commentary on the Quran. London: Trübner & Co., pp. 3–11. Available at: www. bible.ca/islam/library/Wherry/Commentary1/spref.htm (accessed on 2 September 2016). Suleiman, Yasir (2003) The Arabic Language and Identity: A Study in Ideology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Umar, Abdel-Migid T. (2015) Manzilat al-LughaI al-’Arabiyya Bayna al-Lughāt il-Mu’aṣira (The Place of the Arabic Language Among Contemporary Languages). Mecca: Markaz al Baḥ- th al- ’Ilmī wa Ihyā’ it-Turāth al-Islāmī. Von Denffer, Ahmad (1994) Ulum Al-Quran: An Introduction to the Sciences of the Quran. Leicester: The Islamic Foundation. Wiegers, G. (1995) Language and Identity: Pluralism and the Use of Non- Arabic Languages in the Muslim West. In Pluralism and Identity: Studies in Ritual Behaviour, ed. Jan Platvoet and Karen van der Toorn. Leiden, New York and Koln: E.J. Brill, pp. 303–326. Wilson, M. Brett (2014) Translating the Qur’an in an Age of Nationalism: Print Culture and Modern Islam in Turkey. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yavuzn, H.M. and J. Esposito (2003) Turkish Islam and the Secular State. New York: Syracuse University Press.

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2 TRANSLATING THE DIVINE A relevance-theoretic account of lexical-pragmatic adjustment in translating some Qur’anic concepts1 Mai Zaki

Introduction The interpretation of any text can be studied from different perspectives. However, when a text is also ascribed a certain religious sacredness or an affinity with the ‘metaphysical’, then the dynamics of ‘understanding’ become an even more complex and important process. Abdul- Raof (2004: 91) explains that in accordance with Muslim tradition, ‘the Qur’an is considered by Muslim scholars as the miracle of Muhammad’. Furthermore, Ibn Taymiyah (2004: Part 12), for example, refers to the Qur’ān as kalām Allah (the words of Allah) which Muslims should believe in unequivocally. Therefore, it is no surprise that the issue of translating the Qur’ān has been controversial among Muslim scholars, to the extent of discussing the ‘lawfulness’ of translating the Qur’ān. Shakir (1926) clearly states that there could be little confidence in preserving the balance of meaning from the Holy Text to the target language since this text is not only sacred in its meaning but even in the arrangement of its words. According to him, ‘no man, however learned he may be as a scholar of the Arabic language, may change one word for another in the order in which it is set down in the Holy Koran’ (1926: 162). However, other views see translation of the Qur’ān to be more of an interpretation of it,2 a necessary exercise especially for non-speakers of Arabic. The issue of the physical attributes of Allah is considered somewhat controversial since it touches upon fundamental principles of Islamic ‘aqīdah. Different schools of thought have discussed such attributes either as ṣifāt dhāt (eternal attributes of Allah, e.g. hearing, seeing, etc.) or ṣifāt fi‘l (attributes related to Allah’s actions, e.g. descending, ascending, etc.). It should be mentioned that the commonly held view in this matter is that whatever Allah Almighty described Himself as having/ doing in the Qur’ān or the Hadith (sayings of Prophet Muhammad) should be accepted with no recourse to comparison or embodiment (Ibn Taymiyah, 2004: Part 5). The discussion in this chapter, however, starts from a linguistic rather than a religious basis, analysing translation strategies which different translators opted for in dealing with verses containing physical attributes of Allah. Discussing the various translations of particular verses attributing the concepts HAND and FACE to the Divine from a relevance- theoretic perspective, this study attempts to assess the extent of concept lexical- pragmatic adjustment

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of underspecified concepts in the translation strategy, as well as the roles played by different factors in the decision to explicitly mirror this adjustment process in the translated text. This chapter is structured as follows. Some of the major issues in Qur’ān translation are outlined, followed by a discussion of relevance theory and its implications for translation, and also the relevance-theoretic view of concept broadening and narrowing. The data is presented and analysed as various translations of the two concepts HAND and FACE in the Qur’ān are compared and discussed. Finally, the concluding section summarizes the main results of the study and highlights some areas for future research.

Issues in Qur’ān translation Numerous studies have discussed the challenging issues in translating the Qur’ān. They all start from the same assumption; i.e. that ‘translating the Quran into any language is a daunting task, for it entails conveying the absolute and infinite by means of the relative and finite’ (Lumbard, 2015: 1603). Different Qur’ān translations adopt different approaches, whether semantic or communicative, or some other. However, not all translations of the Qur’ān have been deemed ‘successful’,3 and some have even concluded that ‘English translations of the Qur’an provide neither cadence nor linguistic beauty’ (Abdul-Raof, 2004: 93). One of the main challenges is that the translator has to go beyond the text to its interpretation by consulting the various commentaries of the Qur’ān and delving in deep religious thought. Sajjadi and Anari (2008) attempt an evaluation of the English translations of the Qur’ān which, according to them, should maintain consistency and accuracy. However, they also concede that ‘some of the ideas [in the Qur’ān] are not translatable because we cannot understand their meanings with our limited minds’ (2008: 90). This argument lends itself easily to the issue of the physical descriptions of Allah, which have been a thorny issue within religious interpretation. The serious intersection between language and religion in the translation of the Qur’ān has also been discussed in Ahmed (2006), who states that an exact translation of the Qur’ān is ‘impossible’ since it is only Allah who knows its true interpretation. He explains that ‘the Quranic text itself is so difficult that the exegesis plays a great role in rendering it’ (61). Nonetheless, he discusses some semantic and lexical problems in Qur’ān translation which he classifies into: (a) problems common in all translations; and (b) problems specific to the Qur’ān as text. Abdel Haleem (2011) looks at the history of translating the Qur’ān and points out that the quality of various translations varies between the appropriate ‘translations of the meanings’, mostly done by Muslim scholars, and the ‘hostile translations’ done by some Western non-Muslim scholars. He also explains that some of the problems in Qur’ān translations ‘result from excessive literalism, and adherence to the syntactical and stylistic peculiarities of the Arabic language’ (2011: 67). From a linguistic perspective, the concise, idiomatic, figurative and elliptical nature of the Arabic language is notoriously problematic in translating the Qur’ān. Alizadeh and Jahanjouyan (2016) also compare and evaluate a few English translations of specific syntactic patterns in the Qur’ān. They specifically refer to a few cases of ‘mistranslation’ in the rendering of some examples. Among the reasons they cite for such cases are the ambiguity of the ST syntactic structure, the complex syntactic parsing for the same verse, the ideological stance of the translator, and the translator’s incompetence in Arabic or in English. According to them, another important consideration is ‘the authority of Islamic narratives which leads to an especial syntactic analysis though against the ST linguistic requirements’ (2016: 689). Failure to recognize this leads to mistranslations in some cases.4 This highlights the intricate link between religious interpretation and language which lies at the heart of Qur’ān translation. 28

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Ali et al. (2012) discuss some linguistic difficulties in translating the Qur’ān and categorize them as lexical, syntactic and semantic, in addition to linguistic features such as metaphor, metonymy, ellipsis and polysemy. Similarly, Abdelaal and Rashid (2015) discuss cases of over- , under- or mistranslation of some Qur’anic verses which result in cases of semantic loss. In addition to the lack of equivalence, both lexical and cultural, the authors argue that semantic loss can result from ‘overlooking the literariness or figurativeness of the ST’ (2015: 2). Therefore, according to them and in line with traditional scholars, ‘the only acceptable translation is the exegetical translation’ which is based on exegesis books and would guide the translator to an appropriate understanding of the ST. This chapter discusses one aspect of Qur’ān translation against the backdrop of relevance theory as a general theory of communication. In particular, the discussion draws upon the notion of concept adjustment in interpretation. The next section introduces the theoretical framework adopted in this study.

Relevance theory and translation Relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1986/ 1995) is a cognitively based theory of communication which stipulates that the human mind is geared towards finding ‘relevance’ in whatever stimuli it processes. In this sense, relevance is defined as a property of a stimulus to our cognitive processes which is bound by the pay- off between processing effort and cognitive effects. Continuous processing of stimuli is neither fruitful nor cognitively feasible; therefore, any effort exerted in processing stimuli has to be rewarded with a positive cognitive effect of some sort: for example, strengthening of an assumption, eliminating an assumption or creating a contextual implication. One of the advantages of relevance theory is that it has shown how inference plays a big role in all levels of utterance comprehension, explicit and implicit. The gap between what is said and what is meant does not only exist in figurative language, but is considered an integral part of communication. In Wilson’s words (2003: 354), ‘linguistically encoded meaning … is no more than a clue to the speaker’s meaning’. According to relevance theory, a combination of decoding and inference leads hearers to work out the intended communicated meaning, which is the most relevant one produced by the speaker (given their own preferences and abilities) and the one that meets the hearer’s expectations of relevance. During the online interpretation process of utterances, a process of ‘mutual adjustment of explicit content, contextual assumptions and cognitive effects’ (Wilson, 2003: 353) takes place, constrained by expectations of relevance. The relevance- theoretic heuristic has had wide implications for all aspects of interpretation. For one thing, the distinction between descriptive and interpretive uses of language is directly linked to translation. For another, the view of the semantic under- determinacy of words and concepts, which relevance theory argues to be more widespread than previously thought, has changed the way we understand lexical adjustment processes. These two aspects are discussed in the next two sections.

Translation within relevance theory Translation theories, in general, try to explain the boundaries and strategies of rendering a message from one language to another. In a very loose sense, translation is an act of communication, since a translated text intends to convey a message, albeit not an original one. 29

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Similarly, within the view of relevance theory, ‘all instances of human translation can be accounted for as instances of ostensive-inferential communication’ (Gutt, 1989: 77). As such, the translation process should also be seen as governed by the principle of relevance. It is this very relationship between a ST and a TT which supports the view of translation as a form of ‘interpretive representation’. Relevance theory makes the distinction between descriptive and interpretive representations of language. A descriptive representation is considered a true representation of a state of affairs in the world, while an interpretive representation is one which is considered a true representation of another with which it shares a resemblance in content. Metaphors, hyperboles, approximations and other figurative uses have all been analysed as interpretive representations. Along the same lines, since translations are texts presented in virtue of their resemblance with an original, it seems they fall naturally under the category of interpretive use. Gutt (2000: 107) explains that translation is a form of ‘interpretive use’ of language where the TT attempts to maximize the resemblance between it and the original ‘in respects that make it adequately relevant to the audience’. In addition, as Clark (2013: 259) elaborates, we can only judge interpretive utterances by virtue of ‘how closely they resemble the thought or utterance they represent’. This is an important implication for translation because the interpretive use as such ‘provides a ready-made notion of faithfulness’ (Gutt, 1989: 82) and it does not need to be defined especially for translation. In other words, a successful judgement of resemblance (or faithfulness) of a translated text depends on applying the fundamental relevance-based formula which states that more processing effort has to be offset by more cognitive effects. Gutt further explains that ‘the principle of relevance heavily constrains the translation with regard to both what it is intended to convey and how it is expressed’ (2000: 107). In that manner, relevance theory can account for various features of translation without the need for invoking extra theoretical machinery designed specifically for that purpose. In brief, relevance theory is seen as a general theory of communication which provides tools to explain how translation works as an instance of interlingual interpretive use of language. The advantage of studying translation within the framework of relevance theory, as Zhonggang (2006: 47) explains, is that ‘it does not start from the phenomena of translation to build a theory around them’. Translation is rather seen as falling naturally within the realm of relevance-based communication. Within this view, translation continues to benefit from relevance- theoretic notions which attempt to shed light on the process of concept adjustment in interpretation.

Concept broadening and narrowing Underlying the relevance- based inferential theory of communication is the hypothesis that communicated concepts are not fully fledged but are rather inferentially enriched in the process of interpretation. Carston (2002: 322) uses the term ‘ad hoc concepts’ to refer to ‘concepts that are constructed pragmatically by a hearer in the process of utterance comprehension’. This generally corresponds to what has been called ‘the linguistic underdeterminacy view’ which proposes that linguistically encoded meaning underdetermines the proposition expressed by an utterance (Sperber & Wilson, 1995; Carston, 2002). This means that the communicated concepts by an utterance need to be worked out pragmatically via online inferential processes in response to specific expectations of relevance raised in a specific context. This may be achieved through various means, such as concept narrowing (expressing a more specific sense of the concept) or broadening (expressing a more general sense of the concept). To illustrate this pragmatic enrichment of concepts, the utterances below provide examples relevant to the concepts under study.

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(1) Don’t give me this face (in response to a child sulking to his mother). [narrowing] (2) She always keeps some biscuits at hand. [broadening] (3) ‫[             ﺻﻔّﻖ ﺑﻴﺪﻳﻪ‬narrowing] He clapped his hands. (4) ‫[            ﻫﻮ ﺭﺟﻞ ﺫﻭ ﻭﺟﻬﻴﻦ‬broadening] He is a two-faced man. In both (1) and (3), the concepts encoded in FACE and HAND need to be pragmatically narrowed down in order to be understood in a relevant way. In the context of a child sulking to his mother, the concept FACE in (1) needs to be narrowed to something more specific communicated by the ad hoc concept FACE* to mean ‘sulky facial expression’. Similarly, the concept HAND encoded in (3) in Arabic gives access to a mental representation of the body part from the wrist to the finger tips, front and back. However, even in a simple utterance such as the one in (3), a hearer would only arrive at the intended explicit meaning by inferentially enriching the encoded concept to the communicated ad hoc concept HAND* as in (3a): (3a) He clapped [with the palms of his] hands. It is the proposition expressed in (3a) which carries the truth-conditional meaning of the utterance, and it produces the necessary positive cognitive effects for it to be relevant to the hearer. On the other hand, the same two concepts in (2) and (4) need to be loosened to a broader sense in order to communicate the thought entertained by the speaker. It is reasonable to believe, for example, that (2) does not really mean that the said person always keeps biscuits near his/ her hand. Similarly, in (4) a metaphorical extension of the concept FACE is necessary for it to be relevant to the hearer since the literal interpretation of the utterance is not warranted at all. According to Carston, sometimes ‘a speaker chooses to produce an utterance which is a less-than-literal (that is, a loose) interpretation of the thought she intends to communicate’ (2002: 331). In these cases, the communicated messages are: (2a) She always keeps some biscuits within reach/close to her. (4a) He is a hypocrite. It is the non- literal interpretations, arrived at via a process of broadening of the lexicalized concepts FACE and HAND, that are relevant to the hearers in their respective contexts. The implications of this whole discussion on translation are huge. The lexical- pragmatic processes of narrowing and broadening of conceptual content in the relation between original texts and their corresponding translations have been the focus of study within the framework of relevance theory. Translation is in essence the transfer of conceptual meaning from one language to the other. However, given the underspecified nature of conceptual meanings, then the question arises whether the pragmatic processes at work in the act of interpretation are also reflected in the TT. Since each language has its own linguistic resources, which in turn interact with pragmatic inference, then a translator has to make a conscious decision about how to render such underspecified concepts. According to Falkum (2007), there could be two options. The first option is to represent these underspecified concepts via lexical items in the TT which encode equally underspecified concepts, and let the reader of the TT go through the same pragmatic processes as the reader of the ST to arrive at the communicated meaning. 31

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The second option is to let the TT reflect the conceptual adjustment process that the translator makes during the course of the translation. In this case, the semantics-pragmatics distinction largely maps onto the ST-TT relationship. It should be noted that the notion of lexical adjustment in general is not foreign to translation. Nida and Taber (1969), for example, talk about expansion and reduction as two of the translation strategies. According to them, both strategies ‘are based on the same fundamental principles of reproducing the closest natural equivalent’ (1969: 168). Numerous studies have looked into the use and motivations of these two strategies. Focusing on the translation of material and mental verbs in the Qur’ān, Sajjadi and Anari (2008), for example, compare expansion and reduction as translation strategies. They conclude that expansion (in its different kinds) is the most frequent strategy in translating material and mental verbs. Similarly, Abbasi and Koosha (2016) discuss expansion and reduction strategies in two English translations of Rumi poetry. They conclude that translators used expansion strategy more in order ‘to explicate what was implied in the source text’ and to produce a more comprehensible translation. Whereas the focus of this chapter is adjustment on the conceptual level, the motivations and boundaries of this process cross-cuts all linguistic levels including the lexical and the semantic. Relevance theory provides us with both motivation and boundaries for performing this process. The next section presents the data and analysis for this study.

Qur’anic data: the physical and the metaphorical In the translation of sacred texts, the emphasis on the ‘message’ is paramount. Within the context of Bible translation, for example, Nida and Taber (1969: 12) have set the rule that ‘translating must aim primarily at reproducing the message. To do anything else is essentially false to one’s task as a translator’. The message here includes both the explicit and implicit information content of the original text, and it also extends to the connotations and any other social/ emotional/ religious aspects of meaning. However, since the range of data analysed in this chapter has to do with physical attributes of Allah, another dimension of interpretation comes into play. The Qur’ān states in very emphatic terms about Allah that ‘‫‘( ’ﻟﻴﺲ ﻛﻤﺜﻠﻪ ﺷﻲء‬there is nothing like unto Him’ 42:11). This verse is a succinct and indisputable statement of Allah’s complete transcendence from any comparison. And perhaps it is this belief which triggers the controversy of understanding, and hence translating, verses with physical attributes of Allah. In the sections below, I present the verses in Arabic, followed by various English translations (of the relevant part, underlined) for comparison and commentary. When needed, I give a brief explanation of the meaning of the verse in question. For the translations, I have chosen six of the widely accepted English translations of the Qur’ān as follows: Yusuf Ali (1983), Shakir (1999), Sarwar (2001), Khan and Al-Hilali (1999), Pickthall (1969) and Arberry (1980).

The hand of Allah: data The word yadd5 (hand) has been mentioned in the Qur’ān 23 times, of which 10 instances are used to refer to Allah. The hand of Allah has been mentioned in the Qur’ān mostly in association with a group of nouns of an abstract nature. These nouns are: al- khayr (goodness), al- faḍl (bounty), malakūt (dominion), al- mulk (kingdom). In all of these cases, the Arabic prepositional prefix bi- (with) acts as the link between the word yadd (hand) and the other nouns. In two instances only the genitive construct yadullāh (the hand of Allah) has been mentioned with no association to any other notion, and hence with no preposition involved. In two more occurrences, the word yadd is associated with a possessive pronoun. 32

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The hand of Allah: analysis and discussion The issue of understanding or interpreting the word yadd in the Qur’ān has been discussed by many commentators within the realm of the controversy of understanding divine physical attributes such as ‘hand’ or ‘face’. Some of the major mainstream tafsīr books (e.g. Ibn Kathīr, Al-Zamakhshariy, Al-Qurtubiy, inter alia) acknowledge that in a few instances there is ikhtilāf (disagreement) among scholars in the reading of such verses. However, it could be argued that one of the widely acclaimed views of scholars is that the literal meaning in these verses is in fact the true meaning, but that there is no means to ascertain its actuality with our human abilities since ‘the manifestation of Divine Attributes … on the human plane is not commensurate with the Divine Reality of these Attributes’ (Nasr, 2015: 1250). Therefore, there could be no correlation between what is meant by the hand of Allah and the human hand, for example. However, the controversy in understanding, and hence translating, such verses is fuelled by the fact that such lexical items as yadd (hand) give access to an underspecified concept which could warrant a more literal or a more figurative meaning. Within the relevance-theoretic view, the concept HAND6 in both the ST and the TT is an underspecified concept which needs to be inferentially worked out. Although the words yadd in Arabic and ‘hand’ in English seem to be fairly equivalent, one cannot claim that they encode the ‘same’ concepts in a strict sense. Monolingual dictionaries in both languages list a number of meanings for those two words, literal and metaphorical. Even in the most literal meaning related to body parts, there is the same variation in both languages. Yadd is said to mean kaff (palm and fingers) or the part from the shoulder to the finger tips (Al-Qāmūs Al-Muḥīṭ). Similarly, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists ‘the entire arm’ as one sense of the word. However, it is the metaphorical senses of the word which illustrate a richer domain of meanings. In Arabic, according to Lisān Al-‘Arab, yadd is associated with abstract notions such as al-iḥsān (generosity), al-ni‘am (bounty), al- mulk (possession) and al- quwwah (strength), in addition to the meaning of agency (e.g. your hands = you). In English, a similar range of abstract notions appear including authority, power, disposal, influence, instrumentality, involvement, etc. In the data, it is noticed that all the instances of the word yadd in the Qur’ān as referring to Allah have been translated as ‘hand’ in English. Examples (5) and (6) illustrate this: (5) ‫( ﺗ َﺒﺎ َﺭ َﻙ ﺍﻟﱠ ِﺬﻱ ﺑِﻴَ ِﺪ ِﻩ ﺍﻟ ُﻤ ْﻠﻚ‬67:1)

.

:  Blessed be He in Whose hands is Dominion :  Blessed is He in Whose hand is the kingdom :  Blessed is He in whose hands is the kingdom :  Blessed is He in Whose Hand is the dominion :  Blessed is He in Whose hand is the Sovereignty :  Blessed be He in whose hand is the Kingdom

(6) ‫ﻀ َﻞ ﺑِﻴَ ِﺪ ﷲ‬ ْ َ‫( ﻗُ ْﻞ ﺇ ﱠﻥ ﺍﻟﻔ‬57:29)

.

:  say: all bounties are in the hand of Allah :  surely grace is in the hand of Allah :  all favors are in the hands of God :  all the bounty is in the Hand of Allah :  the bounty is in Allah’s hand :  surely bounty is in the hand of God 33

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In (5), the word mulk derives from the root m- l- k which revolves around the meaning of ‘to possess’, ‘to rule’ or ‘to control’. According to Nasr (2015: 1394), some scholars claim that mulk ‘refers to God’s Lordship over the visible world’, as opposed to the closely related word malakūt which refers to God’s Lordship over the unseen realm. Interestingly, in other verses (23:88 and 36:83) Allah is described as having the malakūt in His hand as well. In (6), the verse explicitly assigns to Allah all bounty. In such verses, the association of the word yadd (hand) with the abstract nouns mulk and faḍl could in theory be contextual clues to a more metaphorical reading of the verse (as opposed to the use of yadd in verse 38:44, for example, where Allah orders Prophet Job to hold a bundle of leaves with his hand). In this case, the reader would be encouraged to construct a pragmatically enriched ad hoc concept HAND* which would be warranted by the range of lexical meanings this word could encode. Therefore, a translator could be tempted to mirror this process in the TT and use terms such as ‘the power/possession of Allah’. However, this did not happen, and all translators here preferred to use a lexical item giving access to a similar underspecified concept. In addition to the desire not to delve into controversial interpretation of the physical attributes of Allah (or the religious belief preventing any other reading besides the literal), the translators’ decision might also be linguistically motivated. As discussed above, there is significant overlap between the range of meanings, literal and metaphorical, which the two terms are capable of encoding in Arabic and in English. Even if the translator gives the verse a metaphorical reading, it could be argued that the metaphorical senses of this word (in both languages) are standardized enough that a translator does not need to spell it out in the TT. Similarly, when the hand of Allah is mentioned with no associations with abstract nouns, the translations keep faithful to the original message. There are four instances when the word yadd was not followed or preceded by a preposition, and was rather used in the iḍāfah structure (genitive construct) with no association to an abstract entity, or was suffixed by a possessive pronoun. Example (7) refers to the hand of Allah being ‘above/over’ the hands of those who pledge allegiance to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and by extension allegiance to Allah. In example (8), it is the only time the hand of Allah is mentioned twice in the same verse, with one of them in a negative context as a direct quote said by a group of Jews. (7) ‫ﷲ ﻓَ ْﻮﻕَ ﺃَﻳْﺪﻳ ِﻬﻢ‬ ِ ُ‫( ﺇ ﱠﻥ ﺍﻟﺬﻳ َﻦ ﻳُﺒﺎﻳِﻌﻮﻧَ َﻚ ﺇﻧﱠﻤﺎ ﻳُﺒﺎﻳِﻌﻮﻥ ﷲَ ﻳَﺪ‬48:10)

.

:  the Hand of Allah is over their hands :  the Hand of Allah is above their hands :  the Hands of God are above their hands :  the Hand of Allah is over their hands :  the Hand of Allah is above their hands :  God’s hand is over their hands

َ ‫ﻏﻠﱠﺖ ﺃ َ ْﻳﺪِﻳ ِﻬﻢ َﻭﻟُﻌِﻨﻮﺍ ِﺑﻤﺎ ﻗﺎﻟﻮﺍ ﺑَ ْﻞ ﻳَﺪﺍﻩُ َﻣﺒﺴﻮ‬ ُ ٌ‫ﷲ َﻣ ْﻐﻠﻮﻟَﺔ‬ (8) ‫َﻴﻒ ﻳَﺸﺎء‬ ِ ُ‫ﺖ ﺍﻟﻴَﻬﻮﺩُ ﻳَﺪ‬ ِ َ‫( ﻭﻗﺎﻟ‬5:64) َ ‫ﺘﺎﻥ ﻳُﻨ ِﻔﻖُ ﻛ‬ ِ ‫ﻁ‬

:  Allah’s hand is tied up … nay, both His hands are widely stretched :  The hand of Allah is tied up … nay, both His hands are spread out :  God’s hands are bound … God’s hands are free

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.

:  Allah’s Hand is tied up (i.e. He does not give and spend of His bounty) … nay, both His hands are widely stretched :  Allah’s hand is fettered … nay, but both His hands are spread out wide in bounty :  God’s hand is fettered … nay, but His hands are outspread

In (7), the physical meaning of the word yadd could be said to be enhanced by the adverb of place fawq (over/ above). However, even this adverb in Arabic can be understood in a metaphorical way to mean that something comes first. In (8), however, we see an interesting use of the word in both its singular and dual forms in what appears to be contrasting contexts which favour a metaphorical reading. Therefore, both Sarwar and Pickthall have opted for a more elaborate translation of the second instance of ‘Allah’s hand’, while only M. Khan chose to explicate the first instance of a ‘tied up Hand’. It is also noted that none of the translators deemed it necessary to explicitly communicate the broader interpretation of the use of HAND in both instances of the verse. In this particular verse, the metaphorical meaning of the term yadd Allah has been attested in many commentaries. According to Al-Tabariy (1968), the use of the word yadd to mean either giving or withholding bounty is from ‘kalām al-‘arab’ (the language of the Arabs) at the time which is attested in many of their poetry and sayings. Therefore, the rhetorical elegance of this expression is that Allah Almighty is using familiar language in addressing the people. Similarly, unlike the interpretation of (7), many exegesis books elaborate on the context of the verse in (8) in order to highlight the contrast between the two meanings of having fettered or spread out hands (i.e. the false allegations made by the Jews regarding Allah’s actions towards them). It could be said that the broadening of the concept HAND here is necessary to guarantee a correct understanding of the verse (i.e. what the Jews claimed of Allah and what is actually true of Allah), i.e. to achieve relevance. Upon processing the two instances of the word yadd in the ST, the reader is likely to pragmatically enrich its encoded concept to a broader meaning of the ability to give/withhold bounty. This extra processing effort would be offset by some positive cognitive effects in the form of strengthening the assumption that tied hands is a sign of miserliness or withholding provisions. That same assumption is also involved in understanding the (enriched) concepts encoded by maghlūlah (tied, bound, fettered) and mabsūṭatān (stretched, outspread). Other contextual assumptions related to the occasion when/why this verse was revealed would also be highly accessible.7 Therefore, the communicated meaning of this verse is only arrived at by a process of mutual adjustment of explicit and implicit assumptions via decoding and inference. In terms of the TT, we can see that four of the translators chose to render the verse in the same manner. The translations only explicitly encode the underspecified concepts HAND, TIED and STRETCHED and leave the reader to work out the lexical adjustment pragmatically. However, both Khan and Pickthall opted for explicitly representing this broadened meaning in the proposition expressed, by adding the parts in bold above, while keeping the underspecified concept HAND. This decreases the amount of processing effort on part of the reader, as the translation strongly points to the metaphorical reading as the relevant one. In this case, the propositions [He does not give and spend of His bounty] and [His hands are spread out wide in bounty] have moved from being highly accessible contextual assumptions arrived at via a process of inference triggered by the search for relevance, to explicitly expressed propositions which are intended to be processed with the least amount of effort. 35

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The face of Allah: data The word wajh (face) has been mentioned in the Qur’ān 35 times, yet those which refer to the Face of Allah are 11 instances. The translations of this word have been classified in Table 2.1 according to the choice of the translated word as having a physical dimension (i.e. rendering it as ‘Face’ or ‘Countenance’) or a non-physical one (i.e. rendering it in abstract nouns).

The face of Allah: analysis and discussion The translations of the Arabic word wajh in the Qur’ān seems to be more complex than the examples in the previous section. As Table 2.1 shows, four of the translators have been consistent in their strategy; i.e. they have all used the physical or the non-physical equivalent in the translation, whereas the other two translators shifted their strategy in a couple of instances. Clearly, the concept FACE has undergone significant pragmatic adjustment compared to the concept HAND in the Qur’ān. If we examine the encoded concept of the words wajh or face in Arabic and in English, naturally the physical sense is highly accessible. Both words refer to the body part from the forehead to the chin. But the metaphorical extensions of these two words are also well attested in both languages. According to Lisān Al-‘Arab and Al-Qamūs Al-Muḥīṭ, the word wajh could refer to various notions including the beginning of something, direction, aspect, etc. Similarly, the OED lists the extended meanings of face to indicate a particular quality or attribute, boldness, composure, etc. Again, in the translation of this word in the Qur’ān, translators face the choice of sticking to the underspecified concept in the TT or explicitly encoding the more broadened meaning. The extent of their interpretation of the anthropomorphic association of this word would greatly influence the translation strategy they choose. Shakir, who is one of the opponents of translating the Qur’ān, acknowledges that ‘a translator must not only know the meaning of each individual word, but the idea that each one is intended to convey, either literally or metaphorically’ (1926: 161). Authorial intention, in this case, is clearly a matter of human interpretation rather than certainty. This is where Qur’ān exegesis and linguistic knowledge meet to provide the translator with various options upon translating a certain verse. In line with the principle of relevance, the resulting translations are assumed to be the most relevant ones given the translators’ abilities and preferences. Looking at the data, as Table 2.1 shows, translations of the word wajh referring to Allah with a physical meaning include the words ‘Face’ and ‘Countenance’. On the other hand, translators who opted for other choices which do not necessarily have a physical or literal dimension of meaning have used words such as ‘pleasure’, ‘favor’, ‘goodwill’, ‘cause’, ‘purpose’ and ‘sake’. Semantically, there are two different kinds of reference to Allah’s Face in Table 2.1 Translations of ‘face’ in the Qur’ān

Translator Yusuf Ali Shakir Sarwar M. Khan Pickthall Arberry

Physical

Non-physical

9

2 11 11

11 9 11

2

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the Qur’ān. One type of verses refers to a particular group of people performing some sort of action (e.g. spending money, giving charity, praying, etc.) for Allah’s Face; the other refers to Allah’s Face independently of any entity or purpose. Examples (9–12) illustrate the first type: (9) ِ‫( َﻭ َﻣﺎ ﺗ ُ ْﻨ ِﻔﻘُﻮﻥَ ِﺇ ﱠﻻ ﺍ ْﺑﺘِﻐَﺎ َء َﻭﺟْ ِﻪ ﷲ‬2:272)

.

:  and ye shall only do so seeking the ‘Face’ of Allah :  and you do not spend but to seek Allah’s pleasure :  you do not spend anything but to please God :  when you spend not except seeking Allah’s Countenance :  when ye spend not save in search of Allah’s Countenance :  you are expending, being desirous only of God’s Face

َْ ‫( ﺇِ ﱠﻻ ﺍ ْﺑﺘِﻐَﺎء َﻭﺟْ ِﻪ َﺭ ِﺑّ ِﻪ‬92:20) (10) ‫ﺍﺍﻷ ْﻋﻠَ ٰﻰ‬

.

: But only the desire to seek for the Countenance of their Lord Most High :  Except the seeking of the pleasure of his Lord, the Most High :  except the pleasure of their Lord, the Most High : Except only the desire to seek the Countenance of his Lord, the Most High :  Except as seeking (to fulfil) the purpose of his Lord Most High :  only seeking the Face of his Lord the Most High

ْ َ ‫( َﻭ َﻻ ِﺗ‬6:52) (11) ُ‫ﻲ ِ ﻳُ ِﺮﻳﺪُﻭ َﻥ َﻭ ْﺟ َﻬﻪ‬ ُ ‫ﻄ ُﺮﺩ َﺍﻟﱠ ِﺬﻳﻦ ﻳَ ْﺪ‬ ّ ‫ﻋﻮ َﻥ َﺭﺑﱠ ُﻬ ْﻢ ﺑِﺎ ْﻟﻐَﺪَﺍﺓِ َﻭﺍ ْﻟﻌَ ِﺸ‬

.

:  seeking His face :  they desire only His favor :  seeking their Lord’s pleasure :  seeking His face :  seeking His Countenance :  desiring His countenance

(12) ِ‫( ٰﺫَ ِﻟ َﻚ َﺧ ْﻴ ٌﺮ ِﻟﻠﱠ ِﺬﻳ َﻦ ﻳُ ِﺮﻳﺪُﻭ َﻥ َﻭ ْﺟﻪَ ﺍ ﱠﮧﻠﻟ‬30:38)

.

:  this is best for those who see the Countenance of Allah :  this is best for those who desire Allah’s pleasure :  it is better for those who want to please God :  that is best for those who seek Allah’s Countenance :  this is best for those who seek Allah’s Countenance :  that is better for those who desire God’s Face

Syntactically, the examples in this type exhibit parallel structures. The expression ‘the Face of Allah’, as in (9) and (10), is preceded by the verbal noun ibtighā’ (seeking); while in (11) and (12) it is preceded by the verb yurīdūn (they want). Both words semantically indicate a meaning of purpose, something to seek or want. The face of Allah, in this case, is the object of want. As Nasr (2015: 54) explains, commentators and translators alike face the challenge of the ‘doctrinal matter of understanding what it means that there is the Face of God’. Similar to the 37

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case for ‘hand’ and all other physical attributes, the commonly held view is that such verses acknowledge the fact that these attributes are associated with Allah Almighty in a way that befits Him. Linguistically, FACE in these verses is an underspecified concept as to how it is to be interpreted. Translators such as Khan and Arberry, and to a large extent Yusuf Ali and Pickthall, have chosen to render this concept in the ST by the same underspecified concept in the TT so that readers can make their own choices as to how to understand the meaning of the concept wajh. That is not to say that the word countenance, according to the OED, is entirely free from pragmatic adjustment. Indeed, even in the literal sense of a physical entity, this word could mean ‘the face, visage’ or ‘the look or expression of a person’s face’. Therefore, given the context of these verses, even the physical concepts FACE and COUNTENANCE could be interpreted in a narrower sense of ‘content face’ or ‘a facial expression of approval’. This interpretation is supported by other verses in the Qur’ān where the believers are described to perform various kinds of good deeds seeking marḍāt Allah (the pleasure of Allah, as in verses 2:207; 2:265; 4:114) or riḍwān Allah (the approval of Allah, as in verse 57:27). In (12), for example, the verse outlines how the believers should spend their money in charity, for in doing so they seek ‘Allah’s Face’. In tafsīr books, several interpretations for this verse have been mentioned, including the physical (those who seek looking at Allah’s face on the Day of Judgment, the aspect of the Divine that is turned toward His creation), and the non- physical (those who seek Allah’s pleasure). This is reflected in the translations of the verse. While four translators used the word face or countenance, Shakir and Sarwar have decided to use non-physical translations for the word wajh, thereby reflecting the pragmatic inferences they themselves performed in understanding this word. Using words such as ‘pleasure’, ‘favor’ and ‘purpose’, these translations encode concepts which correspond more or less to what the translators judged to be the ad hoc communicated concept FACE* in the ST. Therefore, the extent and direction of the conceptual adjustment upon processing this verse depends on the contextual assumptions available to the reader. The comprehension process could proceed in any of three ways as follows (see Table 2.2).8 Seen as different outcomes of a single process of lexical adjustment, Falkum (2007: 125) explains that narrowing and broadening are ‘a by-product of the hearer’s search for relevance Table 2.2 Conceptual adjustment of the concept FACE

[this is better for those who seek Allah’s Face]p The concept FACE is an underspecified concept which needs to be inferentially worked out Minimal conceptual adjustment

Narrowing

Broadening

If Allah describes Himself as having a ‘face’ then I believe in it unequivocally

The intended meaning is to seek the ‘content face’ of Allah or ‘having a vision of Allah’s Face’ in line with specific religious assumptions or interpretation of other verses

The intended meaning is to seek the pleasure/favour/ reward of Allah in line with specific religious assumptions or interpretation of other verses

FACE* = Allah’s face that is exalted from any resemblance/comparison

FACE** = content face, aspect, looking at Allah’s Face

FACE*** = pleasure, favour, reward

This interpretation satisfies my expectations of relevance

This interpretation satisfies my expectations of relevance

This interpretation satisfies my expectations of relevance

38

Translating the Divine

and contribute to the explicit content of an utterance’. Therefore, rather than assuming a clear cut-off line between literal and figurative interpretations of a concept, relevance theory argues that these constitute a continuum of cases (Wilson, 2003). It is also interesting to note that lexical and syntactic clues in the verse may sometimes encourage a more figurative reading. The verb nuṭ‘imukum (indicating the action of feeding) and the prefixed preposition li- (for) to the noun wajh in example (13) seem to have encouraged four of the translators to pragmatically adjust the concept of FACE to another ad hoc concept meaning, ‘for the sake of’. ْ ُ‫( ﺇِﻧﱠ َﻤﺎ ﻧ‬76:9) ُ ‫ﻄ ِﻌ ُﻤ ُﻜ ْﻢ ِﻟ َِﻮﺟْ ِﻪ ﷲ ِ َﻻ ﻧُﺮﻳﺪُ ِﻣ ْﻨ ُﻜ ْﻢ َﺟ َﺰﺍ ًء َﻭﻻ‬ (13) ‫ﺷ ُﻜﻮ ًﺭﺍ‬

.

:  we feed you for the sake of Allah alone :  we only feed you for Allah’s sake :  we only feed you for the sake of God :  we feed you seeking Allah’s Countenance only :  we feed you, for the sake of Allah only :  we feed you only for the Face of God

The choice of translations here seems to be the result of an interaction between semanticsyntactic factors and pragmatic considerations. Most interpretations of this verse favour a figurative meaning of ‘seeking Allah’s content’ (Al-Tabariy, 1968). The other two translations, which retain the exact phraseology and syntax of the ST with no lexical adjustment, would require more inferential work on part of the reader in order to arrive at the intended meaning. On the other hand, the second type of verses in the data, which refers to Allah’s Face independently of any entity or purpose, presents another interesting use of the concept FACE. The three verses below are essentially statements about Allah’s all- encompassing nature, in that wherever we turn Allah’s Face is there, and if everything else perishes, the Face of Allah remains. (14) ِ‫( َﻭ ِ ﱠﮧﻠﻟِ ْﺍﻟ َﻤ ْﺸ ِﺮﻕُ َﻭ ْﺍﻟ َﻤ ْﻐ ِﺮﺏُ ﻓَﺄ َ ْﻳﻨَ َﻤﺎ ﺗ ُ َﻮﻟﱡﻮﺍ ﻓَﺜ َ ﱠﻢ َﻭﺟْ ﻪُ ﺍ ﱠﮧﻠﻟ‬2:115)

.

:  whithersoever ye turn, there is the presence of Allah :  whither you turn, thither is Allah’s purpose :  wherever you turn, you are always in the presence of God : wherever you turn yourselves or your faces there is the Face of Allah :  whithersoever ye turn, there is Allah’s Countenance :  whithersoever you turn, there is the Face of God

(15) ُ‫ﺷ ْﻲ ٍء َﻫﺎ ِﻟ ٌﻚ ﺇِ ﱠﻻ َﻭ ْﺟ َﻬﻪ‬ َ ‫( َﻻ ﺇِ ٰﻟَﻪَ ﺇِ ﱠﻻ ُﻫ َﻮ ُﻛ ﱡﻞ‬28:88)

.

:  everything (that exists) will perish except His own Face :  everything is perishable but He :  everything will be destroyed except God :  everything will perish save His Face :  everything will perish except His own Face :  all things perish, except His Face 39

Mai Zaki

(16) ‫( َﻭﻳَ ْﺒ َﻖ َﻭ ْﺟﻪُ َﺭ ِﺑّ َﻚ ﺫُﻭ ﺍ ْﻟ َﺠ َﻼ ِﻝ َﻭﺍ ِْﻹ ْﻛ َﺮﺍ ِﻡ‬55:27)

.

:  but will abide (for ever) the Face of thy Lord :  and there will endure for ever the person of your Lord :  only the Supreme Essence of your … Lord will remain forever :  and the Face of your Lord … will abide forever :  there remaineth but the Countenance of thy Lord :  yet still abides the Face of thy Lord

Similar to the previous examples, the translators of these verses stood their ground in terms of their own interpretation of the concept FACE. However, looking at the translations of Shakir and Sarwar, we can see that the concept FACE encoded in the ST has undergone an even more radical process of broadening to the meaning of Allah Almighty Himself as exhibited by words such as ‘presence’, ‘person’ or just ‘He’ or ‘Lord’. With such translations, hearers will not be required to go through a process of pragmatic adjustment in the same manner that they are required by the ST upon processing the word wajh. This use of the concept FACE could be argued to draw on the domain of metonymy. In cognitive linguistics, metonymies are defined in terms of a mapping within a single conceptual domain (Lakoff & Turner, 1980; Gibbs, 1994; inter alia). From another perspective, metonymies also involve some form of reference assignment. According to Rebollar (2015: 193), ‘metonymies are defined as a conceptual phenomenon that takes one well-understood or easy-to-perceive aspect of something and uses it to refer to another thing as a whole or part’. The words wajh or face are good candidates for metonymy, as their use to refer to a person is attested in monolingual dictionaries. In the verses above, the belief in the all-encompassing nature of Allah is one of the fundamentals of Islamic ‘aqīdah. Therefore, even if our human abilities cannot comprehend how Allah is present wherever we turn, as in (14), or how everything in this world will perish except the Divine, as in (15), this is undeniably believed by Muslims. However, this does not mean that scholars did not dispute the interpretation of these verses. According to Al-Tabariy (1968), there are a few opinions about the verse in (15), for example. Some scholars argue that wajh is intended to mean the Divine Essence or al-dhāt (the Self), while others claim it means all deeds done for Allah’s sake. In any case, the translations of this verse for most part kept the original underspecified concept FACE, which would need to be inferentially enriched in accordance with the principle of relevance to arrive at the intended meaning. But Shakir and Sarwar explicitly reflected the use of the word wajh as a reference tool in their translations. Similar to a normal process of reference assignment, it is the referent who would feature in the proposition expressed of the utterance and would, therefore, bear its truth conditions. Those two translators chose to relieve the readers from this task, and present to them the already broadened concept as semantically encoded in the TT as He, God, presence or person.

Summary and conclusions Translating the Qur’ān is a daunting, but an inevitable, undertaking. For it is the only way speakers of other languages can read and understand the message of this Holy Book. However, Khalaf and Yusoff (2012: 84) state that ‘the nature of Qur’anic discourse, in addition to other aspects of sensitivity, raises several issues of untranslatability’. One of the challenges in translating the Qur’ān lies in verses assigning physical attributes to Allah Almighty. In the major 40

Translating the Divine

tafsīr books of Muslim scholars, different opinions as to how to understand these verses have been discussed in order to determine a suitable reading of such verses which does not contradict Islamic ‘aqīdah (creed). The generally accepted view is that the literal meaning of such concepts as HAND and FACE is to be maintained and acknowledged with the caveat that understanding the actuality of these concepts or how they are realized is beyond human knowledge. However, ‘a translation of the Qur’an is, after all, a “translation” in the sense that it represents an interpretation of the meaning of a text in a SL to produce a text in a TL without distorting the source message’ (Khalaf & Yusoff, 2012: 73). This chapter focused on the various translation strategies adopted in six of the main English translations of the Qur’ān for such verses. More specifically, examples related to the ‘hand of Allah’ and the ‘face of Allah’ have been discussed from the relevance-theoretic point of view. Within relevance theory, encoded concepts are seen as underspecified representations which need to be inferentially enriched, by narrowing or loosening their meaning, in order to arrive at the communicated concepts. Due to the sacredness of the Qur’ān, the issue of translating such underspecified concepts becomes a sensitive one. Interpretation in this case is not only bound by considerations of relevance, but also constraints of religious beliefs. This is reflected in the translators’ careful strategies in dealing with the concepts HAND and FACE when referring to Allah. Overall, the majority of translations of the two expressions ‘the hand of Allah’ and ‘the face of Allah’ followed a more literal translation, with fewer cases of broadening. The translators’ reluctance to explicitly elaborate an underspecified concept in the ST needs to be explained in light of several factors. Chief among them is the awareness that lexical adjustment, whether in the form of narrowing or broadening, contributes to the proposition expressed of the TT. In the case of the Qur’ān, or any holy text, this has religious, not just linguistic, implications. Similarly, and unlike other text types, the decision to adjust or not to adjust an underspecified concept in the Qur’ān will not be motivated only by relevance considerations. The translator’s own religious assumptions would be a deciding factor here. This, in turn, would draw upon the various Qur’anic exegeses the translator deems relevant. An exegesis is defined as ‘explicating the meaning of the Qur’an in order to make the Qur’anic discourse more accessible and intelligible to the reader’ (Abdul- Raof, 2001: 174). This study shows that Qur’anic exegesis is a motivating factor in the translator’s decision to lexically adjust an underspecified concept in order to make it more accessible and relevant to the reader. The analysis showed that the term yadd (hand) has been translated literally in all translations, except in one verse, thus maintaining the concept HAND as an underspecified concept which the hearer/reader could choose to inferentially enrich its intended ad hoc meaning. Even when the verse provides other lexical clues to a metaphorical meaning of the term ‘hand of Allah’, this does not change the translation strategy. This is largely in line with the approach followed in most exegesis books of the Qur’ān. In the discussion of the interpretation of examples (1– 7), the majority of tafsīr books use the expression ‘the hand of Allah’ as it is, with the almost standard caveat that Muslims acknowledge the existence of ‘the hand of Allah’ in a way that befits Him, with no comparison or association with any other entity. However, only in one instance (the verse in example (8)), many commentators attempt to spell out the meaning of ‘fettered’ or ‘spread out’ in its context. Therefore, two translators also chose to explicitly represent the metaphorical meaning in the proposition expressed, thus guiding the reader to a particular interpretation of the ad hoc concept HAND* meaning ‘the power/ability of giving bounty’. In this case, the reader would be rewarded by arriving at a relevant interpretation that is consistent with many commentaries of this verse. The lexical adjustment in the translation of this verse can be said to be motivated by both the linguistic effect of contrast and the religious assumptions related to the context of this particular verse. 41

Mai Zaki

However, for the term wajh (face), the study has shown that a couple of translators have taken the liberty to deal with this concept differently. In the analysis, more cases of lexical adjustment in the treatment of the concept FACE are evident. While Khan and Arberry have refrained from any process of adjustment in their translations of the expression ‘face of Allah’, we find that Shakir’s and Sarwar’s translations explicitly reflect an inferential process of broadening of the concept FACE. Yusuf Ali and Pickthall, on the other hand, follow a nonadjustment translation strategy except in two cases each. The analysis has also shown that the interpretation of this concept could be enriched with various degrees of inferential work. Minimal conceptual adjustment would be constrained by strict religious beliefs, narrowing could lead to a meaning of ‘content face’ or ‘vision of the face’, whereas broadening would lead to a more figurative meaning. Cases of pragmatic broadening of the concept FACE have rendered this word as ‘presence’, ‘favor’, ‘pleasure’, ‘goodwill’, etc. Furthermore, in some verses the concept FACE has been considered a case of conceptual metonymy performing the role of a reference tool to the Divine Essence Himself. In all these cases, the TT has clearly semantically encoded a concept that has been pragmatically derived from the concept encoded in the ST. With these translations, the distinction between semantics and pragmatics is highlighted and reflected in the relationship between the ST and the TT. It is worth noting that the lexical encodings in both languages of the concepts HAND and FACE provide similar possibilities for lexical adjustment. This makes the translator’s task much easier in a way. However, in the case of a sacred text, contextual assumptions and implications regarding the interpretation of Qur’anic verses are as significant as the linguistically encoded meaning. While there is no consistent linguistic reason for favouring more lexical adjustment with the concept FACE than with HAND, the study argues that decisions regarding lexical adjustment in the translation of underspecified concepts in the Qur’ān ultimately depend on the range of religious contextual assumptions the translator brings to bear on his own interpretation of the verse. Guided by considerations of relevance, the aim of the translator is to produce a TT that maximizes the resemblance between it and the ST. Within the relevance- theoretic view, concepts are seen as mental representations with access to three different types of information: logical, lexical and encyclopeadic (Sperber & Wilson, 1995: 85– 93). In the case of such Qur’anic concepts attributing physical aspects to the Divine, religious contextual assumptions would form a significant part of the encyclopeadic information such concepts give access to. The source for these contextual assumptions would necessarily come from exegesis books. Based on this, the lexical item that appears in the TT would correspond to what the translator has judged to be the communicated concept in the ST, be it a literal acknowledgement of the Divine possession of a hand or a face, or a broadened sense of power, pleasure or Divine presence. As thorny as this issue might be, there are areas for potential future research. In addition to concepts of HAND and FACE, the Qur’ān is rife with other Divine attributes such as Living, Hearing, Seeing, etc. Also, the whole domain of space and directionality as exemplified in such words as nazal (descend) or istawā (ascend) presents another set of challenging examples worthy of analysis. In all these examples, research would highlight to what extent does the TT mirror the pragmatic adjustment (narrowing/broadening) process made during translation, and the role played by Qur’anic exegesis books in motivating the adjustment process.

Notes 1 The author is grateful to Dr Ahmad Ali, Associate Professor of Translation at the American University of Sharjah, for the many useful discussions about this chapter. Any shortcomings in the chapter remain my own responsibility.

42

Translating the Divine 2 This is particularly important in the case of the Qur’ān since, unlike the Bible for example, a translation of the Qur’ān automatically loses its sacredness as a holy text. The divine form of the Qur’ān is in Arabic and in a particular word order, therefore any other language or order cannot assume the status of the original. For more discussion see Poonawala (1990), Murata and Chittick (1995) and Abdul- Raof (2001). 3 The assessment of ‘success’ in translating sacred texts is a controversial issue per se. The criteria of what is successful and what is not in translating the Qur’ān cannot be taken for granted as it depends on a matrix of factors. Abdel Haleem (2011: 62) explains that ‘the stylistic features of the Qur’an were seen to be too complex and elusive for anyone to try to translate into another language without massive loss’. Given that translations of the Qur’ān are in fact ‘explanatory translations’, Abdel Haleem adds that judging the quality of any such translation has to bear in mind whether ‘the translators were very good scholars of Arabic, were translating into their own languages, and were fully at home in their knowledge of Islam’ (2011: 67). 4 In their discussion of the translation of coordinating conjunctions in the Qur’ān, the authors cite verse 13:43 and argue that one of the translations of this verse has completely distorted the message ‘since the phraseology of the ST has been preserved’ (2016: 688). According to them, ignoring the authority of the mainstream interpretations of this verse led to an erroneous translation which could have been easily restructured to convey the correct message. 5 The word yadd investigated here also includes one instance of the dual form yadāh (his two hands). However, for reasons of space, I have not looked at the plural form of the word. 6 In this chapter, uppercase words indicate a concept (as opposed to the lexical item), and uppercase words followed by one or more asterisk indicate ad hoc instances of that concept. For example, compare the word ‘green’, with the concept GREEN, with the ad hoc concept GREEN* (= naive). 7 According to tafsīr books, this verse is interpreted within the context of the changing fortunes of Jews in Madinah and the Arab Peninsula generally with the rise of Islam; therefore some of them said that Allah is withholding His blessings from them. Other commentators say that this statement is meant to be ridiculing Muslims. On the other hand, the expression that Allah’s hands are widespread is a recurrent theme in the Qur’ān, and it also forms the basis for the Divine Name al- Bāsiṭ (i.e. the One who gives provision). 8 Wilson and Carston (2007) have also mentioned cases where lexical pragmatic processes may lead to semantic change. This could happen when a frequently used ad hoc concept becomes lexicalized and is considered a new encoded sense. A concept, in this case, is said to be a genuine case of polysemy and the interpretation process would rather need disambiguation of the encoded senses to decide which one should be figured in the proposition expressed. It could be argued that the use of the word wajh in the Qur’ān is one of those cases. Its semantically encoded meanings and its use in the Qur’ān could encourage this argument. Whether it is disambiguation or ad hoc concept construction, some inferential work is needed to understand this concept in the Qur’ān.

Further reading Abdel Haleem, M.A.S. (2018) The role of context in interpreting and translating the Qur’an. Journal of Qur’anic Studies 20 (1): 47–66. Ahmed Saeed Balla, A., & Gumaa Siddiek, A. (2017) Complications of translating the meanings of the Holy Qur’an at word level in the English language in relation to frame semantic theory. Advances in Language and Literary Studies 8 (5): 172–178. Allott, N., & Textor, M. (2012) Lexical pragmatic adjustment and the nature of ad-hoc concepts. International Review of Pragmatics 4: 185–208. Carston, R. (2002) Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication. Oxford: Blackwell. El-Awa, S. (2006) Textual Relations in the Qur’an: Relevance, Coherence and Structure. London: Routledge.

References Abbasi, A., & Koosha, M. (2016) Exploring expansion and reduction strategies in two English translations of Masnavi. Advances in Language and Literary Studies 7 (2): 219–225.

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Mai Zaki Abdelaal, N., & Rashid, S. (2015) Semantic loss in the Holy Qur’an translation with special reference to Surah Al-Waqi῾AAa (Chapter of the Event Inevitable). SAGE Open (retrieved June 2016), 1–10. Abdel Haleem, M. (2011) Translating the Qur’an. In: Marshall, D. (ed.) Communicating the Word: Revelation, Translation, and Interpretation in Christianity and Islam. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 59–69. Abdul- Raof, H. (2001) Qur’an Translation: Discourse, Texture and Exegesis. London and New York: Routledge. Abdul- Raof, H. (2004) The Qur’an: Limits of translatability. In: Faiq, S. (ed.) Cultural Encounters in Translation from Arabic. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 91–106. Ahmed, M.F. (2006) Investigating some semantic problems in the translation of the Holy Quran. Adab Al-Rafidayn 43: 61–72. Ali, A.Y. (1983) The Holy Qur’an: Text, Translation and Commentary. Maryland: Amana Corp. Ali, A., Brakhw, M., Nordin, M., & Ismail, S. (2012) Some linguistic difficulties in translating the Holy Qur’an from Arabic into English. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity 2: 588–590. Alizadeh, A., & Jahanjouyan, T. (2016) An evaluation of the English translations of some grammatical patterns in the noble Qur’an. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity 6: 685–690. Al-Qurtubi, M. (2004) Al-Jāmi῾ li-aḥkām al- Qur’ān: Tafsīr al- Qurṭubī (Exegesis of al- Qurtubi). Cairo: Dar Al-Fikr. Al-Tabariy, M.J. (1968) Jāmi῾ al- Bayān fi Tafsīr al- Qur’ān (The Unabridged Commentary on the Qur’an). Beirut: Dār al-Ma’rifah. Al-Zamakhshariy, A.Q. (1407 ). Al-Kashshāf ῾an Ḥaqā’iq Ghawamiḍ Attanzīl (The Revealer of Facts of Obscure Revelations). Cairo: Arabic Publishing House. Arberry, A.J. (1980) The Koran Interpreted. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carston, R. (2002) Linguistic meaning, communicated meaning and cognitive pragmatics. Mind and Language 17: 127–148. Clark, B. (2013) Relevance Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Falkum, I.L. (2007) A relevance-theoretic analysis of concept narrowing and broadening in English and Norwegian original texts and translations. Languages in Contrast 7 (2): 119–142. Gibbs, R. Jr. (1994) The Poetics of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gutt, E.-A. (1989) Translation and relevance. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 1: 75–95. Gutt, E.-A. (2000) Translation and Relevance: Cognition and Context. 2nd edition. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing. Ibn Kathīr, E.A. (1998) Tafsīr al- Qur’ān al- ‘Azīm (The Exegesis of the Great Qur’an). Beirut: Dār alKutub al-Ilmīyya. Ibn Manẓūr, M.B. (1992) Lisān Al-῾Arab. Beirut: Dar Saadir. Ibn Taymiyah, A. (2004) Majmū’ Fatāwā Shaykh al- Islām Aḥmad Ibn Taymiyah. Madinah: King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qur’an. Khalaf, I., & Yusoff, M.Y. (2012) The Qur’an: Limits of untranslatability. Centre of Quranic Research International Journal, 73–85. Khan, M., & Al-Hilali, M. (1999) The Noble Quran: Interpretation of the Meanings of the Noble Qur’an in the English Language. Madinah: Dar-Us-Salam Publications. Lakoff, G., & Turner, M. (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lumbard, J. (2015) The Quran in translation. In: Nasr, S.H. (ed.) The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary. New York: HarperOne, 1601–1607. Murata, S., & Chittick, W.C. (1995) The Vision of Islam. London: I.B. Tauris. Nasr, S.H. (ed.) (2015) The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary. New York: HarperOne, an imprint of Collins Publishers. Nida, E., & Taber, C. (1969) The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: E.J. Brill. OED Online (2016) Oxford University Press. Retrieved June 2016. Pickthall, M. (1969) The Meaning of the Glorious Qur’an: An Explanatory Translation. London: George Allen & Unwin. Poonawala, I.K. (1990) Translatability of the Qur’an: Theological and literary considerations. In: Goldenberg, D. (ed.) Translation of Scripture. Philadelphia: Annenberg Research Institute, 161–192. Rebollar, B.E. (2015) A relevance-theoretic perspective on metonymy. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 173: 191–198.

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Translating the Divine Sajjadi, M., & Anari, S. (2008) Evaluation of English translations of the Qur’an. Islam Azad University Publications, 89–110. Sarwar, M. (2001) The Holy Quran. New Jersey: Islamic Seminary, Inc. Shakir, M. (1926) On the translation of the Koran into foreign languages. Muslim World 16: 161–165. Shakir, M.H. (1999) The Qurʼan: [al- Qurʼān al-ḥakīm]. 11th US edition. Elmhurst: Tahrike Tarsile Qurʼan. Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1986/1995) Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell. Wilson, D. (2003) Relevance theory and lexical pragmatics. Rivista di Linguistica 15 (2): 273–291. Wilson, D., & Carston, R. (2007) A unitary approach to lexical pragmatics: Relevance, inference and ad hoc concepts. In: Burton-Roberts, N. (ed.) Pragmatics. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 230–259. Zhonggang, S. (2006) A relevance theory perspective on translating the implicit information in literary texts. Journal of Translation 2: 43–60.

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3 TRANSLATING SACRED SOUNDS Encoding tajwīd rules in automatically generated IPA transcriptions of Quranic Arabic Claire Brierley, Majdi Sawalha and Hanem El-Farahaty Introduction Tajwīd (‫ﺗﺠﻮﻳﺪ‬, elocution) is a long-standing disciplinary sub-field of Islamic Studies and defines theory and practice in the oral tradition of Quranic recitation (Denny, 1989). The word ‫ﻗﺮﺁﻥ‬ qurʾān itself is a verbal noun derived from the verb ‫ ﻗﺮﺃ‬qaraʾ with a literal meaning of reciting or reading (aloud); and the word tajwīd from the triliteral root j- w- d has wider connotations of ‘making correct’ and ‘beautifying’ (Gade, 2004: 485). The motivation for this rule- set is therefore to avoid potential ambiguity and misunderstanding due to poor delivery and hence reception of the divine message. We have developed transcription technology for Quranic and Modern Standard Arabic that outputs phonemic transcriptions of stand-alone Arabic words using the International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA (Sawalha et al., 2014). The Arabic-IPA mapping scheme underlying our transcription technology is an important contribution of our work (Brierley et al., 2016). It is informed by tajwīd theory, by the work of ancient Arabic linguists such as Sibawayh (d.c. 181/ 798), and by modern phonetics (Brierley et al., 2016). Another major contribution is the dataset used to develop and evaluate our transcription algorithms. This is the Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān (BAQ) dataset for machine learning which maps each word in the Qurʾān to a set of linguistic labels or annotations (Sawalha et al., 2014; Brierley et al., 2012). This dataset or corpus is described in the section “The Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān dataset”. Our objectives in automating Arabic- IPA transcription are twofold: (1) to generate a pronunciation guide in a standard character set (IPA) over the entire text of the Qurʾān for the benefit of non-native Arabic-speakers; and (2) to generate canonical pronunciation or citation forms for entries in Arabic learner dictionaries. While mastering part of the IPA is a challenge for learners, this alphabet was chosen because it enables representation of an equivalent phoneme across the world’s languages via the same symbolic form (e.g. the symbol /ʃ/ denoting the “s” in “  sugar”; the “ch” in “Chirac”; and realization of the letters “ш”, “‫”ﺵ‬, “ ‫ ”שׁ‬in Russian, Arabic and Hebrew respectively). Moreover, many Arabic phonemes are represented in familiar “roman” script in IPA, so it is not a case of learning an entire new alphabet (see Arabic-IPA chart in Appendix 3.1). Our objectives and approach are different, therefore, from recent work in automatic speech recognition for Arabic, where the system outputs 46

Translating sacred sounds

phonetic (rather than phonemic) transcriptions of Arabic words to match the pronunciation of individual speakers (Ramsay et al., 2014). Guidance in the form of IPA phonemic transcriptions is an integral part of learner dictionaries for English, such as the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2014). IPA transcriptions are also planned for bilingual dictionaries of colloquial Arabic dialects; these transcriptions will again differ from ours by displaying allophonic variations characteristic of the region (Graff and Maamouri, 2012). In this chapter we document our most recent work, which involves: (1) automatic assignment of primary stress, following syllabification, over the existing phonemic transcription tier in our Boundary- Annotated Qurʾān corpus; and (2) automatic capture and encoding of pronunciation rules governing long vowels and the consonantal subset {‫}ﺏ ﺩ ﺝ ﻁ ﻕ‬. This meticulous characterization and prescription of Arabic phonemes as sacred sounds in tajwīd theory and practice lends itself to algorithmic formulation. Thus, we construe automated Arabic-IPA transcription as a form of translation, with computation as a translation intermediary. Our software outputs Arabic word forms represented as stressed and syllabified IPA sequences, with further “annotation” of tajwīd prosody, for the benefit of non-native Arabic-speaking language learners and students of the Qurʾān.

The Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān dataset We have previously reported on our Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān (BAQ) dataset where Arabic words in both Othmani and Modern Standard Arabic (henceforth MSA) scripts are mapped to multiple information tiers of linguistic and symbolic information (Sawalha et al., 2014; Brierley et al., 2012). An example would be the MSA form ‫ِﻴﻢ‬ َ ‫( ْﺍﻟ ُﻤ ْﺴﺘَﻘ‬the-straight) mapped to its part-of-speech (nominal), its verse-end boundary status as a major break, and its basic phonemic transcription (ʔalmustaqiːma)—but see Figure 3.4 for more examples. The rationale behind this corpus, as distinct from other Qurʾān-based projects such as Corpus Coranicum1 and the Quranic Arabic Corpus,2 is that it was originally designed for machine learning experimentation at the prosody- syntax interface in Arabic, and development and evaluation of Arabic chunking algorithms (Sawalha et al., 2012). Corpus Coranicum is an ongoing research project from the Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and is accessible online (cf. Neuwirth, 2010). Their aim is to document the historical development of the Qurʾān, both as an oral tradition and as a manuscript, and in terms of Quranic exegesis. The Quranic Arabic Corpus is an online resource detailing and visualizing the Arabic grammar (known as ‫ ﺇﻋﺮﺍﺏ‬iʿrāb), syntax and morphology of each word in the Qurʾān rendered in Othmani script (Dukes, 2014). Spelling variations between the Othmani and MSA scripts are discussed in the section “Tokenization in the Boundary- Annotated Qur’ān”; and differences between phonemic transcriptions in the Boundary- Annotated Qurʾān, and romanization and transliteration schemes used in Corpus Coranicum and the Quranic Arabic Corpus are discussed in the section “Automating stress assignment in pause form pronunciation”.

Prosodic speech corpora Our precursor for the Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān is the Prosody and Part-of-Speech Spoken English Corpus (ProPOSEC) dataset (Brierley, 2011; Brierley and Atwell, 2010) where word tokens in a version of the Machine Readable Spoken English Corpus (MARSEC)3 have been automatically tagged with an array of prosodic and syntactic annotations which can readily be adapted as input features to a phrase break classifier. Figure 3.1 shows an extract from ProPOSEC for the phrase a similar flight. Each word token is mapped to its part- of- speech 47

Claire Brierley et al.

Word tokens

Syntactic annotation

Prosodic annotation

a similar flight

AT JJ NN

@ 1 1 ‘1 ‘1:1 ‘sIm@l@R 3 100 ‘sI-mI-l@R ‘sI:1 mI:0 l@R:0 flaIt 1 1 ‘fl2t ‘fl2t:1

Figure 3.1 Example entries in ProPOSEC

(POS) plus symbolic prosodic information as follows: the Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (SAMPA) phonemic transcription; syllable count; lexical stress pattern; a stressed and syllabified phonemic transcription using the DISC character set; and syllable segments assigned to primary stress weightings.

Boundary annotation tiers in the Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān (version 1.0) A corpus annotated with prosodic boundaries as well as POS is a prerequisite for phrase break prediction. The Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān is unique in reconciling a verified Arabic phrase break annotation scheme derived from Ḥafṣ bin ‘Āṣim, a traditional and widely used Quranic recitation style, with an established benchmark for British English inherited from the Lancaster/IBM Spoken English Corpus or SEC (Taylor and Knowles, 1988). Tajwīd editions of the Qurʾān are marked up with prescriptive boundary annotations, constituting a kind of punctuation to help speakers parse the text during recitation. Figure 3.2 shows the set of boundary annotations and their denotation in Ḥafṣ bin ‘Āṣim, as used throughout the Gulf and the Levant. While some pauses during recitation will be speaker- dependent (e.g. accidental pauses), implementing the Ḥafṣ bin ‘Āṣim schema throughout is a linguistically sound solution to producing a normalized version of the corpus with authentic boundary mark-up. In Brierley et al. (2012), we collapsed the eight degrees of boundary strength in Ḥafṣ (i.e. three major boundary types, four minor boundary types, and one prohibited stop) into the {major, minor, none} set familiar from SEC and MARSEC. An additional novelty was that we then segmented the text into notional sentences based on the compulsory, recommended and prohibited stops in tajwīd mark-up. As well as delineating grammatical units, these sentences are often realized as sequences of intonation units which resemble mainstream sentences in their ‘feeling of closure’ (Croft, 1995: 841). A selection of data from the Boundary Annotated Qurʾān, including boundary and sentence mark-up, appears in Figure 3.3 in the next section.

Tokenization in the Boundary-Annotated Qur’ān As reported in Brierley et al. (2012), the Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān was initially compiled by merging morphological tags extracted from an early version of the Quranic Arabic Corpus (Dukes et al., 2010), with a machine readable version of the text rendered in MSA script from the Tanzil4 project (Zarrabi- Zadeh, 2007– 2019). Readers will note that the Quranic Arabic Corpus uses the Othmani script throughout. The word count for the Qurʾān in Othmani script is 77,430 words while the word count for the Qurʾān in MSA script is 77,797 words when tokenizing the text on whitespace (Sawalha, 2011). This difference in word count largely stems from spelling variations between the two scripts. For example, the vocative particle ‫ ﻳﺎ‬yā is affixed to its dependent noun in Othmani script, but originally appears as a stand-alone token in the MSA version (e.g. the word ‫ﻳَ ٰـ ُﻤﻮ َﺳ ٰﻰ‬ 48

Translating sacred sounds

﴾٥٦﴿

End of verse symbol and compulsory major break Major and compulsory verse-medial break completing the meaning of a phrase Major break: a break is allowed and preferable Minor break: the reader can continue without pausing, but a pause is preferable Minor break permitted: readers can pause if they wish, but it is better not to Minor break signified by dropping the short vowel on the pre-boundary letter Alternative minor boundary sites in the same phrase: either is allowed but not both Non-break: pausing is not permitted as it would change the meaning of the verse

‫ۘـ‬ ‫ۚـ‬ ‫ۗـ‬ ‫ۖـ‬ ‫ۜـ‬ ‫ۛـ ۛـ‬ ‫ۙـ‬

Figure 3.2 Symbolic tajwīd annotation of pauses (waqf) in Ḥafṣ and incorporated in prosodic boundary mark-up in the Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān

Othmani ‫ﺳ ٰﻰ‬ َ ‫ٰﻳَ ُﻤﻮ‬ ‫ٰﻳَﺄ َ ْﻫ َﻞ‬ ‫ٰﻳَﻠَ ْﻴﺘ َﻨِﻰ‬ ‫َﻭﺃ َﻟﱠ ِﻮ‬ ‫ﺴﻰ‬ َ ‫ٰﻳَ ِﻌﻴ‬ ‫ٰﻳَﻘَ ْﻮ ِﻡ‬

yāmūsā yā’ahla yālaytanī wa’allaw yā‘īsā yāqawm

Modern Standard Arabic “Grouped” MSA form spelling in BAQ

English interlinear

‫ﺳﻰ‬ َ ‫ﻳَﺎ ُﻣﻮ‬ ‫ﻳَﺎ ﺃ َ ْﻫ َﻞ‬ ‫ﻳَﺎ ﻟَ ْﻴﺘ َﻨِﻲ‬ ‫َﻭﺃ َ ْﻥ ﻟَ ِﻮ‬ ‫ﺴﻰ‬ َ ‫ﻳَﺎ ِﻋﻴ‬ ‫ﻳَﺎ ﻗَ ْﻮ ِﻡ‬

O Musa (Moses)! O people of I wish if I had And if not O Isa (Jesus)! O people

yā mūsā yā ’ahla yā laytanī wa’n law yā ‘īsā yā qawm

‫ﺳﻰ‬ َ ‫ﻳَﺎ ُﻣﻮ‬ ‫ﻳَﺎﺃ َ ْﻫ َﻞ‬ ‫ﻳَﺎﻟَ ْﻴﺘ َﻨِﻲ‬ ‫َﻭﺃ َ ْﻧﻠَ ِﻮ‬ ‫ﺴﻰ‬ َ ‫ﻳَﺎ ِﻋﻴ‬ ‫ﻳَﺎﻗَ ْﻮ ِﻡ‬

yāmūsā yā’ahla yālaytanī wa’allaw yā’īsā yāqawm

Figure 3.3 Examples of spelling/tokenization variations between the Othmani script and MSA script

yāmūsā “O Mūsā, ‘Moses’!” in Othmani script versus ‫ﺳﻰ‬ َ ‫ ﻳَﺎ ُﻣﻮ‬yā mūsā in MSA). Figure 3.3 gives further examples of spelling variations between the two scripts. While one-to-one Othmani-MSA mapping was accomplished automatically, spelling variations between the two writing schemes were resolved manually. Importantly, two MSA tokens (as in ‫ﺳﻰ‬ َ ‫ ﻳَﺎ ُﻣﻮ‬yā mūsā) were grouped together where appropriate to match a single Othmani token (as in ‫ﺳ ٰﻰ‬ َ ‫ ﻳَ ٰـ ُﻤﻮ‬yāmūsā) to preserve alignment with morphological tags extracted from the Quranic Arabic Corpus. Hence ‫ﺳﻰ‬ َ ‫ ﻳَﺎ ُﻣﻮ‬yā mūsā is grouped as ‫ﺳﻰ‬ َ ‫ ﻳَﺎ ُﻣﻮ‬yāmūsā in our MSA corpus tier. These morphological tags were then processed and mapped automatically onto two coarse-grained syntactic annotation schemes (3 and 10 POS categories) to mine syntactic correlates of prosodic boundaries in the corpus for Arabic phrase break prediction (Sawalha et al., 2012; Brierley et al., 2012).

Arabic-IPA phonemic transcription in the Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān (version 2.0) Phonemic transcriptions are an important element of prosodic datasets and speech corpora for English, for example: ProPOSEC, (Aix)- MARSEC and SEC for British English; and the Boston University Radio News Corpus for American English (Ostendorf et al., 1996). The Boundary- Annotated Qurʾān (version 2.0) uses the IPA for automated Arabic transcription rather than the Buckwalter transliteration scheme (as in the Quranic Arabic Corpus), or one of the many romanization alphabets for Arabic (as in Corpus Coranicum). This is another major distinction between our work and the aforementioned Qurʾān projects; this is discussed in more detail in the section “Automating stress assignment in pause form pronunciation”. 49

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Tracking IDs for chapter, verse and word

MSA script Part of speech

70 70 70 70 70

‫َﻭ َﻻ‬ ‫ﻳَ ْﺴﺄ َ ُﻝ‬ ‫َﺣ ِﻤﻴ ٌﻢ‬ ً ‫َﺣ ِﻤﻴ َﻤﺎ‬ ‫ﺼ ُﺮﻭﻧَ ُﻬ ْﻢ‬ ‫ﻳُﺒَ ﱠ‬

10 10 10 10 11

1 2 3 4 1

Boundary symbols

3 POS 10 POS

tajwīd major/ minor

P V N N V

۞ ‫ۚـ‬

PARTICLE VERB NOUN NOUN VERB

|| ||

Sentences IPA phonemic transcription

Buckwalter transliteration

terminal terminal

walaA yaso>alu HamiymN HamiymaAF yubaS~ aruwnahumo

walaː jasʔalu ħamiːmun ħamiːman jubasˤsˤaruːnahum

Figure 3.4 Selected data tiers in the Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān (v.2.0) for Q.70.10–11

Figure 3.4 shows selected information tiers in the Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān where entries span Q.70.10 and a fragment of Q.70.11. It is important to note that our transcription algorithm operates over the Qurʾān rendered in MSA rather than Othmani script, although the latter is also represented as a separate tier in our corpus. The column headed “MSA script” in Figure 3.4 identifies the individual word tokens and character sequences that need to be decoded and processed in order to generate the equivalent IPA transcriptions. The Buckwalter scheme (right most column) transliterates every Arabic grapheme, including any diacritics, into an ASCII character to ensure correct display via a typical western keyboard and text editor; it is only incidentally (and not intentionally) readable for persons brought up on “romanized” alphabets.

The Arabic-IPA mapping algorithm and transcription tool: overview Automated Arabic- IPA transcription is not a trivial task. Our first step was development and verification of an Arabic-IPA mapping scheme; this is described in detail in Brierley et al. (2016) so will not be covered here. Instead we will focus on our Arabic- IPA mapping algorithm. This has two stages: 1. Pre-processing: Arabic word letters are mapped to their IPA character equivalent on a oneto-one basis using the tokenization module of the Standard Arabic Language Morphological Analysis (SALMA) Tagger (Sawalha, 2011). 2. Rule- development: linguistic rules are extracted and applied to modify the one-to-one mapping and produce the correct IPA transcription of the input Arabic word.

The SALMA Tagger The aforementioned SALMA Tagger is a suite of Arabic language processing tools for automatic, fine-grained morphological analysis of Arabic text (Sawalha and Atwell, 2013; Sawalha, 2011). The Tagger comprises a series of modules to be used sequentially for the following functions: tokenization; lemmatization and stemming; pattern generation; vowelization; and morphological tagging. The system draws on dedicated language resources, notably the fine- grained SALMA tag set with 22 morphological features, plus various lexica such as the SALMA ABC Lexicon (Sawalha and Atwell, 2010). Modules such as the Tokenizer can 50

Translating sacred sounds

also be used individually, as illustrated in the section “Further challenges and examples in full-form Arabic-IPA transcription”.

The two-stage mapping algorithm: SALMA pre-processing In the pre-processing stage, Arabic word letters are mapped to their IPA character equivalent on a one-to-one basis using the tokenization module of the SALMA Tagger (Sawalha, 2011). A 58- entry dictionary was constructed to facilitate this one- to- one mapping from Arabic to IPA. The dictionary contains entries where an Arabic characters are mapped to single IPA characters (e.g. ‫ ﺏ‬bā mapped to /b/), or to double IPA characters (e.g. ‫ ﺍ‬alif mapped to /aː/). The SALMA Tokenizer resolves gemination ( )šaddah and the prolongation letter (‫ )ﺁ‬into their originals. It also limits each letter of the processed word to only one diacritic. The output is an Arabic word string which best suits the one- to- one mapping of Arabic letters and diacritics to the IPA alphabet. For example, the word ‫ ﺁ َﻣﻨﱠﺎ‬āmannā (we believed) is pre-processed by the Tokenizer into ‫ ءﺍ َﻣ ْﻨﻨَﺎ‬which is then transcribed on a one-to-one basis by replacing each Arabic character with its equivalent IPA symbol(s) using our constructed 58-entry dictionary. The output of this one- to- one mapping stage for our example is /ʔaːmannaaː/ . This example has one error as highlighted in bold, namely: there is orthographic duplication of the vowel sound and any mapping against the preceding short vowel diacritic needs to be deleted.

The two-stage mapping algorithm: the rule-development stage Around 50 specialized rules were developed and then ordered to resolve failures (such as/ʔaːmannaaː/ instead of /ʔaːmannaː/ for ‫ )ﺁ َﻣﻨﱠﺎ‬resulting from the one- to- one mapping stage in order to produce the correct Arabic-IPA transcription. One such rule applies to words ending in tanwīn fatḥa which is one- to- one mapped into / aaːan/. For example, the word ً ‫ﺃ َ ْﺑ َﻮﺍﺑَﺎ‬ abwāban (doors) is initially transcribed as /ʔabwaaːbaaːan/, and then corrected by rule to output/ʔabwaːban/ . Another rule deals with the definite article by correcting the one- toone mapping from /aːl/ to /ʔal/ in full form transcription before non- coronal consonants, namely: the set of so-called lunar letters {‫}ﺍ ﺏ ﺝ ﺡ ﺥ ﻉ ﻍ ﻑ ﻕ ﻙ ﻡ ﻩ ﻭ ﻱ‬.

Further challenges and examples in full-form Arabic-IPA transcription Our mapping automates Arabic- IPA transcription and outputs (in the first instance) a fullform5 phonemic transcription of each Arabic word. Challenges in the pre- processing stage include: resolution of hamza as /ʔ/ , regardless of form or shape {‫ ﺉ‬،‫ ﺅ‬،‫ ﺃ‬،‫ ;}ء‬and mapping pharyngeals such as ‫ ﺹ‬and ‫ ﺽ‬into two IPA characters: /sʕ/, /dʕ/. Transcription of ‫ َﺣ ِﻤﻴ ٌﻢ‬and ً ‫ َﺣ ِﻤﻴ َﻤﺎ‬in Figure 3.3 as /ħamiːmun/ and /ħamiːman/ respectively raises two further issues. One is associated with resolution of tanwīn { } as /un/, /an/, or /in/. The second is associated with elimination of redundant grapheme- phoneme transformations inherited from the pre-processing stage: a literal, one-to-one mapping will output /ħamiiːmun/ and /ħamiiːmaaːan/ for ‫ َﺣ ِﻤﻴ ٌﻢ‬and ً ‫ َﺣ ِﻤﻴ َﻤﺎ‬unless corrected by rule. Figures 3.5 and 3.6 illustrate the application of staged letter-to-sound rules in our algorithm for accurate transcription of ‫ﺴ َﻤﺎ ُء‬ ‫ ﺍﻟ ﱠ‬the sky, and ‫ َﻛﺎﻧُﻮﺍ‬were. In each figure, the first two rows show SALMA tokenization of the original Arabic script, where readers should note that the rightmost character (i.e. the first character in the Arabic word) is processed first but that processing is carried out from left to right. The third row in each figure shows intermediate results after the one-to-one mapping stage; and the fourth row identifies issues to be resolved 51

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1 2 3 4 5

[(‫ﺍ‬, ), (‫ﻝ‬, ), (‫ﺱ‬, ), (‫ﻡ‬, ), (‫ﺍ‬, ), (‫ء‬, )] ‫ﺍ‬ ‫ﻝ‬ ‫ﺱ‬ aː l s a X X ʔa s s a

‫ﻡ‬ m m

a X -

‫ﺍ‬ aː

-

‫ء‬ ʔ

u



-

ʔ

u

Figure 3.5 One-to-one mapping of Arabic graphemes to IPA symbols needs further correction by rule

1 2 3 4 5

[(‫ﻙ‬, ), (‫ﺍ‬, ), (‫ﻥ‬, ), (‫ﻭ‬, ), (‫ﺍ‬, )] ‫ﻙ‬ ‫ﺍ‬ k a aː X k aː -

‫ﻥ‬ n

u X -

n

‫ﻭ‬ w X uː

-

‫ﺍ‬ aː X -

-

Figure 3.6 One-to-one mapping of Arabic graphemes to IPA symbols needs further correction by rule

automatically by rule (and highlighted as X). The final row shows the resulting full-form IPA transcription: /ʔassamaːʔu/ (Figure 3.5) and /kaːnuː/ (Figure 3.6). Issues addressed in Figure 3.5 are: assimilation associated with the definite article in certain contexts, and removal of duplication (due to a redundant short vowel diacritic). Issues addressed in Figure 3.6 are: removal of duplication (again due to a redundant short vowel diacritic), and discrimination via context of dual-purpose Arabic graphemes: here the waw in ‫ َﻛﺎﻧُﻮﺍ‬needs to be transcribed as a long vowel, not a consonant.

Automatically generated syllabified IPA transcriptions of Arabic words The ProPOSEC dataset dedicates several annotation tiers to symbolic representation of syllable structure and syllable weight for each entry (see the section “Prosodic speech corpora”). Such symbolic representations of prosody, as distinct from continuous variables such as fundamental frequency and duration, can be incorporated as features into a phrase break classifier as language model (Brierley, 2011; Ostendorf, 2010). For example, a rule-based chunker from Atterer and Klein (2002) first identifies function word groups, and then bundles these into intonational phrases (IPs) by limiting the number of syllables in an IP to a variable threshold figure default (setting is 13 syllables per IP) in the absence of intervening punctuation. One application for the Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān is developing and evaluating Arabic chunking algorithms (see the section “The Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān dataset”); hence syllable information is included as an annotation tier. A detailed account of our algorithm for automatic syllabification of Arabic is intended for a future publication. We therefore summarize the process in Figure 3.7, which shows syllabification over the IPA form for ‫ِﺑﻨُﻮ ِﺭ ِﻫﻢ‬ (their light). First, a CV pattern is extracted from the IPA transcription, where C = consonant; V = vowel; and VV = long vowel or diphthong. Then CV patterns are used to identify syllable boundaries, where the set of possible syllable types for Arabic is defined as {CV, CVV, CVC, CVVC, CVCC}. All syllables begin with a consonant, but no syllable begins with a consonant cluster (Ryding, 2014). Hence doubled shaddah letters will tend to appear either side of a syllable boundary. 52

Translating sacred sounds

‫ﺑِﻨُﻮ ِﺭ ِﻫ ْﻢ‬ b i C V CV bi /bi-nuː-ri-him/

n C CVV nuː

uː VV

r C CV ri

i V

h C CVC him

i V

m C

Figure 3.7 Our syllabification algorithm for Arabic involves mapping from automatically generated IPA transcriptions to CV clusters which then define syllable boundaries

Automatic assignment of primary stress A further refinement of the full form IPA transcription for ‫ ﺑِﻨُﻮ ِﺭ ِﻫﻢ‬in Figure 3.7 would be: / biˈnuː-ri-him/, where primary stress has been assigned to the second syllable by prefixing it with a small vertical modifier (ˈ) in the usual way. We have automated primary stress assignment over the whole text of the Qurʾān in version 3.0 of our corpus. The rules for assigning lexical stress in full-form pronunciation of Arabic lend themselves to algorithmic formulation. We adopt the definition of full-form pronunciation as given in Ryding (2014), namely: Arabic words pronounced out-of-context as independent units, including pronunciation of all desinential inflexion markers. Lexical stress in Arabic is more predictable than in English; it is non- phonemic and determined by number and weight of syllables. The set of Arabic syllable types in the section “Automatically generated syllabified IPA transcriptions of Arabic words” contains one light syllable {CV}, two heavy syllables {CVV, CVC}, and two “super-heavy” syllables {CVVC, CVCC}; and readers will note that all syllables begin with a consonant. Primary stress is then assigned following the constraints defined in Ryding (2014), and in the stress algorithm for Classical Arabic in Watson (2011) as follows: • •



it always falls on the first syllable of bi- syllabic words (e.g. ‫ ﺑِ ِﻪ‬/ˈbi- hi/ , in it; ً ‫ِﺭ ْﺯﻗَﺎ‬ /ˈriz-qan/, livelihood); for words of three or more syllables, it falls on the penultimate syllable if it is heavy (e.g. ‫ ﺍﻟ ﱠﺮ ْﺣ َﻤ ِﻦ‬/ʔar- raħ-ˈmaː- ni/ , the Most Gracious, CVC- CVC-CVV- CV; ‫ ﺁ َﻣﻨﱠﺎ‬/ʔaːˈman- naː/ , we believed, CVV-CVC- CVV); otherwise it falls on the antepenult as in: ‫ ﻧُ ْﺆ ِﻣ َﻦ‬/ˈnuʔ-mi-na/, we believe, CVC-CV-CV; for monosyllables, a primary stress mark is inserted at the beginning of the word as in: ‫ ﻓِﻲ‬/ˈfiː/, CVV.

Automating stress assignment in pause form pronunciation Ryding (2014) and Watson (2011) also specify another rule governing primary stress when words are pronounced in pause form (i.e. without desinential inflexion marks). This rule states that primary stress falls on the final syllable when it is super- heavy {CVVC, CVCC}. The most recent version of our corpus now includes a new, automatically generated phonemic transcription tier which implements several transformations over the existing CV and IPA tiers, including transformation of verse terminal and/ or pre- boundary words. This again differentiates our work from Corpus Coranicum and the Quranic Arabic Corpus. Figure 3.8 compares transcription of Q.1.3 in all three corpora, abbreviated as CC (Corpus Coranicum), QAC (Quranic Arabic Corpus) and BAQ (Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān). 53

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CC QAC BAQ

Q.1.3 Q.1.3 Q.1.3

r-raḥmāni r-raḥīmi al-raḥmāni l-raḥīmi ʔarraħmaːni rraħiːm

Figure 3.8 An illustration of differences in transcription in Quranic Arabic projects

BAQ v4 Target

Q.1.3 Q.1.3

ʔarraħmaːnirraħiːm ʔar-raħ-ˈmaː-nir-ra-ˈħiːm

Figure 3.9 Target transcription of verses and phrasal components within verses in future work

QAC does not implement any rules for assimilation of lām when the definite article precedes “sun” letters or coronal consonants, namely, the set: {‫}ﺕ ﺙ ﺫ ﺩ ﺭ ﺯ ﺱ ﺵ ﺹ ﺽ ﻁ ﻅ ﻝ ﻥ‬ which are produced with the flexible front part of the tongue. CC assimilates the lām of the definite article before coronals in every case but does not consider refining this rule when the definite article is in phrase-initial position. According to the rules of tajwīd governing al-idghām (assimilation), BAQ assimilates the lām of the definite article before coronals but retains the sound of the alif in (‫ )ﺍﻝ‬when the definite article begins the verse/phrase: /ʔarraħmaːni/ (BAQ) versus r-raḥmāni (CC). BAQ also assumes a pause in respect of tajwīd boundary annotations when a word is in verse/phrase final position. This entails dropping the case mark and associated short vowel sound on the final word where appropriate: / rraħiːm/ (BAQ) rather than rraḥīmi (CC). Readers will note the reduction in syllable count here. It also entails substitution of the long vowel alif for tanwīn fatḥa in pre-boundary words. Thus, our target transcription for ‫ َﺣﻤِ ﻴ ٌﻢ َﺣﻤِ ﻴ ًﻤﺎ‬in Q.70.10 (cf. Figure 3.4) would be the pause form /ħamiːmun ħamiːmaː/ rather than the full form transcription of /ħamiːmun ħamiːman/ from the section “Further challenges and examples in full-form Arabic-IPA transcription”. Though not implemented yet, our target transcriptions will be fully contextualized, presenting phrases demarcated with boundaries as uninterrupted sequences of stressed and unstressed syllables (Figure 3.9). A moot point is resolution of geminate coronals resulting from assimilation of the definite article. Syllables in Arabic never start with a consonant cluster; hence we must attach the first /r/ in /rraħiːm/ to the preceding syllable or drop it altogether in the final transcription. A further refinement which has bearing when generating target stressed and syllabified contextual transcriptions is to observe verse-internal tajwīd pause marks. One example is the recommended in-verse pause represented by the superscript /ʤiːm/ ‫ ۚـ‬in Figure 3.3; this is an important prosodic and syntactic marker, rather like conventional punctuation. Hence the word ‫ﺼ ُﺮﻭﻧَ ُﻬ ْﻢ‬ ‫ﻳُﺒَ ﱠ‬ (‘… they will be put in sight of each other …’)6 would need to be transcribed as a discrete sense unit if the reader/reciter pauses here.

The tajwīd concept of prolongation or madd There is a subset of tajwīd recitation rules governing vowel durations known as madd or prolongation. The natural madd letters are the long vowels alif, wāw and yāʾ(‫)ﻱ ﻭ ﺍ‬. These are conceived as being twice as long as short vowels and in the first instance, are held for two “counts” during recitation. In phonological terms, counts are synonymous with morae, units 54

Translating sacred sounds

denoting syllable weight. Hence normal prolongation also applies to the Arabic diphthongs aw, ‫َـ ْو‬, and ay, ‫َـ ْي‬: their natural value or default setting is again two counts. In certain contexts, however, the duration of long vowels and diphthongs is prolonged for four, five or six counts during Quranic recitation. This is termed abnormal prolongation. The full set of tajwīd rules defining madd need not concern us here; we will restrict the discussion to one category of particular interest: madd before pause. In this context, the madd letter (or diphthong) can be prolonged for up to six morae as long as the pause in question is a genuine verse/phrase boundary and not simply a disfluency. In tajwīd editions of the Qurʾān, it is customary to use colour coding to annotate and thus highlight all sites where tajwīd rules apply, including the explicit association and signification of boundaries with final syllable lengthening (i.e. madd before pause). Thus, the theory and practice of Quranic tajwīd provides authoritative evidence from the oral tradition for the dominant stress rule for pause form pronunciation discussed in Ryding (2014) and Watson (2011) (see the section “Automating stress assignment in pause form pronunciation”), where a superheavy final (i.e. pre- pausal) syllable of type {CVVC, CVCC} automatically attracts primary stress. We have already identified one such case when comparing transcriptions for Q.1.3 in the QAC, CC and BAQ corpora (cf. Figures 3.8 and 3.9). Another interesting example is ‫ َﻛ ْﻴﺪَ ﺍ ْﻟ َﺨﺎﺋِﻨِﻴ َﻦ‬, literally the plan of the betrayers (Q.12.52), where ‫ ﺍ ْﻟ َﺨﺎﺋِﻨِﻴ َﻦ‬is verse terminal. In a reputable tajwīd edition of the Qurʾān,7 madd annotation specifies prolongation of alif  before hamza (four or five counts), and prolongation of yā’ in the final syllable (up to six counts), such that the target running IPA transcription in the Boundary- Annotated Qurʾān would be: /ˈkaj- dal- xaː-ʔi-ˈniːn/ . Readers will note this is a stressed and syllabified transcription which includes assimilation. Moreover, if we were to adopt the usual colour- coding system for tajwīd annotation, we could distinguish the two different categories of “abnormal” madd here as in: /ˈkaj- dal- xaː-ʔi-ˈniːn/ . This phrase then carries three main stresses or beats: (1) on the diphthong (a case of natural madd so not colourcoded); (2) on the long vowel before hamza; (3) on the final super- heavy syllable {CVVC}. These beats increase in intensity (i.e. duration) over the phrase.

Evaluation of automatic stress assignment over Quranic Arabic Prosody is inherently variable. There is no single ‘gold standard’ prosodic realization or representation of a given utterance, and there is variation in the prosodic performance of individuals as well as across different speakers (Hirschberg, 1999: 7). Human judgement is therefore as essential part of any evaluation procedure for automatically generated prosodic annotation to test the acceptability of annotations in terms of accuracy and naturalness (Viana, 2003). Lexical stress in Arabic is not fixed, as in languages such as Icelandic, where stress usually falls on the first syllable of a word, or Polish where it usually falls on the penultimate syllable. Nor is it varied as in English. In Arabic, stress placement is said to be regular (Ryding, 2014). Though stress in Arabic may fall on different syllables, this follows predictable patterns which can be captured by rule, and which have previously been discussed in the section “Automatic assignment of primary stress”. In this section, we focus on outputs from automated stress assignment over Quranic Arabic, and expound particularly challenging examples for human evaluation; a detailed account of the algorithm itself is reserved for another paper.

Measuring inter-annotator agreement We undertook two small inter-annotator agreement studies to ensure that our principal annotator understood the annotation task of checking automatically assigned primary stress 55

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weightings in our dataset. Prior to this, our annotator had been thoroughly acquainted with our Arabic-IPA mapping and the rules for allocating primary stress over full form Arabic pronunciation forms as defined in Ryding (2014) and Watson (2011). The first study was conducted over an unseen 2,000-word sample by two human annotators, one of whom was a native Arabic-speaking linguist, and the other a computational linguist. The annotation task entailed inspection of automatically assigned primary stress weightings for all words in the sample, and marking agreement or disagreement with the program output in each case. A similar study could not be carried out between human versus machine annotator in this case because the Kappa measure is not recommended when agreement is rare for one category but not with another (Viera and Garrett, 2005). The Kappa statistic is generally used to measure concordance in categorical sorting between two or more annotators. This statistic is a ratio which expresses: (1) the excess of observed over expected concordant items, versus (2) the chance expected number of nonconcordant items (i.e. observed over expected accuracy/ random chance). It is calculated via the formula: ((observed accuracy – expected accuracy) / (1 – expected accuracy)). The results of our first study appear in Table 3.1 and represent a fair level of inter- annotator agreement, with a Kappa coefficient of 0.38 and a 95 per cent confidence interval. This can be interpreted as 38 per cent agreement (concordance) in excess of coincidental or chance agreement. In this first study, our two annotators agreed on 1,987 instances (1,983 Yes and 4 No) and the observed accuracy is therefore: 0.9935 (i.e. 1,987/ 2,000). The calculation for expected accuracy is less straightforward, and involves computation over marginal frequencies for each annotator in respect of each class. The value for expected accuracy in our case is 0.9896, calculated as: (((1,992*1,987) / 2,000) + ((13*8) / 2,000)) / 2,000). This value is then inserted into the final equation for computing Kappa: (0.9935–0.9896) / (1–0.9896) = 0.375, rounded up to 0.38. As previously stated, the level of agreement on the first study is rated as fair for Kappa values in the range: 0.21 to 0.40 (Viera and Garrett, 2005). Measuring inter-annotator agreement is often an iterative process, and we wanted to achieve a more congruent score. Having Table 3.1 Our two annotators agreed on 1,987 instances, and disagreed on 13 instances

Annotator 1 Yes Annotator 2

Yes No Total

No

1,983 9 1,992

4 4 8

Total 1,987 13 2,000

Table 3.2 Our two annotators agreed on 994 instances, and disagreed on 6 instances

Annotator 1

Annotator 2

Yes No Total

Yes

No

Total

988 0 988

6 6 12

994 6 1,000

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discussed all 13 instances where one or both annotators queried system outputs in the first study, we conducted a second inter-annotator agreement study on a new 1,000-word sample. The results from this second study appear in Table 3.2 and now represent substantial agreement,8 with a Kappa coefficient of 0.66 (falling in the range of 0.60 to 0.80 (ibid)) and a 95 per cent confidence interval.

Overall accuracy We can report 97 per cent accuracy for our stress-assignment algorithm over canonical, phonemic pronunciation forms as verified manually by our native Arabic- speaking linguist. The task of manual verification was made feasible by generating a list of Quranic Arabic word types, arranged in descending order of frequency, and mapped to their stressed and syllabified IPA transcriptions. This reduced the number of items to be considered from 77,430 (the total number of word tokens in our corpus) to 17,606 (the total number of word types). We consider this a suitable approach for verifying full- form, phonemic pronunciation forms where case endings are retained. In all, 508 transcriptions were queried by our principal annotator, hence our reported overall accuracy of 97 per cent: ((508/17,606)*100).

Difficult cases highlighted in evaluation of primary stress assignment In this section, we focus on outputs from automated stress assignment over Quranic Arabic, and expound particularly challenging examples for evaluation; a full account of the algorithm, including further resolution of transcription errors, is reserved for another paper. A principal area for discussion here is word- initial particles which necessitate modification of our algorithm following expert human judgement of algorithmic outputs. These particles can be further divided into bound versus unbound morphemes. Arabic follows a root-and-pattern morphology which is commonly described by using examples of derivational verbs (Watson, 2002). Watson elaborates more on this in the following quotation: in Standard Arabic, the imperfect is formed by changing the quality of the rightmost stem vowel and adding an imperfect prefix (ʔu- {first person singular}, yu- {third person masculine}, tu- {second/third feminine singular}, nu- {first person plural}). The passive is formed by a change in the vocalic melody. (2002: 124) Arabic distinguishes between inflected bound morphemes marking definiteness, case, mood and gender, and uninflected morphemes which include, among others, conjunctions, prepositions and various particles such as interrogatives and negatives (Badawi et al., 2003). Unbound or free morphemes include the vocative ‫ ﻳَﺎ‬/ja:/ as in ‫ ﻳَﺎ َﻣ ْﺮﻳَ ُﻢ‬/jaː-ˈmar-ja-mu/, O Mary. Bound morphemes can be attached to the word as explained by Watson above or they can be uninflected particles, such as the coordinating conjunctions ‫ ﻭ‬wa- (and), and ‫ ﻓ‬fa- (and so) or subordinating conjunctions such as the particle of cause ‫ ﻓ‬fa- as in ‫ ﻓَﻘُ ْﻠﻨَﺎ‬/fa-ˈqul-na:/ ([so]we said).

Word-initial waThe morphemes wa- and fa- have both posed challenges for automatic stress assignment. An illustrative example would be the word ‫ َﻭ َﻻ‬and not from Figure 3.4, where stress is initially 57

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allocated to the first syllable via algorithmic rule: /ˈwa-la:/. However, even though this word token is bisyllabic, stress should not fall on the first syllable as per rule, but on the second syllable, such that the correct stressed and syllabified transcription will in fact be: /wa-ˈla:/. Another example is the combination of coordinating conjunction wa- with the emphasizer / qad/ in ‫ َﻭﻗَ ْﺪ‬and indeed which is automatically transcribed as /ˈwa-qad/, but where the second syllable should carry primary stress: / wa-ˈqad/ . A further example would be ‫ َﻭ ِﺇ ِﺫ‬and when, where the bound morpheme wa- attracts primary stress according to our unmodified transcription rules, resulting in: /ˈwa-ʔi-ði/ ; but once again primary stress should fall on the second syllable: / wa-ˈʔi-ði/ and when. The same applies to ‫ َﻭﺃ َ ِﻥ‬and that, correctly transcribed as / wa-ˈʔa- ni/ not /ˈwa-ʔa- ni/ . These and similar cases necessitate modification of our stress-assignment algorithm to incorporate (coarse-grained) morphological analysis as a pre-processing step to identify instances of bound morphemes. Our solution implements morphological analysis via the SALMA Tagger (Sawalha, 2011) which decomposes Arabic word tokens into five parts: proclitics, prefixes, stem or root, suffixes and enclitics. Bound morphemes are recognized in SALMA as proclitics. Thus for words that start with bound morphemes (i.e. proclitics) this initial element will be discounted in the stress-assignment rules.

Word-initial faThe coordinating and subordinating bound morpheme ‫ ﻓ‬fa- requires a similar solution. For example, it is initially allocated primary stress in ‫ ﻓَﺈِﺫَﺍ‬/ˈfa-ʔi-ðaː/ then when, whereas expert human judgement assigns it to the penultimate syllable: /fa-ˈʔi-ðaː/. Another example would be ‫ ﻓ‬fa- attached to a monosyllabic particle as in ‫ ﻓَﻠَ ْﻢ‬/ˈfa- lam/ and not; where primary stress should be assigned to the second syllable: / fa-ˈlam/ . These examples indicate that bound morphemes attached to bisyllabic and monosyllabic words should not attract primary stress. A further interesting point to make about particles here is that one cannot pause after them if they do not end with sukūn; this means that they need to be pronounced in combination with syllables that follow.

Problems caused by alif Another problem for transcription and automatic stress assignment when working with MSA script is the case of dagger alif, the alif which is pronounced but not written in certain words. Although it was successfully captured in transcription of ‫ َﻫﺬَﺍ‬/ˈhaː-ðaː/ this, it was not captured when the same word appeared with three prefixed morphemes as in: ‫ﺃ َﻓَ ِﺒ َﻬﺬَﺍ‬, is it to this, resulting in transcription and stress-assignment errors: /ʔa-fa-ˈbi-ha-ðaː/. The correct transcription for this word is /ʔa-fa-bi-ˈha:-ðaː/: primary stress should fall on the penultimate long syllable {CVV}. Another example of the missed dagger alif is the word ‫ َﻛﺬَ ِﻟ ِﻚ‬/ ka-ˈða- li- ki/ as well where the long vowel was initially not captured. The correct transcription of this word is /kaˈða:-li-ki/. Our approach to resolving dagger alif scenarios when working with MSA script is to group all such special cases along with their correct, full-form IPA transcription, in a transcription lexicon as input to the algorithm. At runtime, the modified algorithm cross-checks each Arabic word token against mapped pairs of word and manually verified stressed and syllabified phonemic transcription in the dictionary; any matches return a bespoke transcription for that word before the ordered set of rules are systematically implemented. Other examples of technical issues surrounding alif include words where the alif is written but not pronounced as in ‫ ِﻣﺎﺋ َﺘ َ ْﻴ ِﻦ‬two hundred, originally transcribed as /ˈmiaːʔatajni/. The correct 58

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version of this word should be /mi-ʔa-ˈtaj-ni/, with primary stress on the penultimate syllable {CVV}. A related example is the word ‫ ِﻣﺎﺋ َ ٍﺔ‬a hundred which should correctly be transcribed and pronounced as /ˈmi-ʔa-tin/ (not /ˈmiaːʔatin/), with primary stress on the first syllable. A final issue is transcription of the long vowel alif in cases such as: ‫ َﻭﺍ ِﻟﺪ‬father and related forms: (e.g. ‫ﻭﺍ ِﻟ ِﺪ ِﻩ‬, َ ‫) َﻭﺍ ِﻟﺪَﺗِ َﻚ‬. Although stress was assigned to the correct syllable via algorithmic rules, expert judgement identified transcription errors surrounding alif: /ˈwa- li- dun/ , / wa-ˈlidi-hi/, /wa-li-ˈda-ti-ka/ instead of /ˈwaː-li-dun/, /waː-ˈli-di-hi/, /waː-li-ˈda-ti-ka/. Figure 3.10 gives further examples of words with special orthography in Othmani and MSA scripts and their correct Arabic-IPA transcription stored in the transcription lexicon, ready for look-up as a preliminary algorithmic step when automating stressed and syllabified phonemic transcription in MSA.

Rule-based capture and encoding of the tajwīd effect of qalqalah As we have seen, tajwīd editions of the Qurʾān include fine- grained boundary annotations as a kind of punctuation (see the section “Prosodic speech corpora”), and use colour- coding to highlight: co- articulatory effects (see the section “Automating stress assignment in pause form pronunciation”); and normal and abnormal prolongation of long vowels in specific contexts (see the section “The tajwīd concept of prolongation or madd”). Yet another branch of tajwīd is concerned with precise phonemic realization of the consonantal subset {‫}ﺏ ﺩ ﺝ ﻁ ﻕ‬. This is the effect of qalqalah or “vibration”. The qalqalah consonants are pronounced with a definite ‘punch’ under certain constraints to ensure correct pronunciation and correct perception (Watson and Heselwood, 2014). In tajwīd, members of the set {‫ }ﺏ ﺩ ﺝ ﻁ ﻕ‬are given an emphatic delivery in weak prosodic positions, namely: (1) at the end of a word; or (2) within a word and immediately preceding another consonant. We have reported on rule- based capture of all qalqalah sites in the Qurʾān in a previous paper (Brierley et al., 2014). Here we summarize our algorithm before demonstrating the potential benefits to Quranic Arabic language learners of encoding qalqalah and other tajwīd effects in automated Arabic-IPA transcription. Language processing for Arabic poses challenges above and beyond those encountered for languages with romanized alphabets, not the least being that when programming, the researcher does not engage directly with the Arabic script but with Unicode strings instead. An example is given in Figure 3.9, which also highlights a verse-medial (and word-internal) ْ َ‫ ﺑ‬grip, which consists of six graphemes, qalqalah site in Q.85.12. The word in question is ‫ﺶ‬ َ ‫ﻄ‬ including one instance of sukūn. The Unicode equivalent also contains six elements demarcated by the backslash character (\), where the fourth one along from the left in Figure 3.11 represents sukūn: \u0652\. Our search algorithm for qalqalah first returns all Quranic verses where any member of the set {‫ }ﺏ ﺩ ﺝ ﻁ ﻕ‬occurs. A second search over the returned list of verses is then conducted via Regular Expressions (REs) or search patterns. Figure 3.12 decodes the RE used in our algorithm to locate word-internal qalqalah sites. Rule-ordering is important here: the RE operates over word tokens in each verse string to determine whether or not each Arabic consonant belongs to the qalqalah set, is associated with sukūn, and is word-internal. Q.85.12 is an interesting case because it furnishes a second instance of qalqalah which ْ َ‫ ﺑ‬as we have seen. must be realized in pause form pronunciation. The first instance is in ‫ﺶ‬ َ ‫ﻄ‬

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Othmani

MSA

IPA

Translation

ُ‫ٱﻟﻠﱠـﻪ‬ ‫َﻫ ٰـﺬَﺍ‬ ‫َﻫ ٰـ ِﺬ ِﻩ‬ ‫ﺃ ُﻭﻟَ ٰـﺌِ َﻚ‬

ُ‫ﷲ‬ ‫َﻫﺬَﺍ‬ ‫َﻫ ِﺬ ِﻩ‬ ‫ﺃ ُ ْﻭﻟَﺌِ َﻚ‬

/ʔallaːhu/ /haːðaː/ /haːðihi/ /ʔulaːʔika/

al-llāhu “God” hādhā “this [singular, masculine, near]” hādhihi “this [singular, feminine, near]” ulā’ika “those [plural, masculine/feminine, far]”

Figure 3.10 Examples of words with special orthography in Othmani and MSA scripts and their correct Arabic-IPA transcription

ْ َ‫ﺑ‬ ‫ﺶ‬ َ ‫ﻄ‬ u’\u0628\u064e\u0637\u0652\u0634\u064e’ Figure 3.11 Unicode representation of a single Arabic word

1 2 3 4

u”[\u0621-\u0652]*[\u0642,\u0637,\u0628,\u062C,\u062F]\u0652[\u0621-\u0652]+” zero or more occurrences of any Arabic letter/character u”[\u0621-\u0652]* one of the qalqalah set [\u0642,\u0637,\u0628,\u062C,\u062F] sukūn \u0652 at least one Arabic letter/character [\u0621-\u0652]+”

Figure 3.12 Regular expression for capturing word-internal qalqalah site

The second instance is in the verse- terminal word ٌ‫ﺸ ِﺪﻳﺪ‬ َ َ‫ ﻟ‬surely strong. In full form pronunciation, ٌ‫ﺸ ِﺪﻳﺪ‬ َ َ‫ ﻟ‬would be transcribed as / laʃadiːdun/ . However, in pause form pronunciation, the tanwīn will be dropped so that what was originally the penultimate syllable in /la-ʃa-ˈdiː-dun/ becomes a super- heavy final syllable: / la-ʃa-ˈdiːd/ . This transformation then jeopardizes the final consonantal phoneme (and member of the qalqalah set)—which might be swallowed in pronunciation unless given that distinctive qalqalah “bounce”. In future work we will visualize this tajwīd logic as a learning aid for students of Arabic and the Qurʾān, as illustrated in Figure 3.11. Readers will note that we have also encoded the category of “madd before pause” in our target output (cf. Figure 3.13).

Conclusions The Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān is an evolving database for the study of Arabic prosody, where each entry (i.e. Arabic word form or word token) is tagged with an informative array of linguistic information. In the latest version of our corpus, this array includes: coarse-grained syntactic category; break-type (i.e. whether the word immediately precedes a boundary or not); CV pattern; and stressed and syllabified IPA transcription. Features extracted from these annotations can be incorporated into phrase break models for Arabic. Moreover, these annotations encode different aspects of Arabic prosody and can be further processed to output canonical pronunciation forms with full tajwīd for non- native Arabic speakers and students of the Qurʾān. 60

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Q.85.12 English translation Word-internal qalqalah site Colour-coded, full-form IPA transcription Word-terminal qalqalah site Deletion of tanwīn Colour-coded, pause form IPA transcription Colour-coded, pause form IPA transcription with madd Colour-coded IPA transcription with syllabification and primary stress

ْ َ‫ﺇِ ﱠﻥ ﺑ‬ ٌ‫ﺸ ِﺪﻳﺪ‬ َ َ‫ﺶ َﺭ ِﺑّ َﻚ ﻟ‬ َ ‫ﻄ‬ Indeed the grip of your Lord is surely strong. ْ َ‫ﺇِ ﱠﻥ ﺑ‬ ٌ‫ﺸ ِﺪﻳﺪ‬ َ َ‫ﺶ َﺭ ِﺑّ َﻚ ﻟ‬ َ ‫ﻄ‬ ʔinna batˤʃa rabbika laʃadiːdun ْ َ‫ﺇِ ﱠﻥ ﺑ‬ ٌ‫ﺸﺪِﻳﺪ‬ َ َ‫ﺶ َﺭ ِﺑّﻚَ ﻟ‬ َ ‫ﻄ‬ ʔinna batˤʃa rabbika laʃadiːdun ʔinna batˤʃa rabbika laʃadiːd ʔinna batˤʃa rabbika laʃadiːd ˈʔin-na-ˈbatˤ-ʃa-rab-ˈbi-ka-la-ʃa-ˈdiːd

Figure 3.13 Stages in automated phonemic transcription of Quranic Arabic, with staged introduction and visualization of tajwīd effects [a coloured version of this image is available on www.routledge. com/9781138958043 as an eResource]

Language processing for Arabic entails extra transformations or “translations” to cope with the Arabic script itself. We have discussed how each Arabic grapheme is mapped to its discrete Unicode symbol, and how researchers and programmers in Arabic are working directly with disembodied Unicode sequences rather than actual Arabic words. We have also discussed how another layer of abstraction is superimposed over Unicode sequences to conduct searches, namely: the formulaic language of Regular Expressions (see the section “Rule-based capture and encoding of the tajwīd effect of qalqalah”). IPA characters constitute another alphabet that requires “translation” into Unicode for language processing and correct screen/printer display. Ostensibly, there are two different mappings underpinning our IPA transcriptions of Quranic Arabic: (1) from Arabic grapheme to IPA character (cf. Brierley et al., 2016); and (2) from IPA character to its Unicode equivalent. However, we have also shown that the first step (i.e. from Arabic grapheme to IPA character) entails additional transformations to modify literal one- to- one grapheme–phoneme pairings and output correct transcriptions (see the section “Arabic- IPA phonemic transcription in the Boundary-Annotated Qurʾān (version 2.0)”). For example, the different surface forms of hamza must be mapped to one IPA character on a many-to-one basis. Finally, we have “translated” or encoded linguistic rules for Arabic in further algorithmic manipulation of intermediate, abstract forms (i.e. Unicode sequences) to annotate our IPA transcriptions with canonical prosody. This has two dimensions, the first being codification of linguistic rules for syllabification and primary stress, where both features interact with prosodic-syntactic boundaries in full-form versus pause-form pronunciation. The second challenge has been codification of Quranic recitation rules (i.e. tajwīd). This entails formulaic capture of target contexts via regular expressions. To conclude, we have presented a novel and versatile algorithm that outputs a variety of IPA phonemic transcriptions as an aid for Arabic language learners and/ or Islamic scholars. Our transcriptions range from basic, full-form pronunciation of stand-alone words (as in: /ʔinna/ / batˤʃa/ / rabbika/ / laʃadiːdun/), to concatenated intonational phrases displaying interconnected syllables, beats (i.e. primary stress), and recitative enhancements: /ˈʔin-na-ˈbatˤ-ʃarab-ˈbi-ka-la-ʃa-ˈdiːd/.

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Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

www.corpuscoranicum.de/index/index/sure/1/vers/1. http://corpus.quran.com/documentation/phonetic.jsp. The Aix-MARSEC Corpus Project: http://sldr.org/voir_depot.php?id=33&lang=en&sip=1. http://tanzil.net/download/. Cf. Ryding (2014: 34). Translation of The Holy Qurʾān 70.11 from Yusuf Ali (2000). Tajweed Qurʾan. (2008). Dar-Al-Maarifah: Damascus, Syria. www.bwgriffin.com/gsu/courses/edur9131/content/InterRater_nominal_codes.pdf.

Further reading Brierley, C., Sawalha, M., Heselwod, B. and Atwell, E. (2016). A verified Arabic-IPA mapping for Arabic transcription technology, informed by Quranic recitation, traditional Arabic linguistics, and modern phonetics. Journal of Semitic Studies 61(1), 157–186. Denny, F.M. (1989). Qur’an recitation: a tradition of oral performance and transmission. Oral Tradition 4(1–2), 5–26. Ryding, K.C. (2014). Arabic: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sawalha, M., Brierley, C. and Atwell, E. (2014). Automatically generated, phonemic Arabic-IPA pronunciation tiers for the boundary annotated Qurān dataset for machine learning (version 2.0). Proceedings of the 2nd. Workshop for Language Resources and Evaluation of Religious Texts, LREC 2014, Reykyavik, Iceland, 42–47.

References Atterer, M. and Klein, E. (2002). Integrating linguistic and performance-based constraints for assigning phrase breaks. Proceedings of 19th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (Coling) 2002, Taipei, Taiwan, 29–35. Badawi, E.S., Carter, M. and Gully, A. (2003). Modern Written Arabic: A Comprehensive Grammar. London and New York: Routledge. Brierley, C. (2011). Prosody resources and symbolic prosodic features for automated phrase break prediction. PhD Thesis. School of Computing, University of Leeds. Brierley, C. and Atwell, E. (2010). ProPOSEC: A prosody and PoS annotated Spoken English Corpus. Proceedings of LREC 2010, Valetta, Malta, 1266–1270. Brierley, C., Sawalha, M. and Atwell, E. (2012). Open- source boundary- annotated corpus for Arabic speech and language processing. Proceedings of LREC 2012, Istanbul, Turkey, 1011–1016. Brierley, C., Sawalha, M. and Atwell, E. (2014). Tools for Arabic natural language processing: a case study in qalqalah prosody. Proceedings of Language Resources and Evaluation Conference (LREC) 2014, Reykjavik, Iceland, 283–287. Brierley, C., Sawalha, M., Heselwood, B. and Atwell, E. (2016). A verified Arabic- IPA mapping for Arabic transcription technology, informed by Quranic recitation, traditional Arabic linguistics, and modern phonetics. Journal of Semitic Studies 61(1), 157–186. Croft, W. (1995). Intonation units and grammatical structure. Linguistics 33, 839–882. Denny, F.M. (1989). Qur’an recitation: a tradition of oral performance and transmission. Oral Tradition 4(1–2), 5–26. Dukes, K. (2014). Statistical parsing by machine learning from a classical Arabic treebank. PhD Thesis. School of Computing, University of Leeds. Dukes, K., Atwell, E. and Sharaf, A.-B. (2010). Syntactic annotation guidelines for the Quranic Arabic dependency treebank. Proceedings of LREC 2010, Valetta, Malta, 1822–1827. Gade, A. (2004). Recitation of the Qur'ān. In: Encyclopaedia of the Qur'ān, 4, 367–385. Leiden: Brill.

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Translating sacred sounds Graff, D. and Maamouri, M. (2012). Developing LMF-XML bilingual dictionaries for colloquial Arabic dialects. Proceedings of LREC 2012, Istanbul, Turkey, 269–274. Hirschberg, J. (1999). Communication and prosody: the functional aspects of prosody. In: Swerts, M. and Terken, J. (eds), Proceedings of ESCA Tutorial and Research Workshop on Dialogue and Prosody, 7–15. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2014). Harlow: Pearson-Longman (6th edition). Neuwirth, A. (2010). The Koran as a Text of Late Antiquity: A European Approach. Germany: Island Publishing. Ostendorf, M. (2010). Representations of prosody in computational models for language processing. Keynote Lecture. 5th International Conference on Speech Prosody, Chicago, USA. Ostendorf, M., Price, P. and Shattuck- Hufnagel, S. (1996). Boston University Radio Speech Corpus. Philadelphia: Linguistic Data Consortium. Ramsay, A., Alsharhan, I. and Ahmed, H. (2014). Generation of a phonetic transcription for Modern Standard Arabic: a knowledge-based model. Computer Speech and Language 28(4), 959–978. Ryding, K.C. (2014). Arabic: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sawalha, M. (2011). Open-source resources and standards for Arabic word structure analysis: finegrained morphological analysis of Arabic text corpora. PhD Thesis. School of Computing, University of Leeds. Sawalha, M. and Atwell, E. (2010). Constructing and using broad-coverage lexical resource for enhancing morphological analysis of Arabic. Proceedings of LREC 2010, Valetta, Malta, 282–287. Sawalha, M. and Atwell, E. (2013). A standard tag set expounding traditional morphological features for Arabic language part-of-speech tagging. Word Structure Journal 6(1), 43–99. Sawalha, M., Brierley, C. and Atwell, E. (2012). Predicting phrase breaks in Classical and Modern Standard Arabic text. Proceedings of LREC 2012, Istanbul, Turkey, 3868–3872. Sawalha, M., Brierley, C. and Atwell, E. (2014). Automatically generated, phonemic Arabic- IPA pronunciation tiers for the boundary annotated Qurān dataset for machine learning (version 2.0). Proceedings of the 2nd. Workshop for Language Resources and Evaluation of Religious Texts, LREC 2014, Reykyavik, Iceland, 42–47. Taylor, L.J. and Knowles, G. (1988). Manual of information to accompany the SEC Corpus: the machine readable Corpus of Spoken English. Available at: http://clu.uni.no/icame/manuals/SEC/INDEX.HTM. Viana, M.C., Oliveira, L.C. and Mata, A.I. (2003). Prosodic phrasing: machine and human evaluation. International Journal of Speech Technology 6(1), 83–94. Viera, A.J. and Garrett, J.M. (2005). Understanding interobserver agreement: the Kappa statistic. Family Medicine, 360–363. Watson, J.C.E. (2002). Phonology and Morphology of Arabic (the Phonology of the World’s Languages). USA: Oxford University Press. Watson, J.C.E. (2011). Word stress in Arabic. The Blackwell Companion to Phonology. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2990–3019. Watson, J. and Heselwood, B. (2014). Can spoken Southern Arabic and Modern South Arabian inform research into Qur’anic tajwīd? Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies Talks (5 March 2014), the School of Modern Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds, UK. Zarrabi-Zadeh, H. (2007–2019). Tanzil. Available at: http://tanzil.net.

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Appendix 3.1 Summary chart for Arabic >IPA mapping scheme in BAQ

Arabic consonant

IPA symbol

Illustrative equivalent in English

Arabic consonant

IPA symbol

Illustrative equivalent in English

‫ﺍ‬



farm

‫ﻁ‬



‫ﺏ‬

b

bang

‫ﻅ‬

ðʕ

‫ﺕ‬ ‫ﺙ‬

t θ

time thing

‫ﻉ‬ ‫ﻍ‬

ʕ ɣ

‫ﺝ‬ ‫ﺡ‬ ‫ﺥ‬ ‫ﺩ‬ ‫ﺫ‬ ‫ﺭ‬ ‫ﺯ‬ ‫ﺱ‬ ‫ﺵ‬ ‫ﺹ‬

ʤ ħ x d ð r z s ʃ sʕ

‫ﻑ‬ ‫ﻕ‬ ‫ﻙ‬ ‫ﻝ‬ ‫ﻡ‬ ‫ﻥ‬ ‫ﻩ‬ ‫ﻭ‬ ‫ﻱ‬ ‫ء‬

f q k l m n h w j ʔ

‫ﺽ‬



jump homily loch dynamite though ring zen sun show None – but a bit like “s” in salt None – but voiced and pharyngealized

None – but emphatic; a bit like “t” in star None – but pharyngealized/ velarized voiced fricative None – but realized as voiced velar/uvular fricative e.g. French rester (to stay) family None – but a bit like “c” in scar king lamb man nut hip went yellow glottal stop as in Cockney motor

Shaded cell: We use /x/ instead of /χ/ for better readability of IPA transcriptions.

Arabic short and long vowels, plus diphthongs َ ِ ُ ‫ﺍ‬ ‫ﻱ‬ ‫ﻭ‬ ‫ﻱ‬ ْ َ‫ـ‬ ‫ـ َ ْﻭ‬

IPA symbol

Illustrative equivalent in English

a i u aː iː uː aj aw

bat ink bun (similar to) farm freeze blue (similar to) day (similar to) now

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4 ON THE PERIPHERY Translations of the Qurʾān in Sweden, Denmark and Norway Nora S. Eggen

Introduction As the number of translations of the Qurʾān into most languages of the world keeps growing, translation of the Qurʾān has also begun to receive more academic attention (cf. KarimiNia, 2012; Pink, 2015a; Lawrence, 2017). However, translations of the Qurʾān into the Scandinavian languages have, with their doubly peripheral position, received little attention either outside or inside the region (however, cf. Toll, 2007; Provençal, 2008; Hjärpe, 2013; Eggen, 2016). Sweden, Denmark and Norway may be perceived as a region peripheral to the Arabic-speaking and Muslim world, where the Qurʾānic source text has upheld its canonical and theological status. However, the Qurʾān may also be perceived as peripheral to Scandinavia, with its historically predominantly Christian cultures. In the Scandinavian context, the Qurʾān is recognized as a foundational text of Islam, and this historical, theological and ethical importance is emphasized over the cultural, linguistic or literal importance of the Qurʾān throughout history. In the Arab and Muslim world, the Qurʾān constitutes an omnipresent reference, notwithstanding that its authoritative presence in individual lives naturally varies extensively. Within the social, cultural, literary and historical frameworks of nineteenth- through twenty- first- century Scandinavia, the Qurʾān has occupied a peripheral position. Additionally, compared to global languages like English, French and Spanish, the readership of Swedish, Danish and Norwegian translations is limited, due to the predominantly local, or, at most, regional, sphere of influence of these languages.1

Situating the study Despite its peripheral position within the Scandinavian contexts, the Qurʾān has been translated and retranslated a number of times into all three languages. This chapter presents translations of the Qurʾān produced in Sweden, Denmark and Norway within the span of 170 years, from 1843 to 2015. During this period, 14 complete translations have been published: six in Swedish, five in Danish and three in Norwegian. Moreover, there exist a number of partial translations (see the section “Translations into Swedish, Danish and Norwegian”). Although these renditions present themselves, in one way or another, as translations of the Qurʾān, they differ considerably with regards to the actual source text they use for translation, their 65

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understanding of the concept, process and function of translation, as well as their choice of translation strategies. This chapter is located at the intersection between two academic fields with invested interests in translations of the Qurʾān: Qurʾānic studies and translation studies. In terms of topics and perspectives, both fields share common grounds (Pink, 2015b). These include: (1) discussions on translatability and the permissibility of translating the Qurʾān; (2) differences and similarities between translation and commentary; (3) the history of translations of the Qurʾān; (4) the individual agency of translators, with a focus on motivation and affiliation. In terms of methodology, in Qurʾānic and Islamic studies, historical and bibliographical studies have been dominant (cf. Bobzin, 2006; Elmarsafy, 2009; Zadeh, 2012; Wilsson, 2014), while in translation studies, the focus has been on linguistic and rhetorical analysis (cf. Abdul-Raof, 2001; Elimam, 2013). Taking my cue from descriptive translation studies (Toury, 1995), I perceive translations of the Qurʾān as a historical fact to be studied empirically, and my focus is on the socio- cultural functionality of translations. Accordingly, I will not enter into the muchdebated question of the translatability of the Qurʾān, nor will I enter into evaluative traditions taking standards of equivalence as their starting point.2

Functionality of translations of the Qurʾān As is often noted, the Qurʾān is a self-referential and, thus, a self-conscious text (Wild, 2006), which allows for the fleshing out of what may be construed as a Qurʾānic semiotics. The text presents itself as scripture (kitāb) and as reading (qurʾān) (Q. 12:1– 2; 41:2– 4; 43:2– 4). It is kept on ‘a preserved Tablet’ (lawḥ maḥfūẓ, Q. 85:21– 22), and in the heavenly ‘Source of Scripture’ (umm al- kitāb, lit. ‘the mother of the book,’ Q. 43:4).3 As a mediated text in this world, the Qurʾānic text was recited before it was written; utterances expressed in linguistic signs in a particular language and meant for cognition (qurʾānan ʿarabiyyan laʿallakum taʿqilūn, Q. 12:2, 43:3). There is a manifest aural- oral quality to the Qurʾānic text, both in terms of the primacy of the recited word, the transmission methods, the textual structure and narrative style of the text. Thus, the Qurʾān presents itself as a communication tool, or a mediator—where God is the speaker and human beings are the addressees—formulated through a process of revelation (waḥy and tanzīl), and organized in units of varied length, the divine signs (āyāt, Q. 3:7) (Izutsu, 2002). In translation, the linguistic sign is split in order for the meaning contained to be expressed in a different language and through a new sign. Consequently, according to a Qurʾānic semiotics, once the linguistic sign is split, it becomes no longer identical to the divine sign, the Qurʾānic āya. It follows from this that within the Islamic tradition, only the Arabic Qurʾān may serve as a basis for normative reflection and for liturgical use, such as recital in prayer. It also follows that translation, so far as the Qurʾān is concerned, including such intra-lingual translational efforts as paraphrase, is part of the explicating and interpretational work; part of reception, not of text. While not all readers or translators endorse this framing, translators tend to refer to, and often position themselves according to, these truth claims, as they situate the Qurʾān theologically and/or historically. Thus, translators present the target texts in compliance with what Christiane Nord (1997: 52) has called a documentary function: ‘a metatextual function, informing the target reader about certain aspects of the original text and its communicative situation.’ Thus translators either choose to represent the morphological, syntactic or lexical features of the source text, adapt structures and idiom, explaining this in notes, or set the content as unaltered as possible (Nord, 1997). However, most translations of the Qurʾān are heterofunctional. While translators make efforts to represent the Qurʾānic text, they inevitably 66

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communicate their own interpretations and outlooks to the target audience through their translations: their opinions on what the Qurʾān is and how it should be read, and their attitudes towards the text. Translators also tend to position themselves in the long and diverse tradition of interpretational endeavors (Venuti, 2004), with regards to both exegetical works (tafsīr) and existing translations. Embedded in complex intratextual and intertextual networks, involving both the textual history of the Qurʾān and the various receiving situations, translations and retranslations of the Qurʾān resituate representations of the text in new patterns of language use, cultural values, religious traditions, literary traditions, social institutions and in different historical situations (cf. Venuti, 2009). These positions are to some, but highly varied, extent formulated in paratexts, and they are explicitly or implicitly materialized in the translated text. In this chapter, I analyze how the translators and publishers have construed the roles and functions of their translations in view of their shifting concerns and contexts. To this end, I examine paratextual materials and a set of textual features. Following Gérard Genette (2001), paratextual material is extending material which frames the main text, in our case the running translation, in various ways. The paratexts are divided into two main categories: peritexts, such as titles, notes and forewords, which are closely linked to the main text; and epitexts, such as interviews and commentaries, which are separated from the main text. In this chapter, I focus mainly on peritexts. Although epitexts may play an important role in the interpretations of texts, their availability to the reader varies, not least with the continuously expanding time gap between publication and the actual reading of a work. Original paratextual material may also change with the continued publication of unrevised or revised new editions, including new authorial or editorial paratextual material as well as new epitexts, such as media coverage and reviews. With electronic mediation, peritexts may transform into epitexts inasmuch as electronic publications in HTML or PDF formats, for example, or in the form of databases, are commonly stripped of most of the peritexts, such as forewords, introductions or notes. In online publications, on the other hand, new peritexts may appear and hypertextual linking may transform epitexts into peritexts. Thus, paratextual material, in all the various forms, adds to the complex intertextuality of translations of the Qurʾān. In this examination, I point to features pertaining to presentation and mediation. In the paratextual materials, I examine features organized according to my adaptation of Lawrence Venuti’s (2004; 2009) categories of (1) agency (translator, institutional housing, translatorial presence in the form of peritext); (2) intertextuality (choice of source text, additional sources, retranslation, notes, and other paratextual elements); and (3) history (socio- cultural situation at production, readership, afterlife). Finally, I examine a limited number of textual features, with categories borrowed from Andrew Chesterman (1997). These are: (1) semantic translation strategies concerning synonymy in the target text (reflecting a monosemantic or polysematic view of the Qurʾānic lexicon); and (2) pragmatic translation strategies concerning cultural filtering (loans versus translations), explicitness and translatorial presence in the form of added information with or without interpolating parentheses, and arrangement changes. The strategic choices with regards to these particular textual features inform us of how the explicitly intended motivations are materialized in the running text, as well as of possible tensions between such intended functions and the perceived functions in view of shifting audiences. These features are also chosen for methodological reasons, as they are possible to identify even in the absence of a comprehensive corpus study.4 Unfortunately, with the exception of reviews and scattered impressions, our empirical knowledge about the actual reception and impact of Qurʾān translations is minimal. Hence, I will not make attempts in this chapter 67

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to measure the effect these choices have had on their target culture audiences, but shall point to some potential such effects. Although some of the incomplete translations exhibit interesting features, I limit the analysis in this chapter to complete, published renditions presented as translations of the Qurʾān.5

Historical overview Between 1843 and 1967, four translations of the Qurʾān were published in Scandinavia: three in Sweden, and one in Denmark. Prior to and during this period, theologians and philologists at Scandinavian universities had studied the Qurʾān as part of their training in the Arabic language, and had translated parts of the text, first into Latin and then into the respective national languages (Rasmussen, 1996; Toll, 2007). The first three Scandinavian translations of the Qurʾān were into Swedish. The first of these translations, published in 1843, was done by Johan Fredrik Sebastian Crusenstolpe (1801– 1882). This was followed by the translation made by theologian and professor of Arabic literature, Carl Johannes Tornberg (1807– 1877) in 1874, and the one by Karl Vilhelm Zetterstéen (1866– 1953), a prominent Swedish professor of Semitic languages, which was published in 1917. Zetterstéen’s translation has been republished several times and is still in use. In Danish, it was not until 1967 that a full translation of the Qurʾān was published, by teacher Abdus Salam (Svend Åge) Madsen (1928–2007), and in Norway it took another decade and a half before the first translation was published, by university lecturer Einar Berg (1921–1995) in 1980. Then, within the next four decades, an additional eight full translations were published. The new interest coincided with two concurrent, although not necessarily related, developments. The rise of political Islam was a global phenomenon with little direct impact in the Scandinavian region. The flux of immigrant workers from predominantly Muslim countries, on the other hand, had limited impact during the first two decades, but came to have a larger impact on the local societies as the immigrants grew in numbers and came to include refugees, and as global conflicts were played out in local events as well (cf. Nielsen, 1992; Larsson, 2009; Nielsen et al., 2009– 2016). In Sweden, Qanita Sadiqa (Anna Elsa Christina Qanita Sadiqa Gustavson, b. 1944), and in Norway, Mirza Tahir Ahmad (1928– 2003) produced translations— published in 1988 and 1996 respectively— within the same institutional framework as Madsen (the Ahmadiyya movement), following his translation quite closely. In 1998, Muhammed Knut Bernström’s (1919–2009) Swedish translation appeared and gained popularity as an alternative to Zetterstéen’s 1917 publication. In Denmark, four new translations have been published within the last decade, all with different motivations and institutional housings (Wulff, 2006; Bluitgen, 2009a; Simsek and Onay, 2014; Majid, 2015), whereas in Norway two complete translations have been published since 1980 (Ahmad, 1996; Tahir-ul-Qadri, 2012).

The pioneer Fredrik Crusenstolpe, the first Scandinavian to publish a complete translation of the Qurʾān in 1843, was an adventurous and apparently somewhat eccentric Swedish officer, then diplomat, serving in Tripoli, Tangier, Algiers, and finally Lisbon (Hallengren, 1978). Late eighteenthand early nineteenth-century Scandinavia witnessed a growing interest in the Middle East and North Africa among the cultural elite (Oxfeldt, 2005). During his years in North Africa, Crusenstolpe had taken an interest in the local people and their religion, and he took part in Swedish popular discourse. When financial funding for publishing the translation proved 68

On the periphery

difficult, in spite of the interest from a well-esteemed publishing house, he decided to use private funding. He felt personally compelled to furnish the Swedish audience with material to rectify some of the misconceptions about Prophet Muḥammad in the Swedish popular imagination. It seems that, to Crusenstolpe, these ideas not only revealed a particular ignorance about the Prophet, but also a general ignorance and superstitious mentality that Crusenstolpe resented. He described the Prophet as a rational ‘Arabic founder of law’ (Crusenstolpe, 1843: iii), in compliance with a common imaginary of the Prophet which emerged in the European Enlightenment (Elmarsafy, 2009). Crusenstolpe’s translatorial effort was not part of his professional work, nor was he academically trained, but he did master Arabic at some level (Toll, 2007). He held that it was required to consult Muslim scholars in order to understand the text (Crusenstolpe, 1843), and he referred to these scholars as they had been presented in European scholarly works, acknowledging his debts to the Italian (1698), English (1734) and French (1783) translations of the Qurʾān rendered respectively by Ludovico Marracci (1612– 1700), George Sale (1697–1736) and Claude Savary (1750–1788). However, most notably he took pride in the foreword of being guided by a young Muslim student. Crusenstolpe offered his own interpretation of the Qurʾān at the same time as he intended his translation to be both documentary and pedagogical.

Early philologists By 1874, when Tornberg published his translation of the Qurʾān into Swedish, local languages had become dominant in academic discourse, and translation of Arabic scholarly and literary works into Swedish had become part of the philological endeavor in the universities. Tornberg was both a theologian and a philologist (Toll, 2007), and academically he took a special interest in the historical works of Ibn Athīr (1160–1233) and Ibn Khaldūn (1332–1406). His translation of the Qurʾān was published with the renowned academic publisher C.W.K. Gleerups förlag. Tornberg positioned himself within the European scholarly tradition, and took inspiration from leading European scholars like Aloys Sprenger (1813–1893) and Theodor Nöldeke (1836–1930). He consulted the classical works of tafsīr (notably al- Zamakhsharī’s Kashshāf and al-Bayḍāwī’s Anwār al- tanzīl), while commending a critical engagement with them (Tornberg, 1874). There are very few notes in this translation, but the translatorial presence is eminently noticeable in the intratextual references, italicized interpolations and parenthetic explications in the running target text. This produces an explicitly interpretational translation, yet the many intertextual references are also a part of the philological outlook of the translation, for instance in defining and explaining the many Arabic words which are included. These words were not commonly used in late nineteenth-century Sweden, and at the time they contributed to situating the translation in a scholarly tradition. However, Tornberg was also criticized for relying too heavily on German translations, notably in a detailed review article by Johan Theodor Nordling published in 1876. Nordling (1826– 1890) was himself a professor of Semitic languages at Uppsala, with an interest in Qurʾānic studies. Thus, besides the documentary function, translation of the Qurʾān could at this point also function as a battleground for academic credibility. A well-established Arabist, Zetterstéen also belonged to this academic tradition, and translating classical and modern Arabic literature was an important part of his scholarly work. His aim was, however, to make the ‘Muhammadan holy text’ available to a broad Swedish audience (Zetterstéen, 1917: v). Koranen (1917) was a revised and expanded version of his own partial translation published in 1908 (Söderblom and Zetterstéen, 1908). It was well received in academic circles (Hjärpe, n.d.), and it has been republished several times, latest in 69

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an e-book edition in 2014. The running translation has never been revised, but in the second edition (1979), an additional set of notes authored by Christopher Toll (1931– 2015) was included, commenting upon the translation in view of later translations and research. Toll’s notes are a mixture of semantic comments and reference to relevant literature.6 In a short introduction, Zetterstéen (1917) situates the text historically and situates Muḥammad, whom he considers the originator of the text, as a historical person. There are few interpolations and brackets in the running text, which also exhibits a high level of concordance in translation of the Arabic vocabulary. There are very few Arabic loans, the word “Islam” being one of them, and names are given in their familiar Swedish form where such forms exist. Zetterstéen’s edition is furnished with critical and historical notes on the text, as well as lexical notes discreetly placed as endnotes. Zetterstéen relies on Flügel’s edition Corani textus arabicus (1834) as the source text for his translation, but adds the general remark that commentaries like al-Ṭabarī (838–923), al-Zamakhsharī (1070–1143) and al-Bayḍāwī (1226–1286) are as valuable as the European academic works of scholars such as Jakob Barth (1851– 1914), Theodor Nöldeke and Friedrich Schwally (1863– 1919) (Zetterstéen, 1917: vi). Zetterstéen states that he benefited from two earlier translations into Swedish, those of Crusenstolpe and Tornberg, as well as the lectures on the Qurʾān by Nordling, and he does not voice a general or specific critique of their works. His translation was meant to have a documentary function, but through the translation Zetterstéen also situates himself firmly within a European academic, philological tradition.

Translations rooted in the Ahmadiyya movement In Denmark, it was not until 1967 that a full translation was published, after having been published in sections from 1960. Abdus Salam Madsen was a teacher, translator and writer with an academic background in uncompleted theological studies and studies in the Arabic language. He was an active member of Islam’s Ahmadiyya movement, which was established in Denmark in the late 1950s (Søndergaard, 1967). In a foreword, Kamal Yousuf, the first Ahmadi missionary to be appointed as responsible for Scandinavia in 1956, noted that the translation and annotation was approved by the leadership of Islam’s Ahmadiyya Mission in Scandinavia (Madsen, 1967). As the basmala (the invocation bi- smi llāhi l- raḥmāni l- raḥīm introducing all but one chapter of the Qurʾān) is counted as a verse in this translation, the numbering diverges somewhat from the Cairo numbering, in which it is not. Madsen’s translation interprets the Qurʾānic message through a strong translatorial presence in the form of footnotes, explicatory additions in square brackets, and a substantial number of parentheses ‘completing the content’ (Madsen, 1967: 1). There are no references to exegetical sources, but the translation and especially the substantial commentary in footnotes seems to be influenced by Muhammad Ali’s translation from 1917 (Ali, 1917). In Sweden and Norway, translations were produced with the same institutional housing as Madsen: the Ahmadiyya movement. As with Madsen for the Danish translation, Qanita Sadiqa was presented as a personal translator of the Swedish edition. However, the edition is, as duly noted on the title page, published under the guardianship of Mirza Tahir Ahmad (1928–2003), then head of the Ahmadiyya movement globally, and revised by Kamal Yousuf. The missionary aspect of the motivation for this translation is noted in the foreword authored by the ‘additional guardian’ (Vakil- ut- Tasnif) S.H. Abbasi, with the explicit aim to ‘spread the message of Islam to all through peaceful means, fair and convincing arguments and humanitarian work,’ and with the Swedish translation of the Qurʾān as a move in that direction (Sadiqa, 1988: vi– vii). Other than this general declaration of intent, there 70

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is little information as to the sources or guiding principles for the translation. Except for small differences, the translation seems to follow Madsen closely, and as in Madsen there are some explicating parentheses in the running translation. However, the absence of footnotes has some consequences for the interpretation. For instance, the notion khatam al-anbiyāʾ in Q. 33:41 (conventionally numbered 33:40) is by Madsen translated as ‘seal of the prophets,’ but is in a note explained in accordance with Ahmadi doctrine as ‘the spiritual father of messengers to come’ (Madsen, 1967: 3, 891). Since notes are not included, in Sadiqa the identical translation ‘seal of the prophets’ appears more in line with the conventional sunnī and shīʿī interpretations of this notion. In accordance with the ambitious project initiated by the founding father of the movement, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835– 1908), to translate the Qurʾān to all major languages ‘in order to secure right understanding and right praxis’ the movement also produced a Norwegian translation (Ahmad, 1996: i). This edition is firmly anchored in the translation tradition of the movement, and in the movement itself, by referring to the then current international leader, Mirza Tahir Ahmad, as responsible for the translation. The actual translators are a group of individuals, listed only in the foreword. Both the translation, and even more so the substantial footnotes, are clearly inspired by Madsen’s translation and based on the particular theological outlook of the Ahmadiyya movement. Intended as instrumental in the missionary activities, the three editions are very similar in the running translations, and close to identical in their agenda and general position, as a regional manifestation of a global agenda. Compared to Madsen, it seems, however, that the institutional anchoring in both Sadiqa’s and Ahmad’s translations has been lifted from a regional to a global level.

The first Norwegian translation The first complete translation of the Qurʾān in Norway was published 15 years prior to Ahmad’s, in 1980. Arabist Einar Berg was a trained lawyer who had turned to linguistic and cultural studies, and who took an interest in theology, literature and contemporary Muslim thought. One of his predecessors, professor of Semitic languages and history of religion Wilhelm Schencke (1869– 1946), had apparently translated the whole Arabic text, but only some parts of this translation were published.7 Berg’s translation was published with an academically oriented publishing house. However, his intended audience was, according to his foreword, Norwegian society in general (Berg, 1980). By 1980, there was also a nascent Muslim community in Norway, predominantly first-generation immigrant workers from Pakistan, Morocco and Turkey, but they were mostly attached to their respective mother tongues and cultures. In his short foreword, Berg (1980) emphasizes the value of intuition, in human cognition and understanding, and, it should be noted, in translation work as well. Berg was striving for an idiomatic Norwegian language, and in view of this aim, lexical coherence or accounting for the morphological or syntactic features of the source text were considered of less importance. Metaphors and idiomatic expressions are in this translation sometimes transposed to pragmatically parallel, but formally different, wordings. Names are written according to Norwegian conventions, there are no notes, and hardly any explicating parentheses. The first edition had only the running translation (following the numeration of Flügel’s edition), whereas the second edition (1989) had both the running translation and the Arabic text (following the Cairo standard). Both editions had green covers with golden script; both commonly observed features in twentieth- century Arabic- Islamic book design. A new edition (2000) was slightly 71

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revised by the Arabic translator Anne Aabakken. This edition was also made available on the Internet, in searchable form, and has been partly published as an audiobook. Berg clearly situates the Qurʾān as a historical text, but also as divine speech within its own tradition, although he emphasizes that his personal affiliation is Christian. The intended function of the translation is to document the content of the Arabic Qurʾān, but additionally Berg aims at a phatic function when he states his hope that the translation will help further respect and understanding (Berg, 1980). This translation is to date the standard reference for the Qurʾān in public discourse in Norway (Eggen, n.d.).

New readerships With Bernström’s Swedish translation (1998) a new translation strategy was introduced into the Scandinavian tradition of translating the Qurʾān, with the ambition to adhere to a coherent translation of the vocabulary of the Qurʾān. Thus, while under-communicating the polyvalent semantics of the Arabic lexicon, this translation conveys at a lexical level the semantic coherence and intratextual semantic networks in the text. Like the pioneer Swedish translator Crusenstolpe, Bernström had been a Swedish diplomat, stationed in Morocco during the years 1976–1983. He embraced Islam in 1986. His translation is accompanied by commentaries mainly translated from Muhammad Asad’s (1900– 1992) thoroughly annotated translation into English, and an introduction and a few appendixes from Asad’s rationally oriented edition are likewise included (Asad, 1980). The notes should, in Bernström’s view, enable the reader to critically engage with the text. In the translated text, Bernström is clearly inspired by Asad, but there are also frequent differences between the two in the running translation. There are many explicatory interpolations in parentheses. The book is rather voluminous, heavy, and is beautifully, although conventionally, presented. A new, slightly revised edition was published in 2000, and a pocket edition without the Arabic text as well as an audiobook were published in 2002. The translation is available on the Internet, but without the notes. By 1998, the demographic situation in all the Scandinavian countries had undergone some changes. The Muslim population was increasing, and it was first and foremost a Muslim audience Bernström aimed at with his translation, namely, Muslims born in Sweden, Muslims from non-Arabic countries and children of immigrants who did not have sufficient knowledge of Arabic (Bernström, 1998). However, although his focus is on the source text and Bernström endorsed both the theological and textual truth claims of the Qurʾān, he emphasizes the need to make the Qurʾānic message available. Bernström’s ambition in this translation was to present the text in a Swedish linguistic robe and to a contemporary Swedish audience, but in a manner that could encompass how it was envisioned to have been received by its first audience. Accordingly, later terminological coinage of the vocabulary was disregarded in the translation, so that the fact that for instance the words islām and muslim ‘later became the name of the religion preached by the Prophet Muhammad – and its practitioners – should not obscure their real content, and they are therefore throughout translated as here indicated’ (Bernström, 1998: xvi–xvii). In his foreword, Bernström positions his translation as an alternative to Zetterstéen’s, which he considered, in spite of its obvious scholarly qualities, to be stylistically outdated, at times incomprehensible due to the literalist translation strategy, and potentially inadequate, or even offensive, to a Muslim audience (Bernström, 1998). Thus, Bernström is pursuing a vision of authenticity as well as progress, and the knowledge development and identity formation of 72

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Muslims in Sweden is emphasized. Likewise, a certain institutional housing is sought as the translation is furnished with approbation from al-Azhar University. However, Bernström’s translation has not completely replaced Zetterstéen’s, and both are currently used in Sweden (Larsson, 2006). As in Sweden, the demographic situation in Norway has changed over the past few decades, and the Muslim readership has become more interested in and dependent upon translations into Norwegian to replace translations into other languages (such as Urdu, Turkish or Somali). Several incomplete translations, but only a single complete one, have been published in Norway following Berg and Ahmad. This is a Norwegian translation of ʿIrfān- ul- Qurʾān, which is an interpretative translation of the Qurʾān into Urdu by Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri.8 This scholar of Pakistani origin and founder of the international movement Minhaj-ul-Quran, is presented in a preface (Tahir- ul- Qadri, 2012), and he is credited as translator even of the Norwegian translation. It is only in a newspaper interview that we learn that the translation was the result of a collective endeavor led by the then deputy secretary of the Minhaj-ul-Quran branch in Norway, Aqil Qadir (Hussain, 2013). The question of ownership to the translatorial agency is thus not clear in this edition. However, the translatorial presence is dominant, first and foremost in the form of interpretational explications in the running translation, with or without parentheses. Some of the explications are semantically oriented, others are exegetical, interpreting the historical circumstances of events described in the text or the normative implications of the text, especially in topics of contemporary interest. Yet others are explanations to what is proposed to be ‘the scientific accuracy’ of the text (Tahir-ul-Qadri, 2012: xvii). There is a vocabulary and a thematic index, and a handful of footnotes. In a foreword, this interpretational translation strategy is construed as a method to meet with the needs of a modern reader, although the interpretations are asserted to be ‘in compatibility with the exegetical traditions founded by the followers of the Holy Prophet (may Allah bless him and give him peace), their followers and the later imams (may Allah be pleased with them)’ (Tahir-ul-Qadri, 2012: xiii– xviii). The interpretations, the sources of which are not specified, are sought integrated into the linguistic structures of the running text, to secure a correct and readable text. Other than the explanatory interpolations, the foreword promises a strict adherence to the semantics as well as syntax in the Arabic Qurʾān. Nevertheless, names are given in forms according to Norwegian conventions, with the exception of the use of “Allah,” rather than “God,” and there are few loanwords. This publication is thus an attempt to meet with different needs. The local Norwegian audience is the intended readership, and the aim is to present an informative and appellative interpretation of the Qurʾānic message in order to ‘present a correct Islamic doctrine, improve the understanding about Islam, and serve the cause of peace,’ as construed by this global movement (Tahir-ul-Qadri, 2012: vii).9 I have elsewhere (Eggen, 2016: 69–71) showed how the nouns ‘islam’ and ‘muslim’ as well as the adjectives ‘islamsk’ and ‘muslimsk’ in this translation are used in a number of instances where these words are not present in the Arabic source text. This trait suggests that identity formation is an important factor of the instrumental function of this translation.

New Danish translations In 2006, Arabist Ellen Wulff published her Danish translation at a small, but well- reputed publishing house specializing in, among other subjects, Arabic and Islamic studies. The original edition is beautifully designed and printed on high-quality paper. An unrevised paperback edition was published in 2009, and the translation is also available and searchable on the Internet. In her foreword, Wulff does not discuss the source text at any length, nor does she 73

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state which lexicographical or exegetical sources she has used. She does, however, situate the text in its historical context, and the book cover, with a segment from a third/ ninth- century Kufic manuscript,10 reinforces the impression of historical distance, but also of authenticity (in spite of the relatively late date of the manuscript). Moreover, Wulff (2006: 11) states that she aims at ‘letting the text speak for itself’ and for the running translation to be read ‘as a coherent literary text.’ There are, accordingly, no notes, and very few explicating interpolations in the running translation. As an overall strategy, Wulff follows the same principle as Bernström, minimizing the use of loans and technical terms, although as explained in her foreword: ‘A number of Arabic words and concepts have, through the ages, been taken into Danish dictionaries and the Danish awareness, and lately even more have been included’ (2006: 11). With regards to the Qurʾānic notions islām, muslim and aslama, the lexical choices in both Bernström’s and Wulff’s translations have made institutionalized Islam non-visible by translating the semantic content of the words islām and muslim instead of incorporating them as loans and thereby treating them as technical terms. The emphasis is thus on a universal, non-confessional message of surrender to God, which is affiliated with institutionalized Islam only in the forewords (Eggen, 2016). In view of the historical moment these translations were born into, both Bernström’s and Wulff’s translations challenge preconceptions in the contemporary readership on Islam and on the Qurʾānic message, thus breaking both with a translational practice, and with the contemporary popular discourse. Wulff (2006) points out the methodological difficulties in establishing an accurate historical chronology of the chapters, segments, and verses of the Qurʾān. This is, however, precisely the aim in a translation published by writer and journalist Kåre Bluitgen (2009a), explicitly contesting Wulff’s edition. Some of the earlier abridged translations did aim at reorganizing the Qurʾānic text according to a chronological order (Buhl, 1921; Schencke and Birkeland, 1952), but this is the first complete translation in Scandinavia to follow this principle. The rearrangement is mainly at the level of chapters, but some verses are also extracted or inserted. The exact criteria this rearrangement is based on are, however, discussed only in a cursory manner (Bluitgen, 2009a). Bluitgen’s translation, published by a small publishing house run by Bluitgen himself, may thus be described as a revisionist approach to the Qurʾānic text, and in the extensive foreword, Bluitgen recommends the translation to be read together with his other book Koranen gendigtet, which he portrays as a ‘retelling’ of the Qurʾān as a ‘coherent narrative’ in which is incorporated ‘the Islamic tradition’s reports about what Muhammed said and did’ (Bluitgen, 2009a: 8; cf. Bluitgen, 2009b). Thus, this translator seeks to interpret the Qurʾān entirely as a historical record. The running translation is amply annotated, which is in accordance with the other explicit criticism raised against Wulff’s translation for lacking the necessary commentary (Kassebeer, 2009). The translator includes a long list of sources, although only a few of them are the traditional sources he claims to have used, since he has depended upon non-Arabic sources for the commentary and upon translations of the Qurʾān (mainly English) for the running translation (Bluitgen, 2009a). He does, nonetheless, claim nearness to the Arabic text, and refers to his cooperation with a Danish Arabist, Jean Butler. As to the question of the truth claims in the text, this translator leaves the question open (Bluitgen, 2009a). Another translation into Danish was published by the historian Abdullah Simsek and the director of the Danish-Turkish Islamic Foundation, Ahmet Onay, in cooperation with the Danish Imam Abdul Wahid Pedersen, professor emeritus of Islamic studies Jørgen S. Nielsen, and PhD in Islamic studies Dorte Bramsen. The Foundation is associated with the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs. Thus, this translation is situated within a faith community as well as within wider confessional, academic, and transnational contexts. The translators do not position themselves explicitly within the tradition of Danish translations. In his 74

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short foreword, Onay emphasizes the need for a translation which combines ‘contemporary Danish without sacrificing the particular Qurʾānic conceptual world’ and which ‘make[s] the meaning of the text available to the general reader within a Danish cultural interpretational frame’ thereby ‘mak[ing] it possible for Muslims in Denmark to consider Danish a language one may use as Muslim with ease and confidence as a means to learn and convey one’s faith and culture’ (Onay in Simsek and Onay, 2014: ix–x). Onay does not mention any secondary sources other than a general reference to ‘acknowledged commentaries.’ There are some explicating parentheses, mostly on semantics or syntax such as clarification of pronominal references, and a few notes primarily explaining the chronological sequence of each chapter. The translatorial presence is rather subtle, but appears in some explanations incorporated into the running translation without being marked by parentheses. In terms of the translation strategies chosen, an obvious difference between Simsek and Onay and others is the use of Arabic name forms such as Allah and other proper names of prophets, places and even book titles, as well as chapter headlines. In accordance with Venuti’s (1995) concepts of domestication and foreignization translation strategies, this could be analyzed as a foreignizing strategy. However, in view of the intended readership, it may, on the contrary, here work as a domesticating strategy, seeking to incorporate the familiar Arabic forms to the equally familiar Danish language. Other than proper names, there are few loans, and only occasionally is an Arabic term put in parenthesis as a clarification or explanation. With this translation, the issue of the identity formation of the potential readers seems to have been given prominence, with weight on the Danish Muslims being a main intended audience and with the wish to contribute to a Danish Muslim language.

Auditory mediation of translations of the Qurʾān With Amér Majid’s translation from 2015, Den klare Koran, we see a development, related to a new medial situation. Although some of the previous translations have been made electronically available, this translation has (thus far) only been published as an e-book. Additionally, although some of the other translations have been partially or wholly made into audiobooks, this translation is from the outset published (partially) as an audiobook, and this is emphasized as a motivational force for the work as well as its intended function. In a short foreword, the translator positions the translation as a response not only to the call for an ‘easily understood Danish’ but also as a response to the contemporary media situation, and he relates this to the historical situation of revelation. The translator acknowledges the auditory mediation of the original Qurʾān, and states that although only the recital of the Arabic Qurʾān may convey the experience of the original listeners, with this audiobook he aims at recreating some of that ‘experience and emotion from the voice which calls upon the listener with different kinds of appeals, commendations, examples, narratives and lessons throughout the 114 sūras of the Qurʾān’ (Majid, 2015: no pagination). The cover of the e- book/ audiobook is plain in white and grey shades, with only the title and the name of the publisher, which is a small publishing house with so far only this and one other publication on their book list, a biography of the Prophet by the same author. The project, it is noted, is a private, non- profit enterprise based on voluntary work. The recital is performed by a well-known Danish rapper and musician in the award-winning hip-hop group Outlandish, Isam Bachiri. His reading is straightforward, in a pleasant voice, with deliberate use of pause, and some rhythm but without melody. The translation seeks to adapt the structures and the idiom to Danish, and some background information related to the life and history of Muḥammad is integrated in the form of parentheses in the written translation. These 75

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interpolations are read out loud without any mark- up in the audiobook. There is no mention of which sources are used, nor is any specific information of the source text given. In the running translation, names are given in their conventional Danish form but written in their Arabic form with prolonged vowels in square brackets at the first occurrence. Thus, although the text clearly is situated historically, the documentary function of the translation is combined with both informative and pedagogical ambitions evoking notions of authenticity as well as modernity. Authenticity and progress are in this translation construed not as conflicting notions, but rather as aims that are closely associated with each other. Of the recent Danish translations, Wulff’s translation was, according to Philippe Provençal (2008), mostly welcomed and praised, and it has seriously contested the position of Madsen’s translation in schools, academia, and the public discourse. Bluitgen’s translation, however, received a mixed reception, possibly on account of an allegedly polemic outlook and his role in sparking controversy in a tense ideological climate,11 but also on account of a lacking philological quality (Sandbeck, 2009). Simsek and Onay’s translation claim credibility from both the academic community and from faith communities, and Majid’s translation more than anything evokes a young and modern readership. It remains to be seen which, if any, of these translations will gain a dominant position, or if they will cater for different needs in different audiences.

Closing remarks Internationally oriented political and cultural elites have fostered a long history of contact between the three Scandinavian countries, Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and the Arabic and Islamic world; from the Viking ages’ commercial and diplomatic connections with the Abbasid Islamic Empire, via shifting alliances between Denmark–Norway (sixteenth century to 1814), the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway (1814–1905), and the Ottoman Empire, to modern-day commercial, diplomatic and political contacts and conflicts, and immigration of Muslims to the Scandinavian countries. In these shifting historical circumstances, translation has played a part in upholding contacts, and in interpreting oneself and the other. Translation of the Qurʾān, as the foundational text of Islam, has had a particular role in this. It stands out in the limited number of Arabic language texts to have been translated into the three languages, and no other pre-modern Arabic text has been translated and retranslated as many times.12 We have seen how the Scandinavian translators situate their translatorial efforts within this local and regional tradition, and how they in their works situate the Qurʾān historically and/ or theologically, and in different ways seek to fulfill the documentary function of presenting the Qurʾānic text in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian linguistic robes. However, the translated texts are heterofunctional inasmuch as they have also been assigned other, more instrumental functions such as sustaining local, regional and global claims for interpretational authority, formulating and reformulating an understanding of the Qurʾānic and, by extension, the Islamic message, in appellative callings to critical reformative and revisionist reflections as well as social interaction and dialogue, in different forms of identity formation, and in expressive attempts to enable a spiritual or aesthetic experience.

Notes 1 See an overview of the global impact of English translations in Wild (2015). 2 For discussions on translatability in theological (linked to the concept of iʿjāz— inimitability) and linguistic terms, see Abdul-Raof (2004); Zadeh (2012); Gould (2013). For an example of the critical evaluative approach, see Abdul-Raof (2001).

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On the periphery 3 English translations of the Qurʾān are cited from Abdel Haleem (2004). 4 This study is informed by my ongoing research project on translations of the Qurʾān in Scandinavia, with some results published in Eggen (2016) and Eggen (n.d.) as well as in Eggen 2019. 5 I have not included Rashad Khalifa’s translation (1998) in this study because I have not been able to access the full, printed edition. Only a limited version is available at www.vasterasmoske.com/ koranen/koran_sv.html (last accessed May 23, 2016). Khalifa (1935–1990) was an EgyptianAmerican biochemist central to the founding of United Submitters International and the controversial inventor of a doctrine of a numerical code based on the number 19 in the Qurʾān, which is also present in the notes to his translation of the Qurʾān into English (1989). The Swedish translator of Khalifa’s work is unknown. On Khalifa’s numerology, see Khan (2010). 6 Toll had also worked on a translation of the Qurʾān, although it was never finalized or published (Toll, 2007). 7 These parts were edited, rearranged and commented upon by Professor Harris Birkeland (1904– 1961), and, after difficulties in bringing about funding, published in 1952 (Schencke and Birkeland, 1952). 8 The Urdu original and an English translation are available at www.irfan-ul-quran.com/quran/english/ index.html. This translation was first published on the movement’s website in 2009, then in print in 2012. 9 Incidentally, the word al-silm in Q. 2:208 is rendered “islam.” 10 Dating is from the book’s colophon. The manuscript is no. 17/ 1990 from the Danish C.L. David’s Collection in Copenhagen. Their catalogue is more precise (www.davidmus.dk/ samlingerne/ islamisk/dynastier/abbasiderne/kunst/17–1990). 11 Bluitgen was instrumental in the first phase of what was later known as the Danish cartoon crisis (Malik, 2012). 12 This information is generated from the search services provided by the national libraries: https:// libris.kb.se; https://bibliotek.dk; https://oria.no; https://nb.no. There exists to date no bibliography specialized in translations of premodern texts; for translations of the Qurʾān, see the section “Translations into Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.” A bibliography of translations of modern literary texts can be found in a special issue of the journal Naqd: Tidsskrift for Mellomøstens litteratur 13 (2014).

Further reading Bobzin, H. (2006). Translations of the Qurʾān. In: McAuliffe, J.D. (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Qurʾān, Vol. 5. Leiden: Brill, 340–358. Eggen, N.S. (2016). Universalised versus particularised conceptualisations of Islam in translations of the Qurʾān, Journal of Qurʾānic Studies, 18(1): 1–43. Lawrence, B.B. (2017). The Koran in English: a biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

References Abdel Haleem, M.A.S. (trans.). (2004). The Qurʾan: a new translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Abdul-Raof, H. (2001). Qurʾan translation: discourse, texture and exegesis. London: Routledge. Abdul- Raof, H. (2004). The Qurʾan: limits of translatability. In: Faiq, S. (ed.). Cultural encounters in translation from Arabic. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 91–106. Ali, M. (trans.). (1917). The holy Qurán: containing the Arabic text with English translation and commentary. Surrey: The “Islamic Review” Office. Asad, M. (trans.). (1980). The message of the Qurʾan. Gibraltar: Dār al-Andalus. Bluitgen, K. (2009b). Koranen gendigtet. Copenhagen: Lindhardt og Ringhof. Bobzin, H. (2006). Translations of the Qurʾān. In: McAuliffe, J.D. (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Qurʾān, Vol. 5. Leiden: Brill, 340–358. Chesterman, A. (1997). Memes of translation: the spread of ideas in translation theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Eggen, N.S. (2016). Universalised versus particularised conceptualisations of Islam in translations of the Qurʾān, Journal of Qurʾānic Studies, 18(1): 1–43.

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Nora S. Eggen Eggen, N.S. (n.d.). Koranoversettelse i Norge. Norsk oversetterleksikon. Available at: www.oversetterleksikon.no/koranoversettelser-i-norge/. Eggen, N.S. (2019). Modalitet i Koranoversettelse. In: Eggen, N.S., Zandjani, N. and Østmoe, T.I. (eds.). Gjenoversettelse av hellige tekster. Oslo: Hermes Academic Publishing, 109–138. Elimam, A.S. (2013). Marked word order in the Qurān and its English translations: patterns and motivations. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Elmarsafy, Z. (2009). The enlightenment Qurʾān: the politics of translation and the construction of Islam. Oxford: Oneworld. Genette, G. (1997/ 2001). Paratext: thresholds of interpretation (trans. Jane E. Lewin). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gould, R. (2013). Inimitability versus translatability: the structure of literary meaning in Arabo-Persian poetics, The Translator, 19: 81–104. Hallengren, A. (1978). Vår man i Barbariet: Ett 150-årsminne, Nordisk tidsskrift for vetenskap, konst och industri, 54: 57–60. Hjärpe, J. (n.d.). Svenska Koranöversättningar. Svenskt översättarlexikon. Available at: www.oversattarlexikon.se/artiklar/Svenska_Koran%C3%B6vers%C3%A4ttningar. Hjärpe, J. (2013). Zetterstéens koranöversätting i idéhistoriskt perspektiv, LIR. Journal, 2: 7–18. Hussain, T. (2013). Ny, ‘vitenskapelig’ Koran- oversettelse, Utrop, January 5. Available at: www.utrop. no/Nyheter/Innenriks/23935. Izutsu, T. (1964/2002). God and man in the Qurʾān: semantics of the Qurʾānic Weltanschauung. Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book Trust. Karimi-Nia, M. (2012). Bibliography of Qurʾānic studies in European languages. Qum: The Centre for Translation of the Holy Qurʾān. Kassebeer, S. (2009). Koranen i nye klæder, Berlingske Tidende. Available at: www.b.dk/boeger/ koranen-i-nye-klaeder. Khan, N. (2010). Nineteen: a story, Anthropological Theory, 10(1–2): 112–122. Larsson, G. (2006). Att läsa Koranen: en introduktion. Stockholm: Verbum förlag. Larsson, G. (ed.). (2009). Islam in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Oxon: Routledge. Lawrence, B.B. (2017). The Koran in English: a biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Malik, K. (2012). Enemies of free speech, Index on Censorship, 41(1): 40–53. Nielsen, J.S. (1992). Muslims in Western Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Nielsen, J.S., Akgönül, S., Alibašic, A., Maréchal, B. and Moe, C. (eds.). (2009– 2016). Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, Vols. 1–7. Leiden: Brill. Nord, C. (1997). A functional typology of translations. In: Trosborg, A. (ed.). Text typology and translations. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 43–66. Nordling, J.T. (1876). Prof. C.J. Tornbergs korânöfversättning granskad. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet. Oxfeldt, E. (2005). Nordic orientalism: Paris and the cosmopolitan imagination 1800–1900. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. Pink, J. (ed.). (2015a). Translations of the Qurʾan in Muslim- majority contexts, Journal of Qurʾanic Studies, 17(3). Pink, J. (2015b). Editor’s preface, Journal of Qurʾanic Studies, 17(3): 1–9. Provençal, P. (2008). Om at oversætte Koranen, Chaos, 48: 77–86. Rasmussen, S.T. (1996). Dansk arabistik og islamforskning i det 17.–19. århundrede: Hovedtræk bibliografisk belyst, Fund og Forskning, 35: 258–91. Sandbeck, L. (2009). Koranoversættelse er som en julegave til bin Laden, Politiken, October 3. Available at: https:// politiken.dk/ kultur/ boger/ faglitteratur_ boger/ art5705490/ Koranoversættelseer-som-en-julegave-til-bin-Laden. Søndergaard, S. (1967). Koranen på dansk, Information, June 2. Toll, C. (2007). The translation of the Koran into Swedish. In: Isaksson, B., Eskhult, M. and Ramsay, G. (eds.). The professorship of Semitic languages at Uppsala University 400 years. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 199–217. Toury, G. (1995). Descriptive translation studies and beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Venuti, L. (1995). The translator’s invisibility: a history of translation. London and New York: Routledge. Venuti, L. (2004). Retranslation: the creation of value, Bucknell Review, 47(1): 25–38. Venuti, L. (2009). Translation, intertextuality, interpretation, Romance Studies, 27(3): 157–73. Wild, S. (ed.). (2006). Self-referentiality in the Qurʾān. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

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On the periphery Wild, S. (2015). Muslim translators and translations of the Qurʾan into English, Journal of Qurʾānic Ṣtudies, 17(3): 158–182. Wilsson, B.M. (2014). Translating the Qurʾan in an age of nationalism: print culture and modern Islam in Turkey. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zadeh, T. (2012). The vernacular Qurʾan: translation and the rise of Persian exegesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Translations into Swedish, Danish and Norwegian (ordered chronologically) Swedish, complete Crusenstolpe, F. (trans.). (1843). Koran. Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & Söner. Tornberg, C.J. (trans.). (1874). Korânen ifrån arabiskan öfversatt med en inledande biografi öfver Muhammed. Lund: C.W.K. Gleerups förlag. Zetterstéen, K.W. (trans.) (1917/1997). Koranen översatt från arabiskan. 3rd unrevised edn. Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand. Sadiqa, Q. (trans.). (1988). Den heliga Qurʾanen: arabisk text med svensk översättning. Tilford: Islam International Publications. Bernström, M.K. (trans.). (1998). Koranens budskap med kommentarer och noter. Stockholm: Proprius förlag. Khalifa, R. (trans.). (1998). Koranen: det sista testamentet: översatt till svenska från den auktoriserade engelska versionen med arabisk text. Tucson: Islamic Productions.

Swedish, partial or incomplete Söderblom, N. and Zetterstéen, K.W. (trans.). (1908). Främmande religionsurkunder, i urval och öfversättning: D. 2. Afd. 2, Ur Avesta och Koranen samt efterkanoniska skrifter från mazdareligionen och islam i Persien. Stockholm: Geber. Ohlmarks, Å. (trans.). (1961). Koranen: i översättning och sammandrag med historisk inledning. Stockholm: Forum. Åhlander, J. (trans.). (1995). Koranen: kapitel 1: 78–114: i tolkning till enkel svenska. Stockholm: Méraj Educational Project. Alrisalah skandinaviska stiftelse (trans.). (2015). Den ädla Koranen: med översättning av dess versers innebörd på svenska: d.30. Örebro: Alrisalah skandinaviska stiftelse.

Danish, complete Madsen, A. (trans.). (1967). Koranen. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Bogens forlag. Wulff, E. (trans.). (2006). Koranen. Copenhagen: Forlaget Vandkunsten. Bluitgen, K. (trans.). (2009a). Koranen kommenteret. Copenhagen: Tøkk forlag. Simsek, A. and Onay, A. (trans.). (2014). Koranen på dansk. Copenhagen: Dansk Tyrkisk Islamisk Stiftelse. Majid, A. (trans.). (2015). Den klare Koran: dansk oversettelse av Koranen. Copenhagen: Tronen forlag.

Danish, partial or incomplete Buhl, F. (trans.). (1921). Quranen. Copenhagen: Aage Marcus. Echammari, A. (trans.). (1994). Koranens hjerte. Sûra Yâ-Sîn og andre udvalgte passasjer fra Koranen. Risskov: Islamsk studiebogssamling. Hvidberg-Hansen, F.O. (trans.). (1997). Koranen i udvalg. Copenhagen: Forlaget Spektrum. Thetmark, M. (trans.). (2000). Tarjamat maʿānī al-Qurʾān al-Karīm bi-al-lughah al-Dānimarkīyah: alJuzʾ 1–5 = Oversættelse af meningen af al- Qurʾân (Koranen/ Læsningen) til dansk med korte kommentarer og ordforklaring. [Private publishing.] Clarke, A., Østergaard, S. and Werdelin, J. (trans.). (2004). Den gavmilde Qur’an – en fremlægning af de tre første suraer. N.p.: Havens forlag.

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Nora S. Eggen Sharak, M.A. (trans.). (2012). Koranen for begyndere: en dansk oversættelse af Koranens mening og forklaring. Copenhagen: Dansk Muslimsk Union.

Norwegian, complete Berg, E. (trans.). (1980). Koranen: tilrettelagt i oversettelse. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Ahmad, M.T. (ed.). (1996). Den hellige Qurʾânen: arabisk tekst med norsk oversettelse. Islamabad: Tilford: Islam International Publications. Tahir- ul- Qadri, M. (trans.). (2012). Den hellige Koranen på norsk og arabisk: norsk oversettelse av ʿIrfān-ul-Qurʾān. N.p.: Norsk Muslimsk Kunst og Kultur Forening NMKKF.

Norwegian, partial or incomplete Schencke, W. and Birkeland, H. (trans. and eds.). (1952). Koranen i utvalg: oversatt til norsk med innledning og tolkning av Wilhelm Schencke, fortolket og bearbeidet av Harris Birkeland. Oslo: Aschehoug. Johanson, R. (ed.). (1989). Allahs lille brune: Koranen i utvalg. Oslo: Religionskritisk forlag. Linstad, T.A. (trans.). (1996). Koranen på norsk. N.p.: Urtehagen. Islamic Cultural Centre Norway (trans.). (2012). Tarjamat Qurʾān majīd: Koranen: oversettelse med kommentarer basert på den forkortede utgaven av Tafhim- ul- Quran av Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi. Oslo: Kolofon forlag.

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5 THE BIBLE IN QURʾANIC LANGUAGE Manuscript Sinai Arabic 310 as a case study1 Vevian F. Zaki

Introduction The emergence of Islam marked a crucial moment in the life of the Christian communities of the Near East. Many challenges faced these communities: not least was that they were forced to switch from their native languages to adopt the Arabic tongue. The process of Arabicization started soon after the Arab conquests in the Near East, thanks in large part to the Umayyad strategy of making Arabic the main administrative language. However, the pace and extent of Arabicization differed significantly from one community to another (Vollandt, 2015: 22–36). While the Greek Orthodox community was the first to adopt Arabic, instead of Greek, and contributed many works in this language as early as the eighth century, the Copts resisted Arabicization for much longer than other communities, until the tenth century.2 The East Syriac and West Syriac churches held to their use of the Syriac language, but even they had authentic contributions written in Arabic by the ninth century.3 The challenge of Arabicization for the Near Eastern Christian communities was twofold: the need to compose authentic works in their new tongue, and the need to translate works, most importantly their scripture, from their older languages into Arabic (Griffith, 2013a: 100–103). The pace at which a community was Arabicized is reflected in how fast this community translated the Bible into Arabic. Although the debate over the existence of a pre- Islamic Arabic Bible translation is ongoing, the earliest dated manuscript of an Arabic Bible translation comes from the second half of the ninth century (Griffith, 2013a: 114–118).4 This manuscript, which includes part of an Arabic New Testament, is located in St Catherine Monastery under the shelf mark Sinai, Ar. 151 (Atiya, 1955: 8, 1970: 284–287; Clarke, 1952: 34).5 During the early centuries of Islam, many Arabic translations were made of the same biblical book or corpora. Thus, the manuscript evidence shows different Arabic translations of the books of the Pentateuch, the Prophets, the Gospels, and so on. Translating the Christian scripture into the language of the Qurʾan was no easy task. In discussing the different compositions of Christian authors and the ways in which they use the Qurʾan, Griffith (2008: 53– 68, 2013a) points out that by the time the Christians started to translate their scripture into Arabic, the Muslims had already formed their Arabic religious lexicon: Qurʾanic language (QL) was well- established when the Christians translated their Bible into Arabic. Consequently, the translation process involved—in addition to the normal 81

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translational aspects— important decisions made by the translator about whether to use specifically Qurʾanic lexicon or not. One might think that authors or translators would utilize whatever terminology best expresses their thoughts or the meaning of the source text they are translating, and this is true; nevertheless, in some cases, it is palpably clear that Christian authors and translators have an awareness of QL.6 It is important here to highlight that by “Qurʾanic language” in this chapter, I refer to individual terms, epithets, phrases, and sentences from the Qurʾan, whether verbatim or in an altered form.7 Manuscript Sinai, Arabic 310 (henceforth S310) sheds some light on the high degree of awareness of QL on the part of Arabic-speaking Christians. Being translated from the Syriac Peshitta, S310’s text seems to be translated using a strategy of free translation, in which the source text is not translated verbatim, but rather is paraphrased and interpreted.8 Moreover, it enjoys many textual additions and extensions that do not exist in the source text, which in turn made it a “mini-commentary” (Bailey, 2011: 539). A substantial amount of this paraphrasing, the textual additions and the extensions are formed using QL. This chapter investigates the different forms of QL employed by the translator of S310 and categorizes them into Qurʾanic terminology, allusions and rhyme, illuminating how the translator employed these aspects to stress Christian doctrines. This is followed by a closer look at the textual extensions of the text to understand its context as far as possible in order to test the hypothesis that this translation is targeted at a Christian reader.

Qurʾanic language in Christian translations Manuscript S310 is a late tenth- century manuscript that contains part of the Arabic Pauline epistles. The Arabic Pauline epistles consist of fourteen epistles treated as a single corpus. In the modern system, each epistle is divided separately into chapters. However, in the Syriac tradition they are divided as a single volume (Brock, 1988, 2004). The text begins at Romans 2:5 and ends at Galatians 5:3. However, the rest of this manuscript is extant in MS Sinai, Ar. 157 (henceforth S157) that picks up at Galatians 5:5 and continues until 2 Timothy 3:6 (Atiya, 1955: 8, 1970: 305– 306; Clarke, 1952: 34). Once, these two manuscripts formed part of a single manuscript that contained the whole text of the Arabic Pauline epistles. Although the text of S310 gives no clues regarding the context in which it was written, a prayer request in S157 states that the scribe was a monk called Khrīstūdūlus. An earlier copy of S310/ S157 is extant in MS St. Petersburg, NLR, A.N.S. 327 and its continuation in MS Sinai, NF Ar. Parch. 52 (Lebedev, 1990: 283; Memaris, 1985: 33). The colophon in the St. Petersburg manuscript informs the reader that it was copied in 273/ 892 , which makes this text one of the earliest translations of the Bible into Arabic. Another fragment of the same translation is extant in a few folios from the eleventh century, MS Sinai, NF Ar. Pap. 35 (Memaris, 1985: 51). The St. Petersburg manuscript received early scholarly attention (Fleischer, 1854; Delitzsch, 1857; Stenij, 1901). Delitzsch (1857: 764– 769) concluded that this text is a sister of the famous text printed in the edition of Erpenius (Erpenius and Raphalengis, 1616; see also Graf, 1944: 173). Stenij (1901) edited the Epistle to the Hebrews and the extant parts of Romans and 1 & 2 Corinthians. Although S310 is not the earliest or the only copy of this translation, the examination in this chapter is confined to the Epistle to the Romans and the First Epistle to the Corinthians contained in it, for two reasons. First, these epistles in the older manuscript of St. Petersburg have many lacunae.9 And second, the relative amount of QL is at its highest in these two epistles, and drops considerably in what follows. The translator, for some unknown reason,

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abandoned the extensive use of QL, or at least, limits its use in the rest of the epistles. It might be that this strategy was more difficult and time-consuming than originally planned, or that there was no Qurʾanic terminology that expressed the thoughts of the following epistles appropriately, or perhaps the translator lost interest in the task. In any case, while QL does not disappear altogether, the decline in the use of QL is obvious beginning with 2 Corinthians and continuing in the epistles in S157. The phenomenon of QL has been remarked on in the analysis of some later Arabic Bibles, as well as several earlier ones (e.g., Freidenreich, 2003; Hjälm, 2016: 184– 187; Kashouh, 2011; Polliack, 1997: 174).10 In general, however, it is safe to say that among the early translations of each corpus of the Arabic Bible, at least one of the translations is likely to show a high degree of QL.11 Taking the Arabic Pentateuch as an example, in Genesis 37:9, where Joseph narrates his dream to his brothers, one of the translations (from 939/940 ) examined by Vollandt (2015: 189) quotes the corresponding Qurʾanic verse about the same incident (Sura 12:3). Another example comes from a translation of the Gospels whose earliest extant manuscript dates back to 993 . Kashouh (2011: 128– 129) has noted that the language of this translation has similarities with the Qurʾan, and in particular, utilizes the Qurʾanic names of prophets such as ʿIsā and Yaḥyā for Jesus and John respectively. These manuscripts come from the tenth century, but they are copies of earlier texts, as is the earliest known manuscript of our text (892 ). Thus, it is not possible to judge which of these translations is the earliest, but it is clear that the text of S310 is one of the earliest attested texts to have an extensive use of QL. It is important to mention that even in Arabic translations that do not necessarily exhibit a high degree of QL, Qurʾanic terms were not altogether absent. Generally speaking, there are Qurʾanic terms that appear in the Arabic Bible; some terms more than others. The term sunna (“tradition”), for instance, was commonly used.12 Others are used to a much lesser extent, including fiqh (“jurisprudence”), riḍwān (“satisfaction”) and muʿtazila.13 An interesting and significant case is found with the recension made by the Coptic scholar Hibat Allāh ibn alʿAssāl in the thirteenth century. He used many translations into Arabic from Greek, Syriac and Coptic to make this eclectic recension (Abullief, 2006: 85–87), using different sigla in a critical apparatus to denote the readings that he rejected. Reading through his text and apparatus reveals that he avoided Qurʾanic terminology, excluding it to the apparatus, and replacing it in the main text with more neutral terminology (Zaki, 2011). The Christian awareness of QL seemingly emerged even earlier than the ninth century, and separately from the translation of the Bible into Arabic. One of the cases where a Christian author showed an awareness of QL, and indeed successfully utilized it to explain Christian doctrines, is the treatise entitled On the Triune Nature of God. This treatise, published in Gibson (1899), has received attention from many scholars not only because it is the earliest dated Arabic Christian writing (788 ),14 but also because of its significant use of QL. The QL of this treatise serves extensively to explain and assert Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and incarnation, which Islam does not even recognize. Swanson (1998: 298) points out that “the early Arabic Christian literature is not merely a literature of translation, in close relationship to Greek and Syriac exemplars; it is also a literature in some intertextual relationship with the Qurʾan.” Among many examples in the treatise, Swanson gives the example of the word muḥtajib as an allusion from Sura 42:51,15 which the author used to describe the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.16 Swanson argues that the treatise was not directed toward Muslim readers; rather, the intended audience was Christian readers, with the aim of strengthening the Christian community and providing it with tools to face the new milieu.

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Qurʾanic language in Manuscript S310 The QL of S310 involves the use of Qurʾanic terminology, Qurʾanic allusions and, finally, Qurʾanic rhyme. These categories occasionally overlap, but dividing the examples in this way helps to clarify the concept. To demonstrate the high use of QL in S310, I contrast its text here with other early (ninth- century) Arabic translations of the Pauline epistles— MSS Sinai, Ar. 151 (S151) and Vatican, BAV, Ar. 13 (V13).

Qurʾanic terminology Parts of the text of S310 are composed by inserting a term, a phrase or an epithet into the text exactly as it appears in the Qurʾan. Some of this terminology is woven into the text and is used to render the meaning of the source text. For instance, sunna and bayʿa are used dozens of times within the text to point out the Law and Church respectively.17 There are many other, more specific examples of Qurʾanic terminology used in the translation. For example, Romans 2:10 provides an accurate rendering of the Syriac Vorlage, the source text (ST), with ʿamila al-ṣāliḥāt “he did the good deeds.” This is a direct quote from Sura 20:75: […] ‫ﺕ‬ ِ ‫ﺼﺎ ِﻟ َﺤﺎ‬ ‫ﻋ ِﻤ َﻞ ﺍﻟ ﱠ‬ َ ‫َﻭ َﻣﻦ ﻳَﺄﺗِ ِﻪ ُﻣﺆ ِﻣﻨﺎ ً ﻗَﺪ‬ “and whoso comes unto Him a believer having done the good deeds […]”18 Another example comes from 1 Corinthians 15:35, given here from the S310, which also provides an accurate translation of the ST: ‫ﻭﺑﺄﻱ ﺟﺴ ٍﺪ ﻳُﺤﺸﺮﻭﻥ‬ “and in which body will they be cornered?” The verb used here is specific to the Qurʾanic statement of events which will take place on Judgment Day, as in Sura 6:38: ‫ﺸ ُﺮﻭ َﻥ‬ َ ‫ﺛ ُ ﱠﻢ ِﺇﻟَﻰ َﺭ ِﺑّ ِﻬ ْﻢ ﻳُ ْﺤ‬ “then unto Him they will be cornered” Although it is not as pervasive as in S310, these terminological references sometimes exist in other translations as well. Romans 2:10 reads in manuscript V13 as yaʿmal al-ḥasanāt, and in S151 as yaʿmal al-ṣāliḥāt. However, both use non- Qurʾanic terminology with 1 Corinthians 15:35: it reads bi-ʾay-jasad yāʾtūn (V13)/yajyʾūn (S151), with both meaning “in which body will they come?” The insertion of Qurʾanic terminology becomes even clearer when we look at textual additions, rather than simply translations. For example, 1 Corinthians 8:4 should read, as in Syriac, “there is no other God but one.” It is rendered in S310 as follows: ‫ﻭﺃﻧﻪ ﻟﻴﺲ ﺇﻟﻪ ﺁﺧﺮ ﻏﻴﺮ ﺍﻟﻮﺍﺣﺪ ﺍﻟﻘ ّﻬﺎﺭ‬ “and there is no other God but the one, the overpowering” This rendering is a well-known expression, used in the Qurʾan as an attribute of God. One of its six Qurʾanic occurrences is Sura 38:65: 84

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‫َﻭ َﻣﺎ ِﻣ ْﻦ ﺇِ ٰﻟَ ٍﻪ ﺇِ ﱠﻻﷲ ُ ﺍﻟ َﻮﺍ ِﺣﺪُ ﺍﻟﻘَ ّﻬﺎ ُﺭ‬ “there is not any god but God, the one, the overpowering” Another example occurs in Romans 5:6, which, speaking of Christ, reads in the ST: “He died instead of the wicked, a man would barely die for the wicked” In the text of S310, two words which form a known Qurʾanic idiom are used to replace the Syriac word for “wicked”:19 ‫ﻗﺪ ﻣﺎﺕ ﻓﻲ ﻫﺬﺍ ﺍﻟﺰﻣﺎﻥ ﻣﻦ ﺃﺟﻞ ﺿﻌﻔﺎء ﺑﺪﻝ ﺍﻟﻜﻔﺎﺭ ﻭﺍﻟﻤﻨﺎﻓﻘﻴﻦ ﻭﻫﻞ )ﺗﻨﺤﻮ( ﻧﻔﺲ ﺍﻧﺴﺎﻥ ﺃﻥ ﻳﻤﻮﺕ ﺑﺪﻝ ﺍﻟﻜﻔﺎﺭ‬ ‫ﻭﻟﻤﻨﺎﻓﻘﻴﻦ‬ “He has died at this time for the weak instead of the unbelievers and hypocrites. Would a human’s soul (tend) to die instead of the unbelievers and hypocrites?” As a translation of the same term at this point, V13 has al- mujrimīn (“the criminals”), while S151 has al-munāfiqīn (“the hypocrites”). Another textual addition can be seen in the text of S310 and in 1 Corinthians 10:20, where an adjective describes the demons:20 ‫ﻓﻠﺴﺖ ﺍﺣﺐ ﺍﻥ ﺗﻜﻮﻧﻮﺍ ﻟﻠﺸﻴﺎﻁﻴﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﺮﺟﻮﻣﻴﻦ ﺷﺮﻛﺎ‬ “I do not want you to become partners to the stoned devils” This adjective is not added at this point in the other Arabic translations; yet it is used in Sura 26:116: ‫ﻗَﺎﻟُﻮﺍ ﻟَﺌِﻦ ﻟﱠ ْﻢ ﺗ َﻨﺘ َ ِﻪ ﻳَﺎ ﻧُﻮ ُﺡ ﻟَﺘ َ ُﻜﻮﻧَ ﱠﻦ ِﻣ َﻦ ﺍ ْﻟ َﻤ ْﺮ ُﺟﻮ ِﻣﻴﻦ‬ “they said, if thou givest not over, Noah, thou shalt assuredly be one of the stoned” It also alludes to a known practice of stoning the devil during the Islamic pilgrimage ḥajj. Other important additions to the text of S310 are epithets such as lahu al-ḥamd (“to Him be the praise”) from Suras 64:1 and 28:70, and tabārak (“blessed be He”), associated with Allāh, as in Suras 40:64 and 43:85. These epithets are scattered here and there in the text, giving it an Islamic flavor even when they add nothing significant to the meaning.21 Other derivatives of famous Qurʾanic terms such as ḥarām/ḥalāl (“religiously forbidden/allowed”) can be seen in Romans 14:15 and 14:23 respectively. It should be noted that the text of S310 employs a wide range of Qurʾanic terminology from different suras of the Qurʾan. Some of this terminology is also used with varied connotations in different contexts within the Qurʾan.

Qurʾanic allusions Obviously, it is not always possible to find in the Qurʾan a whole quotation that fits, syntactically at least, the biblical meaning that the translator wants to convey. In these cases, the translator of S310 has at times resorted to modifying Qurʾanic phrases in order to use them. As with the Qurʾanic terminology, these allusions can convey a relatively literal version of the meaning in the ST, or else be used as a textual addition. 85

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A first example is Romans 14:8, which in S310 is rendered: ‫ﻭﺇﻥ ﻣﺘﻨﺎ ﻓﺈﻟﻴﻪ ﻣﺼﻴﺮﻧﺎ‬ “when we die, unto Him is our destiny” The phrasing of the biblical verse closely follows the meaning of the ST (“if we die, it is to our Lord that we die”), but at the same time bears similarities to Sura 40:3: ‫ﺼﻴ ُﺮ‬ ِ ‫َﻻ ِﺇﻟَﻪَ ِﺇ ﱠﻻ ُﻫ َﻮ ِﺇﻟَ ْﻴ ِﻪ ﺍ ْﻟ َﻤ‬ “There is no god but He, and unto Him is the destiny” Another example from S310, Romans 8:26, similarly has an allusion to the Qurʾan. The verse, which explains the role of the Holy Spirit in praying, states: ‫ﻭﻳﺆﺗﻴﻨﺎ ﺍﻟﻴﻘﻴﻦ ﺑﻤﺎ ﺑﻪ ﻭﻋﺪﻧﺎ‬ “and He provides us with certainty of what He has promised us” Unlike in the previous example, however, the ST for this verse contains nothing about “certainty,” nor do the translations of it in V13 and S151. The verse in S310 is a modification of a Qurʾanic verse, Sura 74:47: ‫ﺣﺘﻰ ﺃﺗﺎﻧﺎ ﺍﻟﻴﻘﻴﻦ‬ “till the certain was provided to us” A more complex example is provided in Romans 11:8, a quotation from the Old Testament. This reads in S310: ً ‫ﻛﻤﺎ ﺑﻴّﻦ ﻓﻲ ﻛﺘﺎﺏ ﺇﺷﻌﻴﺎء ﺃﻥ ﷲ ﻟﻪ ﺍﻟﺤﻤﺪ ﺳﻠّﻂ ﻋﻠﻴﻬﻢ ﺑﺬﻧﻮﺑﻬﻢ ﻭﺳﻮء ﺃﻋﻤﺎﻟﻬﻢ ﺭﻳﺤﺎ ً ُﻣﻜ ّﻤﻬﺔ ُﻣﻨﻔﺮﺓ ﻭﺃﺗﺎﻫﻢ ﺃﻋﻴﻨﺎ‬ ‫ﻓﻠﻢ ﻳﺒﺼﺮﻭﺍ ﺑﻬﺎ َﺭﺷﺪﺍ ً ﻭﺁﺫﺍﻧﺎ ً ﻻ ﻳﺴﻤﻌﻮﻥ ﺑﻬﺎ‬ “As it is clarified in the book of Isaiah that because of their iniquities and evil deeds, God, praise be to Him, overpowered them with a repulsive and abhorrent wind (spirit), and gave them eyes, yet they saw no rectitude and ears that they do not hear with.” The ST was rather different: “As is written, for God has given them a spirit of vehemence, eyes with which they saw not, and ears with which they listened not.” The translator has composed the rendition of this verse through a combination of individual idioms and phrases from the following Qurʾanic verses: ‫ُﺯ ِﻳّ َﻦ ﻟﻬﻢ ﺳﻮء ﺃﻋﻤﺎﻟﻬﻢ‬ “Decked out fair to them are their evil deeds” (Sura 9:37)

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َ ّ‫ﺴﻠ‬ ‫ﻋﻠَﻴ ُﻜﻢ‬ َ ‫َﻭﻟَﻮ‬ َ ‫ﻄ ُﻬﻢ‬ َ ‫ﺷﺎ َء ﷲ ﻟ‬ “Had God willed, He would have overpowered them against you” (Sura 4:90) ‫ﺷﺪًﺍ‬ َ ‫ﻭ َﻫﻴّﻲء ﻟَﻨَﺎ ِﻣﻦ ﺃ َﻣ ِﺮﻧَﺎ َﺭ‬ “and furnish us with rectitude in our affair” (Sura 18:10) ‫ﺼ ُﺮﻭ َﻥ ﺑِ َﻬﺎ َﻭﻟَ ُﻬ ْﻢ ﺁﺫَﺍ ُﻥ ﱠﻻ ﻳَ ْﺴ َﻤﻌُﻮ َﻥ ﺑِ َﻬﺎ ﺃ ُﻭﻟَﺌِ َﻚ َﻛﺎ َْﻷ ْﻧﻌَﺎ ِﻡ‬ ِ ‫َﻭﻟَ ُﻬ ْﻢ ﺃ َ ْﻋﻴُ ُﻦ ﱠﻻ ﻳُ ْﺒ‬ “they have eyes, but perceive not with them; they have ears, but they hear not with them. They are like cattle” (Sura 7:179) The result of this combination is that the meaning of the biblical verse is interpreted completely in QL. In contrast, the translations of this verse in V13 and S151, respectively, remain close to the ST: ‫ﻛﻤﺎ ﺍﻧﻪ ﻣﻜﺘﻮﺏ ﺃﻥ ﷲ ﺃﻋﻄﺎﻫﻢ ﺭﻭﺡ ﻣﺬﻋﺮ ﻭﻋﻴﻮﻥ ﻻ ﻳﺒﺼﺮﻭﻥ ﺑﻬﺎ ﻭﺁﺫﺍﻥ ﻻ ﻳﺴﻤﻌﻮﻥ ﺑﻬﺎ‬ ‫ﻛﻤﺎ ﻫﻮ ﻣﻜﺘﻮﺏ ﺃﻥ ﷲ ﺃﻋﻄﺎﻫﻢ ﺭﻭﺣﺎ ﻣﻜﻤﻬﺔ ﻭﻋﻴﻮﻧﺎ ﻻ ﻳﺘﺒﻴﻨﻮﻥ ﺑﻬﺎ ﻭﺁﺫﺍﻧﺎ ﻻ ﻳﺴﻤﻌﻮﻥ ﺑﻬﺎ‬ “As it is written, God has given them a dismayed/abhorrent (mudhʿir/mukammaha) spirit, and eyes with which they do not see (yubṣirūn/yatabaynūn) and ears with which they do not hear.” A final example of a Qurʾanic allusion can be seen in Romans 3:5b–6. The source text reads: “Is God unjust as he brings his anger? I speak as a man. Let it not be, otherwise how may God judge the worlds?” This has been rendered rather differently in manuscript S310: َ ‫ﺃﻳﻈﻠﻢ ﷲ ﺍﻟﻌﺒﻴﺪ ﺇﺫ ﻳُﻨﺰﻝ ﺑﺄﻫﻞ ﺍﻟﻤﻌﺼﻴﺔ ﺭﺟﺰﻩ ﻭﺍﻧﻤﺎ ﻳُﻨ‬ ‫ ﻣﺎ ﷲ ﺑﻈ ّﻼﻡ‬.‫ ﻣﻌﺎﺫ ﷲ‬.‫ﻄ ُﻖ ﺑﻬﺬﺍ ﻛﻤﺎ ﻳَﻨﻄِ ﻖُ ﺍﻻﻧﺴﺎﻥ‬ ‫ ﻓﻜﻴﻒ ﻳﺪﻳﻦ ﷲ ﺍﻟﻌﺎﻟﻤﻴﻦ‬.‫ﻟﻠﻌﺒﻴﺪ‬ “Does God do injustice to servants when He brings His anger over the people of inequity? This is pronounced as a man pronounces. God forbid! God does no injustice to the servants. Otherwise, how will God judge the worlds?” There is an allusion here to Sura 41:46: ‫ﻣﻦ ﻋﻤﻞ ﺻﺎﻟﺤﺎ ً ﻓﻠﻨﻔﺴﻪ ﻭﻣﻦ ﺃﺳﺎء ﻓﻌﻠﻴﻬﺎ ﻭﻣﺎ ﺭﺑﻚ ﺑﻈ ّﻼ ٍﻡ ﻟﻠﻌﺒﻴﺪ‬ “Whoever works righteousness benefits his own soul; whoever works evil, it is against his own soul: nor is thy Lord ever unjust (in the least) to His Servants.” The ST uses a rhetorical question about God’s justice, and the expected answer is “no, God is not unjust” or “no, God is just.” The translator instead directly offers the negative answer through a Qurʾanic verse that denies any hint of Divine injustice.

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Rhyme The Qurʾan has its own characteristic rhyming prose, known as sajʿ. The clearest example of it is in the first sura, al-fātiḥa (“the opening”), which reads: ‫ﺏ ﺍ ْﻟﻌَﺎﻟَ ِﻤﻴ َﻦ‬ ِ ّ ‫ﺍ ْﻟ َﺤ ْﻤﺪُ ِﮧﻠﻟ َﺭ‬ ‫ﺍﻟ ﱠﺮ ْﺣﻤـ ِﻦ ﺍﻟ ﱠﺮ ِﺣﻴ ِﻢ‬ ‫ٰ َﻣـ ِﻠ ِﻚ ﻳَ ْﻮ ِﻡ ﺍﻟ ِﺪّﻳ ِﻦ‬ ‫ِﺇﻳﱠﺎ َﻙ ﻧَ ْﻌﺒُﺪُ َﻭ ِﺇﻳﱠﺎ َﻙ ﻧَ ْﺴﺘ َ ِﻌﻴ ُﻦ‬ َ ‫ﺼ َﺮﺍ‬ ‫ﻁ ﺍﻟ ُﻤﺴﺘ َ ِﻘﻴ َﻢ‬ ّ ِ ‫ﺍﻫ ِﺪﻧَﺎ ﺍﻟ‬ َ ‫ﺻ َﺮﺍ‬ ‫ﻋﻠَﻴ ِﻬ ْﻢ‬ َ ‫ﻁ ﺍﻟﱠ ِﺬﻳ َﻦ ﺃ َﻧﻌَﻤ‬ َ ‫ﺖ‬ ِ َ ‫ﻋﻠَﻴ ِﻬ ْﻢ‬ ُ ‫ﻏﻴ ِﺮ ﺍﻟ َﻤﻐ‬ ِ ‫ﻀﻮ‬ َ ‫ﺏ‬ ‫ﻀﺎ ِﻟّﻴﻦ‬ ‫َﻭ َﻻ ﺍﻟ ﱠ‬

Praise belongs to God, the Lord of all Being, the All-merciful, the All-compassionate, the Master of the Day of Doom. Thee only we serve; to Thee alone we pray for succor. Guide us in the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast blessed, not of those against whom Thou art wrathful, nor of those who are astray.

In an unpublished lecture on the influence of Islam on Arabic Christian literature, Samir (n.d.) has identified a number of Arabic Bible translations, whether extant in manuscripts or lost, in which the reader encounters Qurʾanic sajʿ style. Interestingly, early biblical examples of sajʿ are often known through quotations from Muslim authors, who used them to refute Christian doctrines. One example is Matthew 5:43–44, cited in al-Radd ʿalā al-Naṣārā (The Response to Christians) of al-Imām al-Zaydī al-Qāsim al-Rassī, which reads: ‫ﺍﻻ ﻭﻗﺪ ﺳﻤﻌﺘﻢ ﺍﻥ ﻗﻴﻞ ﺍﺣﺒﻮﺍ ﺍﻭﻟﻴﺎﺋﻜﻢ‬ ‫ﻭﺍﺑﻐﻀﻮﺍ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻨﺎﺱ ﺍﻋﺪﺍﺋﻜﻢ‬ ‫ﻭﺍﻧﺎ ﺍﻗﻮﻝ ﻟﻜﻢ ﺍﺣﺒﻮﺍ ﻓﻲ ﷲ ﺍﻋﺪﺍﻛﻢ‬ ،‫ﻭﺑﺎﺭﻛﻮﺍ ﻣﻨﻬﻢ ﻋﻠﻰ ﻣﻦ ﻟﻌﻨﻜﻢ ﻭﺁﺫﺍﻛﻢ‬ ،‫ﻭﺍﺣﺴﻨﻮﺍ ﻣﻨﻬﻢ ﺍﻟﻰ ﻣﺒﻐﻀﻴﻜﻢ‬ ،‫ﻭﺻﻠﻮﺍ ﻣﻨﻬﻢ ﻟﻤﻦ ﻳﺆﺫﻳﻜﻢ‬ ‫ﻟﻜﻲ ﺗﻜﻮﻧﻮﺍ ﻣﻦ ﺍﺻﻔﻴﺎء ﷲ‬ ‫ﻭﻟﺘﻔﻮﺯﻭﺍ ﺑﺎﻟﻜﺮﺍﻣﺔ ﻭﺍﻟﺮﺿﻰ ﻣﻦ ﷲ‬ ‫ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﻳﻄﻠﻊ ﺷﻤﺴﻪ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻟ ُﻤﺘﻘﻴﻦ ﻭﺍﻟﻔﺠﺮﺓ‬ ‫ﻭﻳﻨﺰﻝ ﺍﻣﻄﺎﺭﻩ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻟﻈﺎﻟﻤﻴﻦ ﻭﺍﻟﺒﺮﺭﻩ‬

Have you not heard that it is said love your friends and hate your enemies among the people I say to you: love in God your enemies bless them who cursed and hurt you do good to your haters pray for those who hurt you to be of God’s elect people And to win dignity and satisfaction of God Who makes His sun rise over the pious and the licentious And brings His rains over the unjust and the just

Samir (n.d.) also mentions other examples from the Psalms, translated by Ḥafṣ ibn Albar al-Qūṭī (d. 889 ) and a later version of the complete Gospels in sajʿ form by the East Syriac bishop ʿAbd Yashūʿ al-Ṣūbāwī (Samir and Khury, 2007). However, it appears that cases of rhyming in the Arabic Bible are generally known only in the Gospels and Psalms. This makes the few rhymed passages in S310 unprecedented among translations of the Pauline epistles into Arabic. The case of Romans 12:9– 13 is an obvious example of sajʿ; it reads as follows: ‫ﺑﻞ ﻛﻮﻧﻮﺍ ﻟﻠﺸﺮﻭﺭ ﻣﺒﻐﻀﻴﻦ‬ ‫ﻭﺑﺎﻟﺨﻴﺮﺍﺕ ﻭﺍﻟﺼﺎﻟﺤﺎﺕ ﻣﻌﺘﺼﻤﻴﻦ‬ ‫ﻭﺇﻟﻴﻬﺎ ﻣﻨﻘﻄﻌﻴﻦ‬ ‫ﻭﻛﻮﻧﻮﺍ ﻹﺧﻮﺗﻜﻢ ﻣﺤﺒﻴﻦ‬ .‫ﺾ ﻭﺍﺩﻳﻦ‬ ٍ ‫ﻭﺑﻌﻀﻜﻢ ﻟﺒﻌ‬ .‫ﻛﻮﻧﻮﺍ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺗﻜﺮﻣﺔ ﺑﻌﻀﻜﻢ ﻟﺒﻌﺾ ﻣﺒﺎﺩﺭﻳﻦ‬ .‫ﻛﻮﻧﻮﺍ ﺃﻛﻴﺎﺳﺎ ﺣﺮﺍﺻﺎ ً ﻏﻴﺮ ﻛﺴﺎﻟﻰ ﻭﻻ ﻣﻀﻴﻌﻴﻦ‬ ‫ﻛﻮﻧﻮﺍ ﺗﺮﺗﺎﺣﻮﻥ ﺑﺎﻟﺮﻭﺡِ ﻓﻲ ﻛﻞ ﺣﻴﻦ‬ ‫ﻛﻮﻧﻮﺍ ﻟﺮﺑﻜﻢ ﻋﺎﺑﺪﻳﻦ ﻭﺑﻄﺎﻋﺘﻪ ﻣﻌﺘﺼﻤﻴﻦ‬

Yet be haters of evil And hold on to the good things, Devoting yourselves to them Be lovers of your brothers and sisters, And of each other be friends Taking initiative to honour each other Be gentle, cautious, not lazy nor losers, Take comfort in the Spirit always, Be worshipers of your Lord, and abide by obeying Him

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The Bible in Qurʾanic language ‫ﻛﻮﻧﻮﺍ ﺑﺮﺟﺎﺋﻜﻢ ﻓﺮﺣﻴﻦ ﻣﺴﺘﺒﺸﺮﻳﻦ‬ ‫ﻛﻮﻧﻮﺍ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻟﺒﻼﻳﺎ ﻭﺍﻟﺸﺪﺍﻳﺪ ﺍﻟﺘﻲ ﺗﺼﻴﺒﻜﻢ ﺻﺎﺑﺮﻳﻦ‬ ‫ﻛﻮﻧﻮﺍ ﻓﻲ ﺻﻼﺗﻜﻢ ﺩﺍﺋﻤﻴﻦ‬ ‫ﻭﻋﻨﻬﺎ ﻏﻴﺮ ﻏﺎﻓﻠﻴﻦ‬ ‫ﻛﻮﻧﻮﺍ ﻟﻠﻘﺪﻳﺴﻴﻦ ﻓﻲ ﻓﻘﺮﻫﻢ ﻣﺸﺎﺭﻛﻴﻦ‬ ‫ﻭﺑﺄﻧﻔﺴﻜﻢ ﻣﻮﺍﺳﻴﻦ‬ ‫ﻛﻮﻧﻮﺍ ﻟﻠﻐﺮﺑﺎء ﻭﺍﻟﺪﺧﻼء ﻣﻜﺮﻣﻴﻦ‬ ‫ﻣﺤﺒﻴﻦ ﻣﻮﻗﺮﻳﻦ‬

Be, in your hope, delighted, and rejoicing Be patient against the difficulties and hardships that hit you Hold fast to prayer all the time And do not be careless in [performing] them Be, to the saints in their poverty, sharers And to them be comforters Be, to the strangers and guests, generous Loving and respectful

The Qurʾanic rhyme is also evident in Romans 14:8, which reads: ‫ﻻﻧﺎ ﺍﻥ ﺣﻴﻴﻨﺎ ﻓﺎﻧﻤﺎ ﻧﺤﻴﺎ ﻟﺮﺑﻨﺎ ﻭﺍﻥ ﻣﺘﻨﺎ ﻓﺎﻟﻴﻪ ﻣﺼﻴﺮﻧﺎ ﻭﺍﻥ ﻛﻨﺎ ﺍﺣﻴﺎ ﻭﺍﻥ ﻛﻨﺎ ﺍﻣﻮﺍﺗﺎ ﻓﻨﺤﻦ ﻟﺮﺑﻨﺎ‬ “For if we live we live for our Lord and when we die, to him is our destiny. So if we are alive or dead, we belong to our Lord” Furthermore, the Qurʾanic sajʿ can be heard as well in 1 Corinthians 15:2, which is rendered ʾinn kuntum li-dhalika dhākrīn (“if you were to remember that”). Its sound reflects the many instances where the Qurʾan has ʾinn kuntum li-dhalika (“if you were to be”) along with words such as mūqinīn, mūʾminīn or ṣādiqīn (“honest” in Sura 36:48, “believers” in Sura 24:17 and “assured” in Sura 44:7, respectively). One might wonder about the function that such QL has in a Bible translation. In fact, beside the Islamic flavor that the translation gains through this language, it was used to confirm some basic Christian doctrines, in particular, Christology. Like other fundamental Christian doctrines of which Islam disapproves, this is one of the thorny issues between Christianity and Islam. In general, the strategy adopted in the text of S310 is to make no compromise when it comes to foundational doctrine. Thus, topics such as the Crucifixion and the Resurrection are candidly expressed. For instance, Romans 8:33b–34 in S310 is a direct translation of the ST:22 ً ‫ﻭﺇﺫﺍ ﺑﺮﺭ ﷲ ﻓﻤﻦ ﻳﻘﺪﺭﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻹﺷﺠﺎﺏ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﻴﺢ ﻗﺪ ﻣﺎﺕ ﻭﺍﻧﺒﻌﺚ ﺣﻴﺎ‬ “If God justified, who can condemn? Christ has died and risen alive.” Besides this clear statement, which is a literal rendering of the ST, the extensions of the text reveal a variety of strategies to affirm Christology. First, these textual extensions attribute the qualities of God to Christ; in many verses, the title “Christ” has an epithet attached to it, muḥīy al-ʿālamīn (“life-giver to the worlds”). For instance, Romans 5:21 describes him as:23 ‫ﻣﺤﻴﻲ ﺍﻟﻌﺎﻟﻤﻴﻦ ﻭﻣﺨﻠﺺ ﺍﻟﻨﺎﺱ ﺃﺟﻤﻌﻴﻦ‬ “The life-giver to the worlds and the savior of all people.” This epithet is a combination of two attributes of God from the Qurʾan—muḥīy al- mawtā (“the life-giver to the dead”) and rabb al-ʿālamīn (“the Lord of the worlds”)—both of which are frequently repeated in the Qurʾan.24 Second, the translator uses another Qurʾanic construction in 1 Corinthians 8:6, in which God is substituted with Christ:

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Vevian F. Zaki

‫ﻭﻏﻴﺮ ﺍﻧﻪ ﻟﻴﺲ ﻟﻨﺎ ﻧﺤﻦ ﺍﻟﻪ ﺍﻻ ﷲ ﺍﻟﻮﺍﺣﺪ ﻭﻫﻮ ﷲ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﻛﻞ ﻣﻨﻪ ﻭﺍﻧﻤﺎ ﻧﺤﻦ ﺑﻪ ﻭﻭﺍﺣﺪ ﺍﻟﺮﺏ ﻳﺴﻮﻉ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﻴﺢ ﺍﻟﺪﻱ‬ ‫ﻛﻞ ﻓﻲ ﻗﺒﻀﺘﻪ ﻭﻧﺤﻦ ﺑﻪ ﻭﻓﻲ ﻳﺪﻳﻪ‬ “But we have no god but the one God and He is God through whom all things [exist], and we by Him [exist]. And one is the Lord Jesus Christ in whose fist is everything and we are by him and in his hands.” ٌ ‫ﺕ َﻣﻄ ِﻮﻳﱠﺎ‬ ُ ‫ﺴ َﻤﺎ َﻭﺍ‬ ‫ﻋ ﱠﻤﺎ‬ ‫ﺽ َﺟ ِﻤﻴﻌًﺎ ﻗ ْﺒﻀﺘ ُﻪُ ﻳَ ْﻮﻡ ﺍ ْﻟ ِﻘﻴَﺎ َﻣ ِﺔ ﻭﺍﻟ ﱠ‬ ُ ‫ﺕ ﺑِﻴَ ِﻤﻴِﻨِ ِﻪ‬ ُ ‫َﻭ َﻣﺎ ﻗَﺪﱠﺭ ُﻭﺍ ﷲَ َﺣ ﱠﻖ ﻗَ ْﺪ ِﺭ ِﻩ َﻭﺍ ْﻷ ْﺭ‬ َ ‫ﺳ ْﺒ َﺤﺎﻧَﻪُ ﻭﺗﻌَﺎﻟَﻰ‬ ‫ﻳُ ْﺸ ِﺮ ُﻛﻮﻥ‬ “They measure not God with His true measure. The earth altogether shall be ‘His fist’ on the Day of Resurrection, and the heavens shall be rolled up in His right hand. Glory be to Him! High be He exalted above that they associate!” (Sura 39:67) While the Qurʾanic verse spells out God’s authority in a specific human metaphor using the “fist” and the “right hand,” the biblical verse, despite using the same terminology as the Qurʾan, gives these human attributes to Christ rather than to God. Interestingly, this biblical verse achieves two goals at once. By assigning these attributes to Christ only, it confirms, on the one hand, the equality between God and Christ by granting the biblical Christ the status of the Qurʾanic God; at the same time, it highlights the humanity of Christ through the human metaphor, while denying the same to God. Thus far, the available data about the text of S310 is that it is exegetical in nature. Within the frame of this exegesis, the text incorporates QL, which shows the familiarity of the translator with the Qurʾanic text. Although this might suggest a Muslim reader as the target of this translation, the uncompromisingly Christian doctrines, and also the tweaking of the QL in order to confirm them, suggests otherwise. Indeed, as we will see, the context of the translation which can be garnered from the textual extensions adds to the likelihood of an intended Christian readership.

Contextual extensions While many of the extensions to the text in S310 are exegetical in nature, some of them provide some information about the context of this translation. Thus, a glimpse is given in these extensions of the circumstances which shaped the translation, and consequently I will refer to them as “contextual extensions.” A few examples are given here for illustration. In the S310 text of Romans 8:35, a series of adjectives are added: ‫ﻋﺮﻱ ﻓﺎﺿﺢ‬ ُ ‫ﻣﻦ ﺫﺍ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﻳﻌﺰﻟﻨﻲ ﻋﻦ ﺣﺐ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﻴﺢ ﺃﺿﺮ ﺷﺪﻳﺪ ﺃﻡ ﺣﺒﺲ ﻁﻮﻳﻞ ﺃﻡ ﺍﻁﺮﺍﺩ ﻋﻨﻴﻒ ﺃﻡ ﺟﻮﻉ ﻣﺠﻬﺪ ﺃﻡ‬ ‫ﺃﻡ ﺟﻬﺪ ﻭﺑﻼء ﺃﻡ ﺿﻴﻖ ﻭﺿﻨﻚ ﺃﻡ ﺳﻴﻒ ﺻﺎﺭﻡ ﻳﺄﺗﻲ ﻋﻠﻰ ﻧﻔﺴﻲ‬ “Who might separate me from the love of Christ? Grave harm? or long detention? Or violent persecution? Or ravenous hunger? Or scandalous nakedness? Or exhaustion and ordeal? Or trouble and misery? Or a sharp sword that comes on my soul?” Exaggerating adjectives are added to underline the difficulties Paul experienced. The ST reads: “Who shall separate me from the love of Christ? Oppression, detention, persecution, hunger, nakedness, peril, or sword?” The extension adds a rather larger range of difficulties, such as ḍīq and ḍank (“trouble” and “misery”). 90

The Bible in Qurʾanic language

Elsewhere in the text, there is a list of the difficulties that Paul faced and recounted to the people of Corinth in his first epistle to them. In the middle of this list, precisely at the end of 1 Corinthians 4:10, the translator inserted new ones that are not found in the ST: ‫ﻭﻟﻴﺲ ﻟﻨﺎ ﻋﻨﺪ ﺍﻟﻨﺎﺱ ﺍﻟﻤﺨﺎﻟﻔﻴﻦ ﻟﻨﺎ ﻋﻬﺪ ﻭﻻ ﻣﻴﺜﺎﻕ‬ “And we do not receive from the people in disagreement with us a covenant or a pact” This is more explicit than the first example in identifying a problem, that is, the absence of ʿahd or mīthāq (a “covenant” or a “pact”) with the people who are mukhālifīn (“those who are in disagreement with us”). The selection of the terminology here is significant, because it indicates how Christian authors of the time usually referred to Muslims. For example, Abū Qurra, a Greek Orthodox author (c.755– 830 ) and the earliest known author to compose apologetic works in Arabic,25 uses the term mukhālifū al- nuṣrāniyya (“those who disagree with the Christian religion”) to refer to Muslims in his work entitled A Treatise on the Veneration of Icons (Abu Qurrah, 1897). Moreover, in the context of Muslim– Christian relations, the word ʿahd usually refers to the “Pact of Omar,” which was supposed to regulate the affairs of dhimmī people under Islamic rule.26 The translator seems to be complaining about the absence of a covenant with Muslims. Another example of a contextual extension can be seen in 1 Corinthians 5:9–10, which reads: ‫ﻭﻗﺪ ﻛﺘﺒﺖ ﺇﻟﻴﻜﻢ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﺮﺳﺎﻟﻪ ﺃﻥ ﻻ ﺗﺨﺎﻟﻄﻮﺍ ﺍﻟﺰﻧﺎﻩ ﻭﻟﺴﺖ ﺍﻋﻨﻲ ﺯﻧﺎﺓ ﺃﻫﻞ ﻫﺬﻩ ﺍﻟﺪﻧﻴﺎ ﺍﻟﻤﻔﺎﺭﻗﻴﻦ ﻟﺪﻳﻨﻨﺎ ﻭﻻ‬ ً ‫ﺍﻟﻌﺎﺭﺿﻴﻦ ﻣﻨﻬﻢ ﻭﻻ ﺍﻟﻤﺤﺘﻔﻈﻴﻦ ﻭﻻ ﻋﺎﺑﺪﻱ ﺍﻷﻭﺛﺎﻥ ﻻﻥ ﺫﻟﻚ ﻟﻮ ﻟﺰﻣﻜﻢ ﺍﺫﻥ ﻟﻜﺎﻥ ﺍﻟﺨﺮﻭﺝ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺪﻧﻴﺎ ﻋﻠﻴﻜﻢ ﻭﺍﺟﺒﺎ‬ “I wrote to you in the letter that you should not associate with the adulterers of this world; I do not mean the adulterers of this world who abandoned our religion, those of them who oppose it, those who are wary, or the idolaters, otherwise, leaving the world becomes an obligation for you.” The verse invites readers to separate themselves from the adulterers of this world, and then excludes a number of categories from this set of adulterers who should be avoided, because if these are avoided as well, Christians would have to live in solitude. These categories, in the ST include: covetous, rapacious, and idolaters. Except for the latter category, the others were replaced with the translator’s own categories. One of these categories is al- mufāriqīn l- dīninā (“those who abandoned our religion”). This category exists neither in the ST nor in the other Arabic translations. This contextual extension suggests that there may have been a strong wave of conversion to Islam at the time. Many of these waves took place during medieval times (Bulliet, 1979, 1990). The other added categories include those who are, more or less, related to “the religion” or Christianity, but are opposed to it or have suspicions about it. A final example of a contextual extension comes from 1 Corinthians 1:20–21, which reads: ‫ﻓﺄﻳﻦ ﺍﻟﺤﻜﻴﻢ ﻋﻨﺪ ﺁﻳﺎﺗﻨﺎ ﻭﺃﻳﻦ ﺍﻟﻜﺎﺗﺐ ﺍﻟﻤﻔﺘﺨﺮ ﺑﺎﻟﺤﻜﻤﺔ ﻋﻨﺪ ﺟﺮﺍﺋﺤﻨﺎ ﻭﺃﻳﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﺠﺎﺩﻝ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﻳﺰﻋﻢ ﺃﻧﻪ ﻳﺪﺭﻙ ﺣﻘﺎﺋﻖ‬ .‫ﺃﻣﻮﺭ ﺍﻟﺪﻧﻴﺎ ﺑﺎﻟﻘﻴﺎﺱ ﻋﻨﺪ ﺃﻋﺎﺟﻴﺒﻨﺎ‬ “Where is the wise at the time of our miracles, and where is the writer who is proud of wisdom at the time of our marvels? And where is the disputer who claims he understands the facts of life through reasoning at the time of our wonders?”

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If the Arabic rendering were to follow the Syriac Vorlage accurately, this verse should read: “Where is the wise? Where is the writer? Where is the disputer?” In the Arabic text, the three rhetorical questions are interpreted in relation to miracles. In other words, the verse depicts an argument about those who reject “miracles” and only acknowledge “reasoning” as a basis for judging things. Three synonyms are used for “miracles”, one with each question: āyātinā, jarāʾiḥinā and aʿājībinā. Again, this recalls the argument of Abū Qurra, who talked about the necessity of miracles to prove the validity of a religion; in his argument, he uses two of these terms, āyāt and aʿājīb (Dick, 1982: 257–270). Exaggerating the suffering of Christians and talking about how their relations with others (Muslims) are not safe are unlikely to be included in a text which was intended to be used to approach Muslims. The text also reveals a context where many have converted to Islam, and where intellectual debates have taken place. Unfortunately, the lack of further details about the context makes it difficult to specify the exact historical circumstances of the text of manuscript S310. Many of the incidents described in the textual extensions were common across several areas through the history of Christian communities in the Islamic context.

Conclusion To sum up, the text of manuscript S310 makes extensive use of Qurʾanic language— either directly through Qurʾanic terminology or through allusions to the Qurʾan—and there are a few portions of the text which are in Qurʾanic rhyme. Nonetheless, it speaks to a Christian reader, since it does not compromise those Christian doctrines that are in disagreement with Islam, but rather seeks to affirm them. This translation presents a similar strategy to that used in the treatise On the Triune Nature of God. It shows the ability of these Christian communities to speak in a Muslim-friendly language or in a “Biblically oriented but Qurʾanic shaped” style, as Swanson (1998: 302) puts it. The reaction of the Near Eastern Christian communities toward Bible translations in QL is a topic that deserves further exploration. Judging this translation on the basis of the number of manuscripts in which it appears, it was not highly popular, and completely disappeared after the eleventh century. It is hoped that a new, full critical edition of this text using all the available witnesses might allow for a study of the exegetical method exhibited in the extensions and of the QL it shares with other Christian apologetic works. This would reveal much more about the strategies used by these Christian communities in translating, expressing and defending their faith.

Notes 1 This chapter was written as a part of my work in the DFG-funded project “Biblia Arabica” at LudwigMaximilians- Universität München. I am indebted to the Biblia Arabica team at LMU— Prof. Ronny Vollandt and my colleagues Miriam L. Hjälm, Nathan Gibson and Peter Tarras— for their help in revising and improving this chapter. 2 In the introduction to his recension of the Gospels, Hibat Allāh complained that no one understands Coptic, and that when it came to readings in the mass, the passage read in Coptic must be translated into Arabic (Abullief, 2006: 87–88). On the Arabicization of the Coptic Church, Swanson (2010: 59– 81) has written about Mawhūb ibn Manṣūr, who translated from Coptic into Arabic and gathered the biographies of many Coptic patriarchs in what we now know as the second volume of The History of the Patriarchs. 3 These communities have traditionally been labeled in different ways depending on historical circumstances. These labels include calling the Greek Orthodox Church the “Melkites,” the East Syrians

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4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21

“Nestorians” and the West Syrians “Jacobites.” These labels were not always acceptable to these communities, and were controversial in a number of ways. The term “Nestorians” is generally considered a misnomer (Brock, 1996); the problematic history of this label is outlined in Griffith (2013b; see also Hjälm, 2016: 5–6, especially notes 4 and 5). The label “Melkites” is still controversial—for a point of view that supports using it, see Monferrer-Sala (2013: 449–450). Kashouh (2011: 142– 171) argues that the text of the Gospels in MS Vatican, BAV, Ar. 13 is preIslamic, while Griffith insists that the first Arabic book is the Qurʾan and that prior to the ninth century, the Arabic Bible was only part of the oral tradition of Arabic-speaking Christians. For the edition and English translation of this manuscript’s text, see Staal (1983a, 1983b, 1984a, 1984b). It should be noted that the sources of the Qurʾan and its foreign and loan vocabulary, as well as the wider perspective of Islamic terminology, do not form part of this study. For an examination of the vocabulary in the Qurʾan, see Jeffery (1929). In Qurʾanic studies, the terms “Qurʾanic language,” “the language of Qurʾan” or sometimes “Qurʾanic Arabic” usually refer to a wide range of linguistic features of the distinctive Arabic language used in the Qurʾan (Ferrando, 2011; Hoffman, 2009; Pearson, 1993; Zammit, 2002: ch. 2). In a recent presentation on “Islamic Vocabulary: Cognate Roots or Missionary Strategy? A Comparative Study of the Early Christian Arabic Bible Translations,” Miriam Hjälm examined the use of some Islamic vocabulary in Peshitta-based Arabic Bible translations. This is clear in the edition of Stenij (1901), where Romans ends at Rom 9:2 then 1 Corinthians begins at 1 Cor 9:5. Even when some of these lacunae are filled by the text of MS Sinai, NF Ar. Parch. 52, which contains Romans 15:8–14 and 9:2–11:20 (in that order), the lacunae are still noticeable. Staal (1983a), in the introduction to his edition of MS Sinai, Ar. 151, observes that the scribe of the earliest part of the manuscript fluently uses some Islamic words while the scribes of the latter parts are more cautious in using them, but he does not study the issue further. Many examples from the books of the Old Testament were mentioned by Miriam Hjälm in her presentation referred to earlier. Sunna refers to customs or traditions that are specifically related to the Prophet of Islam (Brown, 1993; the introduction to Staal, 1983a). The Muʿtazila was an Islamic movement established in the eighth century (Gimaret, 1993). The word Muʿtazila replaces the word Pharisee in some manuscripts, such as Sinai, Ar. 151 (Staal, 1983a). The manuscript was first dated to 755 , but Swanson (1993) argued convincingly that the more accurate date is 788 . Sura 42:51 reads: “It belongs not to any mortal that God should speak to him, except by revelation, or from behind a veil, or that He should send a messenger and he reveal whatsoever He will, by His leave; surely He is All-high, All-wise.” Swanson (1998, 2007) also discusses the description of the Virgin Mary, which corresponds to that in Sura 3:42, “chosen you above the women of the worlds.” Griffith discusses the same treatise suggesting that its readers were mainly Christian readers, yet it might be that some Muslim readers had access to it as well (Griffith, 2008: 53–57). Ricks (2013) similarly discusses the use of some Qurʾanic terminology in the writings of four Christian apologetics in the development of the Trinitarian theology. In the Qurʾan, only the plural bīaʿ appears (Sura 22:40). The English translation of the Qurʾan used in this chapter is based on Arberry’s (1996) translation. This expression is found, for example, in Sura 9:73: “O Prophet, struggle with the unbelievers and hypocrites, and be thou harsh with them; their refuge is Gehenna—an evil homecoming!” Irregular spelling of Arabic translations is kept as in original manuscripts. See, for example, the following Arabic renderings: ‫ﻓﺎﻥ ﷲ ﻟﻪ ﺍﻟﺤﻤﺪ ﻳﻮﺗﻴﻬﻢ ﺑﺬﻟﻚ ﺍﻟﺤﻴﻮﻩ ﺍﻟﺪﺍﻳﻤﻪ‬ “God, Praise be to Him, brings to them eternal life” (Rom. 2:7) ‫ﻭﺍﻟﺤﻤﺪ ﻪﻠﻟ ﻛﺜﻴﺮﺍ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﻟﻢ ﺗﻜﻦ ﻛﻠﻤﺘﻨﺎ ﻋﻨﺪﻛﻢ ﻣﺨﺘﻠﻔﺔ ﺑﻨﻌﻢ ﻭﻻ‬ “thanks be to God so much that our word for you was not different in yes and no” (2 Cor. 1:18) ‫ﺍﻋﺪﻭﺍ ﺍﻧﻔﺴﻜﻢ ﻪﻠﻟ ﺗﺒﺮﻙ‬ “prepare yourself for God, blessed be Him” (Rom. 13:6)

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Vevian F. Zaki 22 Similarly, 1 Cor 1:23 is translated exactly as in the ST: ّ ‫ﻓﺎﻣﺎ ﻧﺤﻦ ﻓﺎﻧﻤﺎ ﻧﺒ‬ ‫ﺸﺮ ﺑﺎﻟﻤﺴﻴﺢ ﻣﺼﻠﻮﺑﺎ‬ “However we preach Christ who is crucified.” 23 See also Rom 5:6: …‫“ ﺍﻥ ﻛﺎﻥ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﻴﺢ ﻣﺤﻲ ﺍﻟﻌﺎﻟﻤﻴﻦ ﻗﺪ ﻣﺎﺕ ﻓﻲ ﻫﺬﺍ ﺍﻟﺮﻣﺎﻥ‬if Christ the life-giver to the worlds has died in this age …”; and Rom 5:8: ‫“ ﻣﺎﺕ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﻴﺢ ﻣﺤﻴﻴﻨﺎ ﺑﺪﻟﻨﺎ‬Christ our life- giver has died instead of us.” 24 See Suras 26:47, 98, 165, 192; 30:50; 37:87, 182. 25 For details of Abū Qurra’s life and works, see Griffith (1997: 1–28) and Lamoreaux (2002). 26 Dhimma is a term used to designate the sort of indefinitely renewed contract through which the Muslim community accords hospitality and protection to members of other revealed religions, on condition of their acknowledging the domination of Islam (Chehata, 1965). The Pact of Omar is mentioned for the first time in Kitāb al-Khirāj by the author al-Qāḍī ābī Yūsuf Yaʿqūb bin Ibrāhīm, who died in 799 (al-Qāḍī, 1979), which means that it is earlier than S310.

Further reading Bausi, Alessandro, Borbone, Pier Giorgio, Briquel- Chatonnet, Françoise, Buzi, Paola, Gippert, Jost, Macé, Caroline, Maniaci, Marilena, Melissakis, Zisis, Parodi, Laura E. and Witakowski, Witold (eds.) (2015) Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies: An Introduction. Hamburg: Tredition. Griffith, Sidney H. (2013) The Bible in Arabic: The Scripture of the “People of the Book” in the Language of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kashouh, Hikmat (2011) The Arabic Versions of the Gospels: The Manuscripts and their Families. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Refrerences Abullief, Wadi (2006) Al- Asʿad Ibn al-ʿAssal, Introduzioni alla traduzione dei quattro Vangeli. Studia Orientalia Christiana Collectanea, 39: 47–120. Abu Qurrah, Theodore (1897) Maymar fī Ikrām al-Aīqūnāt (Traite de la Defense des Icônes) (I. Arendzen, trans.). Bonnae: Typs Caroli Drobnig. al- Qāḍī, ābī Yūsuf Yaʿqūb bin Ibrāhīm (1979) Kitāb al- Khirāj (T. Abd al- Rẚof and S. Hassan, eds.). Beirut: Dar Al-Maʿrifa. Arberry, Arthur J. (trans.) (1996) The Koran Interpreted: A Translation. New York: Touchstone. Atiya, Aziz S. (1955) The Arabic Manuscripts of Mount Sinai: A Hand-List of the Arabic Manuscripts and Scrolls Microfilmed at the Library of the Monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. Atiya, Aziz S. (1970) Catalogue Raisonné of the Mount Sinai Arabic Manuscripts: Complete Analytical Listing of the Arabic Collection Preserved in the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai (J.N. Youssef, trans.). Alexandria: Al-Maarif Establishment. Bailey, Kenneth E. (2011) Paul through the Mediterranean Eye: Cultural Studies in I Corinthians. Illinois: IVP Academic. Brock, Sebastian P. (1988) The Bible in the Syriac Tradition. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute. Brock, Sebastian P. (1996) The “Nestorian” Church: A Lamentable Misnomer. Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 78: 23–35. Brock, Sebastian P. (2004) A Neglected Witness to the East Syriac New Testament Commentary Tradition: Sinai Arabic MS 151. In: R. Ebied and H. Teule (eds.) Studies on the Christian Arabic Heritage. Louvain: Peeters, 205–215. Brown, Daniel W. (1993) Sunna. In: C.E. Bosworth, P. Bearman, T. Bianquis, E.V. Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs (eds.) The Encyclopedia of Islam (New Edition). Leiden: Brill, vol. 9, 878–881. Bulliet, Richard W. (1979) Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bulliet, Richard W. (1990) Conversion Stories in Early Islam. In: M. Gervers and R.J. Bikhazi (eds.) Conversion and Continuity: Indigenous Christian Communities in Islamic Lands, Eighth to Eighteenth Centuries. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 123–133.

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The Bible in Qurʾanic language Chehata, Chafik (1965) Dhimma. In: B. Lewis, Ch. Pellat and J. Schacht (eds.) The Encyclopedia of Islam (New Edition). Leiden: Brill, vol. 2, 227–231. Clarke, Kenneth W. (1952) Checklist of Manuscripts in St. Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai: Microfilmed for the Library of Congress, 1950. Washington, DC: Library of Congress. Delitzsch, Franz (1857) Kommentar zum Brief an die Hebräer. Leipzig: Dörffling & Franke. Dick, Ignace (1982) Maymar fī Wujūd al-Khāliq wa al-Dīn al-Qawīm (A Treatise on the Existence of a Creator and the True Religion). Gounyah: al-Maktaba al-Būlisiyya. Erpenius, T. and Raphalengis, F. (eds.) (1616) Al-ʿAhd al- Jadīd li- Rabbinā Yasūʿ al- Masīḥ (Novum D.N. Jesu Christi Testamentum Arabice Ex Bibliotheca Leidensi). Leidae: Typographia Erpeniana Linguarum Orientalium. Ferrando, Ignacio (2011) History of Arabic. In: Lutz Edzard and Rudolf de Jong (eds.) Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. Retrieved from http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.emedien. ub.unimuenchen.de/browse/encyclopedia-of-arabic-language-and-linguistics. Fleischer, H.L. (1854) Beschreibung der von Prof. Dr. Tischendorf im J. 1853 aus dem Morgenlande zurückgebrachten christlich-arabischen Handschriften. Kleinere Schriften 3: 389–394. Freidenreich, David (2003) The Use of Islamic Sources in Saadiah Gaons Tafsīr of the Torah. Jewish Quarterly Review 3–4: 353–395. Gibson, Margaret D. (ed.) (1899) An Arabic Version of the Acts of the Apostles and the Seven Catholic Epistles from an Eighth or Ninth Century MS. in the Convent of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, with a Treatise on the Triune Nature of God, with Translation, from the Same Codex. Cambridge and London: C.J. Clay and Sons. Gimaret, Daniel (1993). Muʿtazila. In: C.E. Bosworth, P. Bearman, T. Bianquis, E.V. Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs (eds.) The Encyclopedia of Islam (New Edition). Leiden: Brill, vol. 7, 783–793. Graf, Georg (1944) Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur (vol. 1). Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Griffith, Sidney H. (ed.) (1997) A Treatise on the Veneration of the Holy Icons. Louvain: Peeters. Griffith, Sidney H. (2008) The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Griffith, Sidney H. (2013a) The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the “People of the Book” in the Language of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Griffith, Sidney H. (2013b) The Melkites and the Muslims: The Qurʾān, Christology, and Arab Orthodoxy. Al-Qantara: Revista de Estudios Arabes 33: 413–443. Hjälm, Miriam L. (2016) Christian Arabic Versions of Daniel: A Comparative Study of Early MSS and Translation Techniques in MSS Sinai Ar. 1 and 2. Leiden: Brill. Hoffman, Thomas (2009) The Moving Qurʾan: A Cognitive Poetic Approach to Qurʾanic Language. In: M. Nekroumi and J. Meise (eds.) Modern Controversies in Qurʾānic Studies. HamburgSchenefeld: EB-Verlag, 141–152. Jeffery, Arthur (1929) Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurʾan. Baroda: The Oriental Institute. Kashouh, Hikmat (2011) The Arabic Versions of the Gospels: The Manuscripts and Their Families. Berlin: De Gruyter. Lamoreaux, John C. (2002) The Biography of Theodore Abū Qurrah Revisited. Dumbarton Oaks Papers 56: 25–40. Lebedev, Viktor V. (1990) Arabskie rukopisi Gosudarstvennoy publichnoy biblioteki im. M. E. SaltykovaSchedrina: Katalog (A. B. Khalidov, ed.). St Petersburg: National Library of Russia. Meimaris, Yiannis (1985) Καταλογος των Νεων Αραβικων Χειρογραφων της Ιερας Μονης Αγιας Αικατερι νης του Οροθς Σινα (The Catalogue of New Discoveries of Arabic Manuscripts in the Holy Monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai). Athens: The Greek National Institute for Research. Monferrer-Sala, Juan Pedro (2013) Between Hellenism and Arabicization: On the Formation of an Ethnolinguistic Identity of the Melkite Communities in the Heart of Muslim Rule. Al-Qantara: Revista de Estudios Arabes 33: 445–473. Pearson, James D. (1993) al-Kurʾān. In: C.E. Bosworth, P. Bearman, T. Bianquis, E.V. Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs (eds.) The Encyclopedia of Islam (New Edition). Leiden: Brill, vol. 5, 419–421. Polliack, Meira (1997) The Karaite Tradition of Arabic Bible Translation: A Linguistic and Exegetical Study of Karaite Translations of the Pentateuch from the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries C.E. Leiden: Brill. Ricks, Thomas W. (2013) Early Arabic Christian Contributions to Trinitarian Theology [The Development of the Doctrine of the Trinity in an Islamic Milieu]. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

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Vevian F. Zaki Samir, Samir K. (n.d.) Tāʾthīr al- Islām ʿalā al- Adab al- Dīnī al- Masīḥī (The Influence of Islam on Religious Christian Literature). Retrieved May 5, 2018, from http:// coptcatholic.net/-‫ﻋﻠﻰ‬-‫ﺍﻻﺳﻼﻡ‬-‫ﺗﺄﺛﻴﺮ‬ ‫ﺍﻟﻤﺴﻴﺢ‬-‫ﺍﻟﺪﻳﻨﻲ‬-‫ﺍﻵﺩﺏ‬/. Samir, Samir K. and Khury, Sami (2007) Anājīl ʻAbd Yashūʻ al-Ṣūbāwī 1318† al- Musajjaʻah (The Rhymed Gospels of ʻAbd Yashūʻ al-Ṣūbāwī 1318†). Beirut: CEDRAC and The Center for Arabic Christian Heritage. Staal, Harvey (1983a) Mt. Sinai Arabic Codex 151, I. Pauline Epistles [Edition]. Leuven: Peeters. Staal, Harvey (1983b) Mt. Sinai Arabic Codex 151, I. Pauline Epistles [Translation]. Leuven: Peeters. Staal, Harvey (1984a) Mt. Sinai Arabic Codex 151: Acts of the Apostles, Catholic Epistles [Edition]. Leuven: Peeters. Staal, Harvey (1984b) Mt. Sinai Arabic Codex 151: Acts of the Apostles, Catholic Epistles [Translation]. Leuven: Peeters. Stenij, E. (1901) Die altarabische Übersetzung der Briefe an die Hebräer, an die Römer und an die Corinther. Aus einem in St. Petersburg befindlichen Codex Tischendorfs vom Jahre 892 n. Chr. Helsingfors: Frenckellska Tryckeri. Swanson, Mark N. (1993) Some Considerations for the Dating of fi Tatlīth Allāh al- wāḥid (Sin. ar. 154) and al-Gamiʻ wugūh al-imān (London, British Library Or. 4950). Parole de l’Orient 18: 115–141. Swanson, Mark N. (1998) Beyond Prooftexting (2): The Use of the Bible in Some Early Arabic Christian Apologies. Muslim World 88: 297–319. Swanson, Mark N. (2007) Apologetics, Catechesis, and the Question of Audience in “On the Triune Nature of God” and Three Treatises of Theodore Abū Qurrah. In: M. Tamcke (ed.) Christians and Muslims in Dialogue in the Islamic Orient of the Middle Ages. Beirut/Würzburg: Ergon, 133–134. Swanson, Mark N. (2010). The Coptic Papacy in Islamic Egypt: The Popes of Egypt (vol. 2). Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press. Vollandt, Ronny (2015) Arabic Versions of the Pentateuch: A Comparative Study of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Sources. Leiden: Brill. Zaki, Vevian. (2011) Al- Asʿad Hibat Allāh ibn al-ʿAssāl: His Contribution to the Formation of New Identity of Copts in Egypt through his Critical Translation of the Gospel of Luke. Master’s thesis, Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo, Cairo. Zammit, Martin R. (2002) A Comparative Lexical Study of Qurʾānic Arabic. Leiden: Brill.

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PART II

Translation, mediation and ideology

6 REFRAMING CONFLICT IN TRANSLATION 1 Mona Baker

This chapter draws on concepts from narrative theory, sociology and the study of social movements to examine some of the ways in which translators and interpreters reframe aspects of political conflicts and hence participate in the construction of social and political reality. The model of analysis I apply here is elaborated in greater detail in Baker (2006a) and elsewhere.2 It relies principally on the notion of narrative as understood in some strands of social and communication theory, rather than narratology or linguistics. Here, ‘narrative’ is used interchangeably with ‘story’: narratives are the stories we tell ourselves and others about the world(s) in which we live, and it is our belief in these stories that guides our actions in the real world. In this sense, narrative is not a genre, nor is it an optional mode of communication: narration, in the words of Walter Fisher, is ‘not a mode of discourse laid on by a creator’s deliberate choice but the shape of knowledge as we first apprehend it’ (1987: 193). My choice of narrativity as a theoretical framework is motivated by a general dissatisfaction with existing theoretical notions that we tend to draw on in trying to explain the behaviour of translators and interpreters. In particular, much of the literature on translation tends to draw on the notion of norms, as elaborated in polysystem theory and the work of Gideon Toury. Norm theory encourages analysts to focus on repeated, abstract, systematic behaviour, and in so doing privileges strong patterns of socialization into that behaviour and tends to gloss over the numerous individual and group attempts at undermining dominant patterns and prevailing political and social dogma. Similarly, norm theory has nothing to say on the intricate patterns of interplay between repeated, stable patterns of behaviour and the continuous attempts at subverting that behaviour – the interplay between dominance and resistance, which is one aspect of translator behaviour that I am particularly keen to highlight in my own work. Norm theory arguably also pays little attention to the political and social conditions that give rise to such patterns of dominance and resistance to them. Another type of current theorizing that narrative theory allows us to move beyond is Lawrence Venuti’s sweeping dichotomies of foreignizing and domesticating strategies (Venuti, 1993, 1995), recast elsewhere as minoritizing and majoritizing strategies (Venuti, 1998). Apart from reducing the rich variety of positions that translators adopt in relation to their texts, authors and societies, these dichotomies also obscure the shifting positions of translators within the same text – they reduce the intricate means by which a translator negotiates

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his or her way around various aspects of a text into a more-or-less straightforward choice of foreignizing vs. domesticating strategy. Even a brief glance at some of the texts I have been examining in my own research suggests that translators oscillate within the same text between choices that Venuti would regard as domesticating and ones he would regard as foreignizing. And, importantly, this oscillation serves a purpose in the real world – it is neither random nor irrational. To balance the emphasis in norm theory on abstract, repeated behaviour and the streamlining effect of Venuti’s dichotomies, what we need is a framework that recognizes the varied, shifting and ongoingly negotiable positioning of individual translators in relation to their texts, authors, societies and dominant ideologies. Hence my interest in narrative theory and my attempt to apply it to a wide range of written translations and oral interpreting events. Without claiming that narrative theory can single-handedly address all the weaknesses of current theorizing on translation, nor suggesting that current theorizing (norm theory and Venuti’s dichotomies included) is not productive in addressing a wide range of issues relevant to the behaviour of translators and interpreters, I see the main, interrelated strengths of narrative theory as follows. First, narrative theory does not privilege essentialist and reductive categories such as race, gender, ethnicity and religion; instead, it acknowledges the ongoingly negotiable nature of our positioning in relation to social and political reality. Narrativity, as Hall et al. argue, ‘offers a way of conceptualising identity that is neither universal nor essentialist, but rather temporally and culturally specific’ (2003: 38). It thus allows us to move beyond the focus on supposedly inherent cultural differences and the type of identity politics that have informed much of the work on translation and interpreting so far, particularly work on cultural attributes and patterns of behaviour (for example, Katan, 1999, 2004), on gender (Goddard, 1990; Simon, 1996; von Flotow, 1997) and on sexuality (Harvey, 1998, 2003a; Keenaghan, 1998). Without dismissing the importance and worth of this type of work, I would argue that it is now time to move beyond it. Identity politics, and frameworks that thematize difference in general, are the last model we need at this precise moment in history, when pernicious theories such as Samuel Huntington’s ‘clash of civilizations’ are striving to highlight, and indeed invent, a whole panorama of differences – not to empower oppressed groups in the tradition of identity politics but to justify the most criminal and dangerous of foreign policies. These politically motivated theories of difference allow the likes of Huntington to claim, for instance, that there is such a thing as a ‘Muslim propensity toward violent conflict’ (1996: 258) and that ‘[t]he survival of the West depends on Americans reaffirming their Western identity and Westerners accepting their civilization as unique not universal and uniting to renew and preserve it against challenges from non-Western societies’ (1996: 20–21). Pernicious theories and irresponsible foreign policies aside, it is also fair to point out that however attractive and potentially liberating in certain political contexts, identity politics has always suffered from some important limitations. The most serious of these is that it traditionally groups together people who share certain external attributes (women, blacks, homosexuals, Pakistanis) and disregards individual variation within the group. It also overdetermines the identities of individuals by giving precedence to one feature or attribute at the expense of others. What we need to be able to do instead is to locate individual translators and interpreters within the range of narratives they subscribe to and that inform their behaviour in the real world – including their discursive behaviour as translators and/ or interpreters. This does not mean ignoring the obvious fact that our location in a particular cultural, racial or religious community at a given point in time is likely to influence our behaviour in specific ways.

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But narrative theory acknowledges that that influence is neither inevitable nor predictable. At this moment in time, for example, being Jewish could mean: (a) uncritical support for Israel and Zionism; (b) any number of variations on critical support for current Israeli policies; (c) refusing to self- identify as a Jew at all and taking no interest in the Middle East conflict whatsoever; (d) or, as is increasingly happening among large sections of the Jewish community, assuming a special responsibility to become heavily involved in activities designed to expose and undermine the Zionist enterprise. Even self-identifying as a Jew then does not tell us how a particular person might act in the real world, nor explain their behaviour, unless we know something about the kind of narratives they subscribe to or can deduce them from the way they act and the discourse they produce. Second, and following on from the above, narrative theory allows us to see social actors, including translators and interpreters, as real- life individuals rather than theoretical abstractions. Whitebrook argues that theory in general ‘frequently fails to make the political agent concrete’, and that ‘character is treated as a matter of the variables an observer must assess when trying to understand or predict anyone’s behaviour’ (2001: 15). Her critique certainly applies to theorizing about translation and interpreting, as does her proposal for adopting narrative theory as a way of breaking free from this abstraction (Whitebrook, 2001: 15): A turn to narratives allows for the de-personalized persons of theory, the bearers of a representative or typified identity, to be understood as separate persons – characters – with singular sets of characteristics, including but not confined to their political context and/or group identity. Third, narrative theory allows us to explain behaviour in dynamic rather than static terms – it recognizes the complexity of being embedded in crisscrossing, even competing, narratives. Narrativity thus ‘embeds the actor within relationships and stories that shift over time and space and … precludes categorical stability in action’ (Somers and Gibson, 1994: 65). There is no scope here for streamlining behaviour or choices into macro categories such as foreignizing vs. domesticating, acculturating vs. exoticizing, nor of course faithful vs. free – not even within the space of a single text. Equally, because the actor is always ‘embedded’ in relationships and stories, there is no question of assuming a privileged position from which we can claim ‘objectivity’ or ‘neutrality’ in relation to the narratives we are involved in translating, interpreting or indeed analyzing. Narrative theory encourages us to reflect on and question the narratives we come in contact with and that shape our behaviour, but there is no assumption here that we can suppress our subjectivity or stand outside those narratives, even as we reason about them. Fourth, and most importantly in my view, narrative theory recognizes the power of social structures and the workings of the ‘system’ but does not preclude active resistance on a personal or group level. It pays equal attention to issues of dominance and resistance, to the ritual nature of interaction (in the tradition of Erving Goffman) as well as the means by which rituals are questioned and undermined. And finally, although hardly any of the work on narrativity in social and communication theory pays attention to issues of language, nor indeed translation, narrative theory does lend itself to being applied to both, and in a way that allows us to explain translational choices in relation to wider social and political contexts, but without losing sight of the individual text and event. This is one aspect of narrative theory that I have tried to elaborate in some detail in my own work and which I will attempt to demonstrate with an extended example at the end of this chapter.

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Frames and framing Narratives, as I explained above, are stories that we come to subscribe to – believe in or at least contemplate as potentially valid – and that therefore shape our behaviour towards other people and the events in which we are embedded. As used here, narratives are not chronologies, not undifferentiated lists of happenings: they are stories that are temporally and causally constituted in such a way as to allow us to make moral decisions and act in the real world. Somers (1992, 1994, 1997) and Somers and Gibson (1994) suggest that narratives are constituted through four interdependent features. Temporality means that narratives are embedded in time and space and derive much of their meaning from the temporal moment and physical site of the narration. Relationality means that it is impossible for the human mind to make sense of isolated events or of a patchwork of events that are not constituted as a narrative. Every element in a narrative depends for its interpretation on its place within the network of elements that make up the narrative; it cannot be interpreted in isolation. The third core feature of narrativity is selective appropriation. Given that it is impossible to weave a coherent story by including every detail of experience, narratives are necessarily constructed according to evaluative criteria that enable and guide selective appropriation of a set of events or elements from the vast array of open- ended and overlapping events that constitute experience. The final and most important core feature of narrativity is causal emplotment. Causal emplotment ‘gives significance to independent instances, and overrides their chronological or categorical order’ (Somers, 1997: 82). It allows us to turn a set of propositions into an intelligible sequence about which we can form an opinion and thus charges the events depicted with moral and ethical significance (Baker, 2006a: 165). It is our subscription to a particular pattern of causal emplotment in the Middle East narrative, for instance, that leads us to interpret another incident of suicide bombing in Israel as either a threat to Israeli security, providing evidence for the need for measures such as the Wall and targeted assassinations, or as an inevitable outcome of those very measures and hence providing ‘evidence’ that the solution lies in adopting other alternatives. These alternatives, in turn, will vary depending on more specific patterns of causal emplotment that distinguish one individual’s narrative from those of others, even within the same broad group of, say, political activists. Not all activists in the Palestine Solidarity Movement, for instance, necessarily agree that the solution to the conflict lies in simply ending the Occupation along the 1967 borders. Some insist that it lies in reconfiguring Palestine/ Israel as a single secular state for all its citizens, the ‘One State Solution’ as it has come to be known. Arguments for or against any solution are only coherent within the specific patterns of causal emplotment that distinguish one narrative from another. For the above features of narrativity to become operative, and for a set of events to be constituted as a narrative with a specific pattern of causal emplotment, a considerable amount of discursive work has to be undertaken by those doing the narration. The notion of frame, and especially the more active concept of framing, can be productive in outlining some of the ways in which this discursive work is carried out. These notions have several definitions in the literature, but broadly speaking they can be interpreted either passively, as ‘understandings’ that emerge out of the interaction, or actively, as deliberate, discursive moves designed to anticipate and guide others’ interpretation of and attitudes towards a set of events. The first, generally passive definition of frames, is characteristic of the work of Erving Goffman, who argues that ‘an individual’s framing of activity establishes meaningfulness for him’ (1974: 345, emphasis added). Similar definitions can be found in the work of other scholars 102

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who follow Goffman’s lead. Tannen and Wallat (1993: 60), for example, define frames as ‘a sense of what activity is being engaged in, how speakers mean what they say’. The literature on social movements, by contrast, tends to treat framing as an active process of signification. For activists and those interested in studying their behaviour, the process of framing events for others is part and parcel of the phenomenon of activism; crucially, it involves setting up structures of anticipation that guide others’ interpretation of events, usually as a direct challenge to dominant interpretations of the same events in a given society. This discursive work of framing events and issues for a particular set of addressees is important not only because it undermines dominant narratives of a given issue (the nuclear threat, Palestine, the so- called War on Terror), but also because it is a key strategy for forming networks and communities of activists, for enabling social movements to grow and attract adherents: While in daily life all social actors draw upon frames to engage in the production and maintenance of local meanings, frame analysts have recognized that the strategic process of frame construction and management is central to the mission of social movement organizations seeking to replace ‘a dominant belief system that supports collective action for change’ (Gamson et al., 1982:15). In this sense, framing processes provide a mechanism through which individuals can ideologically connect with movement goals and become potential participants in movement actions. (Cunningham and Browning, 2004: 348) The notion of framing is closely connected to the question of how narrative theory allows us to consider the immediate narrative elaborated in the text being translated or interpreted and the larger narratives in which the text is embedded, and how this in turn allows us to see translational choices not merely as local linguistic challenges but as contributing directly to the narratives that shape our social world. Here, we consider every choice – at least potentially – as a kind of index that activates a narrative, a story of what the world or some aspect of the world is like. Some choices, particularly those relating to how we label an event, place or group, as well as the way we position individuals and communities in social and political space through the use of pronouns and adverbs of place, among other things, allow us to frame the narrative for others, in the social movement, activist sense of framing.3 Translators and interpreters working between Chinese and English, for instance, are aware that the 1997 events in Hong Kong can be referred to either as The Handover of Sovereignty, the standard reference in English, or (literally) as The Return to the Motherland, the standard reference in Chinese.4 And they are generally aware that these choices do not exist in free variation but have serious implications in the real world. Similarly, in translating a text about the events of 1956 in the Middle East, one has to choose between two competing designations, neither of which poses a local linguistic challenge as such.5 The first choice, prevalent in Western discourse and embedded in a narrative that has currency in the West, is to refer to these events as The Suez Canal Crisis. The choice of The Suez Canal Crisis immediately activates the narrative of the invading powers: for Britain, France and Israel, it was useful and expedient to narrate these events as a political crisis. The designation which has currency in the Arabic-speaking world on the other hand, and practically no currency in the West, is The Tripartite Aggression. This default choice in Arabic activates quite a different narrative framework, one which is embedded in the consciousness and alignments of those on the receiving end of that attack. Translators do not necessarily replace The Suez Canal Crisis with The Tripartite Aggression in rendering an English text into Arabic. They might reproduce the 103

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designation in a close translation, perhaps because they subscribe to a narrative of translation as a neutral and ‘professional’ practice. But even then, their choice will have implications for promoting and legitimating one or the other narrative. And there are other choices: translators may leave the designation itself as it is but comment on it or even challenge it in the introduction or footnotes to the text. While the choice of The Handover of Sovereignty or The Suez Canal Crisis might frame the narrative in a particular way, this very frame can in turn be challenged, and the entire narrative reframed, at a variety of points or sites in and around the text. The point, then, is not to treat any specific translational choice as random, with no implications in the real world. Nor does narrative theory encourage us to treat a given choice (such as The Suez Canal Crisis) as a realization of some broad, abstract norm linked to other abstract choices such as choosing to stay close to the syntactic structures of the source text because there is an overriding norm of adequacy rather than acceptability6 in the target culture at a particular moment in time. The narrative theory framework encourages us to avoid these broad abstractions and to think of individual choices as embedded in and contributing to the elaboration of concrete political reality.

Sites and strategies of framing Processes of (re)framing can draw on practically any linguistic or non- linguistic resource to set up an interpretive context for the reader or hearer. This may include exploiting paralinguistic devices such as intonation and typography, visual resources such as colour, image and layout, and of course linguistic devices such as tense shifts, deixis, code switching, and the use of euphemisms. Language users, including translators and interpreters, can also exploit features of narrativity (temporality, relationality, selective appropriation and causal emplotment) to frame or reframe a text or utterance for a set of addressees. Translators of written text can do so in the body of the translation or, alternatively, around the translation. This distinction can be very important in some contexts because of the key role that the notions of accuracy and faithfulness tend to assume in the context of professional – and particularly politically sensitive – translation. For instance, neoconservative organizations such as MEMRI,7 which specializes in circulating translations of carefully selected Arabic source texts to elaborate a narrative of Arab societies as extremist, anti- Semitic and a threat to Western democracies, are very careful about the accuracy of their translations, since their credibility can easily be undermined if their opponents were to identify and publicize a list of errors in these translations, whether the errors in question are presented as deliberate or not. Most of the framing in which MEMRI and its close affiliate, Watching America,8 engage is effected outside the text/translation proper. For a start, the narrative feature of selective appropriation allows MEMRI and Watching America to frame the Arab World as extremist and dangerous by simply choosing to translate the worst possible examples of Arabic discourse, which they also circulate to the media and Congress free of charge. Interestingly, MEMRI now has a special category of what they consistently call ‘reformist’ writers: a few voices from the Arab World and Iran that are translated and quoted on the site now and again; these ‘reformists’ argue for freedom of thought, women’s rights, etc. The occasional ‘cosmetic’ selection of a nonextremist source serves to give a veneer of balance to MEMRI’s coverage, at the same time as reinforcing the overall portrayal of the Arab World and Iran as a hotbed of extremism that suppresses the very few sane voices in the region that are now magnanimously being given space on an American site.

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Second, while keeping the actual translation very close to the original, MEMRI and Watching America can change the title of a text to frame the narrative as extremist, threatening or simply ‘discursively alien’. For example, a recent English translation of an article from the Palestinian newspaper Alhayat Aljadeeda is posted on the Watching America website under the title ‘Oh, America … Oh, Empire of Contradictions’.9 Closely backtranslated, the original Arabic title is far less flowery and ‘exotic’: it reads ‘Signs on the Road: America and Democracy!!!’.10 Third, Watching America inserts images in the English text, complete with suitable captions, that frame the translated narrative as part of the broad, meta- narrative of the War on Terror. Figures 6.1 and 6.2, for instance, appear in the translation of the article from Alhayat Aljadeeda. And fourth, and perhaps most importantly, each English translation of an article from an Arab newspaper is accompanied by a suitably annotated link to a video clip, provided by MEMRI, which acts as a further framing device, encouraging the reader to interpret even the most reasonable of Arabic discourse as one that hides an extremist subtext. The article from Alhayat Aljadeeda is accompanied by a video link with suitable annotations, as shown in Figure 6.3. Interestingly, translations from other languages do not receive this

       Figure 6.1 Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh Prays Before a Speech, Most Likely for Funds … Most Likely to Come from Iran.*

Figure 6.2 A militant from the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade on the West Bank, During an Event to Remember One of the Many Acts of Violence that Have Taken Place There.

* Images and captions of Figures 6.1–6.4 are in Watching America’s English translation of Alhayat Aljadeeda article, retrieved 25 October 2006 from http://watchingamerica.com/alhayataljadeeda000003shtml. The author has made every effort to trace the copyright holders and will deal with any problems that may be brought to her attention.

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VIDEO FROM PALESTINE: PRAISE FOR SUICIDE BOMBING AT HAMAS FUNDRAISER Iqra TV, Palestine: Excerpts from a fundraising speech delivered by Yemenite Cleric Abd AlMajid Al-Zindani, Mar. 23, 00:08:18, Via MEMRI “After efforts, policies, and plans failed, and when people almost despaired, the whole world was surprised by a certain decision of Hamas. What was the decision? An intifada. An Intifada? Where? In Palestine. In Palestine!”

Figure 6.3 Yemenite Cleric Abd Al-Majid Al-Zindani. Annotated video clip accompanying Alhayat Aljadeeda article, courtsey of MEMRI.

treatment: translations from Chinese, Spanish, French, Dutch and a host of other languages are offered on the site without links to MEMRI videos that serve to demonize the community in question. The only other language that receives this special treatment (or is subjected to this framing strategy), as may be expected, is Persian. Apart from images, captions and the manipulation of titles, paratexts are an important site of framing in book translations: they include cover images and blurb, introductions, prefaces and footnotes. Cover images and blurbs are not generally provided by the translator,11 but prefaces, introductions and footnotes normally are. Two Arabic translations of Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations were released within a very short period of time, the first in 1998 in Egypt (translated by Tal’at Al- Shayib) and the second in 1999 in Libya (translated by Malik Obeid Abu Shuhayaa and Mahmoud Mohamed Khalaf). Both translations feature extensive introductions. The Libyan translation carries two. The first, by both translators, consists of four pages and offers a summary of the content of the book, tells us that

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it has been extremely controversial, and goes on to state the following (Huntington, 1999: 11, my translation): Given what we have noted of the chaotic structure and incoherence of the text and the flaws in the methodology adopted by the author, and in an effort to identify the underlying agenda of the the clash- of- civilizations thesis, it was necessary to deconstruct the mechanisms and assumptions of the clash- of- civilizations discourse. Dr. Malik Obeid Abu Shuhayaa [one of the two translators] has therefore prepared a study of the political and intellectual assumptions of the clash- of- civilizations discourse and the mechanisms it relies on in outlining its conceptual apparatus, persuading others, and acquiring supporters. This study is entitled ‘An Initial Contribution towards Awareness of the Other: The Assumptions and Mechanisms of the Clash of Civilizations’. The study itself, written by one of the translators as indicated in the above quote, constitutes the second introduction. It runs into an impressive 49 pages and directly challenges Huntington and his theory. The Egyptian translation released in 1998 has a 19- page introduction, not by the translator but by an Arab intellectual (Salah Qunswah), similarly undermining the thesis of the book and challenging its main tenets. All three introductions (two in the Libyan and one in the Egyptian translation) precede the Arabic versions of Huntington’s own preface to his book and pre-empt the reader’s response to the arguments presented in the source text. They frame the translated texts that follow them in very negative terms, encouraging the reader to interpret Huntington’s thesis from a specific angle even before they start reading it. Footnotes are often also provided by translators and can serve a similar framing function. Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden (Lawrence and Howarth, 2005), for instance, offers heavily annotated translations of Bin Laden’s speeches, making extensive use of footnotes to reframe his personal narrative – and through this the narratives of Islamic fundamentalism, the so-called clash of civilizations, and the War on Terror – as a direct outcome of Western foreign policies rather than the product of a mentality which, in the War-on-Terror discourse, is normally depicted as sheer, inexplicable evil. In his review of the volume in the London Review of Books, Charles Glass notes that Bin Laden ‘does not appear to be deranged, as his detractors insist he is. His message is plain: leave the Muslim world alone, and it will leave you alone. Kill Muslims, and they will kill you’ (Glass, 2006: 14). How is this impression achieved? The book is edited by Bruce Lawrence but the individual speeches and statements are translated by James Howarth. The main introduction by the editor (xi–xxiii) and the Translator’s Note (ix–x) make it clear that the editor explicitly takes responsibility for the mini introductions provided at the beginning of individual translations of Bin Laden’s statements, and the translator for footnotes accompanying each translation. Together, the introductions and the footnotes frame Bin Laden as rational, as well as witty, educated and lucid. For instance, the mini introduction by the editor to a letter from Bin Laden posted on the internet on 6 October 2002, and appearing in the collection under the title ‘To the Americans’ (Lawrence and Howarth, 2005: 160–172), tells us the following (Lawrence and Howarth, 2005: 160): This portrait of the US follows a call to the American people to convert to Islam. Fantastical as the prospect of such a conversion must be – as the letter itself implies (‘I doubt you will do so’) – the appeal has a practical function within the umma. Its purpose is to answer Muslim critics of 9/11 who argued that al-Qaeda did not offer Americans an opportunity to convert to Islam before attacking them, thereby violating God’s ruling: ‘We never punish until we have sent a message.’ The exhaustive 107

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detail of the letter is bin Laden’s proof to Muslims that he has explored every avenue to resolve this war by peaceful means, and given proper warning of the destruction that will be visited upon Americans if they refuse to listen to his advice. A footnote by the translator to another statement made by Bin Laden in an interview with an Australian journal and appearing earlier in the same collection (‘The Saudi Regime’, Lawrence and Howarth, 2005: 31– 43) makes the same point, striving again to depict Bin Laden as rational and as possessing considerable political acumen (Lawrence and Howarth, 2005: 32): Throughout the volume, the ‘invitation to Islam’ denotes the Arabic term dawa. Dawa is particularly significant in the context of bin Laden’s later statements to America and its allies after 9/11, in which he offers them a chance to convert before further assaults, thereby ‘clearing the decks in Islamic terms: he has warned and invited before attacking.’ (Michael Scheuer, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror [Potomac, 2005], p. 153).

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In addition to portraying Bin Laden as rational (rather than deranged), the introductions and footnotes also give us an impression of him as ‘human’, smart, witty. The translator in particular makes a point of explaining witty word plays in Bin Laden’s discourse that undermine his normal portrayal as ‘our enemy’ – we do not normally credit our enemies with verbal dexterity or a sense of humour. Here are two examples. The first (Lawrence and Howarth, 2005: 194) comes from what the editor, in his mini introduction, describes as ‘the first and only statement of bin Laden that is framed as a sermon’. It is part of a 53- minute audiotape published on various websites and in al-Hayat newspaper. Main Text They sought to be with God, and deprived themselves of sleep while injustice was being done. They poured out the water of life, not the water of shame.24 Footnote 24 This is a play on words in Arabic; ‘ma’ al- hayat’ (‘water of life’) and ‘ma’ almuhayya’ (‘water of shame’) use variations on the same root. The second example comes at the end of an audiotaped statement aired on Al Jazeera on 4 January 2004 (‘Resist the New Rome’, Lawrence and Howarth, 2005: 236). Main Text If Bush’s call for peace was honest, why hasn’t he spoken about the one who slit open the bellies of pregnant women in Sabra and Shatila or the planner of the surrender process,3 the ‘man of peace’ [Ariel Sharon]; why did he not just come out and say ‘we hate freedom and we kill for the sake of it’? Footnote Bin Laden is making a pun here. ‘peace process’ is ‘amaliyat al-salam,’ but here he talks about ‘amaliyat al-istislam,’ the surrender process. The word for surrender is a cognate of the word for peace.

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Footnotes such as the above, together with arguments and descriptions outlined both in the general introduction to the volume as well as mini introductions to individual translations, cumulatively serve to portray Bin Laden as rational and competent, though the editor makes it clear that this does not mean he approves of Bin Laden’s methods of expressing his grievances. The point he makes, and which the individual choices made by the translator indirectly support, is that a very different narrative, with a different pattern of causal emplotment, can account for the current ills of the world. Rather than explaining the socalled War on Terror as a necessary response to the horrors inflicted on an innocent West by deranged extremists from the Islamic World, this new narrative of Bin Laden suggests that the West is not innocent, and that its so-called War on Terror and similar atrocities are responsible for the horrific but ‘rational’ extremism we are now witnessing. This narrative resists the effort to divest violence of all historicity by portraying figures like Bin Laden simply as deranged extremists.

Framing within the translation: an extended example An Arabic documentary entitled Jenin Jenin was directed by Mohamed Bakri and released in 2002 following the Israeli attack on the Jenin camp in the Occupied West Bank. The documentary is shot in the Jenin camp in Arabic but is clearly aimed at an international audience: it was subtitled into English, Hebrew, French, Spanish and Italian (Mohamed Bakri, personal communication). The version with English subtitles seems to be aimed predominantly at an American audience, as we will see shortly. The following examples from the documentary demonstrate two attempts at (re)framing that respond to larger narratives circulating beyond the immediate text and cannot be explained by resorting to norm theory or Venuti’s foreignizing vs. domesticating dichotomy. Both examples are discussed from different angles in Baker (2006a: 99–100, 64–66).

The Vietnam frame The first instance of (re)framing activates a narrative framework that seems to have been judged as more effective in the target context. At one point in the documentary, an old Palestinian man expresses his shock at what happened in Jenin and the world’s apparent indifference and reluctance to intervene to protect Palestinians. He ends his contribution by saying, literally in Arabic, ‘What can I say, by God, by God, our house/home is no longer a house/ home’. The subtitle for this frame is ‘What can I say? Not even Vietnam was as bad as this’ (Figure 6.4). The decision to replace the original reference to the destruction of Palestinian homes with a reference to Vietnam would traditionally be interpreted in translation studies as an attempt to ‘acculturate’ the source text, to render it more intelligible to the target audience (in this case envisaged as predominantly American). But this is not a very productive or satisfying explanation. Had this been the primary motivation here, it would have made much more sense to refer to a more recent and hence more salient event, such as 9/11. After all, Vietnam arguably has less resonance among a young American audience than 9/11, and appealing to the memory of the latter is thus more likely to secure the emotional involvement and sympathy of a wider section of American viewers. To appreciate the motivation for this translational choice and its implications, it is necessary to refer to the wider narratives in circulation at that time, in Palestine and internationally. 109

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Figure 6.4 Screenshot from Jenin Jenin

First, the immediate narrative of what actually happened in the Jenin camp and elsewhere in Occupied Palestine in April 2002 was and continues to be heavily contested – from why the Israeli Defence [sic] Forces invaded the camps, to how many houses they demolished and how many people they killed, etc. One of the discursive loci of contestation at the time concerned the widespread description of the Jenin event in the English-speaking media as an ‘incursion’. Activists in the solidarity movement insisted that ‘incursion’ was far too sanitized a description for the full- blown and sustained assault that left the camp in ruins and many people dead. The reference to Vietnam in the above subtitle reframes the event as a war of aggression, rather than a minor raid as the term ‘incursion’ tends to suggest. Vietnam was certainly no incursion: it is widely perceived as a vicious and bloody war, among large sectors of the American public as well as internationally. Second, one narrative that continues to have considerable currency among Palestinians as well as the growing international solidarity movement in support of Palestinian rights is that America is as responsible for Israeli atrocities as Israel itself – that Israel could not possibly get away with its oppression of Palestinians were it not for the extensive support it receives from the United States. The choice of Vietnam here activates that public narrative. Far from being either foreignizing or domesticating, the choice to evoke the narrative of Vietnam encodes both accommodation to dominance and resistance to it. It accommodates to dominance by opting for a reference (Vietnam) that has resonance for the dominant American audience, rather than one that can equally signal unjust and bloody acts of aggression but would have no resonance for that dominant public: Kashmir, for instance, or even Darfur. It encodes resistance by simultaneously framing America as aggressor and signalling that the American audience is complicit in 110

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the injustices perpetrated by their government – and can choose to challenge them, just as they did in the case of Vietnam.

The secular frame Another interesting attempt at reframing the wider Palestinian narrative by recasting aspects of the speech of several Palestinians interviewed in this documentary concerns the treatment of the recurrent word shaheed. The standard equivalent for this word in English is martyr, but this is problematic for two reasons. First, shaheed does not semantically map onto martyr in full. In Arabic, shaheed is generally used to refer to anyone who is killed violently, especially in war, whether they choose to be involved in that war or not, and irrespective of their religion. It therefore does not have the overtones of militancy and extremism that the term martyr has come to acquire in English, in connection with the Arab and Islamic World.12 Second, martyr readily evokes associations of Islamic fundamentalism in this type of context, and using it repeatedly would play into the hands of those who would portray the Middle East conflict as a religious war, fuelled by young deranged Muslims in search of virgins in paradise. The subtitles consistently opt for different equivalents when the word shaheed is used by Palestinians interviewed on the documentary, as in the following examples (see Baker, 2006a: 64– 66 for further examples).

Example 1

Back translation We are still pulling martyrs from underneath the ground. English subtitle We are still pulling victims out of the rubble.

Example 2

Back translation We have mentally retarded people who have been martyred; we have disabled people who have been martyred; we have children who have been martyred, we have women who have been martyred. English subtitle They killed some mentally disabled people, children and women in the camp.

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The choice of equivalents such as victims and killed in the above examples (and corpses and dead in other instances) rather than martyr helps to frame the larger Palestinian and Arab narrative in more secular terms. There are two exceptions in the entire documentary. The first occurs towards the end in a scene involving a young Palestinian girl of about seven or eight who had been expressing defiance and determination to survive throughout the documentary. She draws an extended analogy between the Jenin camp and a ‘tall, tall towering tree’ which ‘consists of leaves’, with every leaf ‘inscribed with the name of a shaheed, a muqawim [resistance fighter]’ (my translation). The subtitles retain the metaphor and the reference to ‘martyrs’ in this instance, arguably because the innocent looking, if defiant, young girl does not exactly fit the image of a deranged extremist in pursuit of paradise: The camp is like a tall, eminent tree. The tree has leaves, and each leaf of the tree bears the name of a martyr.13 The second instance in which the term martyr is used occurs in the final credits, and is therefore not a ‘subtitle’. The documentary starts with the following dedication (reproduced here as is, without correction): Dedicated to The Executive Producer of ‘Jenin’ IYAD SAMOUDI who was murdered at alyamoun at the end of the filming by Israelian soliders on 23/06/2003 Mohamed Bakri The final credits include the following text: Executive Producer The martyr Iyad Samoudi To sum up, narrative theory allows us to make sense of apparently conflicting strategies such as those relating to the choice of equivalents for shaheed at different points in the Jenin Jenin documentary, as well as ones (like the choice of Vietnam above) that are simultaneously foreignizing and domesticating. By contrast to static, power-insensitive concepts like ‘norms’, narrative theory recognizes that dominance and resistance not only shape our behaviour and discursive choices, but that they are also always in a relationship of tension. This tension is often played out discursively, and the interplay between the two can produce a range of choices that are difficult to streamline. Rather than ignoring the choices that do not fit into the repeated pattern, recognizing this interplay between dominance and resistance allows us to elaborate a more complex picture of the positioning of translators and to embed them in concrete political reality.

Notes 1 This chapter was first published in a special issue of Social Semiotics on Translation and Conflict 17(2): 151–169. Many thanks to Routledge and Mona Baker for giving us permission to republish it in this volume (the editors).

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Reframing conflict in translation 2 See Baker (2005, 2006b). 3 Framing, in this sense, is not restricted to activism, however – though even this of course depends on how one defines activism. Some of the examples I discuss later come from sources I would personally regard as too pernicious to be labelled ‘activist’. They include advocacy groups like MEMRI that set out to demonize Arab and Islamic communities and actively pit the West against the rest. 4 Similar choices in the Chinese context include The Tiananmen Massacre vs. The Tiananmen Incident or The Tiananmen Protests. The source for these examples is Dr Kevin Lin, lead interpreter for the Foreign Office in Britain. 5 In 1956, Egypt was attacked by Britain, France and Israel, following Egypt’s decision to nationalize the Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez. 6 In Toury’s framework (1980, 1995), the initial norm that governs any translation involves a choice between adequacy and acceptability. A translation will either subscribe to the norms of the source text, language or culture (and will hence be adequate) or to the norms of the target language and culture (and will hence be acceptable). Adherence to source norms determines a translation’s adequacy with respect to the source text; adherence to norms originating in the target culture determines its acceptability within that culture. 7 See www.memri.org. For a detailed discussion of MEMRI and its translation activities, see Baker (2006a: 73–76, 108–109). 8 See www.watchingamerica.org. 9 www.watchingamerica.com/alhayataljadeeda000003.shtml. 10 www.alhayat-j.com/details.php?opt=1&id=22102&cid=394. 11 For interesting analyses of covers and blurbs of published translations, see Watts (2000), Harvey (2003b) and Asimakoulas (2005). 12 Martyr of course has very different associations in other contexts, for instance in the discourse of Christianity. 13 Note that the subtitles nevertheless tone the image down by omitting ‘resistance fighter’.

Further reading Baker, M. (2006) Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account. London and New York: Routledge Baker, M. (2014) Translation as Renarration. In: Juliane House (ed.) Translaion: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 158–177. Harding, S.A. (2012) How Do I Apply Narrative Theory? Target 24(2): 286–309.

References Asimakoulas, D. (2005) Brecht in Dark Times: Translations of His Works Under the Greek Junta (1967– 1974). Target 17(1): 93–110. Baker, M. (2005) Narratives in and of Translation. SKASE Journal of Translation and Interpretation 1(1): 4–13. Online: www.skase.sk. Baker, M. (2006a) Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account. London and New York: Routledge. Baker, M. (2006b) Translation and Activism: Emerging Patterns of Narrative Community. The Massachusetts Review 47(3): 462–484. Cunningham, D. and Browning, B. (2004) The Emergence of Worthy Targets: Official Frames and Deviance Narratives within the FBI. Sociological Forum 19(3): 347–369. Fisher, Walter R. (1987/ 1989) Human Communication as Narration: Toward a Philosophy of Reason, Value, and Action. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Glass, C. (2006) Cyber-Jihad. London Review of Books 28(5): 14–18. Goddard, B. (1990) Theorizing Feminist Discourse/Translation. In: Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere (eds) Translation, History and Culture. London and New York: Pinter Publishers, 87–96. Goffman, E. (1974/1986) Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Hall, J.R., Neitz, Mary J. and Battani, M. (2003) Sociology on Culture. London and New York: Routledge. Harvey, K. (1998) Translating Camp Talk: Gay Identities and Cultural Transfer. The Translator 4(2): 295–320. Harvey, K. (2003a) Intercultural Movements: American Gay in French Translation. Manchester: St. Jerome.

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Mona Baker Harvey, K. (2003b) ‘Events’ and ‘Horizons’: Reading Ideology in the ‘Bindings’ of Translations. In: María Calzada Pérez (ed.) Apropos of Ideology: Translation Studies on Ideology – Ideologies in Translation Studies. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 43–69. Huntington, S. (1996) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Touchstone. Huntington, S. (1998) Sidam Al Hadarat wa I’adat Son’ Al-Nizam Al ‘Alami (The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order), trans. Tal’at Al-Shayib. Cairo: Sutur. Huntington, S. (1999) Sidam Al Hadarat wa I’adat Bina’ Al-Nizam Al ‘Alami (The Clash of Civilizations and the Rebuilding of World Order), trans. Malik Obeid Abu Shuhaya and Mahmoud Mohammed Khalaf. Benghazi: Al-Dar Al-Jamahiriyya lilnashr wa-ltawzee’ wa-li’laan. Katan, D. (1999, 2004) Translating Cultures. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing (2nd edition). Keenaghan, E. (1998) Jack Spicer’s Pricks and Cocksuckers: Translating Gay Desire into Visibility. The Translator 4(2): 273–294. Lawrence, B. (ed.) and Howarth, J. (trans.) (2005) Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden. London and New York: Verso. Simon, S. (1996) Gender in Translation. London and New York: Routledge. Somers, M. (1992) Narrativity, Narrative Identity, and Social Action: Rethinking English Working-Class Formation. Social Science History 16(4): 591–630. Somers, M. (1994) The Narrative Construction of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach. Theory and Society 23(5): 605–649. Somers, M. (1997) Deconstructing and Reconstructing Class Formation Theory: Narrativity, Relational Analysis, and Social Theory. In: John R. Hall (ed.) Reworking Class. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 73–105. Somers, M.R. and Gibson, G.D. (1994) Reclaiming the Epistemological ‘Other’: Narrative and the Social Constitution of Identity. In: Craig Calhoun (ed.) Social Theory and the Politics of Identity. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 37–99. Tannen, D. and Wallat, C. (1993) Interactive Frames and Knowledge Schemas in Interaction: Examples from a Medical Examination/Interview. In: D. Tannen (ed.) Framing in Discourse. New York: Oxford University Press, 57–76. Toury, G. (1980) In Search of a Theory of Translation. Tel Aviv: Porter Institute. Toury, G. (1995) Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Venuti, L. (1993) Translation as Cultural Politics: Regimes of Domestication in English. Textual Practice 7: 208–223. Venuti, L. (1995) The Translator’s Invisibility. London and New York: Routledge. Venuti, L. (1998) Introduction. Translation and Minority, special issue of The Translator 4(2): 135–144. von Flotow, L. (1997) Translation and Gender: Translating in the ‘Era of Feminism’. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing. Watts, R. (2000) Translating Culture: Reading the Paratexts of Aimé Césaire’s Cahier d’un retour au pays natal. TTR 13(2): 29–46. Whitebrook, M. (2001) Identity, Narrative and Politics. London and New York: Routledge.

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7 IDEOLOGICAL AND EVALUATIVE SHIFTS IN MEDIA TRANSLATION/ TRANS- EDITING Ashraf Abdel Fattah Introduction This chapter addresses media translation or trans- editing, broadly conceived as the intra- or interlingual production by journalistic authors of media texts on the basis of one or more source texts. More specifically, the chapter focuses on one type of journalistic discourse, namely, the so-called hard news report, which is supposed to be confined to ‘news’ rather than ‘views’, hence typically ‘objective’ and ‘impartial’, as is often categorically, and perhaps too complacently, claimed by journalists and media outlets. There is a growing body of literature on the rhetorical and ideological potential of hard news reports (see for example Thomson and White, 2008; White, 2006; Hart, 2014, and the sources cited therein). Analysing a pair of English and Arabic online hard news reports covering the same news story, this chapter will seek to shed light on the various overt and covert manifestations of their ideological and attitudinal potential, which lurks behind a veneer of ‘objectivity’ and ‘impartiality’. It is commonly assumed that the bulk of the multilingual news output of global media networks is based on interlingual translation or trans- editing (Stetting, 1989) from one or more source texts, typically English or French, into the target language (e.g. Reuters, AP and AFP). While this largely seems to be the modus operandi for the production of language versions of news reports in major news agencies offering their news reports (wires) to subscribing networks, it applies to a lesser extent to the BBC. The current case study focuses on a pair of English and Arabic BBC online reports (henceforth ER and AR respectively) covering the same news story, namely, the execution of three prisoners in Gaza. There is no a priori assumption that the two reports are translationally related. However, since both reports explicitly state the primary source of their factual content, namely, a statement issued by the Hamas Ministry of Interior (HMOI) in Gaza, a translational relation, broadly conceived, can be said to exist between those reports and the HMOI’s statement. In this chapter, both the ER and AR are subjected to a linguistic analysis along three ideologically significant dimensions: representation, attribution and attitude, which reveal the rhetorical, hence ideological and attitudinal, orientation of their journalistic authors. Ideology is being broadly conceived here as a perspective seeking to naturalize some particular worldviews as opposed to others (White, 2009; Hart, 2014). Thus, the purpose of this chapter is 115

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twofold: first to demonstrate that both reports, in terms of their textual architecture and the patterns of key evaluative meanings they deploy, belong to the ‘hard news report’ genre and the so- called reporter voice, with its typical pattern of use and co- occurrence of evaluative meanings (Martin and White, 2005; Thomson and White, 2008). Yet, as this chapter also seeks to demonstrate, the two reports function ideologically and evaluatively in two opposing directions, a fact which is brought into further relief by considering their ‘translational’ relation with the HMOI’s statement. I will argue that the observed divergences between the two BBC language versions of the news story in question, compared with the identified source text, cannot be simply explained away by some requirements of cultural transfer but rather different ideological and evaluative orientations on the part of their journalistic authors. In the following section, the theoretical underpinnings of this study are considered, with particular focus on the appraisal framework developed by Martin and White (2005). This is followed by an account of this case study’s data, i.e. the ER and AR covering the same news story in Gaza, together with the relevant Hamas statements serving as source texts for factual information. This will be followed by discussion and analysis which constitute the main part of this study covering as it does the structure of the reports in question and a detailed analysis of them along three dimensions: representation (transitivity), attribution and finally attitude. Finally, the conclusion highlights the main findings emerging from this study.

Theoretical considerations As indicated in the introduction, this chapter seeks to analyse and contrast attitudinal evaluations realized in a pair of English and Arabic BBC online hard news reports covering the same event. Although Arabic BBC online reports are frequently1 translated or trans-edited versions of their English counterparts, it is not known, nor is it assumed, in this case that the two versions are translationally related. However, both stories are purportedly based on an Arabic statement issued by the Hamas authorities in Gaza. For an objective and theoretically principled account of the subjective role of the journalistic author/trans-editor in the production of the supposedly ‘objective’ hard news reports, the theoretical model adopted here for evaluative and contrastive language analysis (as well as tested on Arabic news reports) is drawn from the appraisal framework developed by Martin and White (2005) within the model of Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004). The term ‘appraisal’ itself is one of a number of terms (e.g. evaluation, stance, evidentiality, subjectivity) variously used in the literature to refer to the evaluative use of language, i.e. the expression of ‘the speaker’s or writer’s attitude or stance towards, viewpoint on, or feelings about the entities or propositions that he or she is talking about’ (Hunston and Thompson, 2000: 5).

Appraisal framework The appraisal framework has emanated from research undertaken by a group of researchers led by J.R. Martin over a period of almost 15 years.2 Situated within the interpersonal metafunction of language (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004), appraisal is considered to be a major resource for realizing the register variable of tenor at the level of discourse semantics (Martin and White, 2005). More specifically, appraisal resources encompass the various mechanisms or devices expressing writers’ or speakers’ attitudes and evaluative positioning. Thus, the appraisal system covers three semantic domains: attitude (concerned with feelings), engagement (concerned with sourcing attitudes and the ways in which speakers/writers

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position themselves vis-à- vis other people, real or potential, as well as their attitudes) and graduation (concerned with grading attitudes, i.e. adjusting the strength of feelings or the strength of boundaries between categories). Attitude in turn is divided into three subtypes: • •



affect, which involves resources for expressing emotional reactions; judgement, which is concerned with normative assessments of human behaviour, i.e. ‘by reference to notions of ethical/unethical, honest/dishonest, normal/abnormal, and so on’ (Thomson et al., 2008: 220); appreciation, which involves resources for ‘assigning a social value to objects, artefacts, texts, states of affairs, i.e. by reference to aesthetics and other systems of social valuation’ (White, 2009: 34).

All three subtypes of attitude involve positive or negative evaluations. The appraisal framework makes another significant distinction between the so-called inscribed (explicit) and invoked (implicit) attitudes, with the former conveying stable evaluations in different texts and contexts, and the latter being activated through contextually dependent inferences and associations. Invocations, also termed ‘attitudinal tokens’, are further divided into two subtypes: •



‘provocations’, which are evaluative formulations that are neither positive or negative per se, yet they trigger a contextually determined positive or negative response, e.g. intensification and counter-expectation; ‘evocations’, which, though not evaluative in their own right, inferentially trigger a positive or negative reaction in the reader simply by virtue of selecting and focusing on factual material (White, 2006: 40; Thomson and White, 2008: 12).

Another major distinction made in the appraisal framework, which is especially significant in hard news reporting as will become clear in the ensuing analysis, refers to the source of evaluation: whether it is the author who takes responsibility for the evaluation involved (authorial) or it is attributed by the author to some quoted external source (attributed). As a characteristic feature of hard news reports in particular, attribution is perceived by the media to be ‘entirely compatible with authorial neutrality and objectivity’ (White, 2006: 58). Nevertheless, it is the journalistic author who is ultimately responsible for selecting a particular quote or quoted source for inclusion at a particular location in the text (Bednarek, 2006; White, 2012). Besides, this act of selection has evaluative and ideological implications (White, 2006; Fairclough, 1995). The mode of attribution of utterances and value positions is no less significant in both ER and AR insofar as it signals the author’s stance with regard to the attributed material as well as the author’s attempt to position the reader to favour or disfavour a particular position. According to White (2002), quoting or referencing a proposition or viewpoint is an evaluatively significant act on the part of the author as it indicates the perceived ‘relevance’ of the quoted material as well as the author’s stance with respect to the attributed value position, i.e. whether it is non-endorsing (neutral/acknowledging), endorsing (supportive) or dis-endorsing (distancing). Another significant dimension of attribution that contributes to a text’s evaluative profile is the source of attribution. On the basis of van Leeuwen’s (1996) work on social actors, White (2002) identifies a number of important distinctions in relation to the source type, notably

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personalization, identification, specification, grouping and status. The choice of source type by authors could have an impact on their textual personae as well as on dialogic positioning (White, 2012).

The case study data The news reports analysed and contrasted in this case study are a pair of English and Arabic BBC online hard news reports covering the execution of three prisoners in Gaza on 7 April 2012. Although the English version (see Appendix 7.1) seems to have preceded the Arabic one (see Appendix 7.2), and in spite of the fact that BBC online Arabic reports frequently seem to be straight translations or trans- edited versions of their English counterparts, no assumption is made here that the two versions are translationally related, nor can such an assumption be made or excluded. However, as far as their factual content is concerned, both reports are purportedly based on statements issued by Hamas in Arabic (see Appendix 7.3). Thus, a kind of interlingual or intralingual trans-editing relation can reasonably be assumed to exist between the two reports in question on the one hand and the source texts issued by Hamas on the other. Besides, both reports are different representations, or arguably ‘translations’, of the same event by the BBC online English and Arabic news services (cf. Hartley, 1982; Baumann et al., 2011). The factual substance of both reports is explicitly sourced from an online statement issued by the HMOI earlier on the same day and (for the AR only) another statement by HMOI’s spokesman Ihab Al-Ghusain two days earlier.

Discussion and analysis In this section, both the ER and AR will be analysed and compared, with one another and with the source statement on which they are both based, for any divergences or shifts in terms of evaluative positioning and ideological stance. The overall textual structure of both reports will be first examined and contrasted, and then the analysis will be devoted to three main dimensions highlighting the evaluative and ideological workings of each text: representation, i.e. the ideational or, more specifically, experiential content of language (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004), attribution and attitude.

Textual structure ER Headline: Hamas hangs Gaza prisoners, including one ‘collaborator’ AR Headline: ‫ ﺍﺣﺪﻫﻢ ﺑﺘﻬﻤﺔ ﺍﻟﺘﺨﺎﺑﺮ ﻣﻊ ﺍﺳﺮﺍﺋﻴﻞ‬،‫ﺍﻋﺪﺍﻡ ﺛﻼﺛﺔ ﻣﺪﺍﻧﻴﻦ ﺑﻘﻄﺎﻉ ﻏﺰﺓ‬ AR Back translation (BT): Execution of three convicts in the Gaza Strip, including one charged with takhābur [communicating/sharing intelligence] with Israel As indicated by the ER and AR headlines, this news story revolves around the execution of three prisoners in Gaza, two of whom convicted of criminal offences and the third of collaborating with Israel. Both the ER and AR conform to the ‘inverted pyramid’ structure characteristic of hard news reports (Iedema, 1997; White, 2000). Both start with one headline and a single-sentence lead encapsulating the ‘maximally newsworthy heart’ of the story (Thomson and White, 2008: 5), namely, the execution in Gaza of three prisoners, including one charged with spying for/communicating with Israel. In both versions, the headline essentially sums up 118

Media translation/trans-editing

the compact information in the lead, especially in the AR where reference to ‫( ﺍﻟﺘﺨﺎﺑﺮ‬spying/ communicating) is repeated with elaboration, ‫( ﻣﻊ ﺇﺳﺮﺍﺋﻴﻞ‬with Israel), unlike the ER’s lead where no reference is made to the ‘collaborator’, even though it is mentioned in the headline. In other words, contrary to the usual trend in hard news reports, the ER’s headline highlights an element that is conspicuously missing in its lead. The significance of this unusual variance will become clearer in the following analysis. As illustrated in Table 7.1, the headline/ lead is followed by a body of nine paragraphs in the ST and six in the TT, which serve to specify, contextualize and comment on some strands of the dense information in the headline/lead. Despite the different number of paragraphs, the Table 7.1 ER’s and AR’s textual structure

Part

ER

Headline

Hamas hangs Gaza prisoners, including one Execution of three convicts in the Gaza ‘collaborator’ Strip, one of whom is charged with takhābur [spying/sharing intelligence] with Israel The Ministry of the Interior in the Hamas The Hamas-controlled administration Movement Government in Gaza has in Gaza has announced that three announced that three people have been prisoners have been executed. executed in accordance with judicial sentences, including one convicted of the charge of takhābur with Israel. Elaboration and Justification (for the Elaboration attributed to Hamas Interior executions) attributed to Hamas Ministry (providing location of Interior Ministry execution) Elaboration (on the charges) Elaboration attributed to Hamas Interior Ministry (on propriety of execution procedures) Contextualization (focusing on the Contextualization attributed to executed collaborators) Palestinian law (legal requirement for death sentences to be approved by Palestinian President) Elaboration attributed to Hamas Contextualization attributed to Interior Ministry (victims’ relatives Palestinian law (legal requirement turning down the option to forgive the for death sentences to be approved by convicted perpetrators) Palestinian President) Contextualization attributed to Hamas Contextualization (Hamas no longer Interior Ministry (Hamas government’s recognizes Palestinian President’s determination to pursue perpetrators) authority) Attitudinal assessment attributed to BBC’s Attitudinal assessment attributed to correspondent (quality of the evidence) Hamas Interior Ministry (rejecting criticisms of Hamas) Attitudinal assessment attributed to BBC’s correspondent (court proceedings) Attitudinal assessment attributed to BBC’s correspondent (charges) Contextualization (Israel’s need for informers)

Lead

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7. 8. 9.

AR (BT)

119

Ashraf Abdel Fattah

bodies of the ST and TT are almost equal in word count (196 and 200 words respectively). The components of the two versions do not necessarily indicate a specific chronological order of events; indeed, it would have been possible in both versions to rearrange the order of the paragraphs, which would only signify a different assessment on the part of the journalistic trans-editor of the relative importance of the elements involved. Such assessments of importance are ‘culturally and ideologically relative’ (Thomson and White, 2008: 6). An overall comparison of the two versions easily reveals some remarkable differences between their selected components. While the headlines/ leads of both versions are almost identical, sharing the same angle, their bodies immediately diverge in terms of the three aspects analysed in this study: representation, attribution and attitude. As is the case with headlines/leads, selections of specification, elaboration and contextualization in the body of a hard news report are arguably ‘value laden’ and ‘ideologically determined’ (White, 2006: 37). Apart from the clearly different selections made by the journalistic authors in constructing the body of their reports of the same event, perhaps the most striking difference between them is the overall positive attitudinal assessment of the executions in the AR, which is exclusively attributed to Hamas sources, in contradistinction to the overall negative attitudinal assessment of the executions in the ER, which also includes negative evaluative tokens attributed to the BBC Middle East (ME) correspondent (see Attitude below). Interestingly, no attribution whatsoever is made to the BBC ME correspondent in the AR. In the next section (Representation), some of the ideologically significant selections made by the journalistic authors of the two reports will be examined and contrasted along the dimension of representation (transitivity), i.e. the depiction of participants, processes and circumstance, which constitute the three basic elements of semantic configuration of any clause (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004).

Representation The following comparative analysis of representation in the ER and AR will show divergent discoursal patterns, which arguably reflect opposing ideological positions. Indeed, the ideational contrast between the two versions clearly manifests itself in the headline/lead even though this is where the highest degree of convergence between the two versions is observed. While the headlines of both versions focus on the execution of three people in Gaza, one of whom is accused of collaborating/communicating with Israel, the ER opts for a clause in the active voice where the Palestinian movement ‘Hamas’, which is in charge of the Gaza Strip, is cast as the direct Agent3 of a material process ‘hanging’ and topicalized as Theme (Table 7.1). In other words, Hamas is represented as playing an agentive role in the ‘hanging’ process, with the possible implication that this act is politically motivated and targeted at Hamas’s opponents, including one alleged to have ‘collaborated’ with Hamas’s arch-enemy, Israel, which is left implicit. Thus, the more specific designation of the process as ‘hanging’ as well as casting a political movement as an Agent of ‘hanging’ without any reference to judicial authorities, charges, proceedings or convictions may suggest a perception of the ‘hanging’ as an illegal, unjustifiable, lynching act perpetrated by an illegitimate entity. This suggestion is borne out by other ideologically motivated ideational selections in the English headline, which indirectly position the reader to blame Hamas. The designation of the Goal of that Process as the indefinite nominal group ‘Gaza prisoners’, without any qualification or quantification, and the distancing effect of the scare quotes used with ‘collaborator’, which casts doubt on the validity of this charge (see Attitude below), would lend further support to the initial impression of unwarranted executions. This impression is thrown into relief by a comparison with the ideational configuration in the Arabic headline (Table 7.2). 120

Media translation/trans-editing Table 7.2 Transitivity analysis of ER’s headline

Hamas Agent Theme

hangs Process Rheme

Gaza prisoners, including one ‘collaborator’ Goal/Affected

Table 7.3 Transitivity analysis of AR’s headline AR BT

Execution of

three convicts in the Gaza Strip, including one (convicted) of the charge of takh«bur

Process

Goal

In stark contrast with the ER, the process in the AR’s headline is construed as a nominalization ‫( ﺇﻋﺪﺍﻡ‬execution), i.e. as a nominal group, rather than a full clause, without an Agent. As Fowler (1991: 80) notes, nominalization is a ‘potentially mystificatory’ strategy offering ‘substantial ideological opportunities’. It allows the concealment or suppression of the Agent, which could still be retrieved from the cotext or context. Indeed, the use of the judicial terms ‫( ﻣﺪﺍﻧﻴﻦ‬convicts) and ‫( ﺑﺘﻬﻤﺔ‬of the charge of) renders any mention of the Agent (the executioner) unnecessary in this context, with the execution being represented as the outcome of a normal judicial process where the accused were charged, convicted and then executed by some competent authorities that are not normally newsworthy in a news headline. Other ideologically significant ideational selections in the Arabic headline include the following: •

• •



the use of the more general and perhaps less emotive nominalization ‫( ﺇﻋﺪﺍﻡ‬execution) as opposed to a hyponymic verb denoting the manner of execution hangs as in the ER; the choice of ‫( ﻣﺪﺍﻧﻴﻦ‬convicts) rather than ‫( ﺳﺠﻨﺎء‬prisoners); the use of the more negative ‫( ﺗﺨﺎﺑﺮ‬spying for or [traitorously] sharing information with a foreign state about one’s country) as opposed to ‘collaboration’, without any distancing or dis-endorsing scare quotes; and the notable mention of Israel as the foreign state which one of the condemned prisoners was convicted of spying for or communicating with.

The analysis of experiential selections in the BBC’s English and Arabic headlines has so far uncovered two seemingly different ideological positions lurking behind those headlines. These initial impressions are borne out by the one-sentence lead, from which the headline is derived, and which attributes the main event to an external source, elaborating on some of its elements (see Table 7.3). The type and source of attribution in both the ER and AR will be discussed under Attitude. Suffice it to note here that the external source of attribution in the lead is more specific in the AR: ‫( ﻭﺯﺍﺭﺓ ﺍﻟﺪﺍﺧﻠﻴﺔ ﻓﻲ ﺣﻜﻮﻣﺔ ﺣﺮﻛﺔ ﺣﻤﺎﺱ‬the Ministry of the Interior in the Hamas Movement Government) as opposed to the ‘Hamas-controlled administration’ in the ST (as seen in table 7.4). The specific reference to a ministry in the AR hints at some recognition of the governmental status of the Hamas administration in Gaza. Interestingly, the ER’s lead is less 121

Ashraf Abdel Fattah Table 7.4 Transitivity analysis of ER’s and AR’s leads

ER

External Source

Reporting verb

Verbiage (event)

The Hamas-controlled administration in Gaza

has announced

that three prisoners have been executed.

The Ministry of the Interior in the Hamas Movement Government in Gaza

announced

that the execution of three people has taken place in accordance with judicial sentences, including one convicted of the charge of takh«bur with Israel.

AR

BT

Table 7.5 Experiential designation of the condemned prisoners in ER, AR and HMOI’s statement ER

AR

Designation of Goal

Frequency

‘collaborator’

1

Man/men

5

Prisoners

2

Designation of Goal convicts Informer communicating with/spy for the occupation persons

HMOI’s Statement Frequency 2

1

Designation of Goal convict(s) Informer communicating with/spy for the occupation

Frequency 4

1

1

elaborate than its headline in terms of agency, with the event in the projected clause being realized in the agentless passive: have been executed. A possible explanation for this ideational variance between the ER’s headline and lead is that the latter is formulated as reported speech with the projected proposition being attributed to an announcement (statement) by the Hamascontrolled administration in Gaza. However, like its Arabic counterpart, the English headline could have opted for a passive construction in both headline and lead. Indeed, the ER’s lead could be regarded as a trans-edited text purportedly based on Hamas’s Arabic announcement, but with two significant representational shifts: i. ‫( ﻭﺯﺍﺭﺓ ﺍﻟﺪﺍﺧﻠﻴﺔ ﻭﺍﻷﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻮﻁﻨﻲ‬the Ministry of Interior and National Security) ᇕ the Hamascontrolled administration in Gaza; ii. ‫( ﺍﻟﻤﺤﻜﻮﻣﻴﻦ‬convicts) ᇕ prisoners. Similarly, agency is omitted in the AR’s lead by dint of a periphrastic passive construction comprising a lexically ‘empty’ verb (in the sense of ‘happened/ occurred’) + nominalization (execution): ‫( ﺗﻢ ﺇﻋﺪﺍﻡ‬execution has taken place). Unlike its English counterpart, the AR’s lead highlights the fact that the executions were carried out in accordance with judicial sentences, an elaboration on the term ‫( ﻣﺪﺍﻧﻴﻦ‬convicts) used in the headline. It also makes repeated mention of the ‫( ﺍﻟﻤﺘﺨﺎﺑﺮ‬spy/ informer communicating usually with an enemy or hostile foreign state) noting that he was convicted of spying for or communicating with Israel. While the wording of the AR is patently closer than the ER to the HMOI’s statement, it refrains from referring to Israel as ‫( ﺍﻻﺣﺘﻼﻝ‬the occupation) as is the case in the HMOI’s statement, which is clearly an ideologically significant ideational choice or intra-lingual translation shift. 122

Media translation/trans-editing Table 7.6 Experiential designation of Hamas authorities in ER, AR and HMOI’s statement AR

ER Designation of Hamas authorities

Frequency

Designation of Hamas authorities

Frequency

Hamas

2

The Ministry of the Interior in the Hamas Movement Government in Gaza

1

The Hamas-controlled administration

1

The Gaza interior ministry

2

The Interior Ministry’s statement The Permanent Military Court in Gaza Hamas Interior Ministry’s spokesman The government Hamas security forces

4 1 2 1 1

Any ideational similarity or seemingly translational correspondence observed between the English and Arabic headlines/leads almost totally disappears in their bodies, which seem to be going in opposite directions both experientially and evaluatively. The first four paragraphs of the body of the ER are based on Arabic source texts (HMOI’s statement and the Palestinian law), while the remaining five paragraphs are comments or attitudinal assessments mostly attributed to the BBC ME correspondent. It is quite remarkable that none of these assessments were deemed to be newsworthy by the author of the AR. In fact, almost 50 per cent of the body of the AR is directly attributed to HMOI’s statement and an earlier statement by HMOI’s spokesman, with no other attribution source. The transitivity patterns and ideational selections of the ER and AR are ideologically revealing as they suggest different political stances towards Hamas, as the Agent of the main event, i.e. execution, the condemned individuals as the Goal or Patient (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004) as well as the legality of the executions. To start with, in terms of their experiential designations of the condemned individuals, there is a striking contrast between the ER and AR, and convergence between the AR and HMOI’s statement as illustrated in Table 7.5. Another striking transitivity variance between the ER and AR is related to the terms used to describe Hamas authorities in Gaza, which are more specific and official in the AR suggesting recognition of authority and governmental status in Gaza (see Table 7.6). Interestingly, there is no single instance in the entire AR where Hamas itself is cast as an Agent or Actor of any process. Unlike its English counterpart, the AR also exhibits a predilection for judicial terms and constructions, liberally quoted from HMOI’s statement, which give an air of legitimacy to the executions (see Table 7.7). Another distinctive transitivity feature of the AR that serves to lend credence, legitimacy and propriety to the legal proceedings conducive to the imposition and implementation of the death penalties is the use of a sequence of legitimating circumstantial elements justifying the executions and dispelling any doubt as to their legality. Note for example the rhetorical concatenation of foregrounded circumstantial elements justifying the executions in example 1: 123

Ashraf Abdel Fattah Table 7.7 Judicial terms in the AR Judicial terms in the AR

BT convicts in accordance with judicial sentences in accordance with Palestinian law the Permanent Military Court has sentenced him to death by hanging the death penalty has been carried out against criminal convicts retribution/lex talionis Lit. ‘the avengers of blood’; an Islamic jurisprudential term referring to next of kin or kindred of a murder victim. Unusually for a hard news report, this legal term is cited together with an explanation.

(1)

‫… ﺍﺳﺘﻨﺎﺩﺍ ﻟﺸﺮﻳﻌﺘﻨﺎ ﻭﺩﻳﻨﻨﺎ ﺍﻟﺤﻨﻴﻒ ﻭﺍﻟﻰ ﻣﺎ ﻧﺺ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﺍﻟﻘﺎﻧﻮﻥ ﺍﻟﻔﻠﺴﻄﻴﻨﻲ ﻭﺍﺣﻘﺎﻗﺎ ﻟﺤﻖ ﺍﻟﻮﻁﻦ ﻭﺍﻟﻤﻮﺍﻁﻦ‬ … ‫ﻭﺣﻔﺎﻅﺎ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻻﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﺠﺘﻤﻌﻲ… ﺗﻢ ﺗﻨﻔﻴﺬ ﺣﻜﻢ ﺍﻻﻋﺪﺍﻡ‬

BT: … in accordance with our Sharia, our true religion and the provisions of the Palestinian law; for the enforcement of the rights of the state and citizen; and for the preservation of societal security … the death sentence was carried out … Note also the rhetorical repetition of ‫( ﺣﺴﺐ‬according to) in two coordinated circumstantial elements stressing due process and procedural propriety in implementing the death penalty in example 2:

(2) ‫… ﻭﺗﻢ ﺍﻟﺘﻨﻔﻴﺬ ﺑﺤﻀﻮﺭ ﻛﺎﻓﺔ ﺍﻟﺠﻬﺎﺕ ﺍﻟﻤﺨﺘﺼﺔ ﺣﺴﺐ ﺍﻟﻘﺎﻧﻮﻥ ﻭﺑﺤﺴﺐ ﺍﻻﺟﺮﺍءﺍﺕ ﺍﻟﻘﺎﻧﻮﻧﻴﺔ ﺍﻟﻤﻨﺼﻮﺹ ﻋﻠﻴﻬﺎ‬ BT: … the implementation [of the death sentences] took place in the presence of all the competent authorities, according to the law, and according to the legally stipulated procedures

The fact that the text featuring these legitimating transitivity selections was quoted verbatim from HMOI’s statement is immaterial. What is at stake here, as will be discussed in the next section on attribution, is that the attributed text was deemed newsworthy enough to be selected and quoted in full by the journalistic author of the AR, arguably to serve a particular rhetorical and ideological function (see Fairclough, 1995; White, 2006). This assessment of newsworthiness was clearly not shared by the ER’s author. Equally noteworthy is the selection by the AR’s author of a proposition suggesting that the Hamas authorities would have been prepared to commute the death sentences, had the victims’ next of kin agreed to clemency, as illustrated by example 3:

(3) ‫ ﻭﻋﺮﺽ ﻋﻠﻴﻬﻢ ﺍﻥ ﻛﺎﻧﻮﺍ ﻳﺮﻏﺒﻮﻥ‬،‫ ﻭﻫﻢ ﺃﻫﺎﻟﻲ ﺍﻟﻤﺠﻨﻲ ﻋﻠﻴﻬﻢ‬،“‫ﻭﺍﺷﺎﺭ ﺍﻟﺒﻴﺎﻥ ﺍﻟﻰ ﺍﻧﻪ ﺗﻢ ﺍﺣﻀﺎﺭ ”ﺍﻭﻟﻴﺎء ﺍﻟﺪﻡ‬ ‫ ﻟﻜﻨﻬﻢ ﻁﺎﻟﺒﻮﺍ ﺑﺎﻟﻘﺼﺎﺹ‬،‫ﺑﺎﻟﻌﻔﻮ ﻗﺒﻞ ﺍﻟﺘﻨﻔﻴﺬ ﻣﺒﺎﺷﺮﺓ‬

124

Media translation/trans-editing

BT: The [HMOI] statement noted that awliyā’ al-damm [the next of kin], who are the victims’ relatives, had been brought in and offered [the choice] to pardon [the murderers] immediately before the execution, but they demanded qiṣāṣ [retribution].

Arguably, the rhetorical, hence ideological, purpose of this ideational selection is to legitimate the executions and absolve the Hamas authorities of any blame. In contrast, the transitivity selections in the ER seem to be driven by the opposite view, namely, that the governmental status of the Hamas- controlled administration in Gaza is in doubt and that the hangings are illegitimate, hence the lack of specific reference to convicts or sentencing, especially with regard to the ‘collaborator’. Besides, as will be further discussed, court proceedings, evidence and charges are only mentioned in general to be negatively appraised. Thus, the emphasis on due process and procedural propriety in the AR is sharply contrasted with a negative assessment of judicial evidence and proceedings in the ER. Note also the selective experiential designation of accused in relation to the ‘collaborator’ and found guilty in relation to the other defendants in example 4: (4) One of the men was accused of collaborating with Israel and the others had been found guilty of murder. Since the ideational selections in (4) are supposedly derived from the content of the HMOI’s statement, one could cite the following shifts in trans-editing: ‫( ﻭﺟﻬﺖ ﺍﻟﻤﺤﻜﻤﺔ ﻟﻪ ]ﺍﻟﻤﺘﺨﺎﺑﺮ ﻣﻊ ﺍﻻﺣﺘﻼﻝ[ ﺍﻟﺘﻬﻢ ﺍﻟﺘﺎﻟﻴﺔ‬the court charged him [the spy communicating with the occupation] with the following counts) HMOI’s statement ᇕOne of the men was accused of collaborating with Israel (ER) Thus, collaborating with Israel was selected by the ER’s journalistic author as a transedited rendering of ‫ﺍﻟﻤﺘﺨﺎﺑﺮ ﻣﻊ ﺍﻻﺣﺘﻼﻝ‬, i.e. a person traitorously sharing information with the occupation (unlike the AR, where ‫( ﺍﺣﺘﻼﻝ‬occupation) is retained in a direct quotation from HMOI’s statement), and accused was selected in preference to charged. Although, according to the HMOI’s statement, all three defendants were described as found guilty of the charges brought against them, that term was only selected for the criminal defendants in the ER. Together with the distancing ‘scare’ quotes used with collaborator in the English headline, this selective experiential designation in trans- editing from an Arabic source text (HMOI’s statement) suggests the journalistic author’s belief that the charge of ‘collaboration’ is illfounded. Another clue is the use of the alternative, presumably less negative, term informer in the final contextualizing paragraph of the ER, where the author offers an unattributed comment on the usefulness of Palestinian informers recruited by Israeli intelligence in preventing possible attacks. Thus, the ER’s author takes sole responsibility for this positive assessment of informers working for Israeli intelligence, an ideologically driven assessment which is apparently not shared or at least deemed to be newsworthy by the AR’s author. Other contrastive ideational selections in the ER and AR will be discussed under Attitude, where they will be assessed in terms of their contribution to the evaluative profile as attitudinal tokens. But to set the scene for this discussion of attitudinal assessment, the attribution patterns in both ER and AR need to be analysed first. 125

Ashraf Abdel Fattah Table 7.8 Patterns of attribution in the ER and AR Report

Attribution

Source

Type

ER

1. ‘collaborator’ 2. The Hamas-controlled administration in Gaza

Hamas The Hamas-controlled administration

distance

The Gaza interior ministry

acknowledge

it (The Gaza interior ministry)

distance

Palestinian law

acknowledge

3. 4. 5. 6.

has announced … The Gaza interior ministry says the men were hanged … … at what it called a security centre in Gaza City. Under Palestinian law, executions are meant to be approved by the Palestinian president. The BBC's Middle East correspondent Kevin Connolly says …

7. Court proceedings in the Gaza Strip are not held

in public …, our correspondent says. 8. It is not even possible to know …, he adds

AR

9. ... The Gaza interior ministry in Hamas Government announced … 10.

... the (Interior) Ministry’s statement made clear/clarified that… ... 11. The statement said … . 12. The statement deemed it sufficient to/contented itself with referring to their initials 13. ... The Palestinian law states that … ... 14. The statement noted that … 15. ... ... They were offered to pardon (the defendants) ... 16. But they demanded qiṣāṣ (retribution) 17.

... The Hamas Interior Ministry’s spokesman mentioned that … 18. ... ... He said he rejected with disapproval … 19. ... … what has been circulating

acknowledge

The BBC's Middle East correspondent our correspondent (The BBC's Middle East correspondent) he (The BBC's Middle East correspondent)

acknowledge

The Gaza interior ministry in Hamas Government

acknowledge

the (Interior) Ministry’s statement

endorse

the (Interior Ministry’s) statement

acknowledge

the (Interior Ministry’s) statement

acknowledge

Palestinian law

acknowledge

the (Interior Ministry’s) statement

acknowledge

Authorities (passive)

acknowledge

Victims’ relatives

endorse

Hamas Interior Ministry’s spokesman

acknowledge

He (Hamas Interior Ministry’s spokesman)

acknowledge

Unknown (ergative)

distance

acknowledge

acknowledge

Attribution As Table 7.8 shows, there are eight instances of attribution to external sources in the ER and 11 in the AR, using various direct and indirect speech formulations. All instances of attribution in the ER are indirect quotes from three sources: Hamas authorities, Palestinian law and the BBC ME correspondent. It is also noteworthy that all propositions attributed to the BBC ME correspondent in the ER are generally negative attitudinal assessments about court proceedings, evidence and charges, as will be discussed in some detail in the next section.

126

Media translation/trans-editing

Equally interestingly, none of those assessments attributed to the BBC ME correspondent were deemed to be worthy of inclusion in the AR. All instances of attribution, except two in the ER and two in the AR, are mediated by forms of neutral acknowledgement, i.e. formulations showing neither overt endorsement nor disendorsement. Most of these are realized by verbal process verbs, which do not by themselves reveal the stance of the authorial voice vis-à-vis the attributed proposition, e.g. ER: announced; says; adds; under Palestinian law AR: ‫( ﺃﻋﻠﻨﺖ‬announced); ‫( ﻳﻨﺺ‬states); ‫( ﺃﺷﺎﺭ‬noted); ‫( ﺫﻛﺮ‬mentioned) However, both reports exhibit other features of attribution and evaluation which belie the façade of neutrality conveyed, among other things, by the predominance of acknowledging attributions. Among those features are four revealing instances of attribution, where the journalistic author opts for either an overtly distancing or endorsing formulation. For example, the following distancing instances in the ER suggest scepticism about material attributed to Hamas authorities, thereby positioning the reader to take a similar incredulous view: (5)  Hamas hangs Gaza prisoners, including one ‘collaborator’ (headline) [distance] (6)  The Gaza interior ministry says the men were hanged at what it called a security centre in Gaza City. [distance] The use of the ‘scare’ quotes in (5) indicates reservation on the part of the authorial voice with regard to the validity of the term ‘collaborator’ or the charge of ‘collaboration’ claimed by Hamas. Similarly, the use of the distancing construction what it called a security centre in (6) casts doubt on whether the location of hanging was really ‘a security centre’, hence calling into question the veracity of the HMOI’s statement and possibly the legality of executions carried out in a suspicious location. Incidentally, there is no reference to the location of the executions in the HMOI’s statement itself, nor in the AR based on it. This is yet another example of ideational variance between the ER and AR, which seems to be attributable to ideological orientation. In contrast, there are two instances of endorsing and distancing attributions in the AR as illustrated by examples 7 and 8 respectively: (7)

… ‫ﻭﺍﻭﺿﺢ ﺑﻴﺎﻥ ﺍﻟﻮﺯﺍﺭﺓ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﺑﺚ ﻓﻲ ﻣﻮﻗﻊ ﺍﻻﻧﺘﺮﻧﺖ ﺍﻟﺮﺳﻤﻲ ﻟﻬﺎ ﺃﻧﻪ‬ BT: The ministry’s statement, which was posted on its official website, made clear that … [endorse]

(8)

… ‫ﻭﻗﺎﻝ ﺍﻧﻪ ﻳﺮﻓﺾ ﻣﺴﺘﻨﻜﺮﺍ ﻣﺎ ﺗﺮﺩﺩ ﻋﻦ ﺍﺟﻬﺰﺓ ﺍﻣﻦ ﺣﻤﺎﺱ ﻓﻲ ﻗﻄﺎﻉ ﻏﺰﺓ‬ BT: And he [Interior Ministry’s spokesman] said that he rejected with disapproval what has been circulating about Hamas security forces in Gaza … [distance]

The selection of the verb ‫( ﺃﻭﺿﺢ‬made clear) by the AR’s author in (7) suggests that he/she faintly endorses the propositional content of the projected clause, which foregrounds justifications for the executions (see Representation) in a direct fairly long quote from HMOI’s statement. Example 8, on the other hand, is an indirect quote of a statement by the Hamas Interior Ministry’s spokesman, in which he rejects reports accusing Hamas security forces of seeking to establish security in Gaza by means of excessive force, executions and terrorizing citizens. Here, the journalistic author of the AR chooses to retain the indirectly dis-endorsing 127

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formulation used by the Hamas Interior Ministry’s spokesman, which takes the form of an instransitive construction: ‫( ﻣﺎ‬what) + ‫( ﺗﺮﺩﺩ‬has been circulating). There are also some notable contrasts between the ER and AR in terms of attribution source, type and specification. The first striking observation in this regard is that the AR’s journalistic author does not make a single reference to the BBC ME correspondent, who is quoted three times in the ER, nor to the viewpoints attributed to him, namely, his overall negative assessment of the quality of evidence, charges and court proceedings in Gaza. On the other hand, the Hamas authorities are generously and directly quoted in the AR, providing specific information and explicit viewpoints about the charges and suggesting due process of law and adequate judicial proceedings. This selective and disproportionate attribution to one source rather than the other indicates an authorial favouring of or alignment with the attributed viewpoints notwithstanding any neutral formulation of attribution employed by the author (quoted in White, 2009). Furthermore, the Hamas sources of attribution mentioned in the AR are on the whole more specific and detailed suggesting recognition of status; observe, for example, the contrast in attribution source specification in the ER’s and AR’s leads: (9) ER’s lead: The Hamas-controlled administration in Gaza has announced that … (10) AR’s lead: … ‫ﺍﻋﻠﻨﺖ ﻭﺯﺍﺭﺓ ﺍﻟﺪﺍﺧﻠﻴﺔ ﻓﻲ ﺣﻜﻮﻣﺔ ﺣﺮﻛﺔ ﺣﻤﺎﺱ ﺑﻘﻄﺎﻉ ﻏﺰﺓ ﺍﻥ‬ BT: The Ministry of the Interior in the Hamas Movement Government in the Gaza Strip has announced that … Note how the the announcement of execution is attributed to the Hamas- controlled administration in the English lead (9), where the epithet Hamas-controlled seems to be serving a negatively evaluative rather than a specifying function, implying as it does some political motivation or influence behind the announcement and execution. In the Arabic lead (10), however, the announcement of execution is attributed to a fully specified official Hamas source. Given other supportive clues in the AR, I will argue that this unusually and unnecessarily longish specification of the source of a reported announcement, together with the faithful reproduction of the official wording of the source statement, suggests a recognition by the authorial voice of the official status of the attribution source, which may position the reader to regard the announcement as ‘credible’. In the body of the ER, the announcement source is referred to once as the Gaza interior ministry, but, as already discussed above, the credibility of the paraphrased or assimilated attribution material, as well as its source, is undermined by the dis-endorsing formulation at what it called, which clearly indicates that the author is unfavourably disposed towards the attribution content. On the other hand, the authorial voice of the AR opts for a fully specified impersonal designation of the attribution source in the body of the report, namely, ‫ﺑﻴﺎﻥ ﺍﻟﻮﺯﺍﺭﺓ‬ ‫( ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﺑﺚ ﻓﻲ ﻣﻮﻗﻊ ﺍﻻﻧﺘﺮﻧﺖ ﺍﻟﺮﺳﻤﻲ ﻟﻬﺎ‬the ministry’s statement, which was posted on its official website). A possible reason for this turn is the authorial voice’s desire to ‘insert’ lengthy quotes from the ministry’s statement, freely citing explicitly evaluative material in favour of the executions, while still maintaining a veneer of authorial neutrality and detachment. It is as if the authorial voice of the AR is ‘evaluating’ by proxy. The selection of lengthy quotes spelling out and justifying the Hamas government’s official stance vis-à-vis the executions betrays the authorial voice’s covert supportive stance. This also applies to the direct quotes attributed to a Hamas official in the last two paragraphs of the AR. Rather than offering the BBC ME correspondent’s expert opinion cited in the ER and his overall negative assessment of the quality of evidence, charges and court proceedings in 128

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Gaza, the authorial voice of the AR opts for an attributed positive evaluation and defence of the executions. I will return to the evaluative content of instances of attribution when I discuss the dimension of attitudinal asssessments in the next section.

Attitude The following evaluative analysis and contrast between the ER and AR will reveal that, given the patterns of use and co-occurrence of evaluative meanings in both reports, they both belong to the same ‘journalistic voice’, namely, the ‘reporter voice’ (Martin and White, 2005; Thomson and White, 2008). Yet despite the regime of ‘strategic impersonalization’ (White, 2012) clearly employed by both reports, they manage to position their readers to take opposing views of the main reported event, around which they both revolve. As the analysis will show, some of the attitudinal tokens deployed by the journalistic authors largely depend on a certain reading position for their activation, which is hardly surprising given the journalistic voice of the reports. In the following discussion, I will focus first on Inscribed Attitude, i.e. the explicitly articulated attitudinal locutions, whether unmediated (authorially sourced) or mediated (attributed to an external source). Then, I will turn to Invoked Attitude, i.e. the implicit attitudinal tokens, which are conditioned by the co-text and the reader’s reading position (Thomson and White, 2008).

Inscribed attitude Through various evaluative mechanisms, all implicit, the journalistic author of the ER casts doubt on the legitimacy of the Hamas administration in Gaza, the adequacy of the legal process in Gaza, and the validity of the evidence, charges and convictions against the three prisoners. Interestingly, the ER is devoid of any instances of inscribed affect, appreciation or judgement, whether authorial or attributed. Rather, the evaluative load of the ER is exclusively borne by two types of tokens of invoked attitude: provocations, i.e. evaluative formulations which are not of themselves positive or negative but acquire their attitudinal value from the co-text; and evocations, i.e. ideational selections and purely experiential content with the potential to trigger a negative or positive reaction in the reader via a process of inferencing (White, 2006). Tokens of provocation and evocation in the ER will be discussed in the subsection addressing Invoked Attitude. The AR, on the other hand, avails itself of both inscriptions and invocations, mostly attributed to Hamas sources as noted earlier in representation. All observed inscriptions in the AR (see Table 7.9) are mediated through attribution to Hamas sources including two instances of nested attribution (X said that Y said). Almost all the highlighted inscriptions are ultimately assessments of positive propriety on the part of Hamas. This is achieved through the following three mechanisms: 1. Positive assessment of the executions by using circumstantial elements of manner or purpose explicitly stressing the propriety and lawfulness of the executions as in the following examples (11–14):

(11)

‫… ﺗﻢ ﺍﻋﺪﺍﻡ ﺛﻼﺛﺔ ﺍﺷﺨﺎﺹ ﺑﻤﻮﺟﺐ ﺍﺣﻜﺎﻡ ﻗﻀﺎﺋﻴﺔ‬ BT: … three people have been executed in accordance with judicial sentences

129

Ashraf Abdel Fattah Table 7.9 Attitudinal inscriptions in the AR Arabic locution

Type

Source

Target

Value

Judgement (propriety)

Hamas

Hamas authorities

+ve

Judgement (propriety)

Hamas

Hamas authorities

+ve

Hamas

Hamas authorities

+ve

Hamas

Israel

-ve

Hamas

Hamas authorities

+ve

Hamas/relatives

Hamas authorities

+ve

Hamas

Hamas authorities

+ve

Hamas

Perpetrators

-ve

Hamas

Perpetrators

-ve

Hamas

Perpetrators

-ve

Perpetrators

-ve

Judgement (propriety) Judgement (propriety) Judgement (propriety) Judgement (propriety) Judgement (tenacity) Judgement (propriety) Judgement (propriety) Judgement (propriety) Judgement (propriety)









Hamas

Affect

Hamas

Appreciation (balance)

Hamas/rumours

Judgement

Hamas/rumours

Rumours against Hamas Force Hamas alleged to have used Alleged Hamas actions

-ve -ve -ve

Here, thanks to the circumstantial element ‫( ﺑﻤﻮﺟﺐ ﺃﺣﻜﺎﻡ ﻗﻀﺎﺋﻴﺔ‬in accordance with judicial sentences), the reader is left in no doubt as to the legality of the executions. (12) ‫ﻭﺗﻢ ﺍﻟﺘﻨﻔﻴﺬ ﺑﺤﻀﻮﺭ ﻛﺎﻓﺔ ﺍﻟﺠﻬﺎﺕ ﺍﻟﻤﺨﺘﺼﺔ ﺣﺴﺐ ﺍﻟﻘﺎﻧﻮﻥ ﻭﺑﺤﺴﺐ ﺍﻻﺟﺮﺍءﺍﺕ ﺍﻟﻘﺎﻧﻮﻧﻴﺔ ﺍﻟﻤﻨﺼﻮﺹ ﻋﻠﻴﻬﺎ‬ BT: The implementation took place in the presence of all the competent authorities according to the law and according to the legally stipulated procedures. Here we have a rhetorical succession of circumstantial elements explicitly asserting the propriety of the execution and its conformity with the law and legal procedures. The use of circumstantial elements to express an attitudinal assessment of legal propriety is akin to the use of attributes in: The execustion was legally and procedurally correct. (13) ‫ﺍﺳﺘﻨﺎﺩﺍ ﻟﺸﺮﻳﻌﺘﻨﺎ ﻭﺩﻳﻨﻨﺎ ﺍﻟﺤﻨﻴﻒ ﻭﺍﻟﻰ ﻣﺎ ﻧﺺ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﺍﻟﻘﺎﻧﻮﻥ ﺍﻟﻔﻠﺴﻄﻴﻨﻲ ﻭﺍﺣﻘﺎﻗﺎ ﻟﺤﻖ ﺍﻟﻮﻁﻦ ﻭﺍﻟﻤﻮﺍﻁﻦ‬ … ‫ﻭﺣﻔﺎﻅﺎ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻻﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﺠﺘﻤﻌﻲ … ﺗﻢ ﺗﻨﻔﻴﺬ ﺣﻜﻢ ﺍﻻﻋﺪﺍﻡ ﺻﺒﺎﺡ ﺍﻟﻴﻮﻡ ﺍﻟﺴﺒﺖ ﺑﺤﻖ ﺍﻟﻤﺘﺨﺎﺑﺮ ﻣﻊ ﺍﻻﺣﺘﻼﻝ‬ BT: In accordance with our Sharia, our true religion and the provisions of the Palestinian law; in fulfilment of the rights of the citizen and the country; and for the sake of preserving community security … the death sentence was carried out this morning (Saturday) against the mutakhābir with the occupation … 130

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Here we find a concatenation of three foregrounded circumstantial elements functioning as a rhetorical triplet providing religious and legal justification for the execution (ً ‫ﺍﺳﺘﻨﺎﺩﺍ … ﺇﺣﻘﺎﻗﺎ‬ ً ‫)… ﺣﻔﺎﻅﺎ‬. This is further reinforced by the use of the inclusive first-person plural pronoun (‫ ﻟﺸﺮﻳﻌﺘﻨﺎ‬our sharia; ‫ ﺩﻳﻨﻨﺎ‬our religion) and the positive inscription in ‫( ﺩﻳﻨﻨﺎ ﺍﻟﺤﻨﻴﻒ‬our true religion), which serve to align the reader to the journalistic author’s point of view. (14) ‫ﻟﻜﻨﻬﻢ ﻁﺎﻟﺒﻮﺍ ﺑﺎﻟﻘﺼﺎﺹ‬ BT: but they demanded qiṣāṣ (retribution). Here, the death penalty is categorically described as ‫( ﻗﺼﺎﺹ‬retributive justice), an Islamic term corresponding to the principle of ‘lex talionis’, or ‘law of retaliation’. Thus, it constitutes a positive assessment of the execution, which, being represented as a form of qiṣāṣ, is religiously justified. The use of the desiderative verb ‫( ﻁﺎﻟﺒﻮﺍ‬demanded) to show strong inclination on the part of the relatives towards the implementation of the death sentence serves as a token reinforcing the positive assessment of the executions and ultimately of Hamas. 2. Negative judgement of the perpetrators, which serves as a token of positive assessment of the executions, and ultimately of Hamas. In other words, a secondary explicit negative assessment is nested within a primary tokenized positive one: [t+ve JUDGEMENT (Executions/ Hamas) [- ve JUDGEMENT (perpetrators)]].4 Thus, the perpetrators who will be pursued and executed by Hamas authorities are negatively judged as: ‫ﻣﻦ ﺧﺎﻟﻒ ﻭﻭﺟﺐ ﺑﺤﻘﻪ‬ ‫( ﺍﻟﻘﺘﻞ‬those who have broken [the law] and deserve to be killed) and more negatively as ‫ﺍﻟﻘﺘﻠﺔ‬ ‫( ﻭﺍﻟﻤﻔﺴﺪﻳﻦ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻻﺭﺽ ﻭﺍﻟﻤﺘﺨﺎﺑﺮﻳﻦ ﻣﻊ ﺍﻻﺣﺘﻼﻝ ﺍﻟﺼﻬﻴﻮﻧﻲ‬murderers, al-mufsidīn [the ones who make mischief] in the land, and al-mutakhabirīn [spies communicating] with the Zionist occupation). In the second instance, we have another rhetorical triplet in the form of a parataxis of nominal groups, each representing a negatively judged group of perpetrators of crimes. The first group, ‫( ﺍﻟﻘﺘﻠﺔ‬murderers), is arguably inscribing a negative judgement in this co-text by virture of the rhetorical, as opposed to legal, setting in which it is cited (contrasting with such a legal formulation as ‫( ﻣﺮﺗﻜﺒﻲ ﺟﺮﺍﺋﻢ ﺍﻟﻘﺘﻞ‬the perpetrators of murder crimes)). The second nominal group in the sequence, ‫( ﺍﻟﻤﻔﺴﺪﻳﻦ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻷﺭﺽ‬the ones who make mischief in the land), which has a Quranic ring to it, also inscribes a strongly negative judgement with an attitudinal appeal to religious sentiments. The third group, ‫( ﺍﻟﻤﺘﺨﺎﺑﺮﻳﻦ‬spies) is yet another inscription of negative judgement further reinforced by ‫( ﺍﻻﺣﺘﻼﻝ ﺍﻟﺼﻬﻴﻮﻧﻲ‬the Zionist occupation), as opposed to simply Israel. Arguably, the qualifier ‫( ﺍﻟﺼﻬﻴﻮﻧﻲ‬Zionist) in this context is intended to be more of a loaded Epithet than a Classifier (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014), which, in the Arab psyche, frequently connotes aggression, expansionism and usurpation.  As noted above, all these negative inscriptions of judgement cast the condemned in a negative light, thereby serving to legitimate, and position the reader to approve of, the executions. Interestingly, none of these inscriptions were selected by the ER’s journalistic author. 3. Strong rejection of alleged negative assessment of Hamas: (15) ‫ﻭﻗﺎﻝ ﺍﻧﻪ ﻳﺮﻓﺾ ﻣﺴﺘﻨﻜﺮﺍ ﻣﺎ ﺗﺮﺩﺩ ﻋﻦ ﺍﺟﻬﺰﺓ ﺍﻣﻦ ﺣﻤﺎﺱ ﻓﻲ ﻗﻄﺎﻉ ﻏﺰﺓ ﺿﺒﻄﺖ ﺍﻻﻣﻦ ”ﺑﺎﺳﺘﺨﺪﺍﻡ ﺍﻟﻘﻮﺓ‬ .“‫ﺍﻟﻤﻔﺮﻁﺔ ﻭﺗﻨﻔﻴﺬ ﺍﺣﻜﺎﻡ ﺍﻻﻋﺪﺍﻡ ﻭﻧﺸﺮ ﺍﻟﺮﻋﺐ ﻭﺍﻟﺨﻮﻑ ﺑﻴﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﻮﺍﻁﻨﻴﻦ‬ Here we have an instance of nested attribution and evaluation: [He said he rejects with disapproval reports that Hamas security forces in Gaza maintained security ‘by using excessive force, carrying out death sentences, and spreading terror and fear among citizens.’]. Thus, 131

Ashraf Abdel Fattah

the inscription of negative judgement attributed to some unspecified external source is freely cited to be strongly rejected by the Hamas spokesman; in other words, we here have an instance of intertextual positioning in the form of an explicit negative assessment (by Hamas) targeted at another explicit negative assessment (by an unspecified external source) targeted at Hamas. This attitudinal stratagem serves to lend credibility to Hamas by signalling its readiness to cite and engage with criticisms of its actions. However, the evaluative position of the journalistic authors of the two reports manifests itself more clearly in the attitudinal invocations or tokens, which are conditioned by the context and co-text of the reports, and to which I will now turn.

Invoked attitude (attitudinal tokens) Both the ER and AR abound with selected formulations that indirectly invoke evaluation by implication or association (Thomson et al., 2008), i.e. invocations or attitudinal tokens as they are termed in the appraisal framework (Martin and White, 2005). In both texts, the bulk of the evaluative load is carried by invoked attitude. As noted in the theoretical considerations section, invocations are of two types: i. evocations, which are ideational selections triggering an attitudinal response via their purely informational content or factual description. It is the fact that this ‘evaluatively inert’ experiential material is selected and brought into prominence by the journalistic author, among other more explicit evaluative clues, that makes it potentially capable of arousing an attitudinal response in the reader, given an appropriate reading position; ii. provocations, which are evaluative formulations triggering or ‘provoking’ a positive or negative attitudinal response although they are not of themselves positive or negative (Thomson and White, 2008). Such ‘provocative’ formulations are ‘flags’ alerting the reader to the existence of some evaluative meaning, whose value, or rather the value of the attitudinal response it triggers in the reader, should be gleaned from the context or co-text. Examples of ‘provocative’ evaluative mechanisms include intensification, comparison, counter-expectation and metaphors (Martin and White, 2005; White, 2006). It is worth noting that there is a cline between invoked and inscribed attitude, with evocation representing the most implicit attitudinal tokens (Martin and White, 2005; Thompson, 2014): Inscription ↔ provocation ↔ evocation Tables 7.10 and 7.11 show all the instances of evocation and provocation in the ER and AR respectively. Keywords in the tokens are italicized.

Evocation All instances of evocation highlighted in Tables 7.10 and 7.11 are ideational selections, which have been discussed under Representation.Though not evaluative in their own right, those ideational selections are indicative of, and consistent with, an overall attiudinal position adopted by the journalistic author towards the key event in the story, namely, the execution of three prisoners in Gaza, and ultimately the Agent of the execution, i.e. the Hamas (administration/government). It should be noted that all the ideologically motivated designations and ideational selections discussed earlier under Representation are instances of evocation with the potential to trigger an attitudinal response. For example, in the headline of the ER, the characterization of 132

Media translation/trans-editing Table 7.10 Attitudinal tokens in the ER





evo = evocation; provo = provocation; j = judgement; app = appreciation; -ve = negative; +ve = positive.

the execution as hanging, Hamas as Agent of hanging, and the executed prisoners as simply Gaza prisoners without a specific number – all these ideational selections set the scene for a negative evaluation of the executions and Hamas. This is especially significant in the headline of a hard news report, which represents the maximally newsworthy part of the report. The evaluative significance of these ideational selections becomes all the more tangible when contrasted with the Arabic headline, which also provides an evocation through evaluatively working in the opposite direction; thus, here we find a nominialization of execution hiding Agency ‫( ﺇﻋﺪﺍﻡ‬execution), a designation of the executed as ‫( ﺍﻟﻤﺪﺍﻧﻴﻦ‬convicted/ convicts) and a specific number ‫( ﺛﻼﺛﺔ‬three) of the defendants. Indeed, these ideational selections are closer to, or more consistent with, the text of the Hamas statement.

133

Ashraf Abdel Fattah Table 7.11 Attitudinal tokens in the AR





Other ideational selections with the potential to evoke an attitudinal response in the ER include the following: •

The use of the term accused to refer to the prisoner executed for spying with Israel while noting in the same sentence that the two other prisoners had been found guilty of murder. This suggests that the journalistic author is implicitly casting doubt on the validity of the charge and verdict against the ‘collaborator’ in particular, thereby evoking a negative judgement of Hamas. Note that the term accused is not evaluative per se but in this particular co-text, and together with a cluster of other more telling clues prosodically scattered in the text, it acquires the potential to trigger a negative assessment. Notably, the distancing effect of the scare quotes used with collaborator in the headline is a provocative token suggesting the author’s scepticism about the validity of this charge of collaboration, which is incidentally referred to as ‫( ﺗﺨﺎﺑﺮ‬spying/sharing intelligence with) and ‫( ﺧﻴﺎﻧﺔ‬treason) in the original Hamas statement, on which the ER is purportedly based. This is then a clear instance of evaluative shift in translation or trans-editing from the ‘source text’, lending support to the impression of unwarranted execution and ultimately triggering a negative judgement of Hamas.

The suggestion that the charge and verdict against the ‘collaborator’ is unwarranted, and that his likes should not be executed, comes again in the last contextualizing paragraph, still in the form of a typical instance of evocation: Israel’s intelligence services recruit informers to gather information about possible targets for militants and help block attacks. Here the journalistic author is concluding the report with some background information about ‘collaborators’, who are now benignly referred to as informers recruited by the Israeli intelligence to render a useful security service to Israel, namely, the gathering of information that can help ward off attacks by militants against possible Israeli targets. There is no single evaluative term in this final purely informational sentence; yet it has the potential to trigger a positive assessment of those individuals, as heroes rather than villains, and consequently a negative judgement of Hamas for charging and executing them. After all, gathering information to help 134

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block attacks planned by militants must be a positive thing; thus, evaluative responses triggered by this experiential content are nested or cascaded as follows: Attacks (- ve) ᇄ blocking attacks (+ve) ᇄ gathering information to block attacks (+ve) ᇄ informers (t+ve j): ᇄ recruiting informers by Israeli intelligence (+ve) ᇄ Israeli intelligence (t+ve j) + ᇄ killing informers by Hamas (-ve) ᇄ Hamas (t-ve j)  Tellingly, this evocative token was not, nor could it rhetorically have been, selected by the journalistic author of the AR, who adopted, without any scare quotes, the same negative term used in the Hamas statement to refer to those individuals: ‫( ﻣﺘﺨﺎﺑﺮ‬spy/(traitorous) informer sharing information with (Israel)). •



The contrastive characterization of Gaza as Hamas- controlled and the West Bank as Palestinian- Authority- run in the same sentence is an evocative token suggestive of an attitudinal stance on the part of the journalistic author, which is negatively disposed towards Hamas. This is corroborated by other clues in the report, which seem to suggest that the author does not recognize the governmental status of the Hamas administration in Gaza (see Representation). The monoglossic categorical assertion that court proceedings in the Gaza Strip are not held in public has the potential in this co- text to evoke in the reader a negative assessment of those proceedings, and hence of the Hamas authorities conducting them. Obviously, such an inference can only be made by a reader who shares the normative view that fair trials must be held in public. This factual assertion acquires its negative hue from the ensuing text which provides further provocative tokens of negative assessment of legal proceedings in Gaza. Interestingly, none of these negative tokens attributed to the BBC ME correspondent were deemed to be newsworthy by the journalistic author of the AR, who on the contrary preferred to cite tokens of positive assessment of the proceedings directly attributed to the Hamas statement. Similarly, the journalistic author of the ER chose to disregard such positive attitudinal tokens in favour of negative ones provided by the BBC ME correspondent, who is brought in as an expert on the state of affairs in Gaza.

As illustrated by Table 7.11, the AR has its own share of evocative tokens with the potential to trigger an attitudinal response in readers, given an appropriate reading position. Again, these tokens include the ideologically motivated ideational selections discussed under Representation. For example, in contrast with the ER, the AR adopts more or less the same terms used in the Hamas statement in relation to the condemned prisoners ‫ﺍﻟﻤﺤﻜﻮﻣﻴﻦ‬/‫ﺍﻟﻤﺪﺍﻧﻴﻦ‬ (the convicts); the charges ‫( ﺍﻟﺘﺨﺎﺑﺮ‬spying for/ (traitorously) communicating with); relatives of the condemned ‫ ;ﺃﻭﻟﻴﺎء ﺍﻟﺪﻡ‬retribution (lex talionis) ‫ﺍﻟﻘﺼﺎﺹ‬. The last two attitudinal tokens cannot trigger any attitudinal response in the reader without him/her making some religiously conditioned associations and inferences to the effect that the verdicts and executions are dictated or endorsed by religion, i.e. ordained by God, hence must be accepted and upheld, and Hamas must be commended rather than condemned for fulfilling its religious obligations. Those intended responses could not be triggered in a reader who is not cognizant of or amenable to such religious conditioning. The AR also makes a point of using fully specified official designations when referring to Hamas authorities, which imply recognition of their governmental status, e.g. ‫ﻭﺯﺍﺭﺓ ﺍﻟﺪﺍﺧﻠﻴﺔ ﻓﻲ‬ 135

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‫( ﺣﻜﻮﻣﺔ ﺣﺮﻛﺔ ﺣﻤﺎﺱ ﺑﻘﻄﺎﻉ ﻏﺰﺓ‬the Ministry of the Interior in the Hamas movement’s government in the Gaza Strip); ‫( ﺍﻟﻨﺎﻁﻖ ﺑﺎﺳﻢ ﻭﺯﺍﺭﺓ ﺩﺍﺧﻠﻴﺔ ﺣﻤﺎﺱ ﺍﻳﻬﺎﺏ ﺍﻟﻐﺼﻴﻦ‬the Hamas Interior Ministry’s spokesman Ihab Al-Ghusain); and ‫( ﺍﻟﻤﺤﻜﻤﺔ ﺍﻟﻌﺴﻜﺮﻳﺔ ﺍﻟﺪﺍﺋﻤﺔ ﺑﻐﺰﺓ‬the Gaza Permanent Military Court). It may be argued that the selection of such designations is attributable to the extensive quoting from the source texts; however, it was the journalistic author’s conscious decision to opt for this unusually excessive attribution. Indeed, the kind of intertextual positioning which is brought into play by the journalistic author is but one facet of what White (2012) calls a ‘regime of strategic impersonalisation’ employed by journalistic authors of hard news reports to advance or favour a particular attitudinal position (White, 2012: 57–58). It is as if the journalistic author is hiding his/ her attitudinal position behind some selected quotations, where inscriptions and invocations are more freely brought into play in a hard news report. I will now turn to provocative tokens in both ER and AR, which fall somewhere in the middle of the cline between implicit evocations and explicit inscriptions.

Provocation As Tables 7.10 and 7.11 show, all instances of provocation found in the ER are either authorially based or attributed to the BBC ME correspondent. In contrast, and as was the case with evaluative inscriptions, almost all provocations in the AR are attributed to Hamas sources. This is hardly surprising considering that half of the AR is made up of material directly or indirectly attributed to Hamas sources. One of the mechanisms of attitudinal provocation employed by the journalistic author of the ER is counter- expectation, i.e. the use of devices denoting that some action or aspect is contrary to norms or expectations. Note, for example, the repetitive use of even and only in the attitudinal assessment of legal proceedings in Gaza, which is attributed to the BBC’s ME correspondent as an expert on the ground passing his categorical judgements on such legal aspects: • • •

defendants are identified only by their initials so it can be difficult even to match announcements of executions even with previous news of arrests or convictions It is not even possible to know what specific charges the executed men faced

The fact that defendants are identified only by their initials implies secrecy and injustice by flouting the expectation or assumption that fair trial dictates the disclosure of defendants’ full names. Note also the tautological repetition of the counter- expectational adjunct even in the same clause, suggesting that the journalistic author has been so keen to shed doubt on Hamas’s procedures that he has produced an incoherent form of English in attempt to make his/ her case as strong as possible. Thus, to preserve the veneer of hard news reports neutrality the correspondent voice had to be brought in by the reporter to make such negatively charged categorical assessments. In a striking contrast, the journalistic author of the AR resorts to a less negative formulation to note the use of initials by Hamas authorities to identify defendants: (16) ‫ﻭﺍﻛﺘﻔﻰ ﺍﻟﺒﻴﺎﻥ ﺑﺎﻻﺷﺎﺭﺓ ﺍﻟﻰ ﺍﻭﻝ ﺍﺣﺮﻑ ﻣﻦ ﺍﺳﻤﻴﻬﻤﺎ‬ BT: The [HMOI’s] statement deemed it sufficient to refer to them by their initials I will contend that this formulation, which, unlike its English counterpart, is devoid of any counter-expectation, implies that Hamas authorities withheld the full names of the defendants 136

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possibly for reasons of discretion. At least, the journalistic author of the AR is allowing space for such an uncritical interpretation: ‘for some reason, the statement contented itself with referring to their initials’. Note that Hamas sources and officials assert that Hamas adopts a policy of ‘non-disclosure of spies’ names’ with a view to protecting their families against possible retaliation and ‘preserving’ social fabric.5 Had the author wished to be somewhat more critical, he/ she could have chosen one of the following provocative formulations with counter-expectation: (17) ‫ﻭﺃﺷﺎﺭ ﺍﻟﺒﻴﺎﻥ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺃﻭﻝ ﺃﺣﺮﻑ ﻣﻦ ﺍﺳﻤﻴﻬﻤﺎ ﻓﻘﻂ‬ BT: The statement referred to them only by their initials (18) ‫ﻭﻟﻢ ﻳﺸﺮ ﺍﻟﺒﻴﺎﻥ ﺇﻻ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺃﻭﻝ ﺃﺣﺮﻑ ﻣﻦ ﺍﺳﻤﻴﻬﻤﺎ‬ BT: The statement did not refer to them except by their initials Note also how negative assessment of the legal proceedings and charges in Gaza is provoked and intensified by the repetition of the counter-expectancy device even in the ER. The reader is only left with one possible attitudinal conclusion, namely, that defendants in Gaza cannot possibly receive a fair trial, an attitudinal stance which is clearly not shared by the journalistic author of the AR. Interestingly, the evaluatively negative assertion by the BBC ME correspondent that [i]t is not even possible to know what specific charges the executed men faced runs counter to HMOI’s statement quoted earlier by the ER, where the charges against all defendants are fully specified, an example of an attitudinally convenient shift in translation or trans-editing from the source text. Other tokens provoking a negative assessment of Hamas include the use of distancing formulations such as the ‘scare’ quotes or the construction what it called, which both trigger a negative attitudinal response in the reader about the legality of the executions, and ultimately about Hamas (see Attitude). Another instance of attitudinal provocation in the ER is the attributed modulation of obligation denoted by the formulation meant to, which is followed by counter- expectation realized by the concessive conjunction but as in examples 19 and 20: (19) Under Palestinian law, executions are meant [-j] to be approved by the Palestinian president. (20) But [-j] since the split between Hamas-controlled Gaza and the Palestinian-Authorityrun West Bank, Hamas does not recognise the authority of President Mahmoud Abbas. Here the sequence of meant to … but betokens the author’s negative disposition towards Hamas for failing to comply with an obligation stipulated by the Palestinian law, which is attributed to Hamas’s rejection of the President’s authority, i.e. an authorial assessment of negative propriety on the part of Hamas. Like attitudinal inscriptions, almost all instances of attitudinal provocation observed in the AR are attributed to Hamas sources. The only authorially based attitudinal token of provocation is an instance of endorsing attribution to HMOI’s statement: ‫( ﻭﺃﻭﺿﺢ ﺑﻴﺎﻥ ﺍﻟﻮﺯﺍﺭﺓ‬the Ministry’s statement … made clear/demonstrated); this subjective intervention on the part of the author signals alignment with the justifications for the executions cited in the Hamas statement (see Attitude). Similarly, the dis-endorsing formulation ‫( ﻣﺎ ﺗﺮﺩﺩ‬what has been circulated) attributed by the journalistic author of the AR to the Hamas Interior Ministry’s spokesman (see Attitude) is 137

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an attitudinal token provoking in the reader a negative assessment of those reports critical of Hamas. In other words, this is a provocative token triggering a positive judgement of Hamas. Other instances of attitudinal provocations include locutions of intensification through the use of ‫( ﻛﺎﻓﺔ‬all) in example 21 and ‫( ﻛﻞ‬everybody) in example 22:

(21) ‫ﻭﺗﻢ ﺍﻟﺘﻨﻔﻴﺬ ﺑﺤﻀﻮﺭ ﻛﺎﻓﺔ ﺍﻟﺠﻬﺎﺕ ﺍﻟﻤﺨﺘﺼﺔ‬ BT: The implementation took place in the presence of all the competent authorities (22) ‫ﺗﻨﻔﻴﺬ ﺍﺣﻜﺎﻡ ﺍﻻﻋﺪﺍﻡ ﺑﺤﻖ ﻛﻞ ﻣﻦ ﺧﺎﻟﻒ‬ BT: carrying out death sentences against everybody who offends

Finally, there is one instance of indirectly attributed counter-expectation by means of the concessive connective ‫( ﻟﻜﻦ‬but): (23) ‫ ﻟﻜﻨﻬﻢ ﻁﺎﻟﺒﻮﺍ ﺑﺎﻟﻘﺼﺎﺹ‬،‫ﻭﻋﺮﺽ ﻋﻠﻴﻬﻢ ﺍﻥ ﻛﺎﻧﻮﺍ ﻳﺮﻏﺒﻮﻥ ﺑﺎﻟﻌﻔﻮ‬ BT: they were offered [the choice] to pardon [the condemned] but they demanded qiṣāṣ (retribution) Here the concessive conjunction ‫( ﻟﻜﻦ‬but) is used to counter a supposed expectation that the victims’ relatives would take up the offer of pardoning the condemned defendants but the relatives are portrayed as having frustrated that expectation. The counter-expectational construction suggests that the Hamas authorities were willing to spare the defendants’ lives had the victims’ relatives agreed to pardon them. Thus, by means of this attributed attitudinal token, the Hamas administration is cast in a positive light, being portrayed as simply and disinterestedly pursuing the enforcement of the law and the fulfilment of an essentially religious obligation. Seen from an attitudinal perspective, such quoted material with its evaluative orientation would seem to be rhetorically incongruous in the ER.

Conclusion In this chapter, a pair of online English and Arabic hard news reports published by the BBC on the same news story, namely, the execution of three prisoners in Gaza, were analysed in terms of their ideological and evaluative orientation. Both reports were found to exhibit the inverted pyramid structure typical of hard news reports in general, starting with a headline and lead, followed by a sequence of elaborating and contextualizing paragraphs with a thread of attitudinal assessment running through them. Both reports also exhibit more or less the same evaluative key, i.e. the same configuration of evaluative meanings typical of the so-called reporter voice (Martin and White, 2005). Thus, both reports are devoid of any authorial inscriptions of judgement, affect or even appreciation. Attributed attitudinal inscriptions are only found in the AR and almost all of these are ultimately positive judgements of Hamas. While attitudinal invocations (tokens) are found in both reports, almost all of these are negative assessments of Hamas in the ER and ultimately positive ones in the AR. Attitudinal tokens in the ER are either authorial or attributed to the BBC ME correspondent while those in the AR are either authorial or attributed to Hamas. 138

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In its negative attitudinal assessment of Hamas, the ER can be said to be more subtle in its evaluative configuration, relying as it does on attitudinal tokens to the exclusion of any inscriptions, even attributed ones; when it cites some views or general evaluatively loaded assessments, the ER’s authorial voice resorts to attribution to the BBC ME correspondent to provide them, thereby avoiding any perception of subjectivity or bias against Hamas. Notably, invoked evaluation may be more convincing for the reader than direct inscription ‘because it allows opinion to masquerade as reporting’ (Munday, 2012: 38). In contrast, the AR exhibits an overall positive assessment of Hamas through liberally quoting outright positive inscriptions and tokens from Hamas statement in addition to more subtle authorial tokens. With this ‘faithful’ intralingual translation, i.e. direct quotations, the authorial voice of the AR seems to be positively evaluating Hamas by proxy, hiding as it does behind the selection of direct lengthy quotes intended to position the reader in favour of the executions and Hamas while carefully preserving the façade of detachment and neutrality typical of hard news reports. As demonstrated in this study, the patterns of attribution in the two reports are indicative of different ideological positions, a crude synopsis of which is that the ER’s authorial voice does not recognize the governmental status of the ‘Hamas- controlled administration’ in Gaza while the AR’s does. A similar finding emerged from the analysis of representation in both reports, which revealed two opposing ideological positions. Thus, through various ideational selections and translational transformations, the authorial voice of the ER foregrounds Hamas’s agency and responsibility for the executions, delegitimating its political and judicial authority and casting doubt on the fairness and validity of any judicial process in Gaza. The authorial voice of the AR, on the other hand, portrays the executions as a legitimate matter of law enforcement and judicial process, faithfully citing direct quotations which forcefully justify the executions on legal and religious grounds. The analysis of representation, attribution and attitude in two BBC hard news reports covering the same story has thus highlighted interesting patterns of selection and transformation, which reveal their inherently evaluative nature and diverging ideological positions.

Notes 1 Compare for example: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-37049555 with www.bbc.com/ arabic/middleeast/2016/08/160811_russia_syria_gas (accessed on 11 August 2016); www.bbc.co.uk/ news/ world- middle- east- 29862660 with www.bbc.com/ arabic/ multimedia/ 2014/ 11/ 141101_ egypt_ gay_verdict_3years (accessed on 11 August 2016); www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29279879 with www.bbc.com/ arabic/ worldnews/ 2014/ 09/ 140919_ south_ africa_ gay_ friendly_ mosque (accessed on 19 September 2014); and www.bbc.co.uk/ news/ education- 38392802 with www.bbc.com/ arabic/ science-and-tech-38402223 (accessed on 22 December 2016). 2 See www.grammatics.com/ appraisal/ index.html for some of the key publications and research in appraisal. 3 Following the general convention in SFL, the term ‘Agent’, which denotes a participant function in the transitivity grammar of the clause, is written with an initial capital. 4 For an interesting analysis of this kind of nesting of one kind of appraisal into another, see Thompson (2014). 5 See for example: www.almajd.ps/?ac=showdetail&did=3451 and http://arabic.cnn.com/middleeast/ 2014/08/22/hamas-israel-gaza.

Further reading Abend-David, D. (ed.) (2016) Media and Translation: An Interdisciplinary Approach. New York, London, New Delhi and Sydney: Bloomsbury.

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References Baumann, G., Gillespie, M. and Sreberny, A. (2011) Transcultural journalism and the politics of translation: Interrogating the BBC world service. Journalism 12(2): 135–142. Bednarek, M. (2006) Evaluation in Media Discourse: Analysis of a Newspaper Corpus. New York and London: Continuum. Fairclough, N. (1995) Media Discourse. London: Edward Arnold. Fowler, R. (1991) Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London and New York: Routledge. Halliday, M.A.K. and Matthiessen, Christian M.I.M. (2004) (3rd edition) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London and New York: Arnold. Halliday, M.A.K. and Matthiessen, Christian M.I.M. (2014) (4th edition) Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar, revised by Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen. London and New York: Routledge. Hart, C. (2014) Discourse, Grammar and Ideology: Functional and Cognitive Perspectives. London and New York: Bloomsbury. Hartley, J. (1982) Understanding News. London: Routledge. Hunston, S. and Thompson, G. (eds) (2000) Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. UK: Oxford University Press. Iedema, R. (1997) The history of the accident news story. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 20(2): 95–119. Martin, J.R. and White, P.R. (2005) The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Munday, J. (2012) Evaluation in Translation: Critical Points of Translator Decision- Making. London and New York: Routledge. Stetting, K. (1989) Transediting: A new term for coping with the grey area between editing and translating. In: Caie, G., Hasstrup, K., Jakobsen, A.L., Nielsen, J.E., Sevladsen, J., Specht, H. and Zettersten, A. (eds) Proceedings from the Fourth Nordic Conference for English Studies. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, Department of English, 371–382. Thompson, G. (2014) Affect and emotion, target- value mismatches, and Russian dolls: Refining the appraisal model. In: Thompson, G. and Alba- Juez, L. (eds) Evaluation in Context. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 47–66. Thomson, E. and White, P.R.R. (eds) (2008) Communicating Conflict: Multilingual Case Studies of the News Media. London: Continuum. Thomson, E.A., White, P.R. and Kitley, P. (2008) ‘Objectivity’ and ‘hard news’ reporting across cultures: Comparing the news report in English, French, Japanese and Indonesian journalism. Journalism Studies 9(2): 212–228. van Leeuwen, T. (1996) The representation of social actors. In: Coulthard, C.R. and Coulthard, M. (eds) Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge, 32–70. White, P.R. (2000) Media objectivity and the rhetoric of news story structure. Language in Performance: 379–397. White, P.R. (2002) Appraisal: An overview. Manuscript. Available at: www.grammatics.com/appraisal/ index.html. White, P.R. (2006) Evaluative semantics and ideological positioning in journalistic discourse. In: Lassen, I., Strunck, J. and Vestegaard, T. (eds) Mediating Ideology in Text and Image: Ten Critical Studies. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 37–67. White, P.R. (2009) Media power and the rhetorical potential of the ‘hard news’ report: Attitudinal mechanisms in journalistic discourse. Käännösteoria, ammattikielet ja monikielisyys 36: 30–49. White, P.R. (2012) Exploring the axiological workings of ‘reporter voice’ news stories: Attribution and attitudinal positioning. Discourse, Context and Media 1(2): 57–67.

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Appendix 7.1 English BBC Online Report (ER) Hamas hangs Gaza prisoners, including one ‘collaborator’ 7 April 2012 Last updated at 14:30 GMT www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-17644406

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Appendix 7.2 Arabic BBC Online Report (AR) www.bbc.com/arabic/middleeast/2012/120407_ gaza_hanging.shtml

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Appendix 7.3 Hamas Ministry of Interior’s Statement (HMOI’s Statement) www.moi.gov.ps/news

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Statement by Hamas Interior Ministry’s spokesman Ihab Al-Ghusain www.moi.gov.ps/news

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8 TRANSLATION, TWITTER, AND THE 3 JULY 2013 MILITARY INTERVENTION IN EGYPT Neil Sadler

Introduction On 3 July 2013, the Egyptian military removed Muhammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhoodbacked Freedom and Justice Party from the Egyptian presidency. The army’s decision to remove Morsi, following a socially divisive and economically disastrous year in office, heightened a highly polarized debate in Egypt over the direction that the country should take following the 2011 revolution. In addition to dominating the Egyptian national press at the time, the army’s intervention was the focus of significant international media interest in the United States, Europe and beyond. Many, or most, of those looking on from outside the Arab world, however, including most journalists, were unable to understand Arabic, the principal language through which these events were mediated in Egypt itself. This gave translation a crucial role in making local information and knowledge available to those situated outside Egypt, and afforded those mediating between English and Arabic central importance. As is increasingly becoming the norm, such mediators included not only professional journalists and writers, but also bilingual social media users, often located in Egypt but writing in English, fulfilling a ‘bridging’ role between the two languages and cultures (Zuckerman, 2008; Etling et al., 2010; Siapera, 2011; Bruns et al., 2013). Although first steps have been made towards gaining a scholarly appreciation of the significance of translation in the 2011 Egyptian uprising (Mehrez, 2012; Baker, 2015), translation in the context of the 3 July intervention has yet to receive notable attention, despite the significance of this event in recent Egyptian history. Perhaps more significantly, as of the time of writing there has been no research published which examines user translation practices on Twitter or other social media sites from a Translation Studies perspective. With this in mind, this chapter adopts an exploratory approach and endeavours to sketch out some of the broad contours of translation practices on Twitter in the context of the 3 July ouster of Morsi in Egypt, highlighting the complexity and variety of approaches adopted by users while also bringing preliminary insights into translation practices on Twitter more broadly. To do this, I analyse the tweets posted from 27 June to 10 July 2013 by three widely read bilingual Egyptian mediators: Bassem Sabry (@Bassem_ Sabry), Mahmoud Salem (@ Sandmonkey) and the pseudonymous @Zeinobia. All three opposed Morsi but were uneasy about the military intervention, leaving them in an awkward middle ground between the proMorsi and pro- military narratives which dominated the period. Given that, as of December 145

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2016, Twitter has over 300 million unique monthly visitors (Twitter, 2016), there are serious questions as to what extent it is possible to usefully generalize about the translation practices of its users. Moreover, the sample analysed here is clearly too small and narrowly focused to be viewed as ‘representative’ of even bilingual Egyptians opposing Morsi during the period of his ouster. The goal, rather, is, through qualitative analysis at a level of detail impossible with larger datasets, to identify issues which have yet to receive attention in the literature and to produce initial hypotheses which can be further explored and tested in future research. I examine the tweets in terms of three levels of translation: micro- level linguistic translation; macro- level ‘narrative’ translation; and ‘affective’ translation. I show that the three writers provide varying amounts of tweet- level translation and that there are significant differences in the approaches adopted in terms of implicit priorities and the extent to which translation is overt or covert. Drawing on canonical scholarship in norm theory, notably Toury (2004) and Hermans (1996), I propose that this suggests that linguistic translation is only weakly norm-constrained on Twitter. In terms of narrative, I argue that none of the writers engage in translation on this level and, using narratological theory, argue that it would have been impossible for them to do so due to the incomplete and emergent nature of the narratives in question. Finally, with regard to affective translation I propose that in addition to translating spatially, culturally and temporally specific meanings, all three writers attempted to varying degrees to ‘translate’ their bodily experience of the period, going beyond linguistically mediated ‘meaning’.

Linguistic translation ‘Linguistic translation’ as used here refers to the translation of individual tweets, in this case to and from English and Arabic. In the tweets studied for this chapter, examples of such translation fall into two broad categories: self-translation where tweeters post translations of their own tweets; and tweets offering translations of statements made by others. Both categories include a wide range of approaches that make even the seemingly simple task of identifying what is and is not translated somewhat challenging.

Self-translation An initial important point is that the frequency with which the three writers employ selftranslation varies greatly from writer to writer – examples abound in Sabry’s tweets, are infrequent in Zeinobia’s and almost non- existent in Salem’s. Additionally, the frequency with which self- translation is provided varies over time – there is, for example, a significant increase in clear cases of self-translation in Sabry’s tweets during the critical period of 28 June and 4 July. Second, the approach taken to self- translation varies significantly from tweet to tweet. In Sabry’s tweets there are a number of pairs of tweets, typically posted sequentially, in which the meanings expressed in the two tweets are very close, and equivalence, in terms of propositional meaning, appears to have been a goal. Consider the following:

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Such pairs are, however, relatively rare in the tweets posted by these writers during this period. In many other cases we see shifts:

In both of these examples, information included in the Arabic tweets (which were posted sequentially after the English tweets) is omitted in the English tweets – the first does not mention Morsi’s lack of wisdom, for example, nor does the second state that negotiations will take place ‘on the blood of the youth’. The governing factor here appears to be a lack of space as Twitter’s strict 140- character limit means that including this additional information would have been impossible without restructuring the tweets. This is an issue seen comparatively infrequently with other types of translation but which is common on Twitter particularly when translating between Arabic and English since Arabic is typically more ‘efficient’ than English in terms of character use. Reduction may therefore come close to being a ‘universal’ (Toury, 147

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1980) of Arabic to English translation on Twitter as it is routinely possible to express more information using 140 Arabic characters than it is using 140 English characters. In other cases, shifts cannot be so easily explained. In the following pair of tweets, Zeinobia adds significant information in her Arabic translation of an English tweet, also explaining that Tarek Amar was governor of the National Bank of Egypt and lamenting that Ziad BahaaEldin, presumably her favoured candidate, would not be prime minister:

Given the length of the original English tweet, Zeinobia clearly could have posted an Arabic translation with a more closely equivalent meaning. The shift may reflect a different interpretation of what her Arabic- reading and English- reading audiences would be interested in, since multilingual Twitter users often tailor the content they deliver in each language for different audiences (Poell and Darmoni, 2012). Yet this explanation is unconvincing as there is no obvious reason why a reader of the English tweet would be less interested in the extra information provided than a reader of the Arabic tweet. Nor is there an obvious functional explanation, as there is no apparent difference of skopos between the two. Regardless of the cause, the prevalence of pairs like this suggest a general disregard for equivalence: users may produce tweets in one language on the basis of tweets in another, but do not feel compelled to make them semantically ‘equivalent’. In other cases, more obviously functionalist motivations are seen for shifts. In the following from Zeinobia, the idea of having woken up and missed events is expressed in both, yet while the Arabic tweet explicitly asks her followers to update her on specific events in Asyut and Muqattam, the English tweet simply informs her followers that she is temporarily not up to date with recent events:

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Although the existing literature on self-translation focuses predominantly on literature (e.g. Whyte, 2002; Tanqueiro, 1998; Hokenson and Munson, 2007; Simon, 2008; Li, 2006; Montini, 2010), it nonetheless offers useful insights even in this very different context. The frequency of avoidable shifts in self-translation seen here suggests that these users felt able to introduce changes in their translations as they saw fit in a manner similar to that seen with selftranslating literary authors who often feel able to deviate more strongly from source texts than do professional translators (Perry, 1981). The deference to source texts often seen in professional translation appears to be largely absent. This may be because, as in literature, in cases where writer and translator are the same person the relationship between ‘source’ and ‘target’ texts becomes ‘merely temporal in character’ (Fitch, 1988: 131) – if the version published first is not viewed as authoritative, and the version published second not as derivative, then there is little reason to expect ‘equivalence’. This dehierarchizing of source and target texts blurs the distinction between self-translation and bilingual expression, a complexity which Grutman (1998) argues is a major factor behind the comparative neglect of self-translation within Translation Studies. The various shifts seen here suggest that the relationship between bilingual expression and self-translation on Twitter is a complex one with it being difficult in some cases to identify pairs of tweets as examples of one or the other. Salem’s rejection of tweet-level translation pushes him towards bilingual expression; Sabry and Zeinobia, on the other hand, move between the poles, at times posting tweets in one language that have no obvious counterparts in the other and at others appearing to translate tweets posted in one language using another.

Translations of textual material produced by others There are also numerous examples of tweets translating material produced by others. These translations vary along two main axes: the extent to which they are overt or covert (House, 1977, 1997) and with regard to the relationships between source and target texts. In what may be another example of the translator’s ‘invisibility’ (Venuti, 1995), no conventionalized marker has emerged for identifying tweets as translations of other tweets, perhaps reflecting the popular lay understanding of translation as a transparent operation, and translated textual material was not labelled as such in any of the tweets studied for this chapter. In other words, there are no examples of completely overt translation. The closest we come are tweets such as the following:

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For bilingual readers, translation is overt in these cases. Viewers who cannot read Arabic, but know that @AlArabiya_ Brk and CBC typically communicate in Arabic, may correctly surmise that they feature translation, but cannot be as sure as bilingual readers. Readers of English with no knowledge of Arabic or of @AlArabiya_Brk’s and CBC’s writing habits may speculate that the tweets involve translation as they include both Arabic and English script, but cannot go beyond this. In these examples the relationship between source and target texts is also relatively straightforward, with a linear movement from source to target. In the following examples, translation is less overt yet may still be identifiable by some readers:

Bilingual readers will again be in little doubt that they are dealing with translation, as will readers who know that Sky News Arabia communicates in Arabic. For those unable to read Arabic and who do not know that Sky News Arabia works in Arabic, however, there is nothing to indicate that translation has occurred. There is therefore a greater chance of tweets like these functioning as fully covert translations with at least some readers than the first examples. The relationship between source and target text, on the other hand, is also slightly more complex than in the previous examples, as it also involves a change to reported speech. This contrasts with the convention of speaking in the voice of the original writer common to most professional translation and interpreting. In other cases, the visibility of translation becomes hazier still. The two tweets below both reference statements by third parties yet there is nothing to indicate whether the statements were originally made in English or Arabic, and thus whether the tweets constitute translations:

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These tweets allude to source texts, a government announcement in the first and Muslim Brotherhood statements in the second, yet it is only through background knowledge that a reader might know that they were originally produced in Arabic; Knowledge of both English and Arabic alone would be insufficient. The relationship between source and target texts is also somewhat complex. In both cases it is unclear whether the original statements were made orally or in writing and to what extent Salem and Zeinobia paraphrased, summarized or otherwise transformed their sources. In the second it is also unclear whether Zeinobia’s tweet refers to a single or multiple sources. Finally, in tweets such as the following, which are very common in the tweets of users like those studied here, the presence of translation and ST/TT relation is highly unclear:

Both tweets report information likely to have been obtained from Arabic language media reports rather than eyewitness testimony, although we cannot be certain. There is thus a strong probability that they involve translation, yet there is nothing to directly signal this to readers, regardless of their background or linguistic knowledge. Readers thus cannot know how Salem and Zeinobia have transformed their STs in these tweets or if they are translations at all. The prevalence of such ambivalent cases highlights the difficulty of answering even the basic question of how much translation such users engage in through textual analysis alone while also emphasizing the challenges of exploring broader issues of the transformations that source material undergoes when translated for Twitter. These examples also raise two major issues regarding the overt/covert distinction. First, the distinction is not a binary as implied by House (1997), but rather a cline with many different possible positions. Second, overtness/covertness is not an intrinsic property of translations but results from the way in which translations are received. As such it can vary from reader to reader, depending on their linguistic competence and background knowledge. A single tweet can ‘enjoy the status of an original text’ (House, 2010: 245) with one reader while being received as a translation by another. Finally, the extent to which translations are covert or overt in this dataset does not appear to reflect conscious decisions by the tweeters as translators or any attempt to either emphasize or efface their presence as translators. With regard to the relationships between source and target texts, in addition to cases in which there is a clear source text, there are also many in which a single tweet involving translation may refer to multiple source texts, while also involving transformative operations such as paraphrasing and condensing in addition to translation. We also see a similar, albeit reversed, relationship with single source texts resulting in multiple target texts, as shown in this series of tweets from Zeinobia reporting on a speech (given in Arabic) by the then Defence Minister el-Sisi:1 151

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This variability of approach observed makes it interesting to consider the potential influence of translation ‘norms’ which Toury (2004) famously claimed to ‘govern’ translation activity. In some cases, the apparent prioritization of narrowly defined equivalence suggests the influence of norms approximating ‘professional norms requiring close adherence to a source text’ (Pérez González and Susam-Saraeva, 2012: 158). In other cases, such equivalence appears to be prioritized lower, with greater emphasis being placed on the respective functions of source and target texts (Nord, 1997; Reiss and Vermeer, 1984). In some tweets translation is made relatively overt and a source text can be fairly easily identified while in others translation is largely invisible and it is impossible to identify a source text. The underlying lack of ‘regularities’ (Toury, 2004), between tweeters or within the practices of individual tweeters, which might index conscious or unconscious norms, suggests that the linguistic translation seen here is only weakly norm- governed. This seems equally true whether we view norms as rules which, if broken, result in the application of sanctions (Reiss and Vermeer, 1984) or merely as conventions. There also appears to be a lack of norms regulating ‘what can and should be selected [for translation]’ (Hermans, 1996: 14– 15), with there being little consistency in terms of what material is selected for translation or how much tweet- level translation Twitter users are expected to provide. A lack of fixed norms is also apparent in the inconsistent signalling of translations as overt or covert – readers are provided with varying amounts of information and left to draw their own conclusions. Similarly, the variable and opaque relationships between source and target texts suggest a lack of strict norms governing what types of transformation are permissible with translation on Twitter and how ‘material is to be handled by individual translators’ (Hermans, 1996: 14–15). 152

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If it is true that translation practices on Twitter are only weakly norm- governed, we must ask why. The contention that norms are yet to emerge because Twitter is a new phenomenon has some explanatory power but is clearly limited. Since its launch in 2006 conventions have emerged for a wide variety of communicative behaviours on Twitter, including the uses of hashtags (cf. Zappavigna, 2012: 36–7; Ovadia, 2009), formulae for attributing quotations (e.g. retweeting and ‘RT’) and techniques for addressing other users (@replies and Mentions). This shows that there has been sufficient time for conventions to appear and discredits any notion that Twitter is somehow resistant to the establishment of communicative norms. Such norms and conventions, however, may have emerged out of necessity, existing ‘in order for communication to take place in a situation where it would otherwise be impossible’ (Chesterman, 1993: 7) by ‘reducing contingency, unpredictability, and the uncertainty which springs from our inability to … predict the actions of fellow human beings’ (Hermans, 1996). The lack of comparable norms governing translation, on the other hand, may indicate a lack of such a need. If a need for regulatory norms has not emerged organically, and we assume that most of those translating on Twitter are not professionally trained and thus not ‘indoctrinated’ into particular modes of behaviour through formal training (Pérez González and Susam- Saraeva, 2012: 158), we should perhaps not be surprised at the apparent lack of behaviour- governing norms. On the contrary, the freedom resulting from a lack of fixed norms may leave translators ‘more prepared to “innovate”, play around with the material in hand’ (Pérez González and Susam- Saraeva, 2012: 158), adapting their approaches to individual tweets and specific contexts more freely than professional translators often feel able to. A third possibility is that this period, a moment of crisis, witnessed a breakdown in otherwise consistent norms. Further research is needed to examine all of these possibilities in detail.

Narrative translation The first section showed that micro-level linguistic translation practices are somewhat erratic in the data studied. At the opposite end of the spectrum it bears considering to what extent there is translation on a macro level. The notion of text- level equivalence (Baker, 1992) is difficult to apply directly to Twitter due to the absence of obvious ‘texts’. Both obvious candidates for ‘texts’, individual tweets and whole Twitter streams typically fail to deliver the ‘unity’ (Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 1– 2), ‘completion’ (Werlich, 1976: 23) or ‘overall rhetorical purpose’ (Hatim and Mason, 1990) prototypical of texts. Moreover, in the context of the 3 July intervention, which was characterized by an intense battle of narrative over the significance of Morsi’s removal, I propose that the key macro unit is that of the story, rather than the traditional text, owing to the central importance of narratives in shaping political and social reality (Baker, 2006; Somers, 1994; Bruner, 1986, 1991; White, 1978, 1987; Mink, 1970). As Baker (2006) and Harding (2009) have shown, translators play a vital role in the distribution and transformation of narratives across linguistic boundaries with significant consequences for the way in which events come to exist, on an ontological level, for distant onlookers. Analysing narratives on Twitter is, however, complex. Although a discussion of the characteristics of narrative on Twitter is beyond the scope of this chapter, it suffices to say that the stories that tweeters tell are only weakly structured. They often seem closer to chronologically ordered lists of events, or ‘chronicles’ (White, 1987; Walsh, 1958; Croce, 1959; Danto, 1985), than cohesive wholes. They come to function as narratives only when interpreted as such by readers, whose interpretations can vary substantially, introducing considerable complexity and dynamism. A second key issue is that narratives derive much of their significance from the way in which they interact with other stories (Somers, 1994). These relational 153

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networks function differently for different readers, introducing further instability and dynamism. Finally, the linguistic components from which narratives on Twitter are comprised are themselves embedded in dynamic intertextual networks in relation to which much of their meaning derives. These last two issues are particularly salient in the context of multilingual tweeting directed to diverse audiences where perceptions of the relevant narrative and intertextual networks may vary to a significant degree. This limits the extent to which it is possible to make categorical descriptive statements about narratives on Twitter. There are, nonetheless, clear differences between the narratives presented in English and Arabic by these writers. Focusing just on the underlying sequence of events presented in the tweets of each writer, termed ‘fabula’ by narratologists (e.g. Propp, 1968; Chatman, 1978; Bal, 1997), we see that there is almost no overlap in terms of what is presented in English and Arabic in the tweets of either Salem or Zeinobia. On 30 June, for example, Salem referred to ten events in English and just one in Arabic, an attack on the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters by protestors, to which there is only an oblique reference in his English tweets. The picture with Zeinobia is similar – on 28 June, for example, she referred to six events only in English and two only in Arabic. This is not to say that information provided in each language implies contradictory stories, but different events are typically referred to in each language. With Sabry, on the other hand, a more complex picture emerges. From 27– 28 June, and from 4– 10 July, the pattern is similar to that seen with Salem and Zeinobia and there is little overlap between English and Arabic in terms of the events described. Yet from 29 June to 3 July there is a surge in the proportion of events described in both English and Arabic, coinciding with the flurry of tweet-level translation discussed in the first section. This runs counter to what might have been expected given the sudden international interest in Egypt from readers predominantly unable to read Arabic. Of the 15 events Sabry describes as occurring on 29 June, for example, seven are described in both English and Arabic and eight in just English; of the 21 events reported on 30 June, ten are reported in English and Arabic and 11 in just English. Although significantly more events are still described in English than in Arabic, a broadly similar account of what was happening also appears in Arabic. The story provided in English remains significantly more detailed, but there is seemingly an attempt to tell broadly similar stories in both languages. The question remains, however, to what extent this constitutes a translation of narrative. With Salem and Zeinobia, there was clearly little attempt to produce a translation on the level of narrative. With Sabry, the issue is more complex. As described above, we do see considerable overlap in the events described, at least during certain periods, but it is more difficult to say whether this constitutes translation or not. Translation is usually understood to mean expressing some kind of information (textual, rhetorical, semantic, etc.), originally communicated using one language in a different language. For a narrative to be translated on the level of narrative, rather than on that of its constituent parts, the story must pre- exist the act of translation. Where stories are presented as wholes for translation, this is comparatively unproblematic. The two dominant narratives of 30 June and 3 July, for example, of the intervention as a grab for power by the military against a democratically elected government and of the intervention as a necessary intervention to return the 2011 revolution to its correct path, existed as complete wholes, with beginnings, middles and ends and were thus amenable to translation on the level of narrative. The stories told by Sabry, Zeinobia and Salem, who rejected the dominant accounts of the period, on the other hand, were less neatly bounded. Their fragmented accounts were built up gradually over hundreds of tweets and relied heavily on the interpretive action of readers for their structure. Crucially, while they may have encoded the events and causal sequences leading to the army’s intervention, they did not provide a conclusion – they 154

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did not represent past events as leading towards specific outcomes. The absence of an ending, viewed by some as the most crucial part of a narrative (e.g. Burke, 1950: 12; Kermode, 1966), means that they could not be viewed as complete narratives with even the partial closure of meaning that this would entail. Viewed in this light, Sabry’s translations of individual tweets must be viewed as translation below the level of the story, on that of individual linguistic chunks rather than of whole narratives. A useful analogy can be drawn with speech interpreting where interpreters have no prior knowledge of the content of the speech they will be required to interpret. They cannot translate the speech as a whole, but only individual parts of it as they hear them from the speaker. The act of assembling the pieces into a meaningful whole is left to listeners. This suggests that not only did Zeinobia, Sabry and Salem not engage in narrative translation, but that it would have been impossible to do so in this context given the lack of a solid ‘source narrative’ to translate. The lack of a compelling narrative which might have stood in opposition to the two dominant accounts of the intervention as a coup/ revolution may help to explain why this middle ground failed to gain significant traction in Egypt while also explaining why figures like Sabry, Salem and Zeinobia were not able to effectively ‘translate’ a compelling version of events into English as no such narrative existed in Arabic. Individual tweets may be retrospectively read together as narratives by readers but the translation conducted by these individuals at this time unavoidably remained below the level of narrative.

Affective translation The previous sections on textual and narrative translation have been concerned with meaning as mediated through language. Linguistically mediated meaning has traditionally been viewed as core to translation and, often highly local, meanings were also clearly central to the events of 30 June and 3 July. Yet in all experience there is also a bodily, visceral element which is distinct from and irreducible to semiotically mediated, cognitivized meaning. This dimension is usually referred to as ‘affect’.2 Affect is most clearly observable with phenomena such as music, the experience of which scholars such as Gilbert (2004) argue cannot be subsumed under the scheme of meaning since it need not be ‘meaningful’ in the linguistic- semantic sense of the term for it to have an effect on listeners. Although affect and meaning are of different orders they are intimately linked and ‘affect and cognition are never fully separable’ (Seigworth and Gregg, 2009: 2–3). Crucially, affect is the source of ‘intensity’ (Massumi, 1995) – without affect there can be meaning but no intensity; without meaning, affect is inchoate and undirected, ‘unbridled potential that might lead one in numerous different directions’ (Gould, 2010: 31). As Ahmed argues, affect should not be thought of as ‘ “beneath” the faculties of thought and reason’ (2014: 3) but rather operates alongside cognition, with them reciprocally influencing each other. Affect is related but different to emotion. While affect is pre-linguistic, emotion is affect that has been comprehended and ‘cognitivized’ through the mediation of language and culturally specific systems of meaning, or as Massumi proposes: an emotion is a subjective content, the socio- linguistic fixing of the quality of an experience which is from that point onward defined as personal. Emotion is qualified intensity, the conventional, consensual point of insertion of intensity into semantically and semiotically formed progressions, into narrativizable action- reaction circuits, into function and meaning. It is intensity owned and recognized. (Massumi, 1995: 88) 155

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Affect is especially important at moments of crisis such as the period of the 30 June protests and 3 July intervention. Clearly many Egyptians were able to offer rational arguments for the need for fresh presidential elections on account of factors such as the Morsi regime’s economic failures and increasingly autocratic approach. Yet such rational arguments are insufficient to explain the intensity of (bodily) feeling many felt towards the regime, amongst both supporters and opponents. They fail to explain the hysteria and strength of feeling that brought untold thousands into the streets to protest against his continued rule and do not account for the ‘visceral forces beneath, alongside, or generally other than conscious knowing, vital forces insisting beyond emotion—that can serve to drive us toward movement, toward thought and extension’ (Seigworth and Gregg, 2009: 1). As Damasio (1994: 204– 222, quoted in Shouse, 2005) argues, ‘without affect feelings to do not “feel” because they have no intensity’ and the intensity needed for action is absent. Rationalized, meaningful emotions and arguments undoubtedly played a role in the protests, but we must not ignore the role of ‘non-rational’ affect, operating ‘beside … rather than within, conscious cognitive sense- making’ (Gould, 2010: 25). Translation scholars are well aware that conveying meanings deriving from their position within specific sign systems and relationships with particular contexts using a different sign system in another context is complex and difficult. This is especially true in the case of the period under study, where the influence of the unique historical moment, operating on a level between Halliday’s (1978) context of situation and context of culture, produced meanings highly specific to this moment. The seemingly paradoxical concept of a ‘legitimate coup’ proposed by Zeinobia and others but which was received with bafflement by many outside of Egypt is a good example of this as its meaning derived from its embedding in a very specific historical context. If we accept Jakobson’s maxim that ‘languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey’ (1959: 236), however, we conclude that even highly context- specific meanings can be reproduced, although not necessarily elegantly or easily. If, as I have argued, however, affect was a key driving force behind the protests, distant readers seeking to understand the events must also gain access to the affective dimension, and meaning alone is insufficient. Otherwise they may understand the arguments leading for the calls for fresh elections, but such arguments remain sterile. Affect is needed for readers to know, in a bodily sense (Gibbs, 2009), what drove protestors into the streets. Without it, even successful communication of meaning, clearly challenging in itself, has limited explanatory force in this context. This made the communication and translation of affect vitally important for Egyptian mediators seeking to ‘translate’ the 30 June protests and 3 July intervention for an international audience. The challenge, however, is that, as described in the first paragraph of this section, affect is essentially non-linguistic, operating within a different order to that of language (Massumi, 2004: 88). The difficulties of ‘translating’ affect are thus entirely different to those seen in translating from one sign system to another. As Brennan (2004) argues, affect can be ‘transmitted’ from one person to another through ‘entrainment’ on the basis of auditory, olfactory and visual cues, but such methods were unavailable to people communicating via social media. ‘Translating’ affect therefore relied on a preliminary translation of pre-linguistic affect into linguistically mediated emotion, with the transformation and cultural filtering that implies. Yet if affect is non-linguistic, it is also universal and its power lies in the fact that it is unformed and unstructured; as Shouse (2005) argues, it is affect’s ‘ “abstractivity” that makes it transmittable in ways that feelings and emotions are not’. As a physical, bodily process that

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‘is correlated with particular physical sensations, including muscular and glandular and skin responses’ (Gibbs, 2009: 191), affect is experienced by all humans in the same way, although the meanings that affective responses come to take when transformed into emotions are highly variable. The process of ‘translating’ affect consists of producing linguistic statements resulting in ‘affective resonance’ (Shouse, 2005). There is no ‘transfer’ of affect through language in the same way that there can be no transfer of meaning in translation. Seemingly paradoxically, despite the untranslatability of affect into language, the possibility of a common affective response across language barriers, even if the meanings attached to the response are variable, suggests that ‘equivalence’ of response on the level of affect may be possible in a way that it is not with meaning or emotion.

Affective tweets in the dataset Although Zappavigna argues that ‘it is not uncommon for users to devote an entire micropost to detailing their current sentiment’ (2012: 54), in the tweets studied for this chapter there are few examples of tweets focused solely on the expression of affect. The example closest to a pure expression from Sabry, for example, was posted on 30 June, during the peak of the antiMorsi protests:

It tells readers nothing about the ‘facts’ of 30 June, nor about Sabry’s thoughts or opinions. Instead, it communicates something of his bodily experience of attending a protest on 30 June, his physical response to witnessing and being a part of the crowds. Seemingly inconsequential in terms of the historical shifts underway, this tweet powerfully communicates to readers what it was like to be amongst the protestors and helps to explain the strength of feeling carrying the protests forward. It thus expresses an element of the events that pure ‘meaning’ cannot, offering a ‘translation’ of felt experience rather than of a linguistically mediated source text. The vast majority of affective tweets, however, combine affect with propositional meaning. The following tweet from Zeinobia focuses on her bodily experience of exhaustion and negative affect, emphasized with the emoticon ‘:(’.3

An understanding of the feelings of fatigue and exhaustion felt by many Egyptians, central to the experience of such events by those directly involved in them, particularly women (Winegar, 2012) and closely related to individuals’ capacity for political action, is essential to understanding the events of 30 June and 3 July.

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The following from Salem are similar:

The first tells the reader something about what was happening in Egypt, but more strongly conveys the intensity of feeling of those protesting and the strength of feeling against Morsi. ‘:D’ adds further emphasis and expresses the positive affect experienced by Salem on account of this state of affairs. Again, this adds considerable information aiding distant readers in understanding the lived elements of the events underway. The second states not only that the people are chanting, but conveys something of the physical experience of hearing those chants first-hand, of the noise and pressure rather than the words spoken, thus conveying something of the bodily intensity accompanying the bare events. Although affect is central to all communication (Koskinen, 2012; Brennan, 2004), the question remains as to what extent these affective tweets should be viewed as ‘translations’, given that there are overtly affective tweets in both English and Arabic. Readers of their Arabic tweets, many of which are presumably located in Egypt, may in many cases have been able to experience the affective components of what was happening directly. English readers, on the other hand, implicitly located outside Egypt, may have had a detailed knowledge of the ‘facts’ of what was happening, but lacked direct access to the affective component of these events. This suggests that affective tweeting in each language may have been oriented to different purposes. In Arabic, attempts to convey affect may be linked to the development and maintenance of solidarity and group identities (Heise, 1998). In English, on the other hand, it may be concerned with producing affective resonances in readers who might otherwise understand on a cognitive level but lack the accompanying bodily intensity. Affective tweets in English may therefore be usefully conceptualized as attempts to ‘translate’, in the sense of provoking a similar response in readers, the affect felt by the writers for a geographically distant readership, while the term ‘translation’ may be inappropriate with affective tweets in Arabic.

Conclusion This chapter has examined translation practices on Twitter in relation to the 3 July 2013 military intervention in broad terms under the categories of linguistic, narrative and affective translation. As mentioned at the outset, producing generalizable findings was not my objective. Rather, through close analysis of a small dataset I have sought to produce preliminary conclusions and identify a number of issues and idiosyncrasies of user translation practices on Twitter as important foci for future research in this almost entirely unexplored area. 158

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With linguistic translation it was argued that there is significant variation in the extent to which users engage in linguistic self- translation and that it also varies over time. More significantly, it was shown that the approaches to translation adopted vary greatly with regard to the prioritization of equivalence and function, the extent to which translation is overt or covert and the relationships between source and target texts. This suggests an inconsistent approach to translation which is not strongly governed by norms or conventions and implies that these writers, as non-professional translators, lack an institutionally constrained conception of ‘good’ translation, leading them to adapt their approach to individual circumstances more readily than many professionals. The fact that many tweets were posted in English first, despite the first language of all three writers being Arabic, and then ‘translated’ into Arabic, also raises questions about directionality, suggesting that there is no simple and linear movement from ‘source’ and ‘target’ language in this context4 and calls for further attention on the relationship between bilingualism and translation. In terms of narrative translation, I argued that none of the three tweeters engaged in translation on the level of narrative and that it would have been impossible for them to do so due to the specific narratives in question. While supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian armed forces had neatly bounded and structured, if not traditionally textual, ‘source texts’ to work from, no such narratives were available to writers like Sabry, Salem and Zeinobia who rejected the dominant stories of the period but did not offer complete alternatives. The proto- narratives they might have translated were in flux and incomplete. Since the principle of relationality (Somers, 1994; Baker, 2006) means that changes to one part of a story result in changes to the meaning of all the other elements, it was therefore impossible to translate a narrative that was not yet whole. Finally, I argued that many of the tweets posted during this period can be usefully conceptualized as affective translations, aimed at giving readers insights into the bodily experience and intensities underlying the protests, without which they cannot be understood. The complex relationship between affect and language makes this a difficult issue and the lack of a semiotically coded ‘source’ means that the term ‘translation’ is being used in a sense somewhat distant from that seen in traditional conceptualizations. Nonetheless, an expanded consideration of affect in translation, a task begun by Koskinen (2012) and continued here, and of the translation of affect itself, would represent an important contribution to Translation Studies, helping it to move ever further beyond narrowly defined meaning while also offering an opportunity for Translation Studies to contribute to scholarship in other disciplines, particularly with regard to the transmission of affect across cultural and linguistic boundaries. Future studies are needed in all of these areas to explore the extent to which the observations made here are specific to the three writers whose tweets were studied and the unique context in which they were writing. Although questions of bilingualism are sometimes viewed as beyond the core concerns of Translation Studies, the complex language practices observed here, which have received some attention by scholars of bilingualism (e.g. Barton and Lee, 2013; Lee, 2017) but so far not from translation scholars, will be an important area for future studies. In terms of narrative, future work is needed to explore the ways in which the dominant stories of the period were translated on Twitter by supporters and opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood and armed forces as they attempted to promote their versions of events with international audiences and of the influence of these dominant narratives on the translatability of alternative and counternarratives. Finally, regarding affect more theoretical work is needed to refine our understanding of the significance of affect in all translation, as well as empirical examinations on the importance of conveying affect in the unique context of Morsi’s 2013 ouster. 159

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Notes 1 See Shorouk (2013) for a transcript of the speech. 2 This bodily understanding of affect, derived largely from the work of Brian Massumi (1995, 2002) and Deleuze and Guattari (1987), should be distinguished from the broader understanding prevalent in linguistics which focuses on attitudes and emotions without the same emphasis on corporality (e.g. Lyons, 1977; Caffi and Janney, 1994). 3 A discussion of emoticons and their relationship to written language is beyond the scope of this chapter. See Zappavigna (2012: 71– 82) for a discussion of their role in the expression of affect and Page (2012: 184) for a discussion of emoticons as ‘expressive punctuation’. Note that Zappavigna’s approach to affect follows the broader understanding common to linguists described in note 2. 4 Marmaridou (1996) has shown that directionality, from a cognitive perspective, is significantly more complex than might be assumed.

Further reading Gould, D. (2010) On affect and protest. In: Staiger, J. and Cvetkovich, A. (eds), Political Emotions. New York and London: Routledge, 18–44. Lee, C. (2017) Multilingualism Online. London and New York: Routledge. Papacharissi, Z. (2015) Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pérez- González, L. and Susam- Saraeva, S. (2012) Non- professionals translating and interpreting: Participatory and engaged perspectives. The Translator 18(2): 149–165.

References Ahmed, Sara (2014) The Cultural Politics of Emotion (2nd Edition). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Baker, Mona (1992) In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation. London and New York: Routledge. Baker, Mona (2006) Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account. London and New York: Routledge. Baker, Mona (ed.) (2015) Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian Revolution. London and New York: Routledge. Bal, Mieke (1997) Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (2nd Edition). Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press. Barton, David and Lee, Carmen (2013) Language Online: Investigating Digital Texts and Practices. London and New York: Routledge. Brennan, Teresa (2004) The Transmission of Affect. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Bruner, Jerome (1986) Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press. Bruner, Jerome (1991) The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquiry 18(1): 1–21. Bruns, A., Highfield, T. and Burgess, J. (2013) The Arab Spring and social media audiences: English and Arabic Twitter users and their networks. American Behavioral Scientist 57(7): 871–898. Burke, Kenneth (1950) A Rhetoric of Motives. New York: George Braziller Inc. Caffi, Claudia and Janney, Richard (1994) Toward a pragmatics of emotive communication. Journal of Pragmatics 22(3–4): 325–373. Chatman, Seymour (1978) Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Chesterman, Andrew (1993) From ‘is’ to ‘ought’: Laws, norms and strategies in translation studies. Target 5(1): 1–20. Croce, Benedetto (1959) History and chronicle. In: Meyerhoff, Hans (ed.), The Philosophy of History in Our Time. Princeton: Garland, 44–56. Danto, Arthur (1985) Narration and Knowledge. New York: Columbia University Press. Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Brian Massumi (trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Etling, B. Kelly, J., Faris, R. and Palfrey, J. (2010) Mapping the Arabic blogosphere: Politics and dissent online. New Media and Society 12(8): 1225–1243.

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Neil Sadler Poell, T. and Darmoni, K. (2012) Twitter as a multilingual space: The articulation of the Tunisian revolution through #sidibouzid’. NECSUS, European Journal of Media Studies 1(1): 14–34. Propp, Vladimir (1968) Morphology of the Folk Tale. Laurence Scott (trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press. Reiss, Katharina and Vermeer, Hans (1984) Towards a General Theory of Translational Action. Manchester: St Jerome. Seigworth, G. and Gregg, M. (2009) An inventory of shimmers. In: Gregg, M. and Seigworth, G. (eds), The Affect Theory Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1–26. Shorouk (2013) ‫[ ﻧﺺ ﺑﻴﺎﻥ ﺍﻟﻘﻮﺍﺕ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﻠﺤﺔ ﻟﺨﺎﺭﻁﺔ ﻁﺮﻳﻖ »ﺍﻟﻤﺮﺣﻠﺔ ﺍﻻﻧﺘﻘﺎﻟﻴﺔ‬The Armed Forces’ Statement on the Road Map for the ‘Transitional Phase’], 3 July. Available at: www.shorouknews.com/news/view.asp x?cdate=03072013&id=81a805f4-49eb-4b63-b7b3-56d4a4f12a6f. Shouse, Eric (2005) Feeling, emotion, affect. Media Culture 8(6). Available at: http:// journal.mediaculture.org.au/0512/03-shouse.php. Siapera, Eugenia (2011) Bridge bloggers in the Middle East. Oriente Moderno 91(1): 41–60. Simon, Sherry (2008) Yiddish in America, or styles of self- translation. In: Pym, A., Shlesinger, M. and Simeoni, D. (eds), Beyond Descriptive Translation Studies: Investigations in Homage to Gideon Toury. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 67–78. Somers, Margaret (1994) The narrative constitution of identity: A relational and network approach. Theory and Society 26: 605–649. Tanqueiro, Helena (2000) Self-translation as an extreme case of the author-translator-dialectic. In: Beeby, A., Ensinger, D. and Presas, M. (eds), Investigating Translation: Selected Papers from the 4th International Congress on Translation. Barcelona, 1998. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 55–64. Toury, Gideon (1980) In Search of a Theory of Translation. Tel Aviv: The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics. Toury, Gideon (2004) The nature and role of norms in translation. In: Venuti, Lawrence (ed.), The Translation Studies Reader (2nd Edition). New York and London: Routledge, 205–218. Twitter (2016) Twitter Usage: Company facts. Available at: https://about.twitter.com/company. Venuti, Lawrence (1995) The Translator’s Invisibility. London and New York: Routledge. Walsh, William, H. (1958) ‘Plain’ and ‘significant’ narrative in history. The Journal of Philosophy 55(11): 479–484. Werlich, Egon (1976) A Text Grammar of English. Heidelberg: Quelle and Meyer. White, Hayden (1978) Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. White, Hayden (1987) The Content of the Form. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Whyte, Christoper (2002) Against self-translation. Translation and Literature 11(1): 64–71. Winegar, Jessica (2012) The privilege of revolution: Gender, class, space and affect in Egypt. American Ethnologist 39(1): 67–70. Zappavigna, Michele (2012) Discourse of Twitter and Social Media. London, New Delhi, New York, and Sydney: Bloomsbury. Zuckerman, Ethan (2008) Meet the bridgebloggers. Public Choice 134(1–2): 47–65.

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9 THE SOCIO- DYNAMICS OF TRANSLATING HUMAN RIGHTS NEWS A critical discourse analysis approach Zafer Tuhaitah

Introduction Human rights discourse is an under- researched area in translation studies, especially in the Arab World, but has gained increasing attention since the 2011 Arab Spring. Before Marianne Garre’s book Human Rights in Translation: Legal Concepts in Different Languages (1999), there ‘have hardly been any previous publications that combined Translation Studies and Human Rights’ (Khairoulline, 2002: 153). Human rights discourse became increasingly visible since then. In the Arab World, the various human rights movements and issues along with the revolutionary positions of the Arab Spring have influenced more literature in this area in recent years. One of the most controversial human rights issues in Saudi Arabia has been the case of Saudi activist Raif Badawi. This case has sparked internal ideological conflicts and has led to the demonisation of the human rights discourse by a large portion of the Saudi community, even as international political actors have exploited the case for various ideological reasons. The main tool to document such ideological conflicts is the media. This chapter presents an analysis of how ideology manipulates the translation of Arabic and English news covering human rights-related issues. The data used includes news reports on the case of Badawi from two news agencies: Al Arabiya and Al-Alam. ‘News translation’ should be understood broadly as a cross-linguistic mediation of news items across linguistic boundaries and through one, or more, source text(s). Due to different factors, it is not always easy to establish the source text(s), or which parts of them, which were used in the translation. However, traces of ‘transediting’ are observable in news translation. According to Stetting (1989), news translation is not so different from editing, which includes checking, correcting, modifying, polishing up and preparing for publication; she uses this term to describe ‘the grey area between editing and translating’ (Stetting, 1989: 371). Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is applied to examine ideological influences at the lexical level as well as the discursive practices used by different news agencies in reporting the same story in different socio- historical and political contexts.

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Saudi Arabia and other Muslim-majority countries have not adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).1 Nonetheless, these countries have signed other local and international declarations, conventions and treaties perceived as not conflicting with their cultural, religious, political and ideological beliefs and principles. However, not all the countries that ratified these treaties have abided by them. The Arab Spring raised expectations for domestic reform in most Arab countries, especially in connection with human rights issues. In Saudi Arabia, many activists and journalists promoted various human rights issues, which met with domestic ideological opposition in the local Saudi dialogue. This opposition was apparent in local media outlets and other public platforms, especially in Friday sermons around the Saudi mosques. The concept of cultural relativism, criticism of UDHR’s presumed universality and the Islamic position towards the universality of human rights have been core issues in this debate. One human rights issue that has prompted conflict between local Saudis and international human rights narratives is that of Badawi, a Saudi writer, blogger and activist best known for co- creating the website ‘Free Saudi Liberals’ (‫[ )ﺍﻟﺸﺒﻜﺔ ﺍﻟﻠﻴﺒﺮﺍﻟﻴﺔ ﺍﻟﺴﻌﻮﺩﻳﺔ‬al- Shabaka alLibrāliyya al- Sʿūdiyya] in 2008. He was first arrested that year but released the same day. However, he was arrested again in 2012 on several charges, including insulting Islam and apostasy. In 2013, he received a sentence of seven years’ imprisonment and 600 lashes. He appealed, but that resulted in a harsher sentence in 2014 of ten years’ imprisonment, 1,000 lashes and a fine of one million Saudi riyals (McVeigh & Mahmood, 2015). The lashings were planned to take place in public, with 50 lashes given weekly over 20 weeks (Brown, 2017). The first lashing on 9 January 2015 sparked massive international media coverage and immense diplomatic pressure on Saudi Arabia. The second lashing has not been administered to date and has been postponed more than eight times. Badawi has remained in jail since his 2012 arrest, while his wife and three children obtained asylum in Canada in 2013. She continues to seek international support to pressure the Saudi government to commute his sentence. Under a campaign of international criticism and accusations of violating human rights conventions, King Abdullah proposed several reform processes. This move angered the conservative religious elite, a key power base for the Saudi rulers and a powerful influence on the Saudi people. Conservatives saw these reforms as submission to liberal values which they regard as anti-Islamic and in conflict with the culture and heritage of Muslim and Arab nations. They perceived the promotion of such liberal and secular values as ideologically motivated and a political means to colonise and homogenise other cultures in the world. These beliefs have motivated much of the Saudi public to support Badawi’s conviction and sentence. The Saudi government appears to be caught in a dilemma between its moral and legal obligations to two different ideologies. On the one hand, the ideology of the conservative religious elite and their large number of supporters criminalises Badawi based on Islamic law. On the other hand, a significant international view of the issue sees Badawi’s case as an instance of human rights abuse. The Saudi government, for its part, must fulfil the religious obligations on which it claims2 to be based and the international conventions that it has adopted. Therefore, the official Saudi political and legal position on this case is not easy to pinpoint. The official narrative in a statement from the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in London replies to international pressure by asserting that Badawi’s case is an internal affair. The statement demonstrates the attitude of the Saudi government towards human rights organisations, activists and other critics of Badawi’s case, declaring that Saudi Arabia

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will not tolerate such outrageous, ridiculous interference in its sovereign criminal justice system. It is important to note that the case in question was administered according to legitimate Saudi statutes by a respected Saudi judge whose task is to execute the laws of the country. The Kingdom upholds and protects the independent status of its judiciary and the equal treatment of all its citizens. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in London, 2015)

Critical discourse analysis The selected methodological framework for data analysis in this study is a critical analysis of the discourse of news reports on human rights. The background, various approaches to methods of application and selected discursive categories of CDA are briefly presented. The origins of CDA can be traced to a number of influential theories in different disciplines, including Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics (SFL), Althusser’s ideology, Bakhtin’s genre theory, the Frankfurt School’s philosophies and Foucault’s discourse theory (Zaher, 2009). As Fairclough states (1989), ideological power is exercised in discourse, so CDA is one of the most effective methodological tools for exposing hidden ideologies ‘reflected, reinforced, and constructed in everyday and institutional discourse’ (Mayr, 2008: 10). Munday (2007) believes that CDA can uncover the subtle ideological influences on translations. Thus, the study of discourse is essential to the understanding of ideology (Al- Mohannadi, 2008). The concept of ideology is very problematic with regard to translation studies and discourse studies due to its wide- ranging scope and various definitions. According to Munday (2007), definitions of the term ‘ideology’ have often been linked with notions of manipulation and distortion or rewriting. However, ideology can be seen as something that is ‘constructed, used and changed by social actors as group members in specific, often discursive, social practices’ (van Dijk, 1998: 9). This definition of ideology is relevant to this research because of the way news reporters and translators are viewed as social actors who can be vital means of constructing ideologies. In the late 1980s, CDA emerged from Foucault’s work on power and the social context as a ‘programmatic development in European discourse studies by Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak, Teun van Dijk, and others’ (Blommaert & Bulcaen, 2000: 447). CDA later became one of the most important branches of discourse analysis (Jaworski & Coupland, 2014). Fairclough’s (1992) Discourse and Social Change is the most well- crafted and ambitious attempt to theorise CDA, although other scholars have contributed different approaches to CDA, e.g. Fairclough (1995), Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999), van Leeuwen (1993), van Dijk (1993, 1997) and Wodak (1995, 1997). This study is based on Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework for conceptualising and analysing discourse. These three dimensions are discourse-as-text, discourse-as-discursive-practice and discourse-as-social-practice. In this study, the analysis requires a modified version of CDA derived from Fairclough’s three-dimensional approach and analytic tools based on Halliday’s SFL. The modified version allows triangulating the investigation at three levels of analysis: semiotic choices, intertextuality and contextualisation. In this research, the findings of the study will shed light on the discursive practices used in framing and presenting human rights in news reports and the role played by translation in this process.

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Analytical tools Semiotic choices The analysis of semiotic choices in this chapter focuses on lexicalisation, word connotations and visual elements. Van Dijk (1995: 25) developed the concept of lexicalisation, ‘a major and well- known domain of ideological expression and persuasion as the well- known “terrorist” versus “freedom- fighter” pair suggests’. Analysing lexis is highly important to discover the hidden ideological influences in discourses. Van Dijk (1991: 53) argues that lexicalisation is never neutral as choosing a certain word rather than another ‘may signal the opinions, emotions, or special position of a speaker’. The other important semiotic choice is visual elements. Colour, tone, composition and font, for instance, can reflect an embedded ideological factor that influences the choice of such elements. Visual aspects can be a powerful framing tool to highlight certain ideas or views in news report. Such elements include accompanying photographs and the size and position of a report in a newspaper or on a news website.

Intertextuality The term ‘intertextuality’ was first introduced by Julia Kristeva in her seminal work Word, Dialogue and Novel (1966/ 1986). In intertextuality, texts refer directly or indirectly to other texts so that they are merged or demarcated explicitly and contradict, assimilate or ironically echo each other (Fairclough, 1992). This feature emerges in media discourse and news reporting as stories cite various people, texts and speeches to gain objectivity. Intertextuality can be observed in three aspects of news reporting: news sources, reporting mode and reporting verbs. News sources provide the information reported by news agencies, while the mode of reporting can be direct speech, indirect speech or slipping. Reporting verbs are used to cite news sources and can be neutral (said), critical (claimed) and affirmative (proved). CDA can be applied to identify the embedded ideological stance of news agencies by examining the selection of these intertextual elements. These decisions are investigated in the interpretation stage of Fairclough’s three-dimensional model. As for contextualisation, this is discussed within the third level of analysis, i.e. ‘explanation’. At this level, the social and political contexts are discussed in order to understand the socio-dynamics that affect the media use of the human rights discourse. This also covers a historical contextualisation of the Saudi–Iranian conflict, which is the main ideological conflict that shapes the tension between Al Arabiya and Al-Alam.

Data analysis The selected corpus analysed consists of hard news reports on Saudi human rights activists from the beginning of Badawi’s case in 2011 until the death of King Abdullah on 23 January 2015. The reports were sourced from Al Arabiya and Al- Alam, two news agencies which report on areas throughout the world, including Saudi Arabia, in Arabic and English. These news agencies were selected to enable a comparison of how the same event is formulated, translated and/or reported by both agencies, revealing their ideological positions on the events and relationships with the targeted audiences. This study involves a comparative analysis at two different levels: news reports by the same news agency for two different audiences, i.e. Arabic and English speaking; and reporting of the same news by two different news agencies. The news reports included in the corpus of study were obtained from three official websites 166

Translating human rights news

for the two news agencies: Al Arabiya Arabic (www.alarabiya.net), Al Arabiya English (www. english.alarabiya.net) and Al-Alam (www.alalam.ir).

Al Arabiya Al Arabiya is a commercial news channel that broadcasts as a free- to- air satellite television channel. The name means ‘The Arabic One’, and it targets Arab audiences by broadcasting in Modern Standard Arabic. Al Arabiya was originally a channel of the private Saudi broadcaster Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) group. It began broadcasting from London in September 1991 as the first Arab satellite TV station serving Arab audiences living outside the Arab World (Ayish, 2001; Fandy, 2007; Ghareeb, 2000; Lahlali, 2011; Lynch, 2010). The channel’s headquarters were transferred to Dubai Media City, United Arab Emirates, in 2005 after King Fahd of Saudi Arabia ended funding for the station. In 1992, MBC bought United Press International to expand its news service and sought to maintain the global nature, credibility and reputation of that news agency (Cochrane, 2007; Kraidy, 2002; Sakr, 2000). Today, the MBC chairman is Sheikh Waleed Al Ibrahim, a Saudi businessman and close relative of King Fahd. In February 2003, Al Arabiya’s satellite TV channel began transmission. The idea of launching a specialised news channel had been discussed within the MBC group for several years, but implementation was rushed by major successive events, including the 11 September 2001 attacks, 2002 Palestinian uprising and 2003 invasion of Iraq (Lynch, 2010; Zayani & Ayish, 2006; Zayani & Sahraoui, 2007). Although the Al Arabiya TV channel broadcasts in Arabic, its website is available in four different languages. The official Arabic website was launched on 21 February 2004, followed by the English version in August 2007 to bridge the gap between the Arabic-language TV channel and English-speaking audiences. Finally, Urdu and Persian versions were launched in 2008 (Al-Arabiya, 2015). The topics covered on these websites include politics, business and sports.

Al-Alam Al- Alam is a satellite TV channel which specialises in broadcasting news. It was launched in April 2003 and transmits from Tehran, Iran (Al-Alam, 2015). Although Persian is the official language of Iran, this TV channel targets Arabic- speaking audiences by broadcasting in Modern Standard Arabic, and its name is the Arabic word for ‘the world’. This channel is institutionally managed and financed by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the state-owned media corporation directly controlled by the Iranian government (Pahlavi, 2012). The goal of this channel is to ‘present Islamic views, break the Western monopoly of news channels, and fill the vacuum in the existing news transmissions in the world’ (Al-Alam, 2015). Moreover, it aims to maintain the independence and security of Islamic countries (Pahlavi, 2012). The channel launched an English-language version of its website in November 2004 to gain credibility among global audiences and to demonstrate its impartiality (Pahlavi, 2012). Persian and Arabic language versions of the website were launched later to extend its influence to wider audiences through translation (Al-Alam, 2015). This study is focused on the online material, rather than the TV news, published by Al Arabiya and Al- Alam for several reasons. The multimodal nature of electronic media allows reports to include hyperlinks to related reports, in addition to colour pictures, audio- visual materials and interactive maps. This multimodality can be considered discursive elements that imply certain ideological influences which frame the translated text. The interactivity with 167

Zafer Tuhaitah Table 9.1 The number of news reports mentioning Badawi’s case

Al Arabiya Al-Alam

English

Arabic

3 7

1 33

readers in the comments section adds another dimension to the analysis. Frequently, a news agency publishes more than one version of the same story in each language. The Arabic and English versions of the same story are often not published on the same date or in the same way, which can reveal how the news is rewritten or reproduced to suit different readerships. Therefore, the news reports selected contain more or less the same details and were published close to each other.

Background information of the data The selected sample is the reporting on Badawi’s first sentence announced in 2013. This story is the only one Al Arabiya reported on Badawi in Arabic, so it is the only one for which coverage can be found in both Arabic and English on both Al Arabiya and Al- Alam. The analysis thus consists of a critical discourse analysis of four news reports. The reasons for focusing on this case are the controversy it sparked in the Saudi human rights context, the media attention surrounding it and the involvement of government-imposed punishment. The quantitative data above (Table 9.1) shows a distinct gap of news reports in four different categories (four language-news agency sets). This can be due to several factors, such as the policy of the news agency or it can be an indication of the newsworthiness of Badawi’s story. For instance, Al- Alam reports this story in its Arabic version 33 times, compared to seven times in its English version. This could show that Al-Alam either uses this story in the Arabic version to promote a certain human rights narrative or it merely follows the expected interest of its Arabic-speaking audience.

Analysis of the sample texts Description The semiotic choices made in the news reports are analysed through lexicalisation, word connotation and visual elements. These elements can be essential to the expression of ideology in media discourses and can indicate the attitudes and positions of the news agencies that reported the story. Lexicalisation and other semiotic elements are very effective in constructing the mental image of a certain story. Fowler (1986: 27) argues that ‘linguistic codes do not reflect reality neutrally; they interpret, organize, and classify the subjects of discourse’. Therefore, semiotic elements play a major role in shaping audiences’ attitudes towards stories on Badawi and, by extension, the human rights discourse. Table 9.2 shows how Badawi was labelled or framed in the headlines of the four selected news reports. The pro-Saudi Al Arabiya labelled Raif Badawi as a ‘Saudi liberal’ in the English-language news report and as ‫( ﻣﺆﺳﺲ ﺍﻟﻠﻴﺒﺮﺍﻟﻴﺔ‬muʾassis al- Librāliyya), or ‘the founder of Liberalism’, in the Arabic news report. In contrast, the anti- Saudi Al- Alam described Badawi as a ‘web 168

Translating human rights news Table 9.2 The utterances used to refer to Badawi in the title of each news report

Al Arabiya Al-Alam

English

Arabic

Saudi liberal Web manager

‫ﻣﺆﺳﺲ ﺍﻟﻠﻴﺒﺮﺍﻟﻴﺔ‬ ‫ﻧﺎﺷﻂ ﺣﻘﻮﻗﻲ‬

manager’ in the English news report and as ‫( ﻧﺎﺷﻂ ﺣﻘﻮﻗﻲ‬nāshiṭ ḥuqūqī), which can be translated ‘a human rights activist’, in the Arabic news report. The choice of these labels can give some indication on the news agencies’ positions on Badawi’s case, his sentence and Saudi law. Al Arabiya can be seen as a liberal news agency in its views of the Saudi community with its liberal journalists, managers and editorial board. However, supporting Badawi would be seen as opposition to and disapproval of the Saudi legal system. Clearly, Al Arabiya did not want to touch this sensitive issue and published only a single news report in Arabic for its audience, mostly Saudi and Arab readers. However, the audience of the English-language website could be international, prompting Al Arabiya to adopt a different attitude towards this story. It reported three news stories on Badawi, though one was not political but on popular Twitter hashtags, including Badawi’s case. The other clear example is the differences between the Arabic and English versions of the news reports. In the English version, Badawi is presented as a ‘Saudi liberal’, which could be seen as a neutral if not positive appellation according to international audiences. However, Al Arabiya used an ambiguous term in the Arabic version: ‫( ﻣﺆﺳﺲ ﺍﻟﻠﻴﺒﺮﺍﻟﻴﺔ‬muʾassis al- Librāliyya), which can be translated literally as ‘the founder of Liberalism’. This term might refer to Badawi as the founder of al- Shabaka al- Librāliyya, which is the name of his website (the Liberal Network). However, the word Shabaka (network) seems to have been left out to achieve a certain effect. This omission could be due to the journalistic style of ellipsis, or it could be done to highlight the very negative meaning of ‘Liberalism’ to a conservative audience, such as the Saudi public. This framing is to some extent defamation of Badawi among conservative Saudi readers. This attitude can be easily observed while browsing the comments section of news reports (a service available on the Arabic but not the English version of Al Arabiya website), where there are many angry comments about Badawi. Al Arabiya exhibits two different attitudes in reporting this story: a pro-government attitude with authoritative tone and a (somewhat) neutral attitude with a journalistic tone in the English version. Al- Alam presents Raif Badawi in two different ways: as a ‘web manager’ in the English version and as ‫( ﻧﺎﺷﻂ ﺣﻘﻮﻗﻲ‬nāshiṭ ḥuqūqī), or ‘a human rights activist’, in the Arabic version. Using the human rights discourse to frame Badawi as an activist is directed at the Arab audience, which includes Saudis and other Arab speakers. The concept of activism is relevant to the type of news about human rights abuses by the Saudi government usually reported by Al- Alam. As a journalistic technique, Al- Alam sometimes tries to link human rights issues with other unrelated news stories to pressure the Saudi government. This technique can be observed in the number of published news reports that include the name Raif Badawi (33 in Arabic, 7 in English), even in coverage of completely different topics. The concept of activism is usually evoked in news reports that cover the Shia minority in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia. Using the descriptor ‘activist’ can create a sense of outrage against injustices and human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. While the use of the human rights discourse and the concept of activism can be effective for Al-Alam to criticise Saudi policy and legal system, Al-Alam uses the term ‘web manager’ 169

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in its English version. The English news report is directed at different audiences, and using this phrase can have the same effect of opposing Saudi government. However, the lack of reference to human rights could be due to the negative international perception of Iran’s human rights record. Al-Alam might prefer to criticise the Saudi government internationally without referring to the concept of human rights and instead chooses the more neutral description of ‘web manager’. This hypothesis is supported by the journalistic norm Al- Alam uses in covering other human rights issues, which could be the focus of follow- up research. In this example, the two news reports present Badawi in a positive way, but the Arabic version frames him as an outstanding activist, while the English versions gives the more neutral image of a web manager. Another lexical choice is the presentation of the accusations against Badawi. The lexical choices and their connotations, shown in Table 9.3, exhibit diverse attitudes. Al Arabiya gives two different perspectives on the charges. In the Arabic version, the accusations are explicitly mentioned in a way that suggests that the news agency endorse the charges; whereas Al Arabiya in the English version seems to be distanced from the accusations. In phrases 1 and 2 in the English version of Al Arabiya, the use of quotation marks gives a sense of avoiding responsibility for the wording used, possibly suggesting that Al Arabiya does not hold the same position as Badawi’s accusers but cannot criticise the Saudi legal system before an international audience. The same distancing is achieved in phrases 3 and 4 through the expressions ‘was perceived’ and ‘are considered’. Al Arabiya’s attitude towards the story, thus, is different with different audiences. Al-Alam, in contrast, presents the accusations in a critical tone in both Arabic and English. Both news agencies make very different choices for Arabic- and English-speaking audiences. In the Arabic news report, Al- Alam states that the reason for the charges was criticising the role of the Saudi religious police. This accusation will not be seen as a major matter by most conservative Saudi readers, which could create empathy for Badawi. In the English version, Table 9.3 The utterances used to refer to Badawi’s accusation in each of the four news reports

English

Arabic

Al Arabiya

1) over allegations of ‘insulting Islam’ 1) ‫ﺑﻤﺨﺎﻟﻔﺔ ﺍﻟﻘﻴﻢ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻴﺔ ﻭﺍﻻﺳﺘﻬﺰﺍء ﺑﺎﻟﺮﻣﻮﺯ ﺍﻟﺪﻳﻨﻴﺔ‬ (violating Islamic values and ridiculing 2) ‘for establishing a liberal website religious symbols) and adopting the liberal thinking and 2) ‫ﻣﻊ ﺗﻮﺻﻴﺔ ﺑﻤﺤﺎﻛﻤﺘﻪ ﺑﺘﻬﻤﺔ ﺍﻟﺮﺩﺓ ﺍﻟﺘﻲ ﻋﻘﻮﺑﺘﻬﺎ ﺍﻟﻘﺘﻞ‬ insulting Islam’ (recommendations to be sentenced for 3) for publishing what was perceived as apostasy, which carries death penalty) anti-Islamic content 4) for posting stories and comments considered to be against religion and morality

Al-Alam

1) founded to discuss the role of Wahhabis in ruling the conservative kingdom 2) for apostasy, a charge which carries the death penalty 3) charged with cybercrimes and disobeying his father, a crime in Saudi Arabia

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1)

‫ﻣﺘﻬﻢ ﺑﺎﻧﺘﻘﺎﺩ ﺩﻭﺭ ﻫﻴﺌﺔ ﺍﻷﻣﺮ ﺑﺎﻟﻤﻌﺮﻭﻑ ﻭﺍﻟﻨﻬﻲ‬ ‫ﻋﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﻨﻜﺮ‬ (accused of criticising the role of the religious police in Saudi Arabia)

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a number of different charges are selected for reporting and are framed to highlight the brutality of the Saudi legal system. The selected accusations range from ‘apostasy’ to ‘disobeying his father’. Al-Alam uses certain expressions to emphasise the atrocity and absurdity of these charges. For example, Al- Alam describes apostasy as ‘a charge which carries the death penalty’, stressing its brutality, and mentions criticism of Wahhabism as one reason for Badawi’s charges to show how absurd the Saudi legal system is. Al-Alam adopts a very critical attitude towards the Saudi government in both the Arabic and English news reports but modifies the stories for the audience to evoke certain responses. The selected visual elements in the four news reports also provide a very important subject for analysis. For instance, the photo accompanying news reports on Badawi is an iconic photo3 used by many news agencies, websites, Twitter and Facebook accounts that discuss the issue. However, for the Arabic news report, Al- Alam selected a different photo,4 which shows Badawi in Iḥrām5 clothing standing with his three children after performing ʿUmra6 in the Holy Mosque of Mecca. Whereas the iconic portrait of Badawi is linked to his image as a brave activist, this second photo presents him as a father of three and a practising Muslim in Mecca. Most Muslim readers can relate to this photo, which has a more personal feeling of family, parenthood and worship than the iconic photo. This type of visual semiotics can be very effective in framing a story and the readers’ attitude towards it.

Interpretation The focus of the study is on the intertextuality of the media discourse and how it can be interpreted. Fairclough (1989: 162) explains that the interpretation stage ‘corrects delusions of autonomy on the part of subjects in discourse. It makes explicit what for participants is generally implicit’. As mentioned, the main focus of intertextuality in news discourse is the way speech is reported, particularly three main elements: news sourcing, reporting mode and reporting verbs. Table 9.4 shows instances where information was sourced in the four news reports. Al Arabiya’s Arabic news report does not cite any news source. The reporting sounds authoritative, where it uses a style of reporting that can be seen as a legal document issued from the court. It does not refer to any other source, either definite or indefinite. However, Al Arabiya’s English version contains numerous references to other news sources: four definite sources and one indefinite. For instance, the second example (the website’s co-founder Saud al- Shamari told AFP) cites two definite news sources and even gives a definite reference for the source of the photo used (CNN). Al Arabiya does not aim to conflict with or contradict the Saudi official narrative, so the reporting verbs used maintain a distance from adopting any attitude towards the accusations against Badawi. For instance, such verbs as ‘told’, ‘reported’ and ‘said’ show neither agreement nor disagreement with the contents reported. When a negative verb such as ‘demanded’ is used, it refers to an indefinite source. With this style of reporting, Al Arabiya adopts a journalistic position that does not take a clear side in this case. Al- Alam, in contrast, cites a number of news sources in both its Arabic and English versions. The reporting verbs and mode used in the Arabic version show clear disapproval of the accusations. For example, the verbs ‘called for’ and ‘clarified’ actively oppose the charges. The news sources are also used effectively. For instance, the citations of ‘sources from the Liberal Network website’ and ‘human rights organisations’ endow the news report with a sense of authority, although it is not clear which ‘sources’ or ‘human rights organisations’ are cited. This reporting style can give the news report a sense of credibility. 171

Zafer Tuhaitah Table 9.4 The number of intertextual references to other news sources mentioned in the four selected news reports

Al Arabiya

News source

English

Arabic

Definite

• Photo courtesy: CNN • The website’s co-founder Saud al-Shamari told AFP • The Saudi news website Sapq reported • Sapq said • A number of Saudis had demanded • His lawyer said • According to Human Rights Watch • Sapq reported • Saudi media report

• None

Indefinite Al-Alam

Definite

Indefinite

• None • ‫ﺩﻋﺖ ﺷﺒﻜﺔ ﻳﻮﻣﺎ ﻟﻠﻴﺒﺮﺍﻟﻴﺔ ﺍﻟﺴﻌﻮﺩﻳﺔ‬ [Day of Liberalism network called for] • ‫ﺃﻭﺿﺤﺖ ﻣﺼﺎﺩﺭ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺸﺒﻜﺔ ﺍﻟﻠﻴﺒﺮﺍﻟﻴﺔ‬ [sources from the Liberal Network website clarified] • ‫ﺍﻧﺘﻘﺎﺩﺍﺕ ﻣﻦ ﻣﻨﻈﻤﺎﺕ ﺣﻘﻮﻗﻴﺔ‬ [criticism from human rights organisations]

Explanation The social and political contexts need to be explained to uncover and understand the hidden ideological positions behind the media use of the human rights discourse. A historical contextualisation of the Saudi–Iranian conflict will provide a wider understanding of the ideological influences that govern the choices made by Al Arabiya and Al-Alam. Saudi Arabia and Iran have countless political points of disagreement. Historically, the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 can be seen as the beginning of the modern conflict between the two countries. Although the Sunni–Shia conflict can be traced to centuries before the two modern states existed, the Iranian Revolution refuelled this conflict. The revolution was led by Shia religious figures and injected various ideological attitudes into national, regional and international politics. The political narrative of Saudi Arabia is based on the Wahhabi revival of the presumably true version of Islam, which is a strict Sunni version that conflicts with Shi’ism. In this context, Iran has a Sunni minority, and Saudi Arabia a Shia minority. The two countries are criticised for allegedly treating their minorities with suspicion and granting them fewer rights than other citizens. Both countries have used their version of Islam as a very powerful political tool and ethical cover for their actions. A state of cold war has existed between the two countries since the Iranian Revolution, giving rise to numerous major and minor conflicts. To name only a few, Saudi Arabia supported Iraq in its eight- year war against Iran, protests by Iranian pilgrims in Mecca in 1987 caused many deaths, and a Saudi diplomat was killed in Tehran one year later. Most recently, Iran’s growing influence with Shia minorities in Iraq and other Arabian Gulf countries after the American-led occupation of Iraq triggered many military conflicts with Saudi Arabia amid the Arab Spring in Bahrain, Yemen, Syria and other countries. In addition to religious ideology, 172

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another source of these two countries’ huge influence is their economic and financial status as two of the world’s largest oil-exporting countries. Moreover, they both have geostrategic and historical privileges that have shaped their ideological narrative. The two news agencies analysed (Al Arabiya and Al-Alam) can be seen as the most powerful political media outlets in Saudi Arabia and Iran. As independent news sources, they present their respective countries’ ideologies in these conflicts in many languages. Al-Alam’s focus on the Badawi case fits the Iranian political agenda which seeks to put international pressure on Saudi Arabia. The human rights discourse in Al- Alam’s Arabic version is most likely aimed at the Shia minority in Saudi Arabia and other dissidents to highlight the abuses of the Saudi government. Al Arabiya, in contrast, acts as a local Saudi media outlet reporting various liberal views on many issues. Covering Badawi’s story posed challenges as Al Arabiya has to either represent its liberal views and condemn the accusations, which would conflict with the official Saudi narrative (the case is a local matter handled by the Saudi legal system), or go against its liberal position and align with the official narrative. This dilemma could be one reason why Al Arabiya mentions Badawi in only one Arabic news report and three English reports, including one on Twitter trends.

Conclusion In conclusion, the human rights discourse can be used as a political tool in such contexts as the Iranian–Saudi conflict. This political use can be seen in the different presentations of the case of Badawi to two different audiences by both Al Arabiya and Al-Alam. Linguistic and cultural factors and the ideologies of the news agencies are shown to be key factors in how news is transedited, localised and presented to two different readerships. The relation between news agencies and their target audiences influences how they choose news reports and the effect they aim to achieve. It can be concluded that news translation in contexts similar to that of this study is inevitably influenced by the ideology and political affiliations of news agencies as well as the expectations of the target readership. The main limitations of the research are due to the nature of this study. These include access to ‘translators’ and the difficulty of studying the translation workflow, including the role of editors. The study would have benefited from an ethnographic description of the news agencies to understand the inner workings of the process of news transediting. However, the study focused on the outcome of the process due to the inaccessibility of the news agencies, as both the news agencies and the ‘translators’ seek to blur the visibility of ‘translators’; this is meant to give the impression that their reports are not ‘mediated’. Future research on translation of human rights-related news in other socio-cultural contexts would reveal the similar or different ideological patterns used in mediating them.

Notes 1 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a well-known document that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. However, some Muslim-majority countries, including Saudi Arabia, have not voted for the Declaration as it, allegedly, violated Sharia law. It was also criticised by Iranian officials and a number of scholars from Muslim-majority and non-Western countries (see Abaid, 2008). 2 The Saudi Arabian constitution is claimed to be based on the Holy Qur’an, and the prophet Muhammad’s Sunna (Traditions), as stated in Article One of the Basic Law (Al-Mehaimeed, 1993). 3 The photo can be seen at the following link: https://goo.gl/2fc5dg. 4 The photo can be seen at the following link: https://goo.gl/HssX31.

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Zafer Tuhaitah 5 Iḥrām clothing is what is worn by Muslims during two religious rituals, namely, hajj and ʿUmra. 6 ʿUmra is a pilgrimage to Mecca that can be performed by Muslims at any time of the year.

Further reading Garre, M. (1999) Human Rights in Translation: Legal Concepts in Different Languages (Vol. 16). Denmark: Copenhagen Business School Press. Pan, L. (2015) Ideological positioning in news translation: A case study of evaluative resources in reports on China. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies, 27(2): 215–237.

References Abaid, Nisrine (2008) Sharia, Muslim States and International Human Rights Treaty Obligations: A Comparative Study. London: British Institute of International and Comparative Law. Al-Alam (2015) Al-Alam news website, from www.alalam.ir/. Al Arabiya (2015) Al Arabiya news website, from www.alarabiya.net/. Al-Mehaimeed, A.M. (1993) The constitutional system of Saudi Arabia: A conspectus. Arab Law Quarterly, 8: 30–36. Al-Mohannadi, Sara (2008) Translation and ideology. Social Semiotics, 18(4): 529–542. Ayish, M.I. (2001) American-style journalism and Arab world television: An exploratory study of news selection at six Arab world satellite television channels. Transnational Broadcasting Studies, online serial 6 (Spring/Summer). Blommaert, Jan & Bulcaen, Chris (2000) Critical discourse analysis. Annual Review of Anthropology, 29: 447–466. Brown, A. (2017) Ten years in jail and 1,000 lashes: Why we must defend Saudi blogger Raif Badawi. Guardian, from www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/18/raif-badawi-saudi-arabia-blogger. Chouliaraki, Lilie & Fairclough, Norman (1999) Discourse in Late Modernity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Cochrane, Paul (2007) Saudi Arabia’s media influence. Arab Media & Society, 12(1): 139–156. Fairclough, Norman (1989) Language and Power. London: Longman. Fairclough, Norman (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press. Fairclough, Norman (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London: Longman. Fandy, Mamoun (2007) (Un)civil War of Words: Media and Politics in the Arab World. London: Praeger. Fowler, Roger (1986) Linguistic Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press. Ghareeb, Edmund (2000) New media and the information revolution in the Arab world: An assessment. The Middle East Journal, 395–418. Jaworski, Adam & Coupland, Nikolas (2014) The Discourse Reader. London: Routledge. Khairoulline, Vladimir (2002) [Review of the book Human rights in translation: legal concepts in different languages, by M. Garre.] Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, 10(2): 151–159. Kraidy, Marwan M. (2002) Arab satellite television between regionalization and globalization. Global Media Journal, 1(1): 1–13. Kristeva, Julia (1966/1986) Word, dialogue and novel. In Toril Moi (ed.), The Kristeva Reader (pp. 35–61). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Lahlali, El Mustapha (2011) Contemporary Arab Broadcast Media. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Lynch, Marc (2010) Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, al- Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today. New York: Columbia University Press. Mayr, Andrea (2008) Introduction: Power, discourse and institutions. In A. Mayr (ed.), Language and Power: An Introduction to Institutional Discourse (pp. 1–25). London: Continuum. McVeigh, Tracy & Mahmood, Mona (2015) Saudi blogger’s wife says global pressure could force his release. Guardian. from www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/17/saudi-blogger-raifbadawi-global-pressure-release. Munday, Jeremy (2007) Style and Ideology: Translation and Latin American Writing. London: Routledge. Pahlavi, Pierre (2012) Understanding Iran’s media diplomacy. The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, 6(2): 22.

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Translating human rights news Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in London (2015) Statement from The Royal Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in London, from http:// embassies.mofa.gov.sa/ sites/ uk/ EN/ AboutDiplomaticMission/ MissionNews/Pages/ennews12062015124003.aspx. Sakr, Naomi (2000) Optical illusion: Television and censorship in the Arab world. Transnational Broadcasting Studies, 5. From http://tbsjournal.arabmediasociety.com/Archives/Fall00/sakr1.htm. Stetting, K. (1989) Transediting: A new term for coping with the grey area between editing and translating. In G. Caie et al. (eds), Proceedings from the Fourth Nordic Conference for English Studies (pp. 371–382). Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, Department of English. van Dijk, Teun A. (1991) Racism and the Press. London: Routledge. van Dijk, Teun A. (1993) Principles of critical discourse analysis. Discourse & Society, 4(2): 249–283. van Dijk, Teun A. (1995) Discourse analysis as ideology analysis. In Christina Schaffner & Anita L. Wenden (eds), Language and Peace (pp. 17–33). Aldershot: Dartmouth. van Dijk, Teun A. (1997) What is political discourse analysis? Belgian Journal of Linguistics, 11(1): 11–52. van Dijk, Teun A. (1998) Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. London: Sage Publications. van Leeuwen, Theo (1993) Genre and field in critical discourse analysis: A synopsis. Discourse and Society, 4(2): 192–223. Wodak, Ruth (1995) Critical linguistics and critical discourse analysis. In Jef Verschueren, JanOla Östman & Jan Blommaert (eds), Handbook of Pragmatics (pp. 204–210). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. Wodak, Ruth (1997) Critical discourse analysis and the study of doctor-patient interaction. In B.L. Gunnarsson, P. Linell & B. Nordberg (eds), The Construction of Professional Discourse (pp. 173–200). London: Longman. Zaher, Aziza (2009) A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Reports on the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict in Selected Arab and Western Newspapers. PhD thesis: Nottingham Trent University. Zayani, Mohamed & Ayish, Muhammad (2006) Arab satellite television and crisis reporting covering the fall of Baghdad. International Communication Gazette, 68(5–6): 473–497. Zayani, Mohamed & Sahraoui, Sofiane (2007) The Culture of Al Jazeera: Inside an Arab Media Giant. Jefferson: McFarland & Company.

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10 TRANSLATING TAHRIR From praxis to theory with Tahrir Documents1 Levi Thompson, Emily Drumsta and Elias G. Saba

Introduction Over the past ten years or so, “translation studies” has emerged as a critical, theoretical and philosophical field often (though not always) divorced from the actual practice of translation. Theorists and critics who claim a specialization in translation studies often profess distance from translation practice and rarely view this distance as disconnection or disqualification. In The Translation Zone, for example, the prominent comparative literature scholar Emily Apter (2006: 6) states that ‘translation has proved to be vital to [her] thinking’ even though she ‘has translated professionally only rarely, and [has] never discovered a particular talent for it.’ Similarly, Jacques Derrida (2012: 365) begins his seminal essay “What is a ‘Relevant’ Translation?” with an apology for being ‘rude and inexperienced in this domain … someone who, from the very first moment, from his very first attempts … shunned the translator’s métier.’ Despite their professed distance from translation as practice and profession, both Apter and Derrida affirm their reverence for translators, Derrida (2012: 365– 366) confessing ‘an infinite debt’ and ‘admiration for those men and women who, to [his] mind, are the only ones who know how to read and write—translators’ and Apter (2006) describing the crucial role to be played by previously disappeared translators in her new comparative literature. Still, this reverence at the expense of experience ironically tends to tokenize the very translators whose work these critics aim to make visible. These philosophers admire translators but have no time for translation, devoting their efforts instead to the more pressing psychological, political and ethical issues raised by its idea, its metaphorical evocation. For practicing translators, the major texts in the field of translation studies seem to have very little to offer in the way of practical advice or guidance on concrete issues and questions. Indeed, the deconstructionist timbre of much recent work in this field invites the practicing translator to succumb to the temptations of aporia and untranslatability, rather than negotiate workable (albeit imperfect) solutions to concrete, pragmatic problems. Whereas this rigid separation between praxis and theory returns persistently in EuroAmerican scholarship on translation studies, the division of labor is less stark when it comes to what we might call Arabic translation studies. In this small but growing field, those who offer up theories of and approaches to Arabic-to-English translation are almost always 176

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practicing translators themselves. Their philosophies and methodologies, therefore, are typically abstracted from concrete experience. Both Roger Allen’s “The Happy Traitor” (2010) and Mara Naaman’s “Disciplinary Divergences” (2010) offer refreshingly grounded glimpses at the very specific material limitations facing both the producers of Arabic literature (novelists, poets and critics) and their would-be English translators—translators of Arabic literature may find Allen’s (2010: 481) emphasis on “compromise” a refreshing alternative to Western preoccupations with untranslatability and aporia. Likewise, Elliott Colla’s “Dragomen and Checkpoints” (2015) and Shaden Tageldin’s Disarming Words (2011) urgently remind those who would celebrate Arabic-to-English translation as a utopian cross-cultural practice to remember how frequently translation has also been used to enable and enact colonial, imperial and military violence. Also, of note in this growing field are those scholars, like Sinan Antoon (2014), who have revealed acclaimed literary translations from Arabic— translations hailed by the Western theorists of translation studies— to be riddled with obvious, straightforward mechanical errors. Finally—and perhaps most central to the alternative model of translation theory proposed in this chapter—the editors and translators of the landmark Library of Arabic Literature (LAL) initiative frequently stress the importance of collaboration as a form of translation practice. In his short preface to Consorts of the Caliphs, the first work translated by LAL’s editorial board, for example, Shawkat Toorawa (2015) discusses in detail the specifics of this initiative’s collaborative process, which involves not only several translators and editors, but innumerable rounds of revisions and corrections. Like Toorawa, Allen (2010) also underscores the importance of collaboration to his and Adnan Haydar’s translations of The Ship (1985) and In Search of Walid Masoud (2000) by the Palestinian author Jabra Ibrahim Jabra. Indeed, upon reading the translation, Jabra himself (a profoundly bicultural figure equally as versed in English as in Arabic literature) remarked that Allen and Haydar’s translations actually ‘achieved his goals better than his own originals’ because the translators’ two separate voices ‘managed to convey the voice differentiations of the two principal narrators’ in a way that he, as a single author of the original work, could not (2010: 480). Jabra would later try to replicate his translators’ process by co-authoring the novel ʿĀlam bi-lā kharāʾiṭ (A World without Maps) with the Saudi author Abdelrahman Munif. When polyvocality is part of the project’s goal, it would seem, collaboration becomes integral to its method. In this chapter, the founders and editors of Tahrir Documents, an online archive of paper documents collected in Tahrir Square during and after the 25 January 2011 uprising in Egypt, add to this developing conversation about Arabic- to- English translation theory and practice. In the first section, we offer an overview of our process and some reflections on the numerous small- scale, practical issues that our collectors, translators and editors faced over the course of the archive’s creation. We do so in the hopes that those interested in comparable grouporiented translation projects might model their work after (and improve upon) the methodologies and practices we developed. In the second section, we build off these concrete details to advance an alternative, if tentative, theory for how to practice Arabic-to-English translation in a rapidly changing, revolutionary political context like Tahrir Square. Inspired by the collaborative approaches to translation modeled in Allen’s “Happy Traitor” and by the editors of the LAL, we argue that, in order to render the fractious, contentious and polyvocal world of a mass political uprising for English-language audiences, one must assemble a similar multiplicity of translators while also maintaining a strong editorial board capable of quickly and efficiently standardizing key terms and concepts as they evolve. Moreover, we illustrate that demonstrations and mobilizations on such a mass scale require translation not only across languages, but also across media, digitizing paper and other 177

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ephemera in order to recreate not only the words but the atmosphere of the Square. Finally, we argue that revolutionary practices like those performed in Tahrir Square demand not translators but interpreters—that is, an approach to translation that prioritizes speed and accessibility over academic contemplation and deliberation. With Tahrir Documents, then, we sought to democratize translation in the same way the Tahrir protestors worked to democratize the political process: as one collectively negotiated through interconnected, inclusive networks, rather than as a solitary, scholarly practice demanding copious annotation and indexing. This simultaneously pragmatic and theoretical work is meant as a corrective to those accounts of translation theory that situate Arabic as a translational limit- language without ever having attempted to practice translation at this supposed limit.2 The translators who contributed to Tahrir Documents, together with the managing editors who reviewed their work (all of us volunteers), were not primarily concerned with the philosophical underpinnings of translation: translation as a sacred or secular humanist practice; translation as preservation, as utopian gesture, as a mode of imperial or colonial violence; translation as transference, as aporia, as exploration of the self- other dynamic. Instead, the central preoccupation of Tahrir Documents was how to make an emerging, ad hoc Arabic print culture in the now-legendary Square available to English-language audiences in (almost) real time without sacrificing clarity, legibility or continuity with other discourses and documents from the time. We hoped the archive would participate in a global conversation surrounding the Arab Spring, operating more at the pace of a news feed than a piece of academic work. In this sense too, Tahrir Documents was more concerned with interpretation than translation, with the significant difference that its translators’ bodies, families and livelihoods were not on the line.3 Ultimately, we hope that this chapter will chart a course for new understandings of Arabic-toEnglish translation practice in revolutionary contexts, on the one hand, and in the digital age on the other.

Tahrir Documents: history and practice The Tahrir Documents website and physical archive, now hosted by Library Special Collections in the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA,4 comprises 567 Arabic documents scanned to PDF files, translated into English, and posted online over the course of more than a year (from March 2011 through May 2012).5 The project began when Cameron Hu, a Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago studying in Cairo at the time, expressed an interest in collecting the numerous documents that were circulated in Tahrir Square almost immediately following the first protests, on 25 January, a state holiday that conventionally honored the country’s police force. Most of these pamphlets, broadsides and signs were composed, printed, drawn and photocopied by protestors of various stripes, from the vanguards of new parties (The Popular Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, The Liberation Party, etc.)6 to the newly reorganized members of old ones (the Wafd, the Communist Party, the Revolutionary Socialists). Hu brought together a collection of other students to help develop the concept, create the website and amass a team of volunteer translators, and from this group’s initial efforts, Tahrir Documents emerged. We quickly noticed that the documents distributed in Tahrir Square and other centers of revolutionary activity in Egypt offered a significantly different perspective on the events happening across the country, one that nuanced and enriched the story told by international media. Digital exchanges between and among supporters and detractors of the revolution on social media platforms were not the only forms of communication structuring the political and social language of the Square. Political demands and strategies were also articulated and circulated 178

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in pamphlets and newspapers, just as protest couplets scrawled on cardboard signs helped rally the crowd in unified rhythms, and poems hung from clotheslines offered a wide variety of dreams and visions for a post- Mubarak future. “Standing in Tahrir Square, sing out, dear uncle! dear bricklayer!” one poem hung from a clothesline cried out. “Bring me a basket of bread and a clay pot of water / The revolution is for our children, our uncles, and our aunts.”7 Written in colloquial Egyptian Arabic, the poem is both formally and thematically “of the people”: the words qulā (clay pot) and ʿīsh (bread) evoke a particularly rural image of sustenance, while the appeal to a wide variety of figures (ʿamm or “old man” [literally: uncle], and banā or “bricklayer”) invite broad participation in a new political process. The poem’s language as well as its content thus broaden the scope of the revolution beyond the shabāb— the young people and predominant users of social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. Elderly “uncles,” “aunts” and “bricklayers” are also, in this small bit of poetry, to be part of the new national imaginary. It was clear from the very beginning of the collection process, therefore, that in order to render the popular, multi-voiced timbre of Tahrir in English, the Tahrir Documents project would have to be both collectively organized and collaboratively executed. Any visitor to Tahrir Square during the later days of the revolution (popularly considered to have lasted 18 days) was immediately struck by the amount of printed material that circulated as papers, signs, banners and pamphlets. No longer gripped by the fear that had constrained them for decades, Egyptians of all ages—many with no prior interest in politics—handed out foundational statements for new parties and lists of demands; others documented everyday events in newspapers and chronicles, while poets attempted to record in rhyme and meter the hope that permeated the Square. Some vendors even exploited the situation to sell their goods or services. The simple act of sharing paper with others became integral to the foundation of a new political community, a Tahrir republic.8 Still, not long after demonstrations began in Cairo, international media outlets rushed to describe the Egyptian protests as the beginning of yet another “Twitter revolution,” a phrase developed in conjunction with the Tunisian uprising that had deposed President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali weeks earlier—and which had also been used in discussions of the 2009 Green Movement in Iran (cf. Sullivan, 2009; The Washington Times, 2009; Baumann, 2011; Zuckerman, 2011; Lotan et al., 2011). If social media played a key role in the organization and orchestration of these protests by helping protesters spread their message of change and mobilize the Egyptian masses, we might say that print media took over once new political futures had to be articulated in greater detail. Protestors used print material to participate in political, intellectual and social debate, and it is this latter aspect of cultural production that Tahrir Documents aimed to record, archive and “carry over” (naql) to English-language audiences.9 By scanning these documents into easily accessed electronic files and posting them alongside English translations, we sought to complicate the increasingly widespread characterization of the direct actions in Tahrir Square as a revolution fueled exclusively by social media platforms. The resulting archive offers a multi-layered perspective on the much-discussed political, social and economic culture of the Square. What began as an abstract interest in preserving and making available the paper ephemera that filled the Square quickly became an experiment in large-scale crowd-sourced translation. Tahrir Documents likewise transformed from a small pile of papers into a living archive, growing in real time alongside postrevolutionary political developments. The final product of this experiment is a simultaneously physical and digital archive whose very form asserts the continued relevance of analogue media in the process of democratic political negotiation, even as it explores new directions in digital humanities research and collaborative translation. 179

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While this project developed in the very specific context of the 2011 Egyptian uprisings, we believe that our collective, collaborative, networked approach to translation can be applied to any number of contexts in which scholars wish to collect, translate and digitize any set of documents for a wider reading public. With some modifications, the Tahrir Documents model could also be used to crowd- source the translation of a novel; catalogue, translate and post online a section of legal code; encourage students in a translation seminar to collaborate on a project too large for an individual to complete during the time allotted for a university course, etc. In the interest of making our process available to future teachers and students of translation studies, we offer here a comprehensive outline. We began by sending volunteers out into the crowds that flocked to Tahrir Square during and after the revolution, especially on Fridays, to collect all sorts of printed material given out there by hand. We also accepted donations of material collected by individuals who were not part of the project after soliciting them through informal contacts and on the Cairo Scholars listserv.10 In cases where we could not collect a physical copy— for instance, when protest poetry was strung up around the Square— we took digital photographs of the material.11 The physical documents were then scanned to PDF files, and digital copies of the collected documents were placed into folders labelled by date and shared online via Dropbox. The next foundational step in the project was building a network of volunteer translators, sourced through personal contacts and institutional mailing lists. With minimal effort by word of mouth and over the internet, we were able to bring together more than 70 individuals interested in Arabic- to- English translation. Every time a new set of documents was scanned and saved in Dropbox, an editor would post the newly added document names and dates in a spreadsheet hosted on Google Documents.12 Volunteer translators would then receive an e- mail alerting them that a new set of documents was available for translation and directing them to the online spreadsheet, where each translator could register his/her name beside any unclaimed document s/ he wished to translate. Translators then used the shared Dropbox to find the associated documents and prepare their translations. One of the problems we faced with the project, however, was that of inconsistency. Our translators came from a range of backgrounds and obtained their language training at various institutions. Therefore, some translators coming from advanced degree programs in Arabic were anxious to add explanatory notes to justify their choices—something we generally worked to avoid in favor of producing immediately accessible translations in English. Other translators, on the other hand, did not have advanced training in Islam, which often led to irregularities in their translations of the Qur’anic verses that peppered the documents. Our solution was to depend on a single English translation of the Qur’an in all cases: Alan Jones’ (2007) translation. Furthermore, many of our translators had no in- country experience in Egypt, having studied Arabic in Europe, the United States or elsewhere in the Arab world, and consequently were unfamiliar with key government actors and institutions. Our reviewers thus kept a close eye on how translators rendered, by way of example, Majlis al-Shaʿb (The People’s Assembly) or Majlis al-Shūrā (The Shura Council), among many other governmental and non-governmental bodies, organizations and people. Finally, our editors took special care to create a balance between the English translations of documents written in colloquial Egyptian Arabic and fuṣḥā, or Modern Standard Arabic, by holding all translations to the same standards of English while acknowledging the stylistic differences of the two registers of Arabic. Another difficulty we faced in the initial stages of the project was that of speed. We wanted Tahrir Documents to operate almost like a news feed— a direct line into Tahrir Square that would keep its readers up- to- date on the latest developments. Yet because the majority of 180

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our translators were graduate students or working professionals with numerous other commitments, they often failed to complete their translations in a timely manner. To solve this issue, we soon instituted deadlines for both the translators and the reviewers: after signing up for a document, each translator had one week to complete and upload his or her draft. Once a translator finished a draft, they sent it to a Gmail account shared by our editorial team, updated the Google spreadsheet to indicate that their draft was ready for review and— if the translator wished— signed up for another document if any remained unclaimed. Through a delicate balance of consensus and compromise, the website’s head editors selected a small group of translation reviewers who played an essential part in Tahrir Documents’ process of quality control. Like the editorial board of the LAL, this group— chosen for their previous experience with Arabic translation— monitored the Google spreadsheet at regular intervals to know when translation drafts were waiting for them in the Gmail account they shared. When a new draft arrived, a reviewer put his or her name alongside the original translator’s in the Google spreadsheet, logged in to the Gmail account to download the draft, reviewed the draft for accuracy and style, and finally sent a publishable version as a reply to the initial e- mail, addressed only to the review account where all versions of translations were archived. Finally, a core team member would log in to the Tahrir Documents website, post the final version online on a WordPress site, and then tweet from the project’s Twitter account (@TahrirDocuments) with a link to the document.13 Our primary concern in creating the digital archive was immediacy; we wanted to massively distribute the writings of Tahrir Square protestors to English-language audiences in the United States and beyond who might otherwise have viewed the protests as fueled exclusively by social media. We aimed to translate and publish quickly, and we therefore prized a faster translation over a more precise one. Each final translation occupied its own page on www.tahrirdocuments.org and was accompanied by a link to the original document in a downloadable PDF.14 At the top of every page, we included an image file (.png) of the first page of the original document to give online readers a sense of the document’s physical shape, size and texture. At the bottom, we listed the date the document was initially acquired, the name of the translator and the name of the translation reviewer. Each post was also tagged according to its contents. The overall number and type of tags used developed over the course of the project and reflected changes in the political arena within Egypt. For instance, as parties for and against the March 19, 2011, constitutional referendum pushed their agendas, we created an independent area of the site devoted solely to constitutional issues, subsequently subdivided into categories such as “March Referendum,” “Constitutional Theory” and treatises from the Dustour group and the “Constitution First” (alDustūr Awwalan) movement. As the situation developed, other issues such as moral conduct, the return of Mubarak’s cronies (fulūl al- niẓām) to the political scene, and the foundation of new political parties resulted in new categories on the site as well (for more on the vagaries and strategies of translating difficult formulas such as fulūl al-niẓām, al-niẓām al-makhlūʿ and al-rumūz, see the section “Translation theory at Tahrir Documents”). In this way, Tahrir Documents, which initially aimed to complicate the international media’s narrative of digitally produced, socially networked revolution in Egypt, ultimately became its own form of digital media, making use of precisely the social media tools whose role in the revolution it aimed to decentralize. However, at the core of our project was a genuine interest in preserving and making available to others the paper documents we collected. When curating the documents, editors and reviewers did not distinguish between document types, nor did they prioritize any particular topic or issue, although we do not know what, if any, specific criteria the volunteer translators used when selecting documents to translate. While the vast 181

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majority of collected documents were translated and posted online, some remained unclaimed by the end of the active collection and posting phase of the project and are now only available in hard copy at the UCLA library. We are aware of the paradox that, in order to make the analogue culture of Tahrir legible to readers (of English) outside the Square, we had to assemble our own form of digital social network— one specifically based around translation. Still, we maintain that this kind of collaborative, networked, almost rhizomatic translation work mirrors the utopian political imaginary of the Square itself: just as protesters from all walks of life fought to make their voices heard in pamphlets, banners, newspapers and signs, so the translators at Tahrir Documents deployed a variety of voices to render this popular polyvocality into English.

Translation theory at Tahrir Documents According to Johnson (1985: 148): The translator must fight just as hard against the desire to be innocent as against what we today consider the guilty desire to master the text’s message. It is, indeed, at the moment of translation that the textual battle comes into its own. Translation is a bridge that creates out of itself the two fields of battle it separates. At Tahrir Documents, the drive to produce readable English translations as soon as possible led our team to privilege continuity and speed at the expense of exculpating ourselves through translator’s introductions, contextual commentary or even—in the majority of cases—the use of explanatory footnotes. Contrast our approach with Vladimir Nabokov’s in his translation of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, which consists of a slim first volume (the translation) and heavy second and third volumes (the notes). Discussing his process, Nabokov (2012: 125) writes, ‘I want[ed] translations with copious footnotes, footnotes reaching up like skyscrapers to the top of this or that page so as to leave only the gleam of one textual line between commentary and eternity.’ To be sure, many a translator might share Nabokov’s desire for such abundant annotation. Yet the scholarly milieu in which he was working is quite opposed to the popular political context of mass uprising in which Tahrir Documents operated. In its emphasis on collectivity over solitary preoccupation, and on speed over perfectionism, the project might best be described as one of interpretation more than translation. ‘To interpret’ as Colla (2015: 141) puts it, ‘is to serve as intermediary – as go- between, disseminator or pawnbroker – someone who gets between this and that. As translator, the interpreter is chiefly a meddler, albeit one who meddles in such a way as to create more meaning, not less.’ In its preoccupation with speed and directness over scholarly deliberation, and thus with interpretation over translation, Tahrir Documents also diverges significantly from the LAL translation initiative. Unlike the editors and translators at LAL, we had no prefaces, introductions or indexes in which to offer up in-depth explanations and analyses of relevant historical details and biographical sketches of major figures to readers not familiar with the context of contemporary Egypt. We were not, after all, assembling a “library” or series of reference works, as the LAL is doing, but were rather striving to recreate the atmosphere of the Square for English-language readers, on the one hand, and to destabilize the agreed-upon narrative of a “Twitter Revolution,” on the other. We were aiming, in other words, not to build Nabokovian skyscrapers but to expose hidden underground networks, root systems of collective action and popular mobilization. 182

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We did, however, attempt to quiet any clashes that might have occurred in our target language by providing translators with two key documents: a standardized system for transliterating Arabic when necessary, and an ad hoc “Style Guide” covering best practices and common translation errors. In order to ensure consistency and accuracy, particularly that the same Arabic terms were translated identically by different people working on a variety of separate documents, we gave translators a list of phrases that came up frequently in the collected documents. These lists included terms like al-Majlis al-Aʿlā li-l-Quwwāt al-Musallaḥa (which we standardized as “The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces” or “SCAF”) and Arabic names that do not have a standard English transliteration, like Aḥmad Shafīq (for which we used a transliteration without diacritical marks: Ahmad Shafiq). Naturally, the content of such supplementary, explanatory documents should be adapted for the specific needs of any particular project. Although we initially developed the “Style Guide” simply to standardize spellings of commonly used names and terms, it quickly became clear that this guide was also the space in which we were articulating our ideas about how to produce good, clear translations of Arabic, prizing readability in English over meticulous precision in reproducing the content of the original. Some other examples from our “Style Guide” included reminders that the wāw in Arabic does not necessarily always mean “and” in English, and that the definite article (alif lām) need not be rendered “the” in every case and might simply be ignored when translating. Nevertheless, we also wanted to avoid creating what Toorawa (2015: xxxiv) has referred to as “English- ed” versions of the Arabic originals. We hoped instead to maintain the “foreignizing” impulse of translation originally described by Friedrich Schleiermacher and then so readily embraced by Allen (2010) in his work with literary texts. Toward this end, we chose to standardize a number of fixed terms and frequently recurring expressions in our texts. For example, the documents circulated in the Square eventually began to address al-fulūl and al-rumūz of al-niẓām al-makhlūʿ as Mubarak’s cronies regrouped and began to jockey for power again. These terms are particularly evident in documents from the spring and summer of 2011, such as Miṣr al- Thawriyyah (Revolutionary Egypt, a newspaper published by the Popular Committees for the Defense of the Revolution),15 “The Third Statement of the People’s Revolution”16 and “Did You Know?”17 among others. Our editorial team had to come up with standard translations for all of these terms, and many more. Forced to boil down the multiple valences of these words into unitary English equivalents, we eventually settled on “remnants,” “figureheads” and “the deposed regime,” respectively, and added these terms to our “Style Guide.” An independent translator would perhaps enjoy some leeway in these cases and others, but we privileged continuity among all of our English translations. We were also keen to limit the use of brackets and explanatory footnotes, which we resorted to only when absolutely necessary. In short, we struck a balance between comprehensibility, faithfulness to our source texts and readability, even if such readability was achieved at the expense of skyscraper-like Nabokovian footnotes ascending toward heavenly perfection.18 Once we stopped collecting documents and the archive became a settled corpus, our core team took the opportunity to reflect on how the project developed and where it ended up. We convened a panel bringing together our primary group of translators and reviewers titled “Documenting the Revolution: The Print Culture of Tahrir Square,” held at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association in Denver. There, panelists began a discussion about the theoretical implications of a practice of digital archiving that occurs concurrently with the production and spread of the materials being collected. Following the example of the materials collected in the archive, the panel—like the project itself—adopted polyvocality as 183

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an organizing principle and approached the documents it contained from multiple, transdisciplinary perspectives, including history, philosophy, performance studies and comparative literature.19 Panelists addressed questions about interactions between the local, the national, the regional and the global through the medium of the archive; how the rumors and accusations that circulated in Tahrir Square illuminated notions of justice; and how the poetics of revolution articulated in the archive linked up with those of the Arab Spring more generally and other concurrent revolutionary movements like Occupy Wall Street.20 If recent texts from the Euro- American field of translation studies are any indication, translation in this world remains an academic pursuit at some remove from the sphere of the popular and the social. Deeply bicultural, the translator is, according to this literature, both uniquely qualified to move among social and linguistic worlds and plagued by indecision and aporia; s/ he must carefully weigh what, exactly, to “carry over” from source into target language, and how best to carry it. For scholars of so-called minor languages such as Arabic, however, operating in such rapidly developing contexts as Tahrir Square, urgency compels us to be more like interpreters— laborers on the ground and in the field who pay attention to ‘the performative, contingent aspect of [our] action’ (Colla, 2015: 141)— than translators. And perhaps the profession of interpretation, as mobilized by the editors and translators of Tahrir Documents, is more apt to revolutionary praxis than translation. Only afterward did we allow ourselves to become scholars— translators— surveying the corpus we had assembled and critically reflecting upon it. Only afterward could we assemble skyscrapers of history and context from the bits and pieces of a collectively negotiated present.

Conclusion: present imperfections, future applications Inevitably, any critical reflection on a project like Tahrir Documents must entail some comments on the shortcomings we faced. We mention some of these shortcomings here both in an effort to excuse some of the archive’s hidden biases and drawbacks and, perhaps more importantly, to outline pitfalls in the hopes that future implementations and adaptations of our process might be able to avoid them. First, with the continual growth of the digital world and its further integration into daily life, future scholars and activists might find that a digital-archiving mobile application serves their purposes of translation and transmission better than an archive optimized for access through a website, like Tahrir Documents. Second, the main obstacle similar endeavors will doubtless face is the availability and willingness of volunteers capable of doing the translation and review work so central to the digital imprint of such projects. Third, future archivists may be less concerned with translation and more interested in digitizing massive amounts of print material for dissemination on the web. In such cases, it would make sense to simply archive materials in the original language and dispense with their translation into English, though digital archivists should take care with questions of organization, tagging and how best to create metadata for the documents, while also keeping in mind their intended audience. The fourth and perhaps most significant obstacle that the editors of Tahrir Documents faced was the lack of optical character recognition (OCR) scanning technology for Arabic text at the time of the project’s assembly.21 While we successfully created a searchable English archive of our translations, we were regrettably unable to do the same with the original Arabic texts. We are fully aware of the problematic nature of this aspect of the archive and would suggest, with the benefit of hindsight, that future projects in the same vein attempt to overcome it. A reliable, accurate OCR program would have allowed users to digitally search the original Arabic documents along with their English translations. 184

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Additionally, such a program would have made it possible for phrases and words from the Arabic documents to appear in regular internet search engine results, thus providing immediate access for users searching the broader internet for information on the postrevolutionary period in Egypt. To address one final drawback of our format: while the participation of our network of volunteer translators was absolutely central to the success of Tahrir Documents, the structure of the group may have determined which documents were translated first and which documents ultimately remained untranslated. For the most part, our translators were American and European graduate students interested in the Middle East. We believe this may have led to a certain bias in the kinds of material that were translated. Specifically, we may have inadvertently established a process that privileged certain topics, concerns or genres of documents over others, in particular shorter documents over longer ones, factual over theoretical, and secular over religious. In other words, it is likely that our translators favored documents that were easier to translate, though we did not collect any survey data after the fact to prove our supposition. In any case, this bias did not present itself in our document collection and, indeed, our physical archive is less affected by this than is our digital archive, since only translated documents were uploaded.22 Despite these stumbling blocks, we believe the Tahrir Documents archive will continue to prove useful to scholars in a range of fields and disciplines, including translation studies, contemporary Egyptian history, the sociology of collective uprisings, the politics of mass mobilization and the digital humanities. In a world that is becoming increasingly defined and understood by the production, curation and spread of digital information, translation in general (and Arabic-to-English translation in particular) is becoming less of a solitary, scholarly pursuit and more of a connective, collaborative, networked practice. Particularly in moments of political and social upheaval and restructuring, it is important to remain attentive to a plurality of voices, not only those (younger, perhaps more affluent) voices one can find on major social networks. Tahrir Documents developed at the nexus of translation, interpretation, archiving and the digital humanities. Our hope is that translators and/ or archivists who find themselves in a future historical moment of similar political, social and cultural significance might benefit from the experiences shared in this chapter, and perhaps put a similar collaborative translation model into practice. At the same time, we hope Tahrir Documents might model for future translators a way to wrest the practice of translation away from the Nabakovian skyscraper of academic annotation and into the world of the interpreter, the embedded worker driven not by profit or self- interest but by urgency, immediacy and responsibility to his/ her community. We hope, in other words, to have made translation less of a fraught philosophical pursuit or metaphor for expressive impossibility and to have given it new life as a process of collective renegotiation and collaborative reimagining, rather like revolutionary praxis itself.

Notes 1 We would like to start by thanking all of our volunteer translators without whom this project would not have been possible. For a full list of the translators, see http:// wayback.archive- it.org/ 2358/20120130135712/http://www.tahrirdocuments.org/about/. This chapter represents the culmination of our experiences with Tahrir Documents, which we have previously addressed in Emily Drumsta and Levi Thompson, “Tahrir Documents,” Creative Time Summit: Living as Form, New York University Skirball Center (September 23, 2011); Tahrir Documents, “An introduction to Tahrir Documents,” http://occupyeverything.org/2011/an-introduction-to-tahrir-documents/; Tahrir Documents, “Tahrir Documents: A guide,” http://occupyeverything.org/2011/tahrirdocuments-a-guide/; Tahrīr; Maydān- i Nātamām (Tahrir: The Ongoing Square), interview with

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2

3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Gelare Khoshgozaran for Mardomak (in Persian), 7 Mihr 1390 (September 29, 2011), http:// mardomak.org/ story/ tahrir_ square. See also Tadwin, “The Tahrir Documents: Assembling the Egyptian Uprising,” interview with David Hirsch (August 7, 2013), http:// tadweenpublishing.com/ blogs/news/8500457-the-tahrir-documents-assembling-the-egyptian-uprising. Apter (2006) in particular seems continually preoccupied with the translation of the Qur’an and Arabic more generally, though she has no familiarity with the language. Acknowledging the difficulties of translating the Qur’an, however, does not necessarily impede one from translating the text. A.J. Droge’s (2013) introductory comments to his recent translation of the Qur’an speak to this (cf. Toorawa, 2013). On the significant risks faced by Iraqi Arabic translators who worked with the American army during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, see Colla (2015: 135–136). Interested parties unaffiliated with UCLA must be over 18 years old and present a government-issued photo identification at the circulation desk of the Charles E. Young Research Library on the UCLA campus. One may then register with the Department of Special Collections located in the Library’s basement and request the Tahrir Documents collection. It takes a couple of days for documents to be delivered to the library. The Special Collections reading room is open from 10am until 5pm, Monday to Saturday, excepting holidays. The physical archive holds a number of items that were added to the collection after the digitization and translation portion of the project ended. In addition to being found on the original Tahrir Documents website, the archive’s digital materials are part of the UCLA library’s International Digital Ephemera Project: http://idep.library.ucla.edu/tahrir-documents/. Archived versions of the website may be accessed, by date, through Archive- it’s Wayback Machine, provided both by the American University in Cairo’s Egypt Revolution and Politics Web Archive: https://wayback.archive-it.org/2358/*/http://www.tahrirdocuments.org/ and the University of Texas at Austin Libraries’ Human Rights Documentation Initiative Collections: https:// wayback. archive-it.org/org-354/*/http://www.tahrirdocuments.org/. While document collection ended in January 2012, the last translated document was posted online in May 2012. Al-lijān al-shaʿbiyyah li-l-difāʿ ʿan al-thawrah; ḥizb al-taḥrir. http://wayback.archive-it.org/2358/20120130153630/http://www.tahrirdocuments.org/2011/05/ signs-from-tahrir-25th-of-january-poem/. Samia Mehrez (2013) refers to this revolutionary space as the “Independent Republic of Tahrir.” The term naql, “both a copy and a making over” (Ghazoul, 2014: 376), being an especially apt one for describing the anxieties that are part and parcel of translation practice (cf. Creswell, 2012: 4–6). Dr. Samer Ali moderates Cairo Scholars, a listserv hosted by the University of Texas at Austin: https:// utlists.utexas.edu/sympa/info/cairoscholars. See, for instance, “Signs: Ali Baba and the forty thieves,” http://wayback.archive-it.org/2358/ 20120130153632/http://www.tahrirdocuments.org/2011/05/1774/. This product is now called Google Sheets. See www.google.com/sheets/about/. https://wordpress.com/create/. Tahrir Documents enlisted the assistance of a web designer (robinmcdowell.com), who volunteered to help with some of the more intricate details involved with creating our site, though a more bare-bones design would require little technical knowledge. The tahrirdocuments.org domain will eventually be shut down once the site moves to its permanent home on the UCLA servers, at http://idep.library.ucla.edu/tahrir-documents/. We collected and translated many issues of this paper. See http://wayback.archive- it.org/2358/ 20120130135755/http://www.tahrirdocuments.org/category/revolution-2/revolutionary-newspapers/. http://wayback.archive-it.org/2358/20120130155706/http://www.tahrirdocuments.org/2011/06/ third-statement-of-the-peoples-revolution/. http:// wayback.archive- it.org/ 2358/ 20120130153602/ http:// www.tahrirdocuments.org/ 2011/ 07/ didyou-know/. We intentionally remind the reader of the Tower of Babel here to highlight the formal connection between it and Nabokov’s skyscrapers of notes. Indeed, even if we had attempted to thoroughly explain our source texts, ‘[u]nderstanding is always partial, always subject to emendation’ George Steiner (1988: 428) reminds us. He further adds that: ‘[n]atural language is not only polysemic and in process of diachronic change. It is imprecise, it has to be imprecise, to serve human locution. And although the existence of a “perfect translation” or “perfect exchange of the totality of intended

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19 20

21

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meaning” between two speakers is theoretically conceivable, there could be no way of verifying the actual fact. For how would we know?” (1988: 428). We also want to express our appreciation to our discussant, Murad Idris, for his thoughtful responses to our presentations. Although Occupy and the Egyptian revolution developed out of similar concerted populist organizing, the two necessarily operated with different organizational vocabularies. For instance, the Egyptian resistance first demonstrated the efficacy of “sitting-in” (iʿtiṣām) tactics, but resistance to the “occupation” (iḥtilāl) of Palestine was also fundamental to much of the revolutionary action in Egypt. Several of the documents collected in the archive, however, were handwritten, and in these cases even if we had access to OCR technology for Arabic at the time, we still would not have been able to render these documents as digital text. In some cases, handwritten notes were even added to printed documents. See, for example, “The call of al- Aqsa: We will meet in Jerusalem” http:// wayback. archive- it.org/ 2358/ 20120130153050/ http:// www.tahrirdocuments.org/ 2011/ 06/ the- call- of- al- aqsawe-will-meet-in-jerusalem/. We also want to draw attention to a more specific institutional problem here. When we brought the project to a close, we donated both our physical and digital archives to the UCLA Libraries. UCLA was primarily interested in housing our physical archive while we were more concerned with preserving the digital archive and, with it, our translations. Problems with digital archiving in libraries more generally, however (and UCLA is no exception), have made the large- scale transfer of the Tahrir Documents website problematic. Specifically, when using the UCLA Digital Library, users must remember a more complex URL (instead of http:// tahrirdocuments.org, the address becomes http:// digital2.library.ucla.edu/ viewItem.do?ark=21198/ zz002czwbx). Other problems associated with this new incarnation of the archive stem from the fact that current library models have been built to digitize physical archives but remain largely incompatible with absorbing an already existing digital project. This issue was discussed at length at Elias Saba and Alex Winder, “Tahrir Documents: Reflections on building a digital archive,” University of Pennsylvania, WORD LAB Digital Humanities Discussion Group, Philadelphia, PA (March 17, 2015). In particular, we owe a debt of gratitude to Brian Vivier, Molly Des Jardin, Katie Rawson and Mitch Fraas for their insights during the question and answer period.

Further reading Apter, E. (2013). Against world literature: On the politics of untranslatability. London and New York: Verso. Fahmy, D. and Faruqi, D. (eds.) (2017). Egypt and the contradictions of liberalism: Illiberal intelligentsia and the future of Egyptian democracy. London: Oneworld. Hassan, A. (2015). Media, revolution and politics in Egypt: The story of an uprising. London: I.B. Tauris.

References Allen, R. (2010). The happy traitor: Tales of translation. Comparative Literature Studies, 47(4): 472–486. Antoon, S. (2014). Adunis, mistranslated (part one). Jadaliyya. Available at: www.jadaliyya.com/pages/ index/14539/adunis-mistranslated-(part-one). Apter, E. (2006). The translation zone: A new comparative literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Baumann, N. (2011). What’s happening in Tunisia explained. Mother Jones. Available at: www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/01/whats-happening-tunisia-explained. Colla, E. (2015). Dragomen and checkpoints. The Translator, 21(2): 132–153. Creswell, R. (2012). Tradition and translation: Poetic modernism in Beirut. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, New York University, USA. Derrida, J. (2012). What is a “relevant” translation [trans. Lawrence Venuti]. In: Venuti, L. (ed.), The translation studies reader. Abingdon: Routledge, 365–388. Droge, A.J. (2013). The Qur’ān: A new annotated translation. Sheffield, UK, and Bristol, CT: Equinox. Ghazoul, F.J. (2014). Majnun Layla: Translation as transposition. In: Bermann, S. and Porter, C. (eds.), A companion to translation studies. Malden, MA, and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 375–387.

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Levi Thompson et al. Jabra, J. (1985). The ship [trans. Adnan Haydar and Roger Allen]. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Jabra, J. (2000). In search of Walid Masoud [trans. Roger Allen and Adnan Haydar]. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Johnson, B. (1985). Taking fidelity philosophically. In: Graham, J.F. (ed.), Difference in translation. Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 142–148. Jones, A. (2007). The Qur’an [trans. Alan Jones]. Exeter: Gibb Memorial Trust. Lotan, G., Graeff, E., Ananny, M., Gaffney, D., Pearce, I. and Boyd, D. (2011). The Arab Spring | the revolutions were tweeted: Information flows during the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. International Journal of Communication, 5: 1375–1405. Mehrez, S. (2013). “Watching” Tahrir. Global Dialogue: Newsletter for the International Sociological Association, 2(3). Available at: http://isa-global-dialogue.net/%E2%80%9Cwatching%E2%80%9Dtahrir/. Naaman, M. (2010). Disciplinary divergences: Problematizing the field of Arabic literature. Comparative Literature Studies, 47(4): 446–471. Nabokov, V. (2012). Problems of translation: Onegin in English. In: Venuti, L. (ed.), The translation studies reader. Abingdon: Routledge, 113–125. Pushkin, A. (1964). Eugene Onegin: A novel in verse [trans. Vladimir Nabokov]. 4 vols. New York: Bollingen Foundation. Steiner, G. (1988). After Babel: Aspects of language and translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sullivan, A. (2009). The revolution will be Twittered. The Atlantic. Available at: www.theatlantic.com/ daily-dish/archive/2009/06/the-revolution-will-be-twittered/200478/. Tageldin, S. (2011). Disarming words: Empire and the seductions of translation in Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press. Toorawa, S. (2013). How (not) to translate the Qur’an [paper presented at the Qurʾān Seminar, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, February 21, 2013]. Available at: www.youtube. com/watch?v=EO0Lj70CCFU. Toorawa, S. (2015). Note on the translation. In: Toorawa, S. (ed.), Ibn al-Sāʿī. Consorts of the Caliphs: Women and the Court of Baghdad [trans. Editors of the Library of Arabic Literature]. New York and London: New York University Press, xxxiii–xxxviii. The Washington Times (2009). Editorial: Iran’s Twitter revolution. The Washington Times. Available at: www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/16/irans-twitter-revolution/. Zuckerman, E. (2011). The first Twitter revolution? Foreign Policy. Available at: http:// foreignpolicy. com/2011/01/15/the-first-twitter-revolution-2/.

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11 TRANSLATING IMAGES OF THE 2011 SYRIAN REVOLUTION A contratextual approach Manal Al-Natour

The image as a new cultural product and a mode of resistance While the state had used propaganda in an effort to create and increase its own power, the 2011 Syrian Revolution questioned its structure and reshaped not only Syrian subjectivity, but ultimately political rhetoric as well. The language of the images displayed during the Arab Spring in general, and the 2011 Syrian Revolution in particular, is still a relatively underresearched topic, and invites investigation as it reflects the rapid sociopolitical changes in the Arab world. The images displayed in the revolution are clear manifestations of these shifts on the subjective level. The emerging rhetoric is political, subjective, and free of any restrains—it is a form of resistance to oppression that has become progressively entrenched in the society over the last forty years. The images, exemplified by political posters and cartoons, are a form of resistance that is worth analysis, not only in the Arabic- speaking countries but also in the West. Many of these images and posters have been displayed not only on social media websites, but also ‘in actual art galleries, not virtual ones, to raise global awareness about the events taking place in Syria’ (Halasa et al., 2014: 241). Khatib examines the role of the image as a tool of resistance in the latest uprisings in the Arab world, claiming that the image has ‘transferred the citizen from a passive visual object into an empowered agent’ (2012: 129). The image granted the citizen a new public ‘space for expression’ and ‘created visibility’ about the oppression they suffer and the strong demand for freedom, so they became a medium of mobilization (Khatib, 2012: 129). In the 2011 Syrian Revolution, the new cultural products such as political posters and images became a testimonial to the rapid shift in Syria and its culture; their translation requires profound knowledge of the context of the Syrian uprising, as they are heavily loaded with contratextual references. Hatim states that contratextuality is a type of intertextuality. He defines intertextuality as ‘a precondition for comprehensibility and clarity of all texts, involving the dependence of one text as a semiotic entity upon another … the intertextual reference, instead of evoking an image, can preclude it, parody it or signify its exact opposite, cases which are all subsumed under what is known as Contratextuality’ (1997: 218, emphasis in original). Thus, knowledge of the source text, and the culture it is embedded in, is deemed of paramount importance before translating texts that contain contratextual elements. Hatim and Mason claim that the term ‘contratextual’ ‘covers all instances where speakers or writers systematically employ 189

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opponents’ discourse (terms of reference) for their own purposes’ (1989: 131). Hence, people contratextualize each other’s discourses to deliver specific intended messages. Hatim and Mason offer several examples of contratextuality, highlighting those that engage with political rhetoric such as the rhetoric employed by the Labour and Conservative parties in Britain, and by leaders in the United States and Lebanon (1989: 131). The images in question are creative cultural products that pose a translation problem, as they deal so heavily in contratextual references. The rich cultural peculiarities the images signify demand a translation act that goes beyond bridging gaps between languages and preserves their foreign identity and resistance to power structures embedded in the texts. For many decades, the practice of translation has been perceived as a tool of bridging gaps between languages and cultures. For example, Newmark states that translation is ‘a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language’ (1981: 7). Nida and Taber consider translation as a means of reproduction of the text: ‘translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence of the source language (SL) first in terms of meaning and second in terms of style’ (1982: 12). Maintaining the naturalness of the text in the target language leads to its domestication, which in turn diminishes the identity of the source text and compromises its cultural otherness in many cases. In this regard, Marina Manfredi claims that some scholars, such as Spivak and Niranjana, took a ‘radical position,’ in which they consider the use of translation methods that avoid endorsing ethnocentrism (2010: 46). She writes: ‘The basic assumption underlying postcolonial theory is that translation, far from being an innocent and neutral activity, has played a key role in the construction of a distorted image of the subjected people and in the obscuration of their identity, thus helping to strengthen the hegemonic power of the colony’ (2010: 49). Yet, postcolonial scholars saw that translation could powerfully function as a means of resistance to the colonizer’s language by preserving the otherness of the source culture (2010: 53). This type of translation was advocated by Spivak and Niranjana, a translation that highlights ‘the difference of cultures by making the ST [source text] visible even in the colonizer’s language’ (2010: 53). Highlighting this difference goes with Lawrence Venuti’s call for ‘foreignization’ and the need to cast ‘domestication’ completely to the margins. While domestication relies on producing a fluent and transparent text in the target language, foreignization aims at preserving the foreignness in the target language text to maintain its identity and cultural difference. Venuti advocates foreignization over domestication as a successful translation strategy when dealing with literary texts. His radical questioning of domestication makes him see the fluency and transparency of the translated text as masking the identity of the source text and diminishing its cultural difference from other texts. More importantly, domestication casts the translator as an invisible rather than a visible agent: ‘The more fluent the translation, the more invisible the translator, and presumably, the more visible the writer or meaning of the foreign text’ (Venuti, 1995: 2). On the other hand, Manfredi counters Venuti’s method of ‘foreignization’ and instead advocates ‘hybridization,’ which was proposed by Wolf and Tymoczko. Manfredi claims that this translation method will advance translation as a ‘strategy of intervention … where cultures are mingled’ instead of viewing it as ‘a means of bridging gaps between different cultures’ (2010: 46). As a case study, she offers her own translation of Indian-English literary texts into Italian and delves deeply into the problems that the translator may face when translating these works. Manfredi, like other scholars, such as Wolf and Tymoczko, advocates a translation where cultures mingle and overlap rather than a translation that sheds light 190

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on the differences and polarity between them (2010: 46). Additionally, she claims that it is ‘through translation’ that these differences can be preserved. She proposes combining translation strategies that allow for a ‘hybridness’ on the cultural as well as the linguistic levels. As opposed to outright refusing ‘domestication’ and advocating a sole translation strategy, as Ventui does, Manfredi believes that combining more than one translation strategy ‘could actually aid the admirable aim of respecting both the foreignness of the ST as well as the different target reader’ (2010: 56). She adds that ‘the constant overlapping between different languages and cultures should also emerge in the translation. If it does not, their linguistic, cultural and literary value would be compromised’ (2010: 56). The examples Manfredi chooses reflect the cross-cultural dimension of translation, and their examination reveals the possibility of preserving linguistic and cultural diversity. She claims that these cultural and linguistic differences cannot only be preserved in the target texts but also transferred to the Western reader (2010: 69). In this chapter, I contend that Manfredi’s application of hybridness is a more practical method and a more successful strategy to preserve the cultural and linguistic peculiarities of the source text than employing Venuti’s foreignization as the sole translation strategy. Attempting to produce ‘literal’ translation does not necessarily lead to a greater tolerance of the ‘other’ nor does it further cultural understanding. In this vein, Tarek Shamma (2005) explains the impact of employing foreignization as a sole strategy in translation. As a case study, Shamma examines Richard F. Burton’s translation of the Arabian Nights and its reception in Victorian England and how the employment of foreignization as a sole strategy amplified the differences between cultures and enforced stereotypes. He writes: While Burton’s translation was an example of all what Venuti recommends, it was not subversive, nor did it challenge ethnocentric or racist ideas. Indeed, its ‘estrangement’ of the Arabic text and culture only confirmed the stereotypes and orientalist images that its readers had of the source culture, thereby acquiescing (often consciously) in the discourse of colonialism. It suggests that weakness of Venuti’s and similar theoretical postulates lies in their neglect of the context of translation, and their confusion of the strategy of translation with its socio- political and cultural effects. (Shamma, 2005: 51) Thus, a translation that prioritizes literalism does not necessarily cater to the target reader or convey the text’s cultural and linguistic diversity as in the case of Burton’s translation of the Arabian Nights. The popularity of Burton’s Arabian Nights stems indirectly from the enforcement of these stereotypes that made of the book a source of ‘exotic enjoyment and uncommon pleasures’ for the Western reader that only further endorsed their sense of supremacy and the inferiority of the ‘other’ (Shamma, 2005: 55). Nevertheless, Burton, as Shamma contends, has received harsh criticism from those who considered his translation a disrespectful act to those who read it in Victorian England, especially the erotic slang language that his translation employed (Shamma, 2005: 60). On the other hand, several Western critics praised his translation for its faithfulness, more than any other characteristic (Shamma, 2005: 60). With this ‘faithfulness’ and literalism, the cultural difference is highlighted; therefore, ‘the translation became more “eccentricizing” and “exoticizing” than foreignizing’ (Shamma, 2005: 63). Subsequently, Shamma concludes that conveying the foreignness of the text is not the sole factor that allows for the intervention of the translator – rather it is a whole set of elements that 191

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overlap, shape, and construct each other, such as the broader context of reception, in general, and the situated relationship of the translated text to its culture (Shamma, 2005: 66). Analyzing the images in question and attempting to find the best strategies to convey the contratextual references they bear while preserving their foreign identity is the focus of this chapter. The selected examples of the images at stake shed light on maintaining the linguistic and cultural identity of the source text/ culture for the reader of the target text by employing domesticating and foreignizing strategies of translation.

Analysis of case studies This section treats a selection of illustrative examples of images that contain contratextual expressions or references displayed during the 2011 Syrian Revolution, aiming to examine the most relevant strategies to maintain the cultural and linguistic values when translating such phenomenon from Arabic into English. In most of these examples, contratextuality impacts the cultural context of the images and reflects the mode of Syrians’ resistance to oppression. The analysis of the translation strategies of the images in question is highly influenced by Manfredi’s study on ‘Preserving Linguistic and Cultural Diversity’ and makes use of Kwame Appiah’s notion of ‘thick translation.’ Appiah’s notion of ‘thick translation’ is critically important for preserving the cultural identity of the text. Appiah claims that the most successful translations of a literary text are those ‘that preserve for us [in the target text] the features that make it worth teaching’ (1993: 816). For Appiah, ‘thick translation’ is the best type of literary translation as it ‘seeks with its annotations and its accompanying glosses to locate the text in a rich cultural and linguistic context’ (1993: 817). Several of the below examples demonstrate employing thick translation as a successful strategy.

Carry-over matching plus amplification The Arabic writing in Figure 11.1 refers to a proverb that says: ‘The sun cannot be hidden with a ghirbāl.’ This proverb demonstrates the impossibility of concealing the truth and facts, as they are always as clear and visible in their existence as the sun is. The sentence in this image literally reads: ‘The revolution cannot be hidden with a sieve.’ This image was displayed in Zabadānī at a time when the regime frequently had been referring to the revolutionaries as ‘terrorists’ who came with violent, sectarian agendas. Through this sign, Zabadānī revolutionaries declare that they are adamant that their revolution is against the tyrant regime and oppression and that this fact cannot be hidden or effaced. The image in question poses a contratextual issue. The main problematic concern arises from the use of the culture- specific word ‘ghirbāl,’ which does not have an equivalent in Western culture. The ghirbāl is similar to the Western sieve in shape; however, it is much bigger in size and is made of wood and thick, strong threads to separate small stones and bad seeds of wheat and hay from the good ones when harvesting. The intended message in this image is that the Syrian regime cannot deface the revolution and its noble goals with a ghirbāl, which cannot hide the sun with its large, multiple see-through holes. The revolution has separated the resilient revolutionaries from the hypocrites just as the ghirbāl separates bad seeds from the good ones. While many could opt to translate the culture- specific word ‘ghirbāl’ as ‘sieve,’ ghirbāl is the core of the intended contratextual reference, and thereby, rendering it as ‘sieve’ would cause a cultural value loss. A translation that is more capable of preserving the identity of the 192

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Figure 11.1 Arabic slogan reading ‘The revolution cannot be hidden with a sieve’

text is the one that chooses to carry over the Arabic word into the English translated text and amplifies the receptor’s knowledge by leaving a footnote that defines it, thus explaining the connection between the original proverb and the contratextual text. Malone states that carryover matching ‘obtains when the source element A is not translated into the target language but merely carried over as such into the target text’ (1988: 23). In order to produce thick translation that would preserve the rich cultural knowledge, an amplification of this knowledge is necessary. Amplification is a strategy that enhances the carry- over strategy function by providing the target language receptors with the needed knowledge and cultural and linguistic context (Malone, 1988: 41). Combining the carrying over and amplification strategies provides a more accurate, thick translation of the contratextual references in the image. A footnote may read as: A ghirbāl is a device made of wood and thick threads used when people harvest to separate the good seeds from the bad ones. This utterance refers to an Arabic proverb: “You cannot hide the sun with a ghirbāl,” which means that the truth will always shine through. In a similar example, using carry-over matching and amplification proves to be an effective strategy to preserve the cultural identity of the source text (Figure 11.2). This Zabadānī image reads literally: ‘Very soon … We will narrate for you the tale of the Shepherd and the Wolf.’ Al-Ra’ī wa al-dhi’b (literally, the shepherd and the wolf) is an Arabic tale of a young shepherd who cries out of fear of the approaching wolf and pleads for people’s help. Each time, people run to help him to find out that he was misleading them. After several times of repeating the same incident, no one believes him even when he actually needed help. 193

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Figure 11.2 Arabic slogan reading ‘Very soon … we will narrate for you the tale of the Shepherd and the Wolf’

Zabadānī revolutionaries remind Assad of this tale as he frequently cries for Russia’s and Iran’s help from what he calls the Syrian ‘terrorists.’ The successful translation of this image needs to preserve the cultural value of the contratextual reference. Although literal translation could offer formal equivalence, the cultural aspects would not be fully conveyed, or could even be totally absent. Carrying over the phrase of ‘Al-Ra’ī wa al-dhi’b’ in the translated text without explaining its context would also cause loss of its cultural connotations. However, carrying over the phrase in the translated text and offering a footnote to explain the connotations behind the tale would expose the reader of the target text to the foreign culture and the context of its contratextual reference. The effective communication of the meaning of this contratextual reference requires a translator who is willing to intervene and produce a thick translation that preserves the cultural aspects of the original text. The following example also shows carry-over matching and amplification by using a glossary and is a successful strategy for transferring the contratextual utterance and preserving its cultural aspects (Figure 11.3). This image is addressed to the heroes of Zabadānī, saluting them for what they have offered the Syrian Revolution. The image reads: Zabadānī Heroes Salāmun ‘alaykum when you demonstrated Salāmun ‘alaykum when you fought Salāmun ‘alaykum when you withstood 194

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Figure 11.3 Arabic slogan hailing the heroes of Zabadani

Salāmun ‘alaykum when you were wounded Salāmun ‘alaykum when you migrated Salāmun ‘alaykum when you return This image is loaded with cultural references that do not have equivalents in Western culture, and the literal translation does not fully transfer the intended meaning. Amplification by means of a footnote is necessary to explain this cross-cultural religious text. To carry over the connotations of this text, a footnote is necessary to explain that the above Arabic lines refer to prophets Yaḥyā (John the Baptist) and ῾Īsā (Jesus) as described in the Qur’an: ‘And peace be upon him on the day he was born and the day he dies and the day he is raised alive’ (Quran, 19:15, 33).1 The context behind the above image is that the regime had put the Zabadānī people under siege for a long time and they suffered from lack of food supply, medicine, and all means of sustenance. The image comes to salute Zabadānī heroes for their stance within the revolution and their patience to defend themselves and stand against oppression. Some of the Zabadānī people were able, at the end, to flee Zabadānī. The last two lines in the image salute the Zabadānī people for their steadfastness and resistance in their displacement, and it hopes for their return to their homes after the regime has been toppled. Their victorious and noble return to Zabadānī is similar to that of prophets Yaḥyā and ῾Īsā when they will be raised from the dead. Thus, foreignizing the translated text underlines its cultural and religious context and carrying over parts of the Quranic verse in Arabic in the translated text while explaining its 195

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Figure 11.4 Arabic cartoon criticizing the Assad regime

cultural load in a footnote is a form of resistance not only against the ‘hegemonic Englishlanguage nations,’ according to Venuti (1995: 20), but also against the oppression of the Syrian regime. The following example is another important instance where carry- over is necessary to preserve the cultural and political connotations of the contratextual reference (Figure 11.4). In this image, the Arabic lines read: ‘#maṣīr al-Asad’ (literally, al-Assad’s destiny); ‘Al- Asad ilā al-abad’ (literally, Assad is forever) – the Arabic word ‘abad’ (forever) is crossed out in red; ‘al-Asad ilā maw῾id aqṣāh’ (literally, al-Assad has a limited deadline); ‘ilā mazbalat al-tarīkh’ (literally, to the dustbin of history); ‘ilā matḥaf al-taḥnīṭ’ (literally, to the museum of mummification); ‘ilā matḥaf al-sham῾’ (literally, to the wax museum). In this image, the sentence ‘Assad is forever’ (with the Arabic word for ‘forever’ crossed out) is in a ‘contratextual’ relation with one of the most famous slogans to have supported the Syrian regime since the Baath Party entrenched its roots in office, i.e., ‘Assad is forever,’ which demonstrates what is described by Wedeen (1999) as Assad’s cult. In her book Ambiguities of Domination, Wedeen examines Assad’s cult during his rule of Syria (1999). She argues that the power of this cult is based on the repetition of the official slogans that serve the state propaganda. People repeat the rhetoric of the state, professing their compliance and loyalty to the president in return for protection. Wedeen refers to this type of falsification of loyalty as ‘as if’ (1999: 6). The popularity of the slogan ‘Assad is forever’ demonstrates Assad’s cult and strong grip in governing the country. The slogans in the image above deconstruct the idolization of Assad’s regime and the power of the state propaganda. Although the domesticating literal translation strategy could convey the surface meaning of this prominent 196

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Figure 11.5 Arabic slogan reading ‘15 March, you came back, O my birthday’

slogan, the intriguing cultural and political shades of meaning in ‘ilā al- abad’ (literally, ‘forever’) would be lost. Thus, the consequences of injustice and oppression that the phrase ‘ilā al-abad’ bears and has brought to Syrians’ lives for more than forty years need to be effectively reproduced and delivered to the receiving readers. The combination of an amplification, illustrated in a footnote that explains the background of this official slogan, and carry- over successfully allows for the rendering of the contratextual reference intricately enmeshed within it. Such thick, rich translation preserves the cultural and political context of the original that is deemed necessary to transfer to the reader. While in some cases carry-over could cause a loss in the contratextual meaning, matching may be a workable translation strategy as in the following examples.

Matching and amplification The Arabic in Figure 11.5 reads: ‘15 adhār, ῾utta ya yawma mawlidī’ (literally, 15 March, you came back, O my birthday) The Arabic writing in the above image is in a contratextual relation with a song by the Egyptian singer Farīd al-Aṭrash that opens with this line: ‘O my birthday, you came back.’ The contratextual element in the image is signaled by the word ‘mawlidī’ (literally, ‘my birthday’). The combination of matching translation and amplification strategies can effectively communicate the connotations and shades of meaning of the source text. The most common applications of matching strategy, Malone contends, are of the ‘common denominator variety,’ where the product of the translation ‘cannot be satisfactorily understood as either Equation or Substitution though it shares properties of both. Perhaps the simplest case is that in which a target language simply has no sufficiently similar counterpart of a source lexeme to pass as 197

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Equation, yet the translator is able to choose an approximant too close to be rightly labeled Substitution’ (1988: 23). The Arabic word ‘mawlidī’ is a common denominator to the English word ‘birthday’ and it could refer to an actual biological birthday or to a metaphorical birthday of experiencing a new phase or event in life. The birthday in this image and context refers to March 15, the anniversary of the beginning of the Syrian Revolution, when people started demanding their rights and freedoms. Thus, the matching translation strategy is successful in conveying the meaning of the text, and a footnote is needed to preserve its cultural value by providing the reader with information about the date of March 15 and its significance for the Syrian Revolution. Another instance where the combination of matching and amplification is a workable strategy in translating contratextual references is seen in the example in Figure 11.6. The Arabic text in the slogan reads: ‘bilād al-nafṭī awṭānī wa aṭfāluna al-naziḥūna yamūtuna min al-bard.’ This literally means ‘Oil countries are our homeland, yet our displaced children are dying from cold.’ ‘Oil countries are our homeland’ is a play on ‘Arab countries are my homeland,’ which is the opening line of a poem celebrating pan- Arab nationalism and patriotism. This poem was written by Fakhrī al- Barūdī and became the text adopted by many public schools as their morning Arabic song. In this slogan, Zabadānī revolutionaries violated the expectations of the reader by flouting Grice’s maxims of manner and relation in order to

Figure 11.6 Arabic slogan reading ‘Oil countries are our homeland, yet our displaced children are dying from cold’

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convey the ironic message behind this image. In his Communication Across Cultures, Hatim describes the four maxims of the Cooperative Principle: Quantity: Give as much information as is needed; Quality: Speak truthfully; Relevance: Say what is relevant; Manner: Avoid ambiguity. (1997: 215) By flouting the maxims of manner and relevance, the Arabic lines in the above image criticize the stance taken by oil-producing countries toward displaced and refugee Syrians who are dying in the cold because of the lack of heat and food. These contratextual lines disrupt the myth of Arab nationalism that Arabs have always falsely claimed to cherish, and which they have celebrated in their songs and speeches. Thus, the core of these contratextual lines expresses the priority for human rights over the establishment of Arab nationalism. The combination of matching and amplification translation strategies can transfer the contratextual meaning in the source text. The Arabic word ‘awṭānī’ is a common denominator to the English word ‘homeland.’ In Arabic ‘awṭānī,’ the plural of ‘waṭan,’ could refer to a place where a person was born, i.e., a homeland, or a place that someone considers home. A footnote that would preserve and explain this cultural shift in the Arab countries on the political

Figure 11.7 Arabic slogan reading ‘nothing scratches Syrian skin like its Free Army’

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and social level, where people start to value their dignity and freedom more than anything, is necessary to transfer this mode of resistance to the receptor of the image. In the following two examples, substitution proves to be a successful strategy in translating contratextual elements.

Substitution and amplification One of the main domesticating strategies in the slogans under discussion is that of substitution. The Arabic text in Figure 11.7 reads: ‘lā yaḥukku jild al-sūrī mithla jayshuhu al-ḥurr’ which literally means ‘nothing scratches Syrian skin like its Free Army.’ This line is in a contratextual relation with the Arabic proverb ‘None scratches your skin like your own nail’ and the English proverb ‘If you want a thing well done, do it yourself.’ Malone states that substitution ‘obtains when a source text element … is rendered by a target element deemed as being other than the most straightforward counterpart available’ (1988: 16). The substitution translation strategy is successful in preserving the contratextual meaning of the original. However, amplification by a footnote is necessary to define the Free Syrian Army and show the connection between the political poster and the proverb, and to help transfer the cultural aspect of the contratextual reference in this slogan. Such a footnote could read as: After the beginning of the Syrian Revolution in the summer of 2011, the Free Syrian Army was formed by defected officers from the Syrian armed forces to bring down the regime as well as support and protect the Syrian civilians. The contratextual elements in this slogan testify to the Syrians’ clear demand for agency over their own revolution, which the revolutionaries believed to have been taken away from them. This example shows the effectiveness of the combination of foreignization and domestication strategies, as suggested by Manfredi (2010). Another example where substitution and amplification prove to be a viable strategy when translating contratextual expressions is demonstrated in Figure 11.8. In this image, the contratextual references are in the Arabic title that translates as ‘from the sayings of the shameless procrastinator.’ This line is in a contratextual relation with the wellknown introductory phrase that Syrian state propaganda employs whenever the president is quoted, i.e., ‘from the sayings of the President Bashar Al-Assad.’ The repetition of the president’s sayings and introductory phrases are instances of the main building blocks in the edifice of the regime’s power rhetoric and a contributor to obtaining the people’s compliance. The image challenges the regime’s power by employing a sense of humor about the president’s promises of political and social reforms after the eruption of the revolution in 2011—promises that had never been acted on, let alone taken seriously by the regime. Substitution along with amplification by a footnote explaining the contratextual context of the image results in a workable translation that signals resistance against the oppressive regime. Such a footnote needs to invest in Appiah’s thick translation and provide a context for Assad’s reactions after the inception of the 2011 revolution that threatened the stability of the Syrian regime. In order for the caption accompanying this cartoon to be communicated effectively, the violence of the Syrian regime against its own people, ending in loss of life and displacement, needs to be recounted in a footnote. The combination of the domesticating substitution and the foreignizing amplification in the translation of the contratextual aspects is most relevant and effective in this and similar cases. In some cases, when substitution does not exist between the source and the target languages, employing calque translation strategy works as in the following case especially when wordplay is involved in the source text.

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Images of the 2011 Syrian Revolution

Figure 11.8 Arabic slogan criticizing statements made by President Assad

Calque and addition The utilization of wordplay as a tool of resistance to oppression and injustice is remarkable in the 2011 Syrian Revolution’s slogans. The ability to comment on the world’s stand toward the Syrian situation and the violent attacks Syrians lived through on a daily basis in a humorous way by playing skillfully on words and proper names while maintaining phonological similarity is clear in the following example (Figure 11.9). The Arabic in this image literally means, ‘The always worried Pokémon of the UN … When will you realize that you are just a joke, when will you?????’ The proper name of the then Secretary- General of the UN, Ban Ki- moon, is in a contratextual relation with the cartoonist character of Pokémon. The phonological similarity between the two names is the core of the irony. Pokémon becomes the nickname of the Secretary-General of the UN, who always expresses concerns about the Syrian situation but does not bring practical solutions to their situation. Synthesizing calque and addition translation strategies is effective in maintaining the contratextual meaning of the origin. Of calque, Malone says that it ‘is similar to carry-over matching in that a source element is taken into the target text, but while carry- over involves SUBSTANTIVE elements (normally words), calque matching involves RELATIONAL elements, whereby a source pattern is taken into the target text but fleshed out with target forms’ (1988: 26). Carrying over the name of Pokémon and providing a definition of its reference within the text is necessary to convey the embedded irony to non-Arabic readers, especially from the West. A workable translation could read, ‘The always worried Pokémon (Ban

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Figure 11.9 Arabic slogan criticizing the then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Ki- moon, the then Secretary- General of the UN) … When will you realize that you are just a joke, when will you?????’ The employment of the domesticating addition strategy and the foreignizing calque strategy is successful in producing a translation that preserves the cultural and linguistic aspects of the contratextual term in this figure. In some cases, employing calque in addition to amplification and reduction strategies at the same time preserves the contratextual shades of meaning as in the following case.

Calque and recrescence The skillful use of wordplay in the images disseminated in the 2011 Syrian Revolution has been shown to be a mechanism of resistance to oppression. The utilization of wordplay while breaking the taboo of swear words with sexual connotations is obvious in many of these images. Where are you, grandchildren of Sykes-Picot, fuck you? The free Kūfrnbil 15/7/2015 The wordplay in this image (Figure 11.10) is embedded in ‘Sykes-Picot,’ which contratextualizes with the Arabic swear word with sexual connotations that translates into ‘fuck you’ in English. The Sykes- Picot treaty in 1916 divided the Ottomans’ Arab provinces between France and Britain. The borders that divide the Arab countries today are one of the main vestiges of this treaty. After the eruption of the 2011 Syrian Revolution, ISIS has been working on removing the border between Syria and Iraq as it attempts to spread the power and authority of what they call ‘The Islamic State.’ The Syrian revolutionaries in general, and those who lived in Kūfrnbil in particular, refused the authority of ISIS and rejected its proposal, and they further drew similarities between the illegitimate power of ISIS and that of the French and British mandates that divided the Arab unity. The cultural and political undertones behind this image are evidence of the Syrian revolutionaries’ rejection of terrorism and ISIS’s agenda, and their perception of both as the two sides of the same coin. The image is a tool of resistance to the 202

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Figure 11.10 Arabic slogan criticizing the Sykes-Picot treaty

oppression by both ISIS and the Syrian regime. In addition to calque, recrescence translation strategy is needed to preserve the contratextual shades of meaning in this text. Recrescence is a translation strategy that refers to amplification and reduction at the same time (Malone, 1988: 49). An amplification of using a footnote to provide information about the Sykes-Picot treaty is necessary to produce a thick translation that transfers the cultural background of the original text. The translation of this image employs the combination of domesticating and foreignizing strategies of calque and recrescence. Carrying over the name of the Sykes- Picot treaty by means of the calque preserves the cultural connotations of the contratextual elements. Employing the reduction translation strategy also seems useful in translating this text. Malone defines reduction as a strategy where a source expression is ‘partially mapped onto a target counterpart’ and consequently ‘partially omitted from the translation’ (1988: 17). The letter (wa) that is located between ‘Sykes- Picot’ in the Arabic text translates into ‘and’ in English, and keeping it is an employment of the loan-blend strategy where the pronunciation of proper name of the agreement ‘Sykes-Picot’ sounds like the Arabic phrase for ‘fuck you.’ Thus, omitting the letter (wa) and adding the cultural information, the swear word with sexual connotations, ‘fuck you,’ makes the translation fuller and more accessible for the Western reader.

Conclusion The production of political posters and cartoons produced after 2011 went viral not only on social media websites but also in the streets of Syrian cities such as Zabadānī and Kūfrnbil, chanting, as it were, alongside the citizens for human rights and freedom. The political image that had for many years been the backbone of state propaganda, generating and reinforcing 203

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state power, has become a new space to empower the people and express their demands. The powerful statements in these images that successfully mobilized people deserve to be recognized not only in the Arab world but also to be translated to the West. Many of these images involve contratextual references that are rich with cultural and linguistic connotations that do not have equivalents in English, and thereby, preserving this cultural and linguistic knowledge in the translated text is of paramount importance in order to mediate between cultures and show respect to both source and target languages. Although Venuti sees that foreignizing the translated text is the most successful strategy to protect the identity of the source language work, examining the translation strategies, adopted from the work of Manfredi and Malone, of the images in question in this chapter shows that foreignization is a successful strategy to mark the identity of the text, and that the domesticating strategy works to maintain the fluency and naturalness of the translated text in other cases. The present study concludes that instead of predetermining a translation strategy, as Venuti indicates, the original text, its context, and the receiving audience should be taken into consideration when determining the translation strategies. By examining the combination of foreignizing and domesticating strategies, such a synthesis proves to be a workable translation approach to reproduce the contratextual connotations of the original text while successfully mediating between the East and West cultures.

Note 1 There is a slight difference between verses 15 and 33 in chapter 19 of the Qur’an. While verse 15 uses the third person in speaking of prophet Yaḥyā, verse 33 uses the first person when speaking of prophet ‘Īsā.

References Appiah, Kwame Anthony (1993) Thick Translation. Callaloo 16(4), pp. 808–819. Available at: www. jstor.org/stable/2932211 [accessed September 14, 2017]. Halasa, M., Omareen, Z., and Mahfoud, N. (eds.) (2014) Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline. London: Saqi. Hatim, B. (1997) Communication across Cultures. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Hatim, B., and Mason I. (1989) Discourse and the Translator. London: Longman. Khatib, L. (2012) Image Politics in the Middle East: The Role of the Visual in Political Struggle. London and New York: I.B. Tauris & Co., Ltd. Malone, J. (1988) The Science of Linguistics in the Art of Translation. Albany: State University of New York Press. Manfredi, M. (2010) Preserving Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in and through Translation: From Theory to Practice. Mutatis Mutandis 3(1), pp. 45–72. Available at: http:// aprendeenlinea.udea.edu. co/revistas/index.php/mutatismutandis/article/view/4785 [accessed February 10, 2016]. Newmark, P. (1981) Approaches to Translation. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Nida, E.A., and Taber, C. (1982) The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: E. G. Brill. Quran.com. (2017) Surah Maryam [19]. Available at: https://quran.com/19 [accessed December 13, 2017]. Shamma, Tarek (2005) The Exotic Dimension of Foreignizing Strategies. The Translator 11(1): 51–67. Available at: www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13556509.2005.10799189 [accessed September 14, 2017]. Venuti, L. (1995) The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London and New York: Routledge. Wedeen, L. (1999) Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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12 AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION STUDIES IN THE ARAB WORLD The road ahead Muhammad Y Gamal

Historical background The June 1995 conference held in Strasbourg to discuss issues related to audiovisual communication and language transfer was the event which catapulted the academic examination of audiovisual transfer as digital technology was making its debut. The conference examined different modes of audiovisual transfer at a time when deregulation in the broadcasting industry, emerging technologies and political changes were taking place in Europe. The conference ended with a communiqué that essentially underpinned the future of audiovisual translation studies in Europe. Von Flotow (1995: 287) thus describes the conference: While discussions of the practical aspects dominated the three days of proceedings, these were inextricable from the constant undercurrent of political concerns. One such political issue could perhaps be simplified and summed up as the perceived need in Europe to counteract the deluge of USA-American audiovisual materials that, particularly after the deregulation of many television channels, is threatening European cultural heritage and linguistic plurality. The year 1995, oddly enough, was a significant year which helped shape the world as we know it today. Campbell in his book 1995: The Year the Future Began points out that the year marked the time when the world wide web was making the transition ‘from vague and distant curiosity to a phenomenon that would change the way people work, shop, learn, communicate, and interact’ (2015: 22). To appreciate the significance of the Strasbourg conference and its call for further research, investigation and training in audiovisual communication, one has to recall a body of opinions, albeit small, that did not believe and even doubted that digital technology would have such an impact on the way we live our lives. Newsweek journalist Clifford Stoll (1995) played down the significance of the Internet, saying no one would buy anything online, book an airline ticket or read online. In the Arab World, however, the digital revolution was in full swing with the proliferation of satellite technology and privately owned TV channels. One of the immediate results of the increasing number of channels was the need to subtitle more programs into Arabic to fill broadcasting air time as more and more private channels were broadcasting on a 24/ 7 basis. 205

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Suddenly, there was a need for translators specializing in a new field of translation: audiovisual translation (AVT) with its two main modes of subtitling and dubbing. ‘Film translators’, as subtitlers are commonly known in Arabic, have never been in demand as there was only one subtitling house in Cairo (i.e. Anis Ebaid Studios) established in 1941 in the wake of the invention of sound and the arrival of foreign films in Egypt. The Arab World’s first talkie, Children of the Rich, was produced in Egypt in 1932 and since then Arab viewers have grown accustomed to reading subtitles on foreign films (Gamal, 2008). In the early 1960s, a smaller branch of the Cairo-based company was established in Beirut (i.e. Ebaid and Khoury) which mainly distributed Egyptian- subtitled programs to the rest of the Arab World. Today, Anis Ebaid and Sons continue the tradition that Ebaid had started almost eighty years earlier although they are by no means the sole players in the burgeoning audiovisual translation market. The unprecedented demand for subtitlers (and later for dubbers) was unmet by the many translation departments at Arab universities which were offering training mainly in translation, and few offered training in interpreting as well. Most translation training remains paper-based geared primarily for the print industry. When multimedia, as a technological concept, became more common in the last years of the twentieth century, personal computers became more affordable and more powerful. Operating systems (Windows 95 and subsequent versions) as well as other software programs such as PowerPoint popularized multimedia in training and educational contexts with the ability to include different languages (including Arabic) as well as color, clipart, pictures, sound and videos. Numerous changes, developments and indeed upheavals have taken place in the Arab World since the Strasbourg conference. Global political and economic changes including the effects of the Arab Spring coupled with technological developments such as the Internet, social media and the concept of edutainment have a tremendous impact on the way Arabs, and particularly the young, live, work, study, interact, communicate and entertain themselves. However, when the digital age arrived in the region, the societal infrastructure was non-existent for the safe, successful and sound espousing of the new technology. In a region with a high rate of illiteracy, particularly among women, relatively poor telecommunication facilities, non-existent legislations for the new media, lack of coordination among ministries of information at the Arab state level, and the absence of a pan- Arab audiovisual communication authority meant that the arrival of digital technology posed challenges never seen before (Qandeel, 2014). Although translation in the Arab World has been examined both as a policy (cf. Jacquemond, 2009) and as a professional practice (cf. Mneimneh, 1998), such examination has not led to a school of thought in Arabic translation with a developed philosophy, defined theoretical frameworks or a designed pedagogy which sets a particular translation school in Tangier, for example, apart from another in Beirut. Local translation conferences are now being held regularly both by academic and cultural institutions. Some conferences produce publications, although very few publish proceedings in Arabic and most contributions are for academic purposes. Notwithstanding several Arab governments’ programs, projects and, more recently, generous translation awards and plans to make more titles available in Arabic, the overall translation scene in the Arab World remains nebulous. The result is that despite the academic programs and official efforts there has never been a culture of professional translation. Translation in the Arab World, described in some quarters as a national security issue (El- Meligie, 2014), continues to be examined separately by policymakers and narrowly by translation professors with little input from the translation profession. Other factors have also contributed to the situation: underperforming national universities have led to the emerging market of foreign universities, the language of instruction is increasingly becoming English, 206

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Arabic language content online remains minuscule, English is fast permeating spoken Arabic, regional vernaculars are invading even the best of Arabic language publications both in print and online, the young have developed an aversion to reading, and increasingly foreign subtitled programs have given way to dubbing and in the vernacular. This picture of the cultural scene in the Arab World, since the advent of the digital revolution in the 1990s and, more so in the wake of the Arab Spring, has a direct bearing on the assimilation and localization of audiovisual translation in Arabic.

Audiovisual translation pedagogy Although the new specialization of audiovisual translation is not formally offered at the majority of translation departments, there is, however, a growing number of studies on the subject conducted mostly by master’s students and the teaching faculty. This can be gleaned from the increasing number of MA degree dissertations as well as translation journal articles. However, most audiovisual translation publications in the Arab World tend to focus mainly on the linguistic aspects of translation. While the sociolinguistic analysis is important, there is an academic (and indeed professional research) need to move away from this angle and to engage vigorously with professional practice and translation policymaking. Gambier (2014: 6) points to the significance of paying attention to ‘other matters such as the effects on reception, and on reading’. However, before this can take place a sound pedagogic philosophy needs to be developed in order to examine the local context and to suggest relevant solutions for local problems. It is, therefore, instructive to examine the pedagogic philosophies that underpin the teaching of audiovisual translation at the academic institutions that offer audiovisual translation in the region. Understanding the pedagogic philosophy is also conducive to gauging how far the teaching has been successful in localizing the new concept. In 1995, the School of Continuing Education at the American University in Cairo (AUC) was the first institution to offer professional training in subtitling. The experience of the AUC in teaching audiovisual translation is worth examining, in its own right, as it is the earliest and longest teaching experience in the Arab World. True to the philosophy of the School of Continuing Education, the then and subsequent managements espoused a pedagogic strategy that favors a bottom-up approach. This means that the aim of the training program is to train cohorts of qualified translators to become professional subtitlers and, to a lesser extent, dubbers. The pedagogy is informed by a strong market demand, a large number of local translation graduates, the availability of local teaching staff and an established cinema culture in the country. All students are university graduates in languages and translation who are seeking market- relevant professional skills in audiovisual translation. The tutors are experienced practitioners already employed by Egyptian state television and various production entities, commercial satellite channels and the numerous privately owned media companies specializing in post-production services (Gamal, 2008). The early years, as can be expected, had many teething problems: no manuals, no teaching resources and no software available in the classrooms. Indeed, the very name of the course changed several times from Screen Translation to Audiovisual Translation to Subtitling program. Most tutors had to rely on their daily routines for teaching material and examples and they worked on developing their own subtitling manuals while teaching. An examination of the early teaching manuals and training material testifies to the ad hoc nature of the program. However, this was a unique learning setting for tutors and students alike since all are engaged by the burgeoning number of media companies requiring urgently needed subtitled programs. Strategically, the wealth 207

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of knowledge the program gained over the years was not reflected into research papers which would have created a body of knowledge to build on and ultimately to help localize the concept of audiovisual translation in the country. AUC management did not view research, reflection on practice and publication as an investment into quality both professionally and commercially. As the program was a fee- attracting course, management’s main focus was perhaps on the professional learning outcomes. Interestingly, the very (financial) success of the program tempted AUC management to turn the entire audiovisual translation course into a full- fledged mainstream postgraduate translation program. A newly established center for literary translation was interested in overtaking the program but lacked both the technical resources and the professional expertise to run it successfully. Ironically, it was deemed more profitable (and some argued more equitable) to keep the program in the School of Continuing Education. The bottom-up pedagogic approach originally aimed at creating a professionally trained labor force which meets the industry’s professional needs and in this respect the objective was met. The AUC course in audiovisual translation remains popular and successful, and appears to have most of the prerequisites for sustainable growth: local teaching talent, local professional community, local market demand, and it can capitalize on its history and develop into a full- fledged academic program which can catapult the entire Egyptian translation industry into the digital age. Not unlike the Egyptian approach is the Syrian professional MA degree in Audiovisual Translation. A two-year postgraduate program at the University of Damascus offers training in subtitling and dubbing. The program is deemed a professional MA as it underscores the industry techniques and not the academic skills in the teaching of audiovisual translation. There is no research component in the Syrian MA and, therefore, it does not offer a pathway to doctoral research. Almost twenty years later, in September 2014, the Translation and Interpreting Institute (TII) at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) in Qatar, which was founded in 2012, launched its master’s program in audiovisual translation, thus becoming the first academic institution in the Arab World to offer a formal postgraduate degree in this new field. HBKU espoused a pedagogic strategy that favors a top- down approach. This means that the aim of the postgraduate training program is to offer an academic qualification in audiovisual translation at the MA level. The academic training is offered by top academics especially recruited to teach the program in the Gulf country. The TII engaged faculty with established and respectable research output but with no known local or regional industry experience. Such local expertise is considered fundamental for the growth of the program and particularly for its sustainability. The training environment, however, is well- equipped with the latest in digital technology. Unlike the professionally oriented approach of the AUC, the topdown pedagogic approach of HBKU opted to prepare translation graduates equipped with superior academic and technical skills for the labor market. While it is too early to examine the outcomes of the HBKU experience, it appears promising, despite some limitations. For instance, the lack of local industry experience by students may inhibit the full potential of the program. This stems from the demographic fact that both faculty and students are mostly foreign residents. Equally significant is the economic reality which sees the local audiovisual translation market as too small to warrant a master’s degree. Furthermore, the funding for and selection of students to the master’s program, the lack of a vibrant local translation industry and the reliance on a thesis in a practical training program (instead of a long professional internship) raise the question of sustainability. Thus far, there is little research on audiovisual translation coming out of Qatar despite the generous allocation of funds to establish an annual translation conference. Unlike the AUC, the Translation and Interpreting Institute at HBKU started an annual translation conference in 2010. Starting with the 2016 208

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conference, audiovisual translation issues and themes in the Arab World began to feature among the conference topics. The 2017 edition of the translation conference saw the very first session dedicated to audiovisual translation in the Arab World, a landmark event in the history of translation in the region. Apart from these two pioneering postgraduate audiovisual translation programs in the region, the professional program in Cairo and the academic program in Doha, audiovisual translation is only examined en passant either as an optional subject or as a unit in other translation courses. For instance, the Faculty of Al Alsun at Ain Shams University in Cairo examines audiovisual translation (subtitling and dubbing), through three two-hour lectures in its course on Computer- assisted Translation (TRNS 557) in the Master’s Program in Translation (Alsabbagh, 2016). In Jordan, however, the Bachelor in Translation degree offered by the German Jordanian University (2015) includes an optional subject available to the fifth- and last-year students on Audiovisual Translation and Electronic Translation Tools (TRA 540). This optional one-semester-long course has its outcomes described in the following fashion: This course aims to provide an introduction to the subject ranging from dubbing and voice over to surtitling and subtitling, while offering a practical focus on professionally oriented training in interlingual subtitling. [I]t [sic] also provides the students with skills for effectively using translation tools. It focuses on computer-assisted terminology management, the use and construction of corpora, translation memories, localization tools and the incorporation of machine translation programmes into the translation process. (German Jordanian University, 2015: 25) A second reading of the above course description shows how the optional course, not unlike its Egyptian counterpart, confuses translation technology with subtitling techniques and is overly ambitious. While audiovisual translation, in certain contexts, may mean subtitling or dubbing, there are other sub-fields, applications, issues and cases to be examined (Al-Dabbagh, 2017). The current treatment of audiovisual translation in Arab academia reflects a tendency to treat audiovisual translation as a vogue or a trendy subject to include in the master’s program or as a project in the bachelor’s degree. Likewise, the Master of Arts in Translation and Interpreting (MATI) at the Department of Arabic and Translation Studies in the American University of Sharjah consists of ten courses and a thesis. Eight of the courses are compulsory and do not include audiovisual translation (TRA 560), which is offered as an optional course. It is insightful to read the course description in the university’s Graduate Catalogue: Introduces different genres of audiovisual translation. Includes the semiotic, linguistic and cultural issues involved in multimedia productions and their translation. Covers translating scripts of various cinema and TV productions into and out of Arabic and English and deals with the linguistic and cultural problems of audiovisual translation. Introduces research areas in audiovisual translation. (American University of Sharjah, 2015: 56) As the description shows the emphasis is on the linear examination of the sociolinguistic issues in the translation of audiovisual texts (mainly) subtitling. The optional course does not refer to any technical skills, practical or hands- on experience. Of the other optional courses 209

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there is also the project- like TRA 594/ 694 ‘Special Topics in Translation and Interpreting’. The course description reads: This kind of courses provides flexibility for the students and faculty to tailor some special courses aspired to by a certain student or students to cater for a special area in research and practice in translation such as legal and administrative translation and audiovisual translation. (College of Arts and Sciences, 2015: 2) Thus TRA 594/ 596 allows translation/ interpreting students to embark on research on audiovisual translation even without any training in the theoretical principles or technical skills involved in audiovisual translation. It is not surprising then that most research is on the linguistic and cultural issues in subtitling filmic material. This superficial treatment of audiovisual translation in Arab academia is unhelpful and retards the assimilation of the necessary knowledge to make the specialization both localized and relevant to society. So far the more established schools of translation in the Arab World have not invested or investigated audiovisual translation. For instance, the Translation School in Tangier, despite its successful cooperation with the United Nations, has not turned its attention to audiovisual translation (apart from an optional course). That is despite the vibrant debate in the country on linguistic rights, the use of darija (the vernacular) and the success of Moroccan cinema abroad. Similarly, the Institute of Translation at Saint Joseph University in Beirut has not shown any interest despite the cinematic heritage and rich audiovisual production expertise in the country. It is equally perplexing that the Arab High Institute of Translation, established in 2005 in Algeria and funded by the Arab League, has not considered audiovisual translation despite offering three master’s programs in translation, interpreting and translation technology. Other attempts at offering audiovisual translation can be found at universities in Palestine, Oman, Libya and Saudi Arabia where the major skills of audiovisual translation are examined by research students under different courses such as Media Translation, Multimedia Translation or Computerassisted Translation.

Review of the literature on AVT in the Arab World There is a dearth of publications on the subject despite the importance of language transfer on screen particularly as screens dominate the way millions in the Arab World live, study, work, communicate socially and organize political opposition. Since the Strasbourg conference in 1995 several popular events, digital inventions, online platforms, software programs, mobile phone applications and even revolutions have underscored the significance of this new field of audiovisual translation. Yet translation departments have not engaged with these developments (Gamal, 2015). For instance, the sudden rise of popularity in dubbed Turkish drama, the wide appeal of fansubbing, the popular voting experience for the New Seven Wonders, the role of Facebook in the Arab Spring, the inadequate Arabic content online, the rise of amateur translation, self-translation, versioning in Arab media, the increasing number of foreign media platforms broadcasting in Arabic, the state of Arabic in the Internet age are some of the common events that Arabic translation scholarship has not seen fit to warrant the investment in the new discipline of audiovisual translation studies. While some academics have published one paper on an aspect of audiovisual translation, it is peculiar that the number of academics with more than two or three papers is very minuscule. Some academics at Arab universities have indeed responded to the noticeable emergence of 210

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audiovisual translation studies but only as a passing academic interest without the existence of an audiovisual translation program or having relevant industrial experience. Although it is a welcome contribution toward the popularization of the topic (Thawabteh, 2011; Mazid, 2006) it is the focus of the research that inhibits its progress. Most papers tend to be fixed on subtitling and examine one direction only: subtitling into Arabic. This body of research, and not withstanding its pioneering effort, lacks a theoretical framework for the Arabic landscape, scope and the applied potential of subtitling as one activity in the wider field of audiovisual translation. For example, the issues of accessibility, quality and readability have received little attention at a time when statistics reveal rising illiteracy, poor educational outcomes and an increasing aversion to reading among the young. It is equally significant to observe an increasing trend among translation MA students to examine subtitling, and to a lesser degree dubbing, in their dissertations. However, one striking observation of this research is the dominating linguistic approach that treats audiovisual translation as an exercise in written translation (Al Owais, 2011; Alwan, 2011; Bhais, 2011; Al Abwaini, 2013; Al Teneji, 2015). Another puzzling observation is the language of the publication: English. While it is understandable that the research is on translation from Arabic to English, one wonders why Arab academia opts to ‘think’ and publish in English, presumably the weaker of the two languages taught. This body of research becomes ‘foreign’ and inevitably remains inaccessible not only to other language departments but also to other academic institutions, policymakers, professionals and the media in the same country. Moreover, Alrosan (2012: vi) examines the English subtitles of an Egyptian film and attempts to explore the ‘translational dilemma’ of subtitling the spoken Egyptian Arabic but only to conclude that ‘the data analysis shows lack of observance of the context when translating cultural bounds’. Similarly, at the doctoral level, as most doctoral dissertations seem to come from outside the Arab World, and mainly from the United Kingdom, the research is inevitably in English: Zitawi (2004); Al-Adwan (2009); Alkadi (2010); Altahri (2013); and Yahiaoui (2014). The research tends to be divorced from its cultural context: written in English, with little coverage of the Arab cinematic landscape, framed according to Western theoretical lines, and despite its claim to be in audiovisual translation most research sensu stricto is confined to sociolinguistic issues in subtitling or dubbing amounting in most cases to what Gambier calls ‘verbatim’ translation (2014: 6). Another noticeable observation in reading the available dissertations in audiovisual translation, as well as supervising research by Arabic-speaking postgraduate students both at Arab, Australian and European universities, is the weak appreciation of the translation situation in their own society. While their academic knowledge and understanding of the Western literature is remarkable, their knowledge of their own cultural context is virtually non-existent. To be fair, this observation applies equally to research carried out in other countries. For instance, in South Korea, Cho (2014) reviews the basic concepts in ‘the theory’ of audiovisual translation and provides a clear and succinct presentation of the main tenets of audiovisual translation literature but stops short of making such knowledge relevant to or applied in her own cultural context. While this observation is not too surprising and applies to almost all fields of knowledge, it can only underscore the importance of linking theory to practice, examining the local landscape and the significance of localizing the concept of audiovisual translation (rather than the importation) of its teaching and research methods. In other words, the gap between theory and practice remains wide and one of the most effective ways to close it is to adopt an applied translation studies approach. Against this academic background, it is hardly surprising that, thus far, there has been no translation conference dedicated to audiovisual translation in the Arab World. Very few conferences have a session dedicated to audiovisual translation, its issues and applications. 211

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Most translation conferences tend to focus purely on the written word to the detriment of other significant sub-fields in translation studies; chief among them are audiovisual translation and interpreting studies.

Theoretical frameworks and professional practice The lack of academic interest in audiovisual translation studies at Arab universities is directly linked to the absence of adequate theoretical frameworks. Such frameworks are necessary for the concept of audiovisual translation to grow in its own environment and to be professionally relevant and socially responsible. This perhaps explains the lack of research which examines a localized purpose, i.e. subtitling or the developing of subtitles for young children, subtitling for specific purposes, subtitling online, and on air, audio description, subtitling classic films, subtitling from Arabic into foreign languages, dubbing in Modern Standard Arabic and in dialects, dubbing for documentaries, etc. It is interesting that the published academic research on audiovisual translation, which is overwhelmingly on subtitling and into Arabic, does not examine the local professional context of subtitling despite the huge market share the private sector controls (Khalaf and Rashid, 2016). For instance, the DVD industry is based on subtitling filmic material into Arabic but little research has examined this phenomenon. Likewise, the Arab DVD industry, particularly in Egypt and Tunisia, has not been examined. Unlike other much smaller cinemas in the region, Egyptian and Tunisian DVDs include subtitles in two languages only. Tourist DVDs in Jordan and Dubai, although readily available at airports, have not attracted the attention of researchers either. Nor has the decision by Al Arabiya, the second largest news channel in the Arab World, to introduce delayed subtitling of its content. Similarly, Saudi Arabia introduced subtitling for the religious broadcast from the Holy Mosque in Mecca (both during the Hajj and the month of Ramadan), a professional case that provides ample scope for the examination of translation and subtitling. This phenomenon has not been examined either. Interestingly, this can be attributed to the fact that most, if not all, published research is carried out for academic purposes only (higher degrees by postgraduate students or required research output by translation faculty) and is neither prompted by industry insights nor informed by professional practice. It is, therefore, not surprising that most academic research is focused on linguistic and cultural issues that are centered on (Western) theoretical frameworks (Hussain and Khuddro, 2016) and with almost fait accompli results. For instance, after presenting a competent review of the mostly Western literature on subtitling and dubbing, and carrying out a quantitative analysis of strategies used, Al- Jabri (2017: 17), in her examination of the translation of culture-bound references in the subtitling and dubbing of children’s cartoons into Arabic, concludes that ‘strategies used in dubbing are mainly target language oriented, whereas those used in subtitling are largely source language oriented’. The professional development of audiovisual translation as an industry must be the ultimate goal of academic research. Gamal (2007: 85) examines the professional audiovisual translation scene in Egypt in the first decade of the twenty-first century and calls it ‘an industry without a profession’.

Dubbing in the Arab World The volume of research papers on dubbing is understandably small given that the Arab World has been accustomed to subtitling since the advent of talking cinema (Gamal, 2008). Traditionally, dubbing has been assigned to documentaries and children’s programs. However, 212

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dubbing gained sudden popularity in the early 1990s when a Lebanese producer embarked on dubbing a large number of Spanish language telenovelas imported from several Latin American countries. Widely referred to in the Arab World as the Mexican drama (though a considerable number of telenovelas came also from Venezuela, Argentina, Columbia and Peru), the audiovisual translation experience showed the vagaries of dubbing: lack of credibility, and the apparent clash between the local audio and the foreign visual. The Mexican telenovelas were dubbed in Modern Standard Arabic: a variety of the language mainly reserved for historical, religious, literary films or documentaries. Buccianti (2010) observes how ‘the traditional literary Arabic dubbing of Mexican telenovelas … had created a disconnect between the audience, which found the language too complex and inadequate for the scenario, and the series over the years’. The opening scene in the Egyptian film Love Radio (2011) clearly illustrates the disconnect: in the film dubbers of a Mexican drama who work for a local radio station are themselves unconvinced of the work they do and the use of Modern Standard Arabic with names such as Alejandro and Manuela. Although the phenomenon of Mexican drama was debated in newspapers and the media, for several years, little academic research went into its examination from an audiovisual translation studies point of view. A decade later, however, the Arab World’s views of dubbing foreign television drama were radically altered. Turkish drama was dubbed in a way which swept the entire Arab World, attracting not only high ratings but equally social, economic and political reactions. This time the dubbing was carried out by a Syrian company (Sama Production Studios) employing not the Modern Standard Arabic but the local spoken dialect of Damascus. The Syrian dialect enjoys a lively rhythm which lends credence and interest to viewers of the dubbed series. This has come in the wake of a very popular Syrian drama, Bab el Hara (Door of the Neighborhood) also employing the dialect of Damascus that was well-received in various parts of the Arab World between 2006 and 2010. For many generations, TV viewers were exposed to the Egyptian dialect(s) through music, film and television drama. However, the new Turkish drama, dubbed in the now popular Syrian dialect, shares a great deal with Arab social norms and mores, which, in addition to excellent photography and modern themes, presented a recipe for success that was hard to ignore. For a number of years and since 2008, several Turkish dubbed dramas were repeatedly shown in almost every Arab country (Buccianti, 2010). Moreover, Morocco went a step further and re- dubbed some Turkish drama and Mexican telenovelas into its local Darija dialect (Mahfouz, 2015). This led to a nationwide debate not only on the rationale of re- dubbing Arabic dialects (Syrian or Lebanese) into the local Moroccan vernacular, but also on the ethics and techniques of dubbing. Some media (cf. Bouali, 2012) and academic voices even questioned the intentions behind the decision to promote Darija as Haddadi (2014) concludes ‘audiovisual translation of foreign series into Moroccan dialect broadcast on Moroccan channel 2M is a plain policy to firstly spreading western culture, secondly officialising Moroccan dialect, and last lessening the use of standard Arabic’. The debates were escalated to the parliament and although they have not abated, it is interesting to observe that the Haute Autorité Indépendante de la Communication Audiovisuelle (High Independent Authority for Audiovisual Communication, commonly known as HAICA) ruled that television channels need to maintain a balance between locally produced and foreign programs. The HAICA, established in 2002, does not have the legislation to enforce its recommendations and the parliament in Morocco is yet to decide on the draft bill for establishing a Supreme Council for Translation that was tabled in 1995. However, Morocco is in a unique position to boost audiovisual translation studies (Gamal, 2017) through its rich linguistic mosaic (Hall, 2015), vibrant local film industry, internationally acknowledged cinema 213

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infrastructure, its youthful population and the expertise of its world-renowned King Fahd High School of Translation in Tangier, which was established in 1986. Although dubbed Turkish drama was widely debated in Arab media, the topic received little academic attention from translation departments. Not unlike subtitling, dubbing in the Arab World is yet to receive its due share of attention, investment and academic research. The question of dubbing in the vernacular, a long debated issue, has now given way to which regional vernacular. Arabic in the digital age is facing some fundamental challenges and, not unlike the political arena, fragmentation. The incident of Moroccan redubbing of the SyrianArabic vernacular into a local regional dialect (one of several in the country) poses some challenges and questions (Gamal, forthcoming). One such challenge is: will digital technology and the Internet lead to the spread of regional Arabic dialects? For certain, regional dialects have always pre-existed the advancement in communication technology. Since the advent of radio, cinema and television, the local vernacular co- existed with Modern Standard Arabic when youth took great pride in their language and Arabic was the language of instruction in all public universities. Now, in the age of globalization and smart technology, the spread of foreign universities and the increasing pervasiveness of (American) English into spoken Arabic, it is very likely that regional dialects would not co- exist with Modern Standard Arabic. This may be a case for audiovisual translation scholars in the Arab World to consider, and perhaps the idea of same language subtitling (SLS) is an option to test. Selim (2010) argues that SLS has numerous positive effects in teaching Arabic as a foreign language. Likewise, Abdellah (2008) argues that the use of ‘intra-lingual subtitling’ can enhance the listening skills of Arabic-speaking students of English. Interestingly enough, Al Jazeera subtitles the Arabic spoken by North African speakers in all its reality shows and programs. Would SLS on regular television programs, including the news, encourage young Arabs to read more in their own language?

Knowing the landscape Perhaps one of the reasons that slowed the adoption of audiovisual translation studies in Arab academia is the lack of sufficient knowledge of the audiovisual landscape in Arabic. Most researchers stop at the Western literature on audiovisual translation and do not reflect on the current professional situation in the Arab World (Gamal, 2014b). Without an acceptable degree of professional knowledge of the audiovisual industry, it would be difficult to transfer European knowledge and the new concept will not take root. This is perhaps why the bottom- up pedagogic model in teaching audiovisual translation is more productive, relevant and suitable. As local students, who have local knowledge and have grown up in the local cultural context, are familiar with the professional landscape and acquire the technical know- how from faculty that is professionally engaged with industry; the road to localizing the foreign concept seems a lot shorter, more secure and more relevant (Diaz Cintas, 2004). However, one of the serious shortcomings of the professional program at the AUC is the lack of a theoretical framework to its professional training strategy. By reflecting on practice, encouraging the industry- experienced faculty to conduct research, to share experience and to write up complete case studies, the AUC teaching experience, the earliest in the entire Arab World, would have been an established professional as well as academic tradition today. Instead, the collective experience was subjected to market forces and management styles that did not value reflection on practice or research. Since the inception of the pioneering program in 1995, only one academic paper is known to have been published by a (former) member of the AUC staff and that was on religious subtitling (Elgebaly, 2012). It is ironic that the 214

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postgraduate translation program (MATI) at the American University of Sharjah has produced a considerable number of MA dissertations even without teaching audiovisual translation as a core course. Equally impressive is the academic output at University of Oran in Algeria. Over the past few years, an increasing number of postgraduate dissertations (both MAs and PhDs) has examined audiovisual translation (mainly subtitling) at a time when audiovisual translation is not formally taught. One of the major characteristics of this academic output is that the research is actually conducted in Arabic. The landscape of audiovisual translation in the Arab World is largely determined by the demographic and socio-economic needs of the people. Put simply, and in contemporary terms, it is shaped by the way young people study, work and interact with each other. While the concept of edutainment has been known and practiced through multimodal means (from text and image to video and sound, and now through a plethora of websites, software programs and a myriad of smartphone applications), there is no popularly acceptable equivalent of the term in Arabic (Gamal, 2015). The issue is not just the lack of an acceptable equivalent, but rather a reflection of a cultural frame of mind. For example, in May 2016 Saudi Arabia announced its 2030 Vision. In a bid to modernize the Kingdom, it established inter alia two important but separate authorities: one for entertainment and another for culture (www.vision2030.gov.sa/ en). Edutainment is perhaps the most effective approach given the Kingdom’s youthful population and love affair with digital technology: from Twitter accounts to the largest number of fansubbers in the region (Gamal, 2009). This example shows how the current academic research in audiovisual translation in the Arab World does not get out of the university walls and does not reach policymakers. This is reminiscent of traditional translation plans that, despite a lot of effort, committees and resolutions, have underachieved (Jacquemond, 2009). In audiovisual translation it is rather obvious that the research output is too foreign to take root. It needs to understand the locale, the landscape and the literature it investigates in order to be relevant and useful. One of the first steps toward knowing the landscape is to hold roundtable meetings where all stakeholders are present. The film and media industry, translation scholars, practicing film translators, the viewing public and the IT sector need to get together to discuss all possible issues affecting the production, distribution and reception of audiovisual material. Failure to do that will mean that most research in audiovisual translation will continue to be based on foreign theories, produced only for academic purposes, published in English and, therefore, remaining, to a great extent, inaccessible. In the digital age, the young Arab population does not, generally speaking, read books or printed magazines, turn to newspapers for the news or television for entertainment. Their world revolves around social media and is accessed through a screen on a hand- held iPad, smartphone or laptop, etc. They access information on a need- only basis by searching the Internet. When they do, they are confronted by a massive virtual world of numerous websites, blogs and pages that can confuse even the better educated and confident user of social media. Young people are distracted by the 1.6 million Apps available to Android users and 1.5 million Apps available to Apple users as of June 2015 (Statista, 2016). In Western societies, spending on education, while always never enough, is by international standards acceptable. However, there is a serious concern that literacy levels in Western societies are falling. For example, in the United Kingdom the transition to the digital world has not helped solve old problems. Watson (2012) reports that ‘The World Literacy Foundation said one in five of the UK population are so poor at reading and writing they struggle to read a medicine label or use a chequebook’. Similarly, in Australia, Buckingham (2016) reports that ‘The levels of literacy and numeracy among Australian school students are a national disgrace’. While British and Australian contexts are vastly different from most Arab countries, even the more affluent ones, 215

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the message is clear: the digital age presupposes a degree of knowledge or a cultural setting that is considered a prerequisite for the new age to be ushered in with a minimum of clash with the older world or the cultural mores of the local setting. This requirement needs to be carefully designed for any new concept to take root and to be relevant. To help localize the concept of audiovisual translation in the Arab World, research needs to be informed by local theoretical and research models and with plenty of case studies. This would help researchers to develop a localized theoretical framework which would guide and make further research not only relevant but also creative and productive.

Toward an Arab school of audiovisual translation With close ties to the media and the telecommunication industries, audiovisual translation studies can provide innovative solutions to some of the Arab World’s perennial issues in the field of translation, such as: scientific and technical translation into Arabic, translating for young children (Zitawi, 2008), accessibility of medical knowledge, translating Arabic literature into languages other than English, the subtitling/ dubbing of documentary films, Arab cinema at major international film festivals, Arabic content online, the enhancement of the status of academic Arabic, fighting Islamophobia, and improving the Arab image abroad. It is insightful to remember that one of the examples the 1995 Strasbourg conference on audiovisual transfer debated vigorously was how a Swiss company subtitling an episode of Magnum decided to translate ‘Nazi villains’ into Palestinians. Against this background, audiovisual translation studies in the digital age appears to be in a position to tackle not only the subtitling and dubbing issues, but also to embark on a long-term policy that employs all the available technological means and resources in a bid to effectively, quickly and successfully address the issues traditional translation policies tried but were unable to address (Gamal, 2014a). The establishment of an Audiovisual Translation Department sui generis would encourage the examination of translation in the digital age and will eventually lead to relevant theoretical frameworks which are informed by local and regional examples, case studies and everyday issues. While the list of such issues is not too different from the list in the pre- digital times, the case of Arabic content online which employs multimedia is perhaps the single most significant issue due to its scope from entertainment to online courses. Relevant studies which examine local examples can only lead to an accumulated expertise in not only addressing current issues but creating opportunities for making translation more effective. Translation in the Arab World is essentially regarded as a vehicle for development rather than a mere window on the other. Translation policymakers, professors and professionals need to initiate a dialogue which brings the three sectors together. Policy, research and practice need to form an alliance which has clearly stated objectives with sound policies, generous budgets and well-trained practitioners. Any such alliance needs to add the information technology side to it in order to fully capitalize on the potential of audiovisual translation. An example of this is the Egyptian educational initiative Nafham (to understand), which attempts to help school students to understand school curricula by employing multimodal educational videos. The potential is huge as the website covers school curricula in five Arab countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Kuwait and Algeria (www.nafham.com). Likewise, Habeeb (2010) reports on the production in Saudi Arabia of a short film which examines better nutrition produced by the students from the Applied Medical Sciences College at King Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah. Given the rise of diabetes and kidney failure in the Kingdom, the DVD underscores the significance of healthy eating habits. The informative DVD is directed essentially at Saudi working women and also at domestic helpers. It is subtitled into Indonesian (the 216

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largest spoken language among domestic helpers in the Kingdom). It is examples like these that need to be turned into case studies and explored further. The applied approach to their examination, where more than one factor is examined, can only lead to better understanding of the potential audiovisual translation has for the community.

Conclusion A generation after the conference in Strasbourg in 1995 that spearheaded the birth of a new sub-field in translation studies, audiovisual translation in the Arab World remains marginal both academically and professionally. Translation as a catalyst for rebuilding and development in the post Arab Spring is now not only obvious but imperative. Understanding the landscape of audiovisual translation in the Arab World today, reflecting on the context and identifying the theoretical framework for its examination are the urgent tasks facing audiovisual translation scholars at the many translation schools and departments at Arab universities. As digital technology has changed the way we live, work and entertain ourselves, a new way of thinking is required in order to make translation interface with society’s needs. Print translation is no longer viable in a society which does not turn to newspapers for information or television for entertainment but to the Internet and social media. Audiovisual translation has a huge potential to serve the needs of Arab society in more than one area and industry. This can only be served by a new generation of Arab scholars who examine the local needs of their society and design their research plans accordingly.

Further reading Alter, Adam (2017). Irresistible: The rise of addictive technology and the business of keeping us hooked. London: Penguin Random House. Gamal, M. (2018). Digital technology and the Arabisation of higher education (in Arabic). Proceedings of the 13th Arabisation Conference held in Riyadh, September 2018. ALESCO, 2, pp. 550–577. Gamal, M. (2019) The Translation of film titles in the Egyptian film Industry, in Said Faiq (ed) Discourse in Translation. London: Routledge, 184–199.

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Audiovisual translation studies Khalaf, A. and Rashid, S. (2016). Attenuating obscenity of swearwords in the amateur subtitling of English movies into Arabic. Arab World English Journal, 7(1), 295–309. Mahfouz, A. (2015). Al Musalsalat al- mudablajah wa Siyasit al- Ightirab (TV drama and the policy of alienation). Al-Quds Al-Arabi. Available at: www.alquds.co.uk/?p=349152. Mazid, B. (2006). Arabic subtitles on English movies: Some linguistic, ideological and pedagogic issues. International Journal of Arabic-English Studies, 7, 81–100. Mneimneh, H. (1998). English only? Is Arabic translation obsolete? Language International, 10(2), 32–33. Qandeel, H. (2014). ‘Ishtu Marratayn (I lived twice). Cairo: Dar Al-Shorouk. Selim, A. (2010). The effect of using same language subtitling (SLS) in content comprehension and vocabulary acquisition in Arabic as a foreign language. Unpublished MA thesis, the American University in Cairo, Egypt. Statista (2016). Number of available apps in the Apple App Store from July 2008 to June 2015. Available at: www.statista.com/statistics/263795/number-of-available-apps-in-the-apple-store/. Stoll, C. (1995). Why the web will not be nirvana. Newsweek (February 26, 1995). Available at: www. newswek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306. Thawabteh, M. (2011). Linguistic, cultural and technical problems in English-Arabic subtitling. SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics, 5(1), 24–44. Available at: www.skase.sk/Volumes/JTI05/pdf_doc/ 02.pdf. Von Flotow, L. (1995). Audiovisual communication and language transfer: The Strasbourg Conference, June 1995. TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction, 8(2), 286–289. Watson, L. (2012). Illiterate Britain: One in five adults struggling to read and write and some can’t even use a chequebook. Daily Mail (March 29, 2012). Available at: www.dailymail.co.uk/article-2122007/ Illiterate-Britian-One-adults-struggling-read-write-t-use-chequebook.html. Yahiaoui, R. (2014). Ideological and cultural constraints in audiovisual translation: Dubbing the Simpsons into Arabic: An approach to raise awareness and understanding of practitioner involved in the dubbing and subtitling industries. Unpublished doctoral thesis, London Metropolitan University, UK. Zitawi, J. (2004). The translation of Disney comics in the Arab world: A pragmatic perspective. Unpublished doctoral thesis, the University of Manchester, UK. Zitawi, J. (2008). Contextualizing Disney comics within the Arab culture. META, 53(1), 139–153.

Filmography Love Radio (2011). Ahmad Samir Farag.

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PART III

' Translators agency

13 EGYPTIAN INTERROGATION RECORDS Considerations for translation Neveen Al Saeed

Introduction This chapter investigates Egyptian interrogation records as an example of one of the text types translators are faced with. More specifically, the focus of this chapter is on the linguistic and textual issues translators face when translating interrogation records from Arabic to English. The first section discusses the interrogation context in Egypt and the role of clerks in the making of interrogation records to explain the reasons for the presence of such issues. Then, I introduce the data, the method of data presentation and define some key terms. Third, the two suggested stages a translator needs to go through before translating an interrogation record are discussed. The first stage is understanding the nature of the interrogation record, which is problematic in itself and needs to be addressed by translators to overcome the text’s limitations. This stage is crucial before a translator considers any challenges of the translation. The second stage explores the challenges of translating legal texts in general and interrogations in particular. Finally, some examples of the challenging linguistic features found in the Egyptian interrogation records such as the use of archaic language, spelling and register and punctuation are highlighted. Two important fields in language studies, i.e. legal language and translation of legal language, are addressed in this chapter. Tiersma (2008) defines legal language as the special method of speaking and writing used in any legal context. He also adds that legal discourse plays a pivotal role in the exchanges taking place between legal professionals such as judges, lawyers and also lay people. Legal language is characterized by not being a homogeneous type of discourse. It consists of different varieties: spoken and written that are used in different contexts and purposes (Cao, 2010). In the literature, the term legal language was mainly concerned with written legal texts. It is worth noting that the legal language I am dealing with here is a hybrid comprised of spoken legal discourse in interrogations which is transformed into a written record. It has been agreed that translating a legal text is a complex task in itself due to the nature of legal language (Ainsworth, 2014). According to Tiersma (2008: 14– 22), the complexity of the task is a result of the unique features of this language variety such as the use of synonyms, technical vocabulary, coined words, archaic suffixes and the formal style.

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Features such as the ones mentioned above are normally present in the language of interrogations. For example, the language of prosecutors and that of suspects in the Egyptian context includes traces of these features such as different pronunciation and spelling, long complex sentences, a high frequency of conjoined phrases and use of archaic words, which are presented later in the chapter. The existence of such features in interrogation records emphasizes Ainsworth’s (2014) argument that the nature of legal language affects the process of translation and interpretation of such records. The related field of interpretation in interrogations has also been widely researched in the past few decades (e.g. Taibi and Martin, 2012). Researchers in these studies have mainly focused on the presence of interpreters with suspects and witnesses in the interrogation room or the courtroom. They have tackled issues such as suspects’ rights, their understanding of their caution or Miranda rights and misinterpretations in the courtroom caused by judges’ interventions (e.g. Hale and Gibbons, 1999; Nakane, 2007; Ng, 2015).

Why focus on interrogations? Interrogations play a crucial role in any legal process because they are one of the important factors that lead to a case being referred to court or it being dropped. Thus, it has a lifechanging effect on suspects’ lives because it may lead to their freedom or imprisonment (Haworth, 2006). Due to this important role, interviews have been the focus of research in the past few decades. Studies have looked at a range of elements in interrogations such as questioning as a reflection of power and control (Haworth, 2006), questioning types and their pragmatic functions (Johnson, 2008; Oxburgh et al., 2010). Other research has been carried out to explore interviewing in legal contexts other than the UK: for example, Australia (Heydon, 2005); the United States (Ainsworth, 2014; Leo, 2008) and the Netherlands (Komter, 2003).

Interrogations in the Egyptian context Suspect/witness interviews in Egypt are of a different nature from the UK because the Egyptian judicial system is inquisitorial where the judge takes an active part in the case. This is different from the adversarial system where the judge is not involved in the case and plays an impartial role in regulating the discourse presented by the defense and the prosecution representative (Williamson, 2006). A few studies have investigated questioning in inquisitorial settings such as Komter (2002), who explored the structure of Dutch interrogations, and D’hondt (2009) and Maryns (2014), who dealt with the Belgian setting. Contrary to some legal systems, in the Egyptian system, interviewing suspects and witnesses is not carried out by police officers, but by the Prosecutor’s Office. The role of police officers or more generally law enforcement officers is an executive one. Prosecution in Egypt is a hierarchical system made up of the public prosecutor, assistant prosecutor, prosecutor attorneys, vice prosecutor and their assistants (Soliman, 2010). The prosecutor has many important roles in the investigation of a crime: evidence collection, preparatory investigation and referring a case to court. Therefore, it is the prosecutor that carries out interrogations with suspects, victims and/ or witnesses (Soliman, 2010). According to Belal (2013), the prosecution as an entity has very important characteristics. For example, it is independent of all the executive and judicial authorities of the country. In other words, it has power to interrogate all the government’s departments and their representatives whether they are presidents, ministers or parliamentary members. 224

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According to Egyptian criminal law, prosecutors are required to be accompanied by clerks in the interrogation and this is to help the prosecutor focus on the technical side such as asking questions, and establishing the existence of premeditation in the crime, and not on taking accurate notes (Egyptian Criminal law: Articles 73 and 99; Kayed, 2007: 426– 428). Absence of the clerk in the interrogation room leads to the invalidity of the record. Another requirement is that the clerk needs to sign every page of the interrogation he has written, at the end of the interrogation and before the record goes to the judge. Clerks are also required to simultaneously take notes of all the questions and answers taking place in the interrogation room without deleting, summarizing or editing the content and all of this should be supervised by the prosecutor (Egyptian Criminal law: Article 205). The record they produce should also be in clear handwriting, and should not include any crossing out. Clerks are only allowed to delete or edit records if they are asked to do so by prosecutors and they need to sign their names next to any changes they have made to the record. In addition, if clerks cross out a word they have misheard or misspelled, they are also required to sign next to this word. Other than questions and responses, the law requires that the record needs to include the date of the interrogation, name of the prosecutor, his title, the place where he works, the name of the clerk, the place the interrogation is taking place, and also the name, title and address of the suspects and witnesses. Records also need to include a summary of the crime and its details before the questions and answers. Finally, clerks are the ones who contact witnesses and suspects to inform them of the time of the interrogation. In this chapter, I use Egyptian interrogations as an example of the issues of record making and translation of such records, and, therefore, it is important to highlight the features of that particular context in order to appreciate the particular issues that can arise from transferring an oral text to a written one and then translating it. This research has practical significance, because it gives insights into the Egyptian legal system and language use in it, to provide a deeper understanding of the institutional practices and the nature of prosecutors’ questioning techniques, decreasing the gap in understanding between legal practices and legal professionals and the expectations of analysts in general and translators in particular. Second, I intend for this study to encourage more Egyptian and Arabic- speaking researchers to get involved in the field of language and the law and the study of interrogations more specifically, which will ensure the continuing development of robust methodological approaches when dealing with language and the law. This chapter also deals with another under-researched field: legal translation between Arabic and English. It aims at introducing the complexities of translating an interrogation record and suggesting some methods that translators could use to overcome these linguistic complexities.

Data Data used in this chapter is derived from a bigger corpus of Egyptian interrogations collected for my doctoral project, which is composed of eighteen interrogation case records made up of approximately 49,678 words, based on an estimation calculated by counting the number of words on a typical page and multiplying it by the number of pages in each case. Word counts per case ranged from 400 words to 6,000 words. Cases analyzed were prosecuted between the years 2007 and 2011 (so are all completed cases) and represent a range of crime allegations: murder, political (i.e. use of violence against protestors in the case of the Mubaraks’ interrogations), embezzlement of public funds, drug trafficking and theft. Each record deals with one case (including both suspect and witness interrogations) 225

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where one prosecutor was responsible for the questioning. This chapter focuses only on suspects’ interrogations and the number of suspects in each case ranged from one suspect to three. They formed two categories: worker and professional suspects. The term professional refers to suspects such as the Egyptian ex-president Hosni Mubarak and his sons and others who are employed in the professions, such as in government and politics, or as doctors, lawyers or police officers. The term worker, on the other hand, refers to suspects who are involved in different kinds of manual labor. This category of suspects included both skilled and unskilled workers. The preparation of the data for analysis and translation involved making the data accessible to non-Arabic speakers by adapting the Leipzig glossing method (Max Planck Institute, 2008) to provide a word-for-word gloss and an idiomatic translation as shown in the example below. It is worth noting here that before translating interrogation records, the handwritten Arabic interrogation records were transferred into a word-processed text, which were then transliterated and translated. Each example in this chapter is in the form of a table with three columns and three rows, as well as containing the example number in a top row. The first column on the left contains the line number. Numbers were only given to the lines with the idiomatic English translations to help the reader to focus on the English lines. Line numbers within one example are consecutive but the numbering is restarted in each new example. The second column indicates who the speaker is. Codes include an abbreviation for the role of the speaker: prosecutor (PR), and suspect (S). For example, in the data example above, the speaker is the prosecutor in line 1. The third column includes the data and it is three-tiered. The first line of any example is the original Arabic text. All the Arabic examples were kept as they appeared in the original data even if they had punctuation, spelling or stylistic errors, in order to maintain the text’s credibility. The second line is the transliterated Arabic text in an adapted version of the DIN 31635 transliteration method (quoted in Lagally, 1992). Finally, the third line is an idiomatic English translation of the text, shown in italics for ease of reading. For ethical reasons, I anonymized all the case types with crime category codes and gave suspects English names, such as Winston, when discussing data or where names of other people were mentioned in the transcripts, and the used the code (S), when labelling suspect turns in the data examples. I have preserved gender distinctions when choosing an English name. Examples of linguistic features used in this chapter are samples of these features found in the bigger corpus. This chapter is of benefit to translators who are concerned with translating written records of any given spoken discourse, because it highlights the different features they need to be aware of when approaching such texts. The terms translator and translation in this chapter refer to whoever attempts to translate an Egyptian interrogation record into another language. In the current interrogation context, clerks’ written interrogation records are likely to be inaccurate and will fail to fully reproduce the oral interrogation, due to the inherent difficulties in performing this task, but also because of differences in the dialects used by the suspects in the interrogation and those written in the record, spelling and register, as will be discussed later in the chapter. All the English translations provided in this chapter are translated by the author and provide a guide for other translators.

Stages of translating an interrogation record Stage one: understanding the nature of an interrogation record As mentioned above, when translators are asked to work on a written record of spoken discourse, they should first understand the nature of such a record. Bucholtz’s (2000: 1440) 226

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comment on transcribers and their role is a useful starting point: ‘the responsible practice of transcription … requires the transcriber’s cognizance of her or his own role in the creation of the text and the ideological implications of the resultant product’. The effect a transcriber has on the resulting text should not be overlooked both by analysts and translators. Bucholtz (2000) here is talking about transferring an oral text into a written one that is making a written version of an oral text. The text used in this chapter is already written and the clerk has done the job of writing it down. However, the clerk is not transcribing in the linguistic sense as he is making a contemporaneous record, not working from a tape and he is not trained to recognize the implications that linguistic features and choices have on the interrogation record. Transcribers’ effect has crucial implications for legal texts such as courtroom proceedings and interrogations and it has drawn the attention of many researchers who have highlighted the different effects of working with a transcribed text (e.g. Bucholtz, 2000; Coulthard, 1996). For example, Coulthard (1996), who was analyzing transcription problems that arose before tape

Example 1 

(1)

1

PR

‫ﻣﺘﻲ ﻭﺃﻳﻦ ﺣﺪﺙ ﺫﻟﻚ‬ matā wa ayna ḥadaṯa ḏālik When and where did this happen?

recordings were introduced in the UK interrogation system, argued that there is a misconception among people that police records are verbatim records of what was said in the interrogation. This, according to him, is an ideal situation which happened very rarely and he called transcription a problematic task. Before audio- recording UK police interviews, the police officer who was responsible for transcribing the interview was the one who decided what information to include on the record and what not to include. Such omissions are not always deliberate manipulations of the content. Coulthard (1996) also stated that transcripts do not include linguistic details such as hesitations, repetitions and different non-standard forms, which affects the credibility of the transcript. Bucholtz (2000) similarly found that transcripts were not identical to the original texts, but a reflection of the purpose of the transcriber and his/her audience. Both Coulthard (1996) and Bucholtz (2000) discuss the changes to the content of records due to the transcriber effect. It is these changes that a translator needs to keep in mind when working on an interrogation record: the focus of the chapter. The process of producing a record of an interrogation in Egypt is different from other legal systems such as the UK. Since the Egyptian context is one without audio- or video- recording, the handwritten record becomes important, because it is the only source of information of what happened in the interrogation room. Because of the complexities of producing a contemporaneous written record of a speech event, the resulting record is problematic for any linguistic analyst and translator. The transformation of the spoken conversation (interrogation) into a written record is likely to lead to some significant differences between what is said in the interrogation room and what is written in the report, even though it is stated in Egyptian law that the reports should be ‘as much as possible in the suspect’s own words’ (Soliman, 2010). However, it has been agreed that there is not any record that is neutral or unbiased (Ochs, 1979). According to Eades (1996), even the ‘verbatim’ records, such as the ones in the Egyptian interrogations, are a reflection of their own transcriber. In other words, they are not word- for- word representations of the spoken 227

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word because of the great difficulty of creating such a record. They are, however, affected by different factors such as the context they have been produced in, the people speaking and their status, the purpose of the transcript and the audience to whom it is addressed and, last but not least, to the transcriber making the record (Bucholtz, 2000). In addition, making a record has been presented as a form of political and ideological act and not a mere copy of an audio-recording or a conversation in our case (Fraser, 2014). Therefore, anyone who attempts to translate an Egyptian interrogation record needs to keep in mind the clerk’s role in the production of such a text and how he/she affected it ideologically. In Egyptian interrogations, the record is not only the result of the clerk and his choices. Translators have to keep in mind that the text has gone through two transformations before reaching its final state and may need to clearly indicate such a fact in their translated text. While clerks write down a ‘verbatim’ record of what goes on in the interrogation room and decide what information to include in the record and what not to include, prosecutors also have the power to stop the clerk and ask him to add information to the record. Therefore, translators should pay attention to what the context of the record was and the audience for whom the prosecutor and the clerk are making the record. No evidence was found in the records about whether the prosecutor adjusts the speed of his talk to allow the clerk to make a verbatim record; however, clerks were found to record incorrect or misheard words. For example, a prosecutor’s addition or explanation to the clerk was shown on the record by the use of brackets or in a new paragraph. If a word was misheard, the clerk signaled this by putting the wrong word between brackets and a cross over the brackets. Spoken discourse that is transformed into a written text has been found to undergo different stages of ‘selection, deletion and transformation’ (Garfinkel, 1967; Komter, 2012: 732). Previous research (e.g. Rock, 2001) that compared the audio- recordings of police interviews with witnesses and the written statement produced by police officers found that there were many fundamental and stylistic differences, such as differences between witnesses’ and interviewers’ references to time, and between the witnesses’ style and that of the record. Such ‘textual travel’ (Rock et al., 2013), or as Bucholtz (2007) calls it, recontextualization, represents all the stylistic and textual differences in the written records as they ‘move through and around institutional processes and are shaped, altered and appropriated during their journeys’ (Rock et al., 2013: 4). Police work has been described as intertextual because statements and information are collected during interrogations and restructured to be included in police case records to be sent to judges and lawyers (Rock et al., 2013). In Egyptian interrogations, the travel of the text is not just evident in the aforementioned move from spoken discourse to a written record; it also exists in the de- contextualization of the suspects’ and witnesses’ statements from the interrogation context and its recontextualization in the courtroom. To sum this section up, interrogation records have a very specific nature. A translator who is asked to deal with such a record needs to keep in mind their role in the production of such a text. Translating a legal text, such as an Egyptian interrogation, that has already been transformed by a clerk will add a further layer of textual travel: a translation of the interrogations into English for researchers/people who are not well acquainted with the Arabic language, in general, and the Egyptian dialect in particular.

Stage two: exploring the challenges of translating legal texts To non-specialists, translating legal language might seem an unproblematic task, but it has been agreed by translation research that it is one of the most challenging tasks a translator 228

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has to go through for many reasons (Ainsworth, 2014). Legal text has been described by many specialists as ‘opaque’ because of its reliance on technical jargon, archaic words, foreign language and complex lexical structures (Ainsworth, 2014; Tiersma, 1999). In addition, in some languages such as Arabic, these complex structures in legal language lack punctuation (El- Farahaty, 2016) making the message more opaque. Another reason for opaqueness is the asymmetry between the language of the source legal text and the target text and their different linguistic features. Cultural and historic contexts in which legal texts are deeply situated are the second challenge for translators. Alwazna (2016) argues that these contexts cannot be separated from the texts being translated, adding an extra layer of difficulty to the work of translators. Like Alwazna (2016), Husa (2016) asserts that legal texts need to be seen as dynamic texts that are in constant ‘interaction’ with surrounding events. Based on the challenges mentioned above, a translator who is dealing with a legal text is considered to have a dual job of communicating the meaning of the text and also the legal effect, and hence needs to bridge the gap or the asymmetry between the two languages and the two legal systems at the same time. In this chapter, there is an additional challenge which arises from the nature of a spoken legal text that is transformed into a written legal record. In the next section, some linguistic features of interrogations as legal texts found in the dataset are discussed.

Linguistic features of Egyptian interrogations Archaic language as part of the technical lexis The use of archaic terms is a common feature in both English and Arabic legal texts (Ainsworth, 2014; El-Farahaty, 2015). They are one of the difficulties that face translators who try to communicate these terms between English and Arabic because there is not one-to-one correspondence between such terms (El- Farahaty, 2015), which supports Ainsworth’s theory that legal terms and language are not universal. According to El-Farahaty (2016), there is less of a tendency to use archaic language in Arabic legal texts than there is in English texts because ‘there is much greater fluidity between different Arabic registers [and] Classical Arabic terms and morphology continue to exist in today’s Modern Standard Arabic’ (El- Farahaty, 2015: 40). Rather than calling them archaic terms, El- Farahaty (2015: 40) defines these Arabic legal terms as ‘template terms’. For the purpose of this chapter, I define archaic terms or phrases as the old or obsolete words used as part of the technical legal register and in the interrogation records. In the dataset, clerks’ records included archaic words 15 percent of the time. The use of archaic language and technical register in questions was used in cases involving worker suspects such as those in Examples 2 to 5. For instance, in Example 2 the record shows that the prosecutor used archaic terms such as sālifī al-ḏikr / aforementioned (Example 2, line 1):

Example 2 

(2) [BEATING LED TO DEATH] ැ ‫ﻭﻣﺎ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﺑﺪﺭ ﻣﻨﻚ ﺣﺎﻝ ﻣﺸﺎﻫﺪﺗﻚ ﻟﻜﻞ ﻣﻦ ﺳﺎﻟﻔﻲ ﺍﻟﺬﻛﺮ ﺍﻧﺬﺍﻙ؟‬ wa mā allaḏī badara mink ḥāl mušāhdatak likullin min sālifī al-ḏikr ānaḏāk? 1 PR And how did you react when you saw the aforementioned?

and taḫalaf girāʾ ḏālik / result in (Example 3, line 1): 229

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Example 3 

(3) [DRUGS] ැ 1

PR

2

S

‫ﻫﻞ ﺗﺨﻠﻒ ﺟﺮﺍء ﺫﻟﻚ ﺛﻤﺔ ﺍﺻﺎﺑﺎﺕ؟‬ hal taḫalaf girāʾ ḏālik ṯimat ʾiṣābāt? Did this result in any injuries? ‫ﻻ‬ Lā No

These phrases are still used in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) so might be known to people who do not belong to the legal field. However, they are rarely used or are confined to formal documents. In Examples 2 and 3, I have dealt with archaic terms by using equivalent words in the English language that explain their register- specific technical meaning. I agree with El- Farahaty (2015) that this process is easy when translating from Arabic to English because there are equivalents in the English language to these formal archaic terms. A good example of this is the word sālifī al-ḏikr / aforementioned in Example 2, line 1. When translating, I have also tried to choose from the terms that are used in the English legal register to make it easier for researchers to relate to the original text. There were other types of archaic words that are not used in everyday language or are strictly legal terms such as waqaft ˤala / know (Example 4, line 1): Example 4 

(4) [DRUGS] ැ 1

2

PR

‫ﻫﻞ ﻭﻗﻔﺖ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺷﺨﺼﻴﺔ ﺍﻟﻘﺎﺋﻤﻴﻦ ﺑﺎﻟﺘﻌﺪﻱ ﻋﻠﻴﻚ ﻣﻦ ﺃﻣﻨﺎء ﺍﻟﺸﺮﻁﺔ؟‬ hal waqaft ˤala šaḫṣiyat al-qāʾimīn bi-al-taˤadī ˤalayk min ʾumanāʾ al-šurṭa? Did you know the names of the policemen who assaulted you?

S

‫ﺃﻧﺎ ﻣﻌﺮﻓﺘﺶ ﺃﺳﻤﺎء ﺣﺪ ﻓﻴﻬﻢ‬ ʾana maˤriftiš ʾasmāʾ ḥad fīhum I didn’t know any of their names

and ḍarba kālahā / stab (Example 5, line 1):

Example 5 

(5) [BEATING LED TO DEATH] ැ ‫ﻛﺎﻡ ﺿﺮﺑﺔ ﻛﺎﻟﻬﺎ ﻟﻚ ﺑﺘﻠﻚ ﺍﻷﺩﺍﺓ‬ kām ḍarba kālahā lak bi-tilk al-ʾadā 1 PR How many times did he stab you with this weapon?

In the Modern Arabic context, a suspect would use words such as ḍarba wagahahā / stab and ˤarift / know, rather than the words used here. Translators do not only need to understand the meaning of such a term as suggested in previous research, but they also need to think about 230

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whether this term was used by the prosecutor or by the clerk, its pragmatic function and how to transfer this into the translated text. In Examples 4 and 5, the archaic terms did not have exact equivalents in the English language as in the previous two examples, but I have chosen the words know and stab, which belong to the legal register and express the prosecutor’s meaning accurately. Prosecutors interrogating professional suspects (Examples 6 and 7) also used archaic language in their questions. Example 6 is an excerpt from an interrogation with the Egyptian expresident Hosni Mubarak. In the example, Mubarak is interrogated about the protests that took place in Egypt as part of the January 2011 revolution. Prior to this extract, Mubarak claimed that he was unaware of everything taking place in the streets in 2011 and that he gave direct orders to his officers not to use any violence with protestors. The follow-up question presented in Example 6, lines 1–4, records the idea that mutaẓāhirīn silmiyan / peaceful demonstrators were both killed and injured by police officers’ weapons. As is clear in the example, the prosecutor is recorded as using MSA to phrase his question, including some phrases from the legal register such as mā qawluk wa qad ṯabata / What’s your reply about what has been affirmed in line 1 and archaic phrases such as min garāʾ / as a result of in line 3. Such legal and archaic phrases are also easy to translate because they exist in the English legal register (e.g. affirmed and as a result of). Example 6 

(6) [POLITICS] ැ

‫ﻣﺎ ﻗﻮﻟﻚ ﻭﻗﺪ ﺛﺒﺖ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺘﺤﻘﻴﻘﺎﺕ ﻗﺘﻞ ﺍﻟﻤﺌﺎﺕ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﺘﻈﺎﻫﺮﻳﻦ ﺳﻠﻤﻴﺎ ﻣﻦ ﺟﺮﺍء ﺇﻁﻼﻕ ﺍﻟﻨﺎﺭ ﻋﻠﻴﻬﻢ‬ ‫ﻣﻦ ﻗﻮﺍﺕ ﺍﻟﺸﺮﻁﺔ ﺍﻟﻤﺸﺎﺭﻛﺔ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﻤﻈﺎﻫﺮﺍﺕ ﻓﻲ ﻋﺪﺓ ﻣﺤﺎﻓﻈﺎﺕ ﺑﺎﻟﺠﻤﻬﻮﺭﻳﺔ؟‬ mā qawluk wa qad ṯabata min al-taḥqīqāt qatl al-miʾāt min almutaẓāhirīn silmiyan min garāʾ ʾiṭlāq al-nār ˤalayhum min quwāt alšurta al-mušārika fī al-muẓāharāt fī ˤidat muḥāfaẓāt bi-l-gumhūriya?

1 2 3 4

PR

What’s your reply about what has been affirmed through the investigations that hundreds of peaceful demonstrators were killed as a result of gunshots by the police forces that participated in the demonstrations in various governorates of the Republic?

While prosecutors were recorded as using technical terms in the same manner both with worker and professional suspects, it is worth noting that professional suspects are expected to understand archaic language and be able to respond using MSA as well. However, worker suspects, who received limited education, would not be expected to understand archaic and legal terms or use them in their responses. Therefore, having them in their responses could be considered signs of textual travel, such as the effect of having a scribe, or that prosecutors did not accommodate to their interviewee.

Spelling and shift in registers Arabic is one of the languages that is characterized by being diglossic (Alshamrani, 2011). Diglossia as a term was first coined by Ferguson in 1959 to refer to societies using two or more varieties of the same language to fulfill specific functions, which applies to the Arabic language because it has different varieties that play different societal roles (Jabbari, 231

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2012). Egypt is one of the settings where diglossia is evident because, as Yacoub (2015) argues, Egyptian society has different varieties that make up its diglossic nature. The first variety is Classical Arabic (CA), which is the highest and most respected one. This high (H) variety is the language of the Holy Quran and is mainly used in religious contexts and its structure has not changed much over time. Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the modern variety of Classical Arabic used in formal contexts such as politics, governmental settings and so on. These two varieties are not only used in Egypt; they are also used across the Arabic- speaking world. Another variety is Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA), which plays the low (L) position in Egyptian society. It is used in informal settings, but it can also be used in combination with the H variety in political and religious speeches. According to Yacoub (2015), the importance of this variety is that it shapes Egyptian identity. If we apply the concept of diglossia to interrogations, it is expected that prosecutors would use MSA because it is the official variety used in institutional settings. Suspects will use either ECA or MSA, as either variety is expected according to the role suspects play in the institutional process. Interrogation records analyzed in this chapter presented suspects using a mix of both varieties, based on their professional or worker status which reflects educational level. For example, the Mubaraks are recorded as using MSA all through their interviews. However, it is worth noting that what is presented on record may be the same as or different from what both suspects and prosecutors actually used. These different H and L varieties show distinctions at the grammatical, lexical and phonological levels. For example, the Arabic word for ‘woman’ is different in the H ‘almar’a’ to the L ‘il-sitt’ and the sound /q/ in the H is pronounced as a glottal stop /’/ in ECA (Bassiouney, 2009). It is these differences that can be opaque in the interrogation records in my data. For example, sometimes reading the clerk’s text in order to translate it is a challenge in itself. In my dataset, the clerks made many spelling errors while writing the record and mixed the H variety with the colloquial one, which made the text hard to follow at certain points. For example, the /‫ﻕ‬/ sound in the data is transliterated in two ways depending on the speakers and the register that is recorded in the case file. The first sound /qa/, similar to the Classical Arabic sound, occurred in the speech of speakers who were recorded as using a formal register. An example for this sound is the word qad/‫ﻗﺪ‬. The second sound is transcribed as /ʾ/ which is like the glottal stop sound in English (Hinds and Badawi, 1986). This sound was used in the ECA sections of the data and was evident in words such as ʾatalt/ ‫ ﻗﺘﻠﺖ‬as opposed to qatalt used in MSA. There is no trace in the records to show if this mix was in the original spoken discourse. However, this mix between registers is a characteristic of interrogations, according to Komter (2003), because police officers who are taking notes try to make a verbatim record of suspects’ statements and at the same time try to get the information they need on record. In addition, interrogators are using formal institutional language while at the same time trying to be comprehensible to lay people (Fox, 1993). Examples 7 and 8 are good instances of the shift between MSA and ECA registers. For example, in line 1 in Example 7, the prosecutor is recorded as asking the question using a formal register wa ʾayna kān yaḥmil al- madˤū Mark ḏalik al- silāḥ? / And where did Mark carry this weapon?; the suspect, however, is recorded as answering, in lines 2– 3, using the Egyptian dialect maˤrafšī / I dunno instead of using the formal register such as lā ʾaˤlam or lā ʾaˤrif / I do not know. This mix in registers is a very important feature of interrogation records.

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Example 7 

(7) [BEATING LED TO DEATH] ‫ﻭﺃﻳﻦ ﻛﺎﻥ ﻳﺤﻤﻞ ﺍﻟﻤﺪﻋﻮ ﻣﺎﺭﻙ ﺫﻟﻚ ﺍﻟﺴﻼﺡ؟‬ wa ʾayna kān yaḥmil al-madˤū Mark ḏalik al-silāḥ? 1 PR And where did Mark carry this weapon? ැ ‫ﺃﻧﺎ ﻣﻌﺮﻓﺸﻲ ﻫﻮ ﻛﺎﻥ ﺷﺎﻳﻠﻪ ﻓﻴﻦ ﺑﺎﻟﻀﺒﻂ ﻭﺃﻧﺎ ﻓﻮﺟﺌﺖ ﺑﺎﻥ ﺿﺮﺑﻨﻲ ﺑﻪ ﻓﻲ ﺭﺟﻠﻲ‬ ʾana maˤrafšī huwwa kān šāyluh fēn bi-l-ḍabt wa ʾana fūgiʾt bi-ʾan ḍarabnī bihi fī riglī 2 S I dunno where he carried it exactly and I was surprised when he 3 stabbed me with it in my leg

Translators should be careful of how they translate such mixing and have to decide whether they should keep these registers in translations or not. To give a credible account of the record, a translator could point out these shifts or acknowledge their presence in the text. This could be done by adding footnotes explaining the nature of the diglossic shifts or by choosing a word from colloquial English to reflect diglossic shifts. In Example 7, I have used colloquial I dunno to capture the colloquial sense of the Arabic maˤrafšī. Example 8 is another good example of traces of shift in register. Example 8 

(8) [POLITICS] ‫ﻣﺎ ﺇﺟﺮﺍءﺍﺕ ﻋﻘﺪ ﺗﻠﻚ ﺍﻟﺼﻔﻘﺎﺕ؟‬ mā ʾigrāʾāt ˤaqd tilk al-ṣafaqāt? 1

PR ැ

2

S

3

PR ැ

4

S

5

PR

6

S

What are the procedures for concluding such deals? ‫ﻣﻌﻨﺪﻳﺶ ﻓﻜﺮﺓ ﻋﻦ ﻫﺬﻩ ﺍﻹﺟﺮﺍءﺍﺕ‬ maˤandīš fikra ˤan haḏihi al-ʾigrāʾāt I have no idea about such procedures. ‫ﻫﻞ ﺗﻌﺮﻑ ﻛﻴﻔﻴﺔ ﺗﺤﺪﻳﺪ ﺍﻟﺜﻤﻦ ﻭﻁﺮﻳﻘﺔ ﺳﺪﺍﺩﻩ؟‬ hal taˤrif kayfiyat taḥdīd al-ṯaman wa ṭarīqat sadāduh? Do you know how the price is set and the manner of payment? ‫ ﻭﺍﻟﺠﻬﺔ ﺍﻟﻤﺨﺘﺼﺔ ﻫﻲ ﺍﻟﻠﻲ ﻋﻨﺪﻫﺎ ﻫﺬﻩ ﺍﻟﻤﻌﻠﻮﻣﺔ‬،‫ﻻ‬ lā wa al-giha al-muḫtaṣa hiyya īllī ˤandahā haḏihi al-maˤluma No, the competent authority is the one which has such information ‫ﻛﻴﻒ ﻳﺘﻢ ﺍﺧﺘﻴﺎﺭ ﺍﻟﺸﺮﻛﺎﺕ ﺍﻟﻤﻨﺘﺠﺔ؟‬ kayfa yatim ʾiḫtiyār al-šarikāt al-muntiga? How are the producing companies chosen? ‫ﻣﻌﺮﻓﺶ‬ maˤrafš I dunno

In line 2, the suspect uses mixed registers in his responses (maˤandīš fikra / I do not know and haḏihi al-ʾigrāʾāt / such procedures instead of, for example, al-ʾigrāʾāt dī / procedures like these). Again, this might be one of the results of having a clerk as the scribe 233

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of the interrogation record. While in interrogations with politicians or public figures (e.g. Example 8) the suspect is expected to use the H variety, because this is how he usually communicates in formal settings, suspects from other backgrounds such as the ones in Example 7 would be less likely to produce a H version in their response unless they are converging with the speaker. In this chapter, I consider any shifts of register as a possible effect of the clerk due to the lack of any textual evidence of the diglossic shifts being a strategy from prosecutors or suspects to accommodate to each other.

Punctuation Unlike English, Arabic does not have clear punctuation rules (El-Farahaty, 2015: 51). This is clear in the transcripts of Egyptian interrogations, where both prosecutors’ and suspects’ questions and responses were only rarely given punctuation marks. Instead there was reliance on coordination which is, according to El- Farahaty (2015: 42), the favored structure in Arabic, as shown in Example 9 where the suspect uses the particle wa / and as a coordination tool to connect the different parts of the list (Example 9, lines 3–12). Example 9 

(9) [EMBEZZLMENT] ‫ﻣﺎ ﺩﻟﻴﻠﻚ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺃﻥ ﺍﻟﺴﻴﺪ ﺃﺭﺕ ﻫﻮ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﻗﺎﻡ ﺑﺘﺴﻠﻴﻤﻚ ﻟﻠﺸﻴﻚ ﺭﻗﻢ)…( ﺑﻤﺒﻠﻎ ﺍﻟﻤﻠﻴﻮﻧﻲ ﺟﻨﻴﻬﺎ ﻭﻟﻴﺲ ﺍﻟﺴﻴﺪ ﺃﻟﺒﺮﺕ‬ mā dalīlak ˤala ʾan al-sayyid Art huwwa ʾallaḏī qām bi-taslīmak li-l-šīk raqam (…) bi-mablaġ al-millyūnay gūnayhan wa laysa al-sayyid Albert? 1 2

PR ැ

What is your proof that it was Mr. Art who gave you the cheque number (…) with the amount of two million pounds and not Mr. Albert ‫ﺃﻧﺎ ﻻ ﺃﻋﺮﻑ ﺃﻟﺒﺮﺕ ﺃﺳﺎﺳﺎ ً ﻭﺃﻥ ﺃﻣﻴﻦ ﺍﻟﻔﺮﻉ ﺍﻟﺨﺎﺹ ﺏ)…( ﻭﺍﻟﻌﻤﻴﻞ ﺃﺭﺕ ﺍﺣﻀﺮﻭﺍ ﺍﻟﺸﻴﻚ ﻭﺑﻌﺪ ﺍﺳﺘﺪﻋﺎﺋﻲ‬ ‫ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻠﺠﻨﺔ ﺗﺬﻛﺮﺕ ﺇﻥ ﺍﻟﺴﻴﺪ ﺃﺭﺕ ﺣﻀﺮ ﻟﻠﻤﺮﺣﻮﻡ ﻛﻴﺮﺕ )…( ﻓﻲ ﺫﺍﻙ ﺍﻟﻮﻗﺖ ﻭﺳﻠﻤﻪ ﺷﻜﻮﻯ ﺃﻧﻪ ﺳﺪﺩ‬ ‫ﺷﻴﻚ ﻣﻘﺒﻮﻝ ﺍﻟﺪﻓﻊ ﺑﻤﺒﻠﻎ ﻣﻠﻴﻮﻧﻲ ﺟﻨﻴﻬﺎ ً ﻭﻟﻢ ﻳﺴﺘﻠﻢ ﺑﺎﻗﻲ ﺍﻟﺴﻠﻊ ﻓﺎﺗﺼﻠﺖ ﺑﺎﻟﺸﺮﻛﺔ ﻭﺭﺟﻮﺗﻬﻢ ﻓﺤﺺ ﺃﻭﺭﺍﻕ‬ ‫ﺭﺋﻴﺲ ﺍﻟﻘﻄﺎﻉ ﺍﻟﺘﺠﺎﺭﻱ ﺇﺫﺍ ﻛﺎﻥ ﺑﻬﺎ ﺃﻱ ﺃﻭﺭﺍﻕ ﻭﺍﺣﻀﺮﻭﺍ ﻟﻲ ﺻﻮﺭﺓ ﺳﻮﻑ ﺃﻗﺪﻣﻬﺎ ﻟﺴﻴﺎﺩﺗﻜﻢ ﻭﻫﻲ ﺑﺮﻗﻢ‬ ‫ ﻋﻠﻤﺎ ً ﺑﺄﻥ ﺍﻟﻤﺮﺣﻮﻡ ﺍﻟﻤﺬﻛﻮﺭ ﻛﺎﻥ ﻣﺸﺮﻓﺎ ً ﻋﻠﻰ ﻗﻄﺎﻉ ﺍﻟﻤﻨﺎﻁﻖ ﻋﻨﺪ ﺗﻘﺪﻳﻢ ﺍﻟﺸﻜﻮﻯ‬19991/27/ ‫… ﻓﻲ‬ 19991/27/ ‫ﻓﻲ‬ ʾana lā ʾaˤrif Albert ʾasāssan wa ʾan ʾamīn al-farˤ al-ḫāṣ bi-(…) wa al-ˤamīl Art ʾaḥḍarū al-šīk wa baˤd ʾstidˤāʾī mina al-lagna taḏakart ʾin al-sayyid Art ḥaḍar li-l-marḥūm Kurt (…) fī ḏālik al-waqt wa sallamahū šakwā ʾanahū sadada šīk maqbūl al-dafˤ bi-mablaġ millyūnay gūnayhan wa lam yastalim bāqī al-silaˤ fā-ʾitaṣalt bi-l-šarika wa ragawtahum faḥṣ ʾawrāq rẚīs al-qitāˤ al-tugary ʾiṯā kān bihā ʾay ʾawrāq wa aḥḍarū lī ṣūra sawfa ʾuqadimūhā li-siyyādatakum wa hiyya bi-raqam (…) fī 27/1/1999 ˤilman bi-ʾan al-marḥūm al-maḏkūr kān mušrifan ˤala qiṭāˤ al-manāṭiq ˤind taqdīm al-šakwā fī 27/1/1999

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

S

I do not know Albert at all and the manager of (…) branch and Art, the client, were the ones who got the cheque and after I was summoned by the committee, I remembered that Mr. Art came to the deceased Kurt who was the (…) at the time and filed a complaint that he paid a certified cheque with the amount of two million pounds but have not received the rest of his products. So I called the company and requested that they check all the papers of commercial sector head to see if there are any papers on this issue and they gave me a copy of what I will present to your honor and its number is… . filed in 27/1/1999. It is worth noting that the deceased was the supervisor of all the sector areas at the time of the complaint in 27/1/1999

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Translators need to keep this in mind while working on records, because the lack of punctuation results in having multiple compound and overlong sentences with a lot of coordinated clauses and unclear relationships between ideas. In this chapter, I have tried to stay as close to the original text in terms of punctuation and spelling as possible, because this helps to maintain authenticity. However, if a translator decided to use any of the features differently, there needs to be an explanation for such a change in the form of a footnote or in an appendix. For example, an alternate way to translate lines 3–5 in Example 9 would be: ʾana lā ʾaˤrif Albert ʾasāssan wa ʾan ʾamīn al- farˤ al-ḫāṣ bi- (…) wa al-ˤamīl Art ʾaḥḍarū al-šīk wa baˤd ʾstidˤāʾī mina al-lagna taḏakart… I do not know Albert at all and the manager of (…) branch and Art, the client, were the ones who got the cheque. After I was summoned by the committee, I remembered…* The translator will then have to add a footnote or an intertextual gloss stating that: *The original text relied heavily on the use of wa / and, but to produce a more idiomatic translation that reflects English structure, I have deleted wa / and and used linking words, such as after, to better reflect the clausal relations. In this footnote, a subordinating conjunction was used, changing the sentence from a compound one into a complex one. While this generally might misrepresent dependency, the presence of the coordination particle wa / and and subordination adverb baˤd / after in Example 9 helps overcome this misrepresentation. This made it easier to change the clause dependency without affecting the meaning, but translators need to make their decision depending on the context. Explanations and footnotes will help readers get a better idea of the original text.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have discussed one type of legal text: Egyptian interrogations, the different processes that shape the production of interrogation records and the challenges of translating this record into English. After discussing the nature of interrogations records, it became evident that these records have gone through different levels of transformation that need to be acknowledged by translators of these texts. First, they are transformed from their original spoken form to a written text. Second, they are transformed from the words uttered by prosecutors and suspects to the form recorded by the interrogation clerk who, as is clear from the discussion above, has an effect on the record. Working with such data has limitations for the type of linguistic analysis that can be carried out, since interrogations in Egypt are all in the form of handwritten documents and there is no access to audio- or video-recordings or wordprocessed versions of interrogations. The analysis of a written record of an oral conversation is limited because it includes omissions and transformations: it does not take into account important factors such as pauses, reformulations, overlapping turns and other elements of oral discourse which might be indicative of the presence of coercion, leading questions, control and so forth. The clerk who is taking down the written record has one aim and that is to write a verbatim record of the prosecutor’s questions and answers provided and, since he is not linguistically trained, very important linguistic factors such as overlaps, and pauses, will not be present in such a record. It is worth noting, however, that these limitations do not make 235

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this chapter of less importance, though they do limit the conclusions that can be drawn. The chapter is considered as a first step in a new context, which will open up new research possibilities for other researchers to look at. I have highlighted different linguistic features that characterize Egyptian interrogation records such as use of archaic language, shift of registers and punctuation. More research on translation strategies to deal with such texts or features would be a great addition to the field. Interviews with clerks, prosecutors and suspects who have gone through the process will give a better indication of how and why interrogation records are in the format they are in. Also, more studies dealing with contrastive analysis between interrogations with professional and worker suspects, their language and implications could have on translation are recommended.

Acknowledgments I would like to thank Dr Alison Johnson, Dr Bethan Davies and Dr Hanem El- Farahaty for their invaluable comments on this chapter.

Further reading Bucholtz, M. (2000) The politics of transcription. Journal of Pragmatics 32: 1439–1465. Bucholtz, M. (2007) Variation in transcription. Discourse Studies 9(6): 784–808. Fraser, H. (2003) Issues in transcription: Factors affecting the reliability of transcripts as evidence in legal cases. International Journal of Speech Language and the Law 10(2): 203–226. Fraser, H. (2014) Transcription of indistinct forensic recordings: Problems and solutions from the perspective of phonetic science. Language and Law / Linguagem e Direito 1(2): 5–21.

References Ainsworth, J. (2014) Lost in translation? Linguistic diversity and the elusive quest for plain meaning in the law. In: Cheng, L., Sin, K.K. and Wagner, A. (eds) The Ashgate Handbook of Legal Translation. England: Ashgate, 43–56. Alshamrani, H. (2011) Diglossia in Arabic TV stations. Journal of King Saud University- Languages and Translation 24(1): 57–69. Alwazna, R.Y. (2016) Islamic law: Its sources, interpretation and the translation of it into laws written in English. International Journal of Semiotics of the Law 29(2): 251–260. Bassiouney, R. (2009) Arabic Sociolinguistics: Topics in Diglossia, Gender, Identity, and Politics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Belal, A. (2013) Principles of the Egyptian Criminal Law: The General Part. Cairo: Dar Al Nahda Al Arabiya. Bucholtz, M. (2000) The politics of transcription. Journal of Pragmatics 32: 1439–1465. Bucholtz, M. (2007) Variation in transcription. Discourse Studies 9(6): 784–808. Cao, D. (2010) Legal translation: Translating legal language. In: Coulthard, M. and Johnson, A. (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 78–91. Coulthard, M. (1996) The official version: Audience manipulation in police records of interviews with suspects. In: Caldas-Coulthard, C.R. and Coulthard, M. (eds) Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge, 166–178. D’hondt, S. (2009) Others on trial: The construction of cultural otherness in Belgian first instance criminal hearings. Journal of Pragmatics 41(4): 806–828. Eades, D. (1996) Verbatim courtroom transcripts and discourse analysis. In: Knifke, H. (ed.) Recent Developments in Forensic Linguistics. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 241–254. El-Farahaty, H. (2015) Arabic–English–Arabic Legal Translation. London and New York: Routledge. El-Farahaty, H. (2016) Translating lexical legal terms between English and Arabic. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 29(2): 473–493.

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Egyptian interrogation records Fox, G. (1993) A comparison of ‘policespeak’ and ‘normalspeak’: A preliminary study. In: Sinclair, J.M. (ed.) Techniques in Description: Spoken and Written Discourse. London: Routledge, 183–195. Fraser, H. (2014) Transcription of indistinct forensic recordings: Problems and solutions from the perspective of phonetic science. Language and Law / Linguagem e Direito 1(2): 5–21. Garfinkel, H. (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Hale, S. and Gibbons, J. (1999) Varying realities: Patterned changes in the interpreter’s representation of courtroom and external realities. Applied Linguistics 20: 203–220. Haworth, K. (2006) The dynamics of power and resistance in police interview discourse. Discourse and Society 17(6): 739–759. Heydon, G. (2005) The Language of Police Interviewing: A Critical Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hinds, M. and Badawi, E. (1986) A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic: Arabic- English. Beirut: Libraire du Liban. Husa, J. (2016) Translating legal language and comparative law. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 30(2): 261–272. Jabbari, M.J. (2012) Diglossia in Arabic: A comparative study of the Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian Colloquial Arabic. Global Journal of Human Social Science 12(8): 23–35. Johnson, A. (2008) ‘From where we’re sat…’: Negotiating narrative transformation through interaction in police interviews with suspects. Text and Talk 28(3): 327–349. Kayed, O.A. (2007) Explanation of Criminal Law: Investigations- Criminal Case- the Trial. Cairo: Dar El Nahda El Arabiya. Komter, M.L. (2002) The suspect’s own words: The treatment of written statements in Dutch courtrooms. International Journal of Speech Language and the Law 9(2): 168–192. Komter, M.L. (2003) The construction of records in Dutch police interrogations. Information Design Journal 11(3): 201–213. Komter, M.L. (2012) The career of a suspect’s statement: Talk, text, context. Discourse Studies 14(6): 731–752. Lagally, K. (1992) ArabTEX, a system for typesetting Arabic. In: The 3rd Conference and Exhibition on Multi- Lingual Computing: Arabic and Roman Script. Durham and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leo, R.A. (2008) Police Interrogation and American Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Maryns, K. (2014) The interdiscursive construction of irresponsibility as a defence strategy in the Belgian Assize Court. Language & Communication 36: 25–36. Max Planck Institute (2008) The Leipzig Glossing Rules: Conventions for Interlinear Morpheme- byMorpheme Glosses. Available at www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossing-rules.php. Nakane, I. (2007) Problems in communicating the suspect’s rights in interpreted police interviews. Applied Linguistics 28(1): 87–112. Ng, E.N. (2015) Judges’ intervention in witness examination as a cause of omissions in interpretation in the Hong Kong courtroom. International Journal of Speech Language and the Law 22(2): 203–227. Ochs, E. (1979) Transcription as theory. In: Ochs, E. and Schieffelin, B. (eds) Developmental Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press, 43–72. Oxburgh, G.E., Myklebust, T. and Grant, T. (2010) The question of question types in police interviews: A review of the literature from a psychological and linguistic perspective. International Journal of Speech Language and the Law 17(1): 45–66. Rock, F. (2001) The genesis of a witness statement. Forensic Linguistics 8(2): 44–72. Rock, F., Heffer, C. and Conley, J. (2013) Textual travel in legal- lay communication. In: Heffer, C., Rock, F. and Conley, J. (eds) Legal-Lay Communication: Textual Travels in the Law. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–32. Soliman, S. (2010) Public Prosecution and Its Accusatory and Investigative Authority: A Comparative Study Between Islamic Sharia and Ordinance Law, The Egyptian, French, and Lebanese Law and Some Arab Legislations. Cairo: Dar el Nahda el Arabiya. Taibi, M. and Martin, A. (2012) Court translation and interpreting in times of the ‘War on Terror’: The case of Taysir Alony. The International Journal for Translation and Interpreting Research 4(1): 77–98. Tiersma, P. (1999) Legal Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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14 TRANSLATING POLITICAL ISLAM Agency in the English translation of Hassan Al-Banna’s Towards the Light ‫ ﻧﺤﻮ ﺍﻟﻨﻮﺭ‬into English Ahmed Elgindy

Introduction The 1940s and 1950s witnessed the emergence of a new Islamic discourse in the Arab world, particularly in Egypt. This new discourse meant to negotiate the ideological space between ‘state’ and ‘religion’. As a consequence, translations progressed from translating Islam, to translating political Islam, i.e. from translating Islam as a religion, purely from a theological point of view, to translating Islam as a political system with all the overloads of the term ‘political’. This development signaled new dynamics in the field of translation, corollary to the new interests, stakes, agencies, power-relations and influences within and around the field of translating Islamic texts. Using Bourdieu’s concept of the ‘field’ of cultural production, this chapter aims to investigate the relationship between the field of translating political Islam and the field of politics, the agency of the translator(s) and the impact agents’ inferences may have had on the imminent narrative as a consequence. This chapter will engage with the translation of Hassan Al-Banna’s Towards the Light ‫ ﻧﺤﻮ ﺍﻟﻨﻮﺭ‬as a case in point.

Islamic political discourse, political Islam, Islamism: in search of a meaning For decades, Islam has been central to a wide range of political activities, and opposition associations. However, before we look for a definition for ‘political Islam’, what does ‘non-political Islam’ mean? Hirschkind (1997) suggests that the unmarked category ‘Islam’ is to do with personal piety, belief and rituals, while Warner (2007) argues that non-political Islam is a pure form of religious Islam. It is what a Muslim does to avoid punishment and seek Paradise in the afterlife. It is the Five Pillars of Islam, prayer, charity, pilgrimage to Mecca, fasting and declaring Muhammad to be the final prophet (Warner, 2007). If a question is to be raised in regard to who may subscribe to this form of Islam, it could be safely argued that every practicing Muslim does. By contrast, the term political Islam, according to Calvert (2008: 1), has been adopted by many scholars and analysts in order to frame the apparent ‘unprecedented rapid and invasive’ engagement of Islam, the religion, with the ‘secular domain of politics’. Jackson (2007) 239

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suggests that the discourse is mainly based on the exploitation of a series of core labels, terms and discursive formations, including: ‘the Islamic world’, ‘the West’, ‘the Islamic revival’, ‘Islamism’, ‘extremism’, ‘radicalism’, ‘fundamentalism’, ‘religious terrorism’, ‘jihadists’, ‘Wahhabis’, ‘Salafists’ and ‘Salafism’. Significantly, in their textual usage, he adds: ‘these terms are often vaguely defined (if at all) yet culturally loaded and highly flexible in the way they are deployed’ (Jackson, 2007: 401). Translation has played a significant role in the representation of Islam as a political system, and the terminology used to deal with and describe the phenomenon has crossed the language divide over the years. Terms such as: political Islam (‫)ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ ﺍﻟﺴﻴﺎﺳﻲ‬, Islamism (‫)ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻮﻳﺔ‬, radical Islam (‫)ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ ﺍﻟﺮﺍﺩﻳﻜﺎﻟﻲ‬, Islamic activism (‫)ﺍﻟﻨﺸﺎﻁ ﺍﻟﺴﻴﺎﺳﻲ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻲ‬, Islamic revivalism (‫)ﺍﻹﺣﻴﺎء ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻲ‬, Islamic fundamentalism (‫ )ﺍﻷﺻﻮﻟﻴﺔ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻴﺔ‬and, more controversially, Islamo-fascism (‫ )ﺍﻟﻔﺎﺷﻴﺔ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻴﺔ‬are perhaps the more popular references used at present by observers, researchers, political analysts and the media in the Anglo-American culture to express the contemporary phenomenon of Islamic resurgence (Calvert, 2008). However, historically some of these terms originated not in Arabic but in other languages, mostly French and English, to refer to issues that had no relation to the modern phenomenon of Islamic political activism. For example, the term ‘Islamism’, according to Kramer (2003), first appeared in French in the mid-eighteenth century when the French philosopher and historian Voltaire coined the term ‘Islamisme’. It did not then refer to the modern ideological mix of Islam and politics, which had not yet come into being. Rather, it was a synonym for the religion of the Muslims, which was at that time known in French as ‘Mahomatisme’, the religion professed and taught by the Prophet Muhammad. Since its introduction by Voltaire, the term Islamisme, its use, and what it refers to has been subject to change (Kramer, 2003). Voltaire used the term Islamisme to refer to the religion without the present- day sense of political utilization (Kramer, 2003). However, during the nineteenth century the use of the term expanded in Europe and was used to refer to the followers of Islam. It is in this sense too, argues Kramer (2003), that the term Islamism appeared in 1900 in The New English Dictionary, now known as The Oxford English Dictionary. The dictionary’s entry defined Islamism as ‘the religious system of the Moslems’, and defined an Islamist as ‘an orthodox Mohammedan’ (Kramer, 2003: 2). Thus, the French term Islamisme, and its English counterpart Islamism and later the emergence of the term Islamist were originally used to denote Islam the religion, and its followers, respectively. The use of both terms, Islamist and Islamism, was replaced with the terms ‘Muslim’ to refer to the believer, and ‘Islam’ to refer to the religion (Kramer, 2003). Political Islam, Islamism, Islamic fundamentalism, and all the other terms used in this context remain ambiguous to some extent, not least because they all represent Western attempts to concisely characterize a complex phenomenon for which there is no single agreed-upon term, even in the Arabic language, according to Du Pasquire (1992) and Massad (2009). Although some, or perhaps all, of these terms may succeed in depicting an aspect of the phenomenon, none exclusively covers its entire meaning (Du Pasquire, 1992). One can argue that the definition of the term political Islam, which is the term to be used in this chapter to refer to the phenomenon, infrequently, varies. What political Islam actually means is uncertain and continues to be debated between scholars, political analysts and politicians. This is established by the wide range of definitions offered by different people who are involved with, or interested in, the study of political Islam. For example, Berman (2003: 258) broadly defines political Islam as ‘the belief that Islam should guide social and political as well as personal life’. Eikmeier (2007: 96) argues that political Islam is a set of ideologies proclaiming that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system which stresses the enforcement of Islamic law, i.e. Shari’a. 240

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Political Islam, according to this view, calls for the omission of non-Muslim Western military, economic, political, social and cultural influences in the Muslim world, which Muslim activists believe to be ‘irreconcilable with Islam’s way of life’ (Moten, 1995: 106). Fuller (2003) claims that political Islam’s doctrine is less strict. It is a form of identity politics supporting Muslim identity and aiming for the renaissance of the Muslim community. Osman (2010: 111) defines political Islam as ‘an alternative social provider to the poor masses, an angry platform for the disillusioned young, a loud trumpet- call announcing a return to the pure religion to those seeking an identity, a progressive moderate religious platform for the affluent and liberal … and at the extremes, a violent vehicle for rejectionists and radicals’. Robert Pelletreau, Jr1 (1996) prefers the term Islamism to political Islam. He defines Islamism as a ‘movement of Muslims who draw upon the belief, symbols, and language of Islam to inspire, shape, and animate political activity, which may contain moderate, tolerant, peaceful activists, and/or those who preach intolerance and espouse violence’ (1996: para. 9). Halliday (2005) sees political Islam as an organized political tendency, owing its modern origin to the establishing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928, which seeks to solve modern political problems by reference to Islamic texts. Halliday (2005) further elaborates his definition to say that political Islam is the whole body of thought which seeks to invest society with Islam. This process, in his view, may be used as means for integration, but may also be a call for traditionalism, or could be used by reform-minded people as a path to revolutionism (Halliday, 2005). A counter-definition is offered by Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, the spiritual mentor of Hezbollah, who states that political Islam is ‘a term used by outsiders to denote a strand of activity which they think justifies their misconception of Islam as something rigid and immobile, a mere tribal affiliation’ (Kramer, 2003: 72). This array of definitions shows that there is no consensus on what political Islam means. However, it is evident that they all refer to, and deal with, Muslims engaged in a dialogue about the tenets of Islam and the role of religion in the public sphere, and who draw on Islamic principles and teaching as the foundation for their thoughts. In my view, Halliday’s (2005) idea that political Islam is an investment of the social life with Islam, seems to be closer to the reality of political Islam. From a linguistic standpoint, the development of this mode of thinking, and interpreting Islam as a political system, posed a linguistic challenge. According to Hanafi (2009), the debate about Islamism is a debate among Western Orientalists seeking to find a suitable term to signify and describe contemporary Islamic movements using violence as means to achieve their goals. Consequently, specialists on the subject resorted to coining new terms rather than using the available Arabic expressions. Thus, a whole new range of words such as those ending with such suffixes as ‘-ist’ and ‘-ism’ were invented and pervaded the context of political Islam. Indigenous Arabic words such as ‘‫( ’ﺣﺮﻛﺎﺕ‬movements), ‘‫( ’ﺗﻮﺟﻬﺎﺕ‬inclinations), ‘‫’ﺟﻤﺎﻋﺎﺕ‬ (groups) and ‘‫( ’ﺗﻴﺎﺭﺍﺕ‬currents) were overlooked and replaced with the culturally bound and ideologically loaded -ist and -ism words. More significantly, Volpi (2011) observes that other words such as Jihad, Jihadist, Fatwa and Shari’a were preserved in their indigenous form and transliterated into English which seem to add certain connotations to the context of Islamic politics and load it with ideological presuppositions. This linguistic debate about political Islam came about as a result of the rise of the Muslim Brothers movement in Egypt in 1928, when Hassan Al-Banna founded an organization called Al-Ikhwan Al-Musilmun (‫)ﺍﻹﺧﻮﺍﻥ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﻠﻤﻮﻥ‬, known in English as the Society of the Muslim Brothers, or the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Al-Banna understood Islam not only as a religion, but also as a complete system that goes beyond worship. A system which encompasses the entire way of life including political life. The new ideology stemming from this understanding 241

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gave rise to a new Islamic discourse subjected to new influences and new interests, particularly from the authority, or in Bourdieu’s terms the field of politics.

The interface between the fields of translation and politics Translation as an activity does not take place in an ideal disinterested world. Rather, it eventuates in a social and political environment, with agents who have vested interests in the production and consumption of texts across linguistic and cultural divides. Translation is not a mere process of faithful linguistic reproduction, but it, invariably, involves conscious deliberate acts of selection, construction and omission (Tymoczko and Gentzler, 2002). The translation of Islam in general and that of political Islam in particular is subjected to the same prejudices. Gibb (1949: vi) argues that ‘most writers approach the subject of Mohammedanism [Islam] from one or another of two opposed points of view, neither of which is free from conscious prejudgment’ (emphasis added). Gunning (2000: 2) understands political Islam as ‘the ideology advocating the creation of a society and state based on Islamic principles’. However, she stresses that the representation of political Islam as a violent, anti-pluralistic and antidemocratic monolith is a representation based on the view that Muslim activists ‘habitually’ engage in hostility against ideological ‘others’, deprecate Western-style democracy and insist on the unconditional sovereignty of God (Gunning, 2000). Conversely, Gunning (2000: 3) stresses that this depiction: fails to explain, beyond dismissing them as insincere, such non- violent, pluralistic and democratic- like instances as Islamists conducting elections to select their leaders, cooperating with ideological ‘others’ and advocating contractarian theories of government, which grant non-Muslims near-equal political rights to Muslims. Gibb (1949) highlights that the various interests of the agents in the field of translation are inextricably linked to issues of tension, conflict, cultural dominance and resistance. In other words, interests are related to power/ politics. Although stakeholders and influential institutions could influence the translation process, the translation product, reciprocally, could persuade policies, consequently, influencing the social world. This power play between the field’s agents implies that translators possess a considerable amount of influence, which they could utilize in their translations, thus, contributing to ideological negotiations and/or cultural struggles (Tymoczko and Gentzler, 2002). Moreover, Stafsudd (2005) stresses that the power of persuasion is a function of the legitimacy an agent possesses in the eyes of others, and the issue of whether an agent is credible or not depends on what resources this agent is drawing upon, i.e. his/her capital, in Bourdieu’s terms. It is safe to argue that the field of translation is influenced by its relationship with the field of politics and its various agents, e.g. think tanks, government bodies, academic establishments, publishers, as well as other forms of formal power in the social world in which translations are commissioned and produced. Although the existence of resistance is implied, the translation product, nonetheless, is the result of multiple processes of agency (Baker, 2006). Translation is also dependent on the agents’ positions in the social world (Inghilleri, 2005). That is to say, translation is dependent on external factors, i.e. institutions and/or other fields, as well as internal factors, that is the procedure, and the producer, i.e. the translators’ habitus (Gouanvic, 2005). Subsequently, the representations of political Islam in the field of translation are prejudiced by the field of politics. For example, Hamilton Gibb (1895–1971), Bernard Lewis (1961–), Gilles Kepel (1955–) and Emmanuel Sivan (1937–), are considered specialists 242

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on political Islam and Islamic movements. They all are associated with, and influenced by, their affiliations with the field of politics. Ansari (2011: 87) emphasizes that their interest in Islam and the current affairs of Muslims ‘undoubtedly’ stems from their desire to influence policy-makers and policy-making. Gibb’s own conviction that a careful study of the Muslim peoples’ detailed past and beliefs was essential for effective policy- making, underpinned his involvement in the field (1949). Equally, Lewis’s advice on Islam and Islamic movements has been frequently sought by policy-makers, including both the George W. Bush administration and the Israeli government. Elliott (2004: 85) argues that ‘it is only in the past few years that the depth of Lewis’ influence on key U.S. policymakers has become clear’. Elliott (2004) also stresses that ‘no scholar has had more influence than Lewis on the decision to wage war in Iraq’. In 2006, journalist David Warren questioned the advice given to G.W. Bush by Lewis on the nature of Islam. Warren (2006: para. 5) states that ‘it didn’t help that Mr Bush took for his advisers on the nature of Islam, the paid operatives of Washington’s Council on AmericanIslamic Relations, the happyface [sic] pseudo- scholar Karen Armstrong, or the profoundly learned but terminally vain Bernard Lewis’. Bostom (2013: para. 3) highlights the influence of Lewis in the context of political Islam, and accentuates his connection to the field of politics by stressing that: Lewis’s legacy of intellectual and moral confusion has greatly hindered the ability of sincere American policymakers to think clearly about Islam’s living imperial legacy … Ongoing highly selective and celebratory presentations of Lewis’s understandings … are pathognomonic of the dangerous influence Lewis continues to wield over his uncritical acolytes and supporters. Arguably the most striking example of Lewis’s fervor was his lecture on July 16, 2006, on board the ship Crystal Serenity during a Hillsdale College cruise in the British Isles, about the necessity to transfer Western democracy to ‘despotic Muslim societies’ (Bostom, 2013). He concluded by saying ‘[e]ither we bring them freedom, or they destroy us’ (Bostom, 2013, emphasis in original). Emmanuel Sivan is another example of the reciprocal influence between the field of politics and the field of translating political Islam. He is a regular commentator on political Islam and Islamic movements for Israeli newspapers and television. His advice is often sought by the Israeli government. Sivan’s power of persuasion is a function of his cultural and social capitals. He is an au fait scholar and a lecturer in Tel Aviv University. He also has connections to a network of influential organizations, such as the Rockefeller Foundation2 and the American-based think tank and publisher, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The influence of the field of politics on what is produced about political Islam could be observed in Sivan’s work. Sivan was encouraged to write his famous book Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics by the Rockefeller Foundation. He states clearly at the end of the preface that ‘[t]his expanded and updated edition was written in the idyllic setting provided by the Rockefeller Foundation’s Study and Conference Centre at Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Italy. My thanks to the foundation, the center, and their staff’ (Sivan, 2010: xi). The Rockefeller Foundation was established in 1913 to ‘promote the well-being of humanity around the world’, it claims. However, the organization is well acquainted with the American administration since its establishment. For example, Isaacson (2005: 72) asserts that one of the well-known trustees of the institution was C. Douglas Dillon, the United States Secretary of the Treasury under both Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. 243

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Although both Lewis and Sivan are not translators per se, they both have direct access to the Arabic language, and translated excerpts of Arabic texts in their writings. Judging by the debates around the two authors, it is safe to say that their influence on the narrative of political Islam should not be underestimated. Our case study, the translation of Al-Banna’s Towards the Light shows a different example of agency in the translation of Islamic political discourse, that of the translator.

Hassan al-Banna’s Towards the Light ‫ﻧﺤﻮ ﺍﻟﻨﻮﺭ‬: a narrative assault Certain texts in the discourse of political Islam have been (re)referenced in the Anglo-American culture. Similarly, certain authors have been (re)quoted in the same field. One of those authors is Hassan Al-Banna, whose writings enjoy a central position in the field of political Islam. Towards the Light ‫ﻧﺤﻮ ﺍﻟﻨﻮﺭ‬, which is considered as Al-Banna’s manifesto, is among the texts that have been frequently used as a reference in the context of political Islam. Al-Banna wrote Towards the Light in June 1945 as an open letter containing proposals for social and political reform. Copies were sent to King Faruq I, King of Egypt and Sudan, and to other politicians in Egypt. Other copies were sent to leaders and politicians of many Muslim countries. The manifesto is seventeen pages long, and there are two available English translations of it. One is presented by the MB and made available on their website at www.Ikhwanweb.com. The other is offered by Charles Wendell in a book titled Five Tracts of Ḥasan Al-Bannā (1906–1949): A Selection from the Majmūʻat rasāʼil al-Imām al-shahīd Ḥasan al-Bannā. It was published in 1978 by the University of California Press. Above and beyond word selection that varies from one translation to the other, which is understandable, there are other differences that are more significant. These differences impact on the possible interpretation of the text. Examples of these differences are analyzed in detail in order to examine and highlight their implications on the narrative presented to the target reader. The analysis is based on what the Arabic text means to a native Arabic speaker, and the translated texts’ closeness to, or deviation from, the source text’s message. The manifesto opens as follows: ‫ﺑِ ْﺴــ ِﻢ ﷲِ ﺍﻟ ﱠﺮ ْﺣ َﻤـ ِﻦ ﺍﻟ ﱠﺮ ِﺣﻴـ ِﻢ‬ ً ‫ﺷﺪﺍ‬ َ ‫َﺭﺑﱠﻨَﺎ ﺁﺗِﻨَﺎ ِﻣ ْﻦ ﻟَﺪُ ْﻧ َﻚ َﺭ ْﺣ َﻤﺔً َﻭ َﻫ ِﻴّ ْﺊ ﻟَﻨَﺎ ِﻣ ْﻦ ﺃ َ ْﻣ ِﺮﻧَﺎ َﺭ‬ ‫ﻫـ‬1366 ‫ﺍﻟﻘﺎﻫﺮﺓ ﻋﺎﺻﻤﺔ ﺍﻟﺪﻳﺎﺭ ﺍﻟﻤﺼﺮﻳﺔ ﻓﻲ ﺭﺟﺐ‬ … ‫ﺣﻀﺮﺓ ﺻﺎﺣﺐ‬ ‫ﺍﻟﺴﻼﻡ ﻋﻠﻴﻜﻢ ﻭﺭﺣﻤﺔ ﷲ ﻭﺑﺮﻛﺎﺗﻪ‬ ،‫ ﻓﺈﻧﻤﺎ ﺣﻤﻠﻨﺎ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻟﺘﻘﺪﻡ ﺑﻬﺬﻩ ﺍﻟﺮﺳﺎﻟﺔ ﺇﻟﻰ ﻣﻘﺎﻣﻜﻢ ﺍﻟﺮﻓﻴﻊ ﺭﻏﺒﺔ ﺃﻛﻴﺪﺓ ﻓﻲ ﺗﻮﺟﻴﻪ ﺍﻷﻣﺔ ﺍﻟﺘﻲ ﺍﺳﺘﺮﻋﺎﻛﻢ ﷲ ﺃﻣﺮﻫﺎ‬،‫ﻭﺑﻌﺪ‬ ‫ ﻭﻳﺮﺳﻢ ﻟﻬﺎ‬،‫ ﺗﻮﺟﻴﻬﺎ ﺻﺎﻟﺤﺎ ﻳﻘﻴﻤﻬﺎ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺃﻓﻀﻞ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﺎﻟﻚ‬،‫ﻭﻭﻛﻞ ﺇﻟﻴﻜﻢ ﺷﺄﻧﻬﺎ ﻓﻲ ﻋﻬﺪﻫﺎ ﺍﻟﺠﺪﻳﺪ‬ ‫ﺞﻫﺎﻨﻤﻟﺍ ﺮﻴﺧ‬، ‫ﺏﺍﺮﻄﺿﻻﺍﻭ ﻝﺰﻟﺰﺘﻟﺍ ﺎﻬﻴﻘﻳﻭ‬، ‫ﺔﻠﻳﻮﻄﻟﺍ ﺔﻤﻟﺆﻤﻟﺍ ﺏﺭﺎﺠﺘﻟﺍ ﺎﻬﺒﻨﺠﻳﻭ‬. ‫[ ﺔﺤﻴﺼﻨﻟﺎﺑ ﺎﻨﻣﺪﻘﺗﻭ ﺐﺟﺍﻮﻟﺍ ﺎﻨﻳﺩﺃ ﺪﻗ ﻥﻮﻜﻧ ﻥﺃ ﻻﺇ ﺎﺌﻴﺷ ﻚﻟﺫ ءﺍﺭﻭ ﻦﻣ ﻲﻐﺒﻧ ﺎﻨﺴﻟﻭ‬...] ‫ﻰﻘﺑﺃﻭ ﺮﻴﺧ ﷲ ﺏﺍﻮﺛﻭ‬.

The MB translation of this preface, dated June 13, 2007, reads as follows:

In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate! ‘Our Lord, bestow on us mercy from yourself, and facilitate for us our affair in the right way.’ (Surat-al-Kahf (18), ayah 10) Cairo, Egypt, Rajab 1366

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Your Excellency, May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you. What has urged me to submit this letter to Your Excellency is a keen desire to guide the nation, whose leadership Allah has placed in your care and whose affairs He has delegated to you in this new age. Such that it is done in a righteous way, established on the most excellent of paths, drawing out for it the best of programs, protecting it from shocks and disturbances, and sparing it from long and painful experiences. We do not desire from this anything, except to have fulfilled our duty and submitted our advice … for Allah’s reward is better and more lasting. Wendell’s translation is similar to that offered by MB in this part of the text, except that he translated the Arabic proper name ‫ ﷲ‬as God. The general view of the MB in relation to this manifesto is that Al- Banna was offering a vision for reform to the authority of the country. By presenting the manifesto to the king, Al- Banna acknowledges that the country’s ruler is the only authority that could implement these proposals, if accepted. However, Charles Wendell’s translation seems to depart from this view, and pursue a relatively different representation of Al- Banna and his proposals, which resulted in painting a different picture of Al-Banna and Islam in the mind of the target reader. This could be construed from Salim Mansur of the Canadian Point de Bascule3 review of Wendell’s translation. Mansur (2010: para. 3) concluded that: This document of the Muslim Brotherhood promotes an application of sharia that leads to a one- party State, the prohibition of dancing, the censorship of books and movies, the implementation of specific curricula for boys and girls and even a dress code for all citizens enforced by a religious police. Wendell’s agency starts with the choice of the title and continues throughout the introduction and the translation. As the title indicates, the book is a collection from Majmūʻat rasāʻil al-Imām al-shahı̄ d Ḥasan al-Bannā, which in English means ‘a collection of messages of the martyr leader Hassan Al- Banna’. The Arabic word ‘‫ ’ﺭﺳﺎﺋﻞ‬which translates into English as ‘messages’, ‘letters’ or ‘epistles’ was translated by Wendell as ‘tracts’. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, tracts is an abbreviation of the Latin word ‘tractatus’. The dictionary defines tracts as a short written work, usually of a political or religious nature. The term tracts, meaning leaflets or pamphlets advocating political positions, has been used throughout history. Tracts were used across Europe in the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, they featured prominently in the political unrest leading up to the American Revolution, and in the English response to the French Revolution. Tracts were also used for political purposes throughout the twentieth century, particularly, to spread Nazi propaganda in central Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. By using this term, Wendell is not only framing the text and situating the reader in a political surrounding from the outset, but he is also overloading the context with all the historical overtones associated with the use of the term tracts. Wendell’s agency and interpretation of Al- Banna’s thoughts are shaped by his own perception of Al- Banna and by his deep- rooted political inclination, which is expressed in his use of Thomas Jefferson’s ‘separation of the church and state’, a phrase Jefferson used in relation to the establishment of the first amendment to the constitution of the United States.

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This perception, which is likely to influence the narrative emerging from his translation, was expressed in his following comment: Hasan Al- Banna’s fundamental conviction that Islam does not accept, or even tolerate, a separation of ‘church’ and state, or of either from society, is as thoroughly Islamic as it can be. Any attempt to translate his movement into terms reducible to social, political, or religious factors exclusively, simply misses the boat. (Wendell, 1978: 6) Wendell labels Al-Banna as a fundamentalist. This perception of Al-Banna informs and guides his lexical choices and consequently impacts on the resulting narrative. One could argue that Wendell’s lexical choices, particularly in his introduction, set the reader on the path to a narrative that depicts Al- Banna as a totalitarian fundamentalist, and Islam as an inflexible autocratic religion. Wendell explains that Al-Banna’s rigid fundamentalist position is a result of his upbringing: ‘Hasan’s father … was the primary influence in giving his son’s life the rather rigid, fundamentalist religious orientation it never lost’ (Wendell, 1978: 1). The manipulative effect of the translator’s introduction is that it guides the readers’ reception of the translated text, and consequently the narrative emerging from it (Bhabha, 1994; Derrida, 1976; Foucault, 1972). Frequently, Wendell uses terms of assertion for conviction. For example, ‘it seems beyond dispute that he, Al- Banna, envisioned as his final goal a return to the world- state of the four orthodox Caliphs’ (Wendell, 1978: 3, emphasis added). Translation could be ‘potentially influential’, because it is usually read as unmediated work, and text alterations will pass ‘un- noticed’ (Munday, 2007: 197). Blommaert (2005) contends that translation involves an element of framing. Thus, the reader will enter the translation site from a ‘particular sociohistorical condition’ suggested by the translator and usually displayed in the preface (Blommaert, 2005: 225). One could argue that the translator him- or herself enters the translation process from ‘a sociohistorical condition’ informed by his/ her own situation, experience and dispositions. Consequently, it could be argued that there is no way in which the target reader ‘could not be influenced’ by the effects of the translator’s experience (Blommaert, 2005, emphasis in original). It is safe to assume that the target reader is naturally inclined to accept the representations proposed by the translation, given that he is uninformed about the source text and language. Wendell’s use of the term ‘fundamentalist’ is inevitably going to bring into the reader’s mind all the stigmatic connotations associated with it. Moreover, the use of terms such as ‘beyond dispute’ makes it difficult for the reader to think beyond the ideas embedded in the narrative presented to him. Wendell’s critical views do not end there. They extend beyond Al-Banna to include Islam as a whole. His treatment of Islam re-invokes the old stereotypical images ubiquitous during the medieval times, and attests to his reductionist preconception of Islam. Wendell voices these views, clearly arguing that ‘the religion [Islam] of the masses had for centuries been little more than ancient, Pre-Islamic folk beliefs legitimated by a thinnish layer of Islamic monotheism’ (Wendell, 1978: 6, emphasis added). Translation as a socially situated activity is an act that creates a world presented from the author’s position within it. Since the translator is an author in his/her own right (Bassnett and Bush, 2006), the target reader is likely to see the world created by, and presented through, Wendell’s translation, whatever that world may turn out to be. In the two available translations of Towards the Light ‫ﻧﺤﻮ ﺍﻟﻨﻮﺭ‬, there are some differences worthy of examination. Following are only three examples, due to space constraints, highlighting agency and its implications in Wendell’s translation. 246

Translating political Islam

Example 1

‫ ﻓﺈﻧﻜﻢ‬،‫ ﻭﺃﺻﺒﺤﺘﻢ ﺗﺴﺘﻘﺒﻠﻮﻥ ﺑﺎﻷﻣﺔ ﻋﻬﺪﺍ ﺟﺪﻳﺪﺍ‬،‫ﻭﺍﻵﻥ ﻭﻗﺪ ﻭﺿﻊ ﺍﻟﻨﻀﺎﻝ ﺍﻟﺴﻴﺎﺳﻲ ﺃﻭﺯﺍﺭﻩ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺣﻴﻦ‬ ‫ ﻭﻟﻜﻞ ﻣﻨﻬﻤﺎ‬،‫ ﻛﻞ ﻣﻨﻬﻤﺎ ﻳﻬﻴﺐ ﺑﻜﻢ ﺃﻥ ﺗﻮﺟﻬﻮﺍ ﺍﻷﻣﺔ ﻭﺟﻬﺘﻬﺎ ﻭﺗﺴﻠﻜﻮﺍ ﺑﻬﺎ ﺳﺒﻴﻠﻪ‬،‫ﺳﺘﺮﻭﻥ ﺃﻣﺎﻣﻜﻢ ﻁﺮﻳﻘﻴﻦ‬ ‫ ﻓﺄﻣﺎ ﺍﻷﻭﻝ ﻓﻄﺮﻳﻖ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ ﻭﺃﺻﻮﻟﻪ ﻭﻗﻮﺍﻋﺪﻩ‬.‫ﺧﻮﺍﺻﻪ ﻭﻣﻤﻴﺰﺍﺗﻪ ﻭﺁﺛﺎﺭﻩ ﻭﻧﺘﺎﺋﺠﻪ ﻭﺩﻋﺎﺗﻪ ﻭﻣﺮﻭﺟﻮﻩ‬ .‫ ﻭﺃﻣﺎ ﺍﻟﺜﺎﻧﻲ ﻓﻄﺮﻳﻖ ﺍﻟﻐﺮﺏ ﻭﻣﻈﺎﻫﺮ ﺣﻴﺎﺗﻪ ﻭﻧﻈﻤﻬﺎ ﻭﻣﻨﺎﻫﺠﻬﺎ‬،‫ﻭﺣﻀﺎﺭﺗﻪ ﻭﻣﺪﻧﻴﺘﻪ‬

MB’s translation: For the time being, the political struggle has come to a halt, and you, along with the nation, are facing a new period. You will now see two ways before you, each one urging you to turn the nation in its direction and to follow its path. Each has its particular characteristics, its distinguishing features, its effects, its results, its advocates and its promoters. The first is the way of Islam and its principles, its rules, its culture and its civilization; the second is the way of the West and the outward aspects of its life, its organization and its methods.

Wendell’s translation: For the time being, the political struggle has come to a halt, and you have begun, along with the nation, to face a new period. Now you will see two ways before you, each one urging you to orient the nation in its direction and proceed with it along its path. Each way has its particular characteristics, its advantages, its results, its propagandists, and its promoters. The first path is the way of Islam, its fundamental assumptions, its principles, its culture, and its civilization; the second is the way of the West, the external features of its life, its organization, and its procedures.

In this example, there are two issues of varying significance. First, in the translation offered by the MB the Arabic word ‘‫ ’ﺃﺻﻮﻟﻪ‬is translated as ‘its principles’ while Wendell translated it as ‘its fundamental assumptions’. .‫ ﺃﻭ ﻫﻮ ﺃ ﱠﻭﻝ ﺍﻟﺸﻲء ﻭﻣﺎﺩّﺗﻪ ﺍﻟﺘﻲ ﻳﺘﻜ ﱠﻮﻥ ﻣﻨﻬﺎ‬،‫ ﻭﻫﻮ ﺍﻷﺳﺎﺱ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﻳُﻘﺎﻡ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ‬،‫ﺻﻞ‬ ْ َ ‫ ﺟﻤﻊ ﺃ‬:‫ﺃ ُﺻﻮﻝ‬ (Almaany Arabic-Arabic Dictionary) The term ‘‫ ’ﺃﺻﻮﻝ‬is a noun that could, contextually, mean any of the following: decencies, etiquette, proprieties, rules of conduct, basics, elements, essentials, fundamentals or principles. The English term ‘fundamental’, chosen by Wendell, has associative potential to politically loaded undertones and its use, here and in other similar instances, is likely to infuse the translation with all the historical connotations associated with Islamic fundamentalism and give it a more confrontational tone. It also confirms the salient narrative Wendell is proposing to the target audience, that of a strict, aggressive, unyielding doctrine. Conversely, the MB opted for the more moderate option ‘principles’. Although it is more in line with what a native Arabic speaker would induce from the Arabic term, a moderate tone is likely to be selected by Al-Banna’s affiliates.

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Second, and of more significance, is Wendell’s choice of the term ‘propagandists’ in relation to the Arabic term ‘‫’ﻣﺮﻭﺟﻮﻩ‬. The term propaganda, according to the Oxford Dictionary, originates from modern Latin. Diggs- Brown (2011), explains that, originally, the term had a neutral connotation. It related to the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Congregation for Propagating the Faith), the name of a new administrative body of the Catholic Church, which was created in 1622. The activity of this administrative body of the Catholic Church aimed at propagating the Catholic faith in non-Catholic countries (Diggs-Brown, 2011). Diggs-Brown also stresses that the term started to take a derogatory connotation in the mid-nineteenth century, when it was appropriated from religion to the political sphere (Diggs- Brown, 2011). Jowett and O’Donnell (2010: 7) define propaganda as ‘the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist’. It is argued that propaganda frequently presents facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude towards the subject in the mind of the target audience to further a political, religious or commercial agenda (Diggs-Brown, 2011). Wendell’s use of the term ‘propagandists’ is likely to portray a pejorative image of Al- Banna, and the MB movement and its advocates without sufficient reason.

Example 2

.‫ﺻﻒ ﻭﺍﺣ ٍﺪ‬ ٍ ‫ﺍﻟﻘﻀﺎء ﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻟﺤﺰﺑﻴﺔ ﻭﺗﻮﺟﻴﻪ ﻗﻮﻯ ﺍﻷﻣﺔ ﺍﻟﺴﻴﺎﺳﻴﺔ ﻓﻲ ِﻭ ْﺟ َﻬ ٍﺔ ﻭﺍﺣﺪﺓٍ ﻭ‬

MB’s translation: … An end to party rivalry, and directing the political forces of the nation into a unified front.

Wendell’s translation: … An end to party rivalry, and a channeling of the political forces of the nation into a common front and a single phalanx.

The Arabic term ‘‫’ﻭ ْﺟ َﻬﺔ‬ ِ is a noun. In Arabic, it means: .‫ﺼﺪُﻩ‬ ِ ‫ ﺍﻟﻤﻮﺿ ُﻊ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﺗﺘﻮ ﱠﺟﻪ ﺇِﻟﻴﻪ ﻭﺗﻘ‬:ُ‫ﺍﻟ ِﻮ ْﺟ َﻬﺔ‬ .‫ ﻛ ﱡﻞ ﻣﻜﺎ ٍﻥ ﺍﺳﺘﻘﺒﻠﺘ َﻪ‬:ُ‫ﺍﻟ ِﻮ ْﺟ َﻬﺔ‬ According to the Almaany Arabic-Arabic Dictionary, it means the destination you are heading to, every place you turn towards with the intention of going to, or a course. ْ ‫ ﺍﻟﺴ‬:‫ﻒ‬ The term ‘‫ﻒ‬ ‫ﺍﻟ ﱠ‬, i.e. a straight line ّ ‫ﺻ‬ ‫ﺼ ﱡ‬ َ ’ is also a noun and it means ٍ‫ﱠﻄ ُﺮ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﺘﻘﻴﻢ ﻣﻦ ﻛ ِّﻞ ﺷﻲء‬ devoid of any misalignment, or an ordered arrangement. By examining the two translations we could notice that there is a considerable difference of meaning as a result of Wendell’s use of the term ‘phalanx’ in relation to the Arabic term ‘‫’ﺻﻒ‬. The Oxford English Dictionary and The Encarta English Encyclopedia offer the following definitions for the term ‘phalanx’: 248

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A body of troops or police officers in close formation. A group of people, animals, or objects that are moving or standing closely together. An ancient Greek battle formation especially in ancient Greece. A group of soldiers that attacked in close formation, protected by their overlapping shields and projecting spears.

The term phalanx was frequently used in the 1930s by fascists, notably by Spain’s fascists led by Franco to designate their own organization. Wendell’s use of this term infuses both the reader’s mind and the context with the idea of militancy and/or fascism, which is, according to the Almaany Dictionary and the MB’s translation, neither implied nor intended in the Arabic source text. Furthermore, for a native Arabic speaker, the terms ‘‫ ’ﻭﺟﻬﺔ‬and ‘‫ ’ﺻﻒ‬do not propose the same connotations the term phalanx would propose to an English reader.

Example 3

.‫ﺍﻟﺘﻔﻜﻴﺮ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﻮﺳﺎﺋﻞ ﺍﻟﻤﻨﺎﺳﺒﺔ ﻟﺘﻮﺣﻴﺪ ﺍﻷﺯﻳﺎء ﻓﻲ ﺍﻷﻣﺔ ﺗﺪﺭﻳﺠﻴﺎ‬

MB’s translation: A consideration into the means of gradually forming a national uniform.

Wendell’s translation: Consideration of ways to arrive gradually at a uniform mode of dress for the nation.

This proposal is number twenty- six out of thirty reform proposals listed under the sub- title ‘Social & Education Reform’. It follows many others that deal specifically with the education system as envisaged by Al-Banna. By examining the context of the Arabic source text, one could conclude that this proposal is limited to a dress code for students. However, Wendell’s translation of the same proposal gives the impression that Al-Banna envisions a unified dress code not only for students, but also for every member in the society, ‘a uniform mode of dress for the nation’. This, in turn, accentuates Wendell’s proposed narrative of despotism and comprehensive, compulsive control. It could be argued that Wendell’s interpretation is also possible, and perhaps more likely. By attempting to situate this text in its social and historical setting, one could conclude that Wendell’s interpretation was wide of the mark. Al-Banna himself was usually dressed in a three-piece suit and a tie. In religious gatherings he would be dressed in a uniform only worn by clergies and those who have graduated from Al-Azhar University. It is highly unlikely that Al-Banna would call for a uniform for the nation, if he himself is not adhering to the idea. A three-piece suit was not in line with the social tradition in 1940s Egypt. The other uniform was only for Al-Azhar graduates as a symbol of distinction. One would expect Al-Banna to lead by example if that was his aim. Wendell’s representation of political Islam through his translation of Towards the Light offered the audience a reading of a certain persuasion. The impact of Wendell’s representations is evident in Andrew Bostom’s evaluation of Wendell’s translation, particularly in his use of the term ‘pathognomonic’, which is associated with the diagnoses of diseases. Bostom said: ‘Wendell published a magisterial 1978 translation of Hasan Al-Banna’s five pathognomonic treatises, or “tracts” as Wendell translated the Arabic word “risala”’ (Bostom, 2011: para. 3). 249

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Since individuals in any society either accept or oppose a narrative (Baker, 2009) it is reasonably safe to argue that, on the basis of the aforementioned reviews, the target audience have been influenced by Wendell’s narrative. It is also safe to argue that translators, and consequently translations, play a major role in normalizing and naturalizing the narratives they propose (Baker, 2009). Translators’ mediation and intervention in the translation process steers the emerging knowledge about the object of enquiry in one direction or another, thus, shaping and informing our understanding of the reality. The effect of narrative, according to Bennett and Edelman (1985), is that it percolates our consciousness and becomes part of our daily life. Furthermore, Jodelet (1991) argues that meanings are condensed in representations and help people to construe the experiences. This, in turn, reproduces existing power structures and participates not only in informing our perception of reality, but also in constituting the reality (Bruner, 1991).

Conclusion This chapter set out to investigate the relationship between the field of translating political Islam and the field of politics, the agency of the translator, and the impact of the agents’ inferences on the emerging narrative. The extent to which the field of politics is influencing the translation of political Islam was illustrated in the relationship of Bernard Lewis with the American administration, and the involvement of the Rockefeller Foundation with Sivan’s Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics. Translation of texts related to the phenomenon of political Islam, such as Wendell’s translation of Towards the Light, uncovered the role of the translator and its impact on the target reader. It is noteworthy that because the scope of the research is very limited, no generalization could be made on the basis of examining one text. Still, our ‘right to be’ is called into question by the prior existence of an ‘other’ as Inghilleri (2009: 208) contends. It is, therefore, reasonable to argue that the target audience’s reception and interpretation of the narrative of our case study is disrupted and obstructed by the amount of noise produced by the translator(s). In other words, the translator is reducing the reader’s understanding of the reality to his/her own (the translator’s) representation of reality. Representations in their entirety, according to Howarth (2002: 8), are ‘particular presentations of experiences and voices’, which are reinterpreted, and represented in such a way that they ‘constitute our realities’. If we subscribe to Blommaert’s (2005) argument that translation involves an element of framing, and that has ‘an effect on what we see, perceive and understand’, then it is safe to argue that in our case study the representation(s) of political Islam and of Hassan Al-Banna, and consequently our perceptions and understanding of the phenomenon are impacted by the translators’ agency. It is also safe to argue that the translations do not represent the social and political reality of the phenomenon; rather they put forward the translators’ interpretations of those realities. Moreover, one cannot deny that neutrality of translation is a debatable issue. Both translations are motivated and shaped by the respective positions and dispositions of the translators. Needless to say, the influence of one’s dispositions, and the impact of one’s appraisal of the two translations, as well as one’s interpretation and explanation of the relevant circumstances are, perhaps, forms of mediation.

Notes 1 Pelletreau, Jr. was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in the US Department of State in 1996. 2 The Rockefeller Foundation was founded by the Rockefeller family, which is considered the most influential family in the United States. For more information about the Rockefeller Foundation

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Further reading Abdal-Haqq, I. (2002). Brotherhood of the gods. Bloomington: Autherhouse. Abdussalam, A. (2007). Intra- Muslim conflicts: A linguistic representation. The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 25(1), 1–19. Abu-Rabi, I. (1995). Intellectual origins of Islamic resurgence in the modern Arab world. New York: State University of New York Press. Mitchell, R. (1969). The Society of the Muslim Brothers. New York: Oxford University Press. Muir, W. (1901). The rise and decline of Islam. London: Religious Tract Society. Stroud, C. (2002). Framing Bourdieu socioculturally: Alternative forms of linguistic legitimacy in postcolonial Mozambique. Multilingua. 2(2–3), 247–273. Wendell, C. (1978). Five tracts of Hasan al-Banna: A selection from majmuat rasail al-Imam al-shahid Hasan al-Banna. Berkeley: University of California Press.

References Almaany Arabic-Arabic Dictionary. (2016). Available at: www.almaany.com/ar/dict/ar-ar. Ansari, K. (2011). The Muslim world in British historical imaginations: Re-thinking Orientalism. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 38(1), 73–93. Baker, M. (2006). Translation and conflict: A narrative account. Oxon: Routledge. Baker, M. (2009). Critical readings in translation studies. Oxon: Routledge. Bassnett, S. and Bush, P. (eds.). (2006). The translator as writer. King’s Lynn: Biddles Ltd. Bennett, W. and Edelman, L. (1985). Toward a new political narrative. Journal of Communication, 35(4), 156–171. Berman, S. (2003). Islamism, revolution, and civil society. American Political Science Association, 1(2), 257–272. Bhabha, H. (1994). The location of culture. London and New York: Routledge. Blommaert, J. (2005). Bourdieu the ethnographer: The ethnographic grounding of habitus and voice. The Translator, 11(2), 219–236. Bostom, A. (2011). The Muslim Brotherhood and spring time for sharia in Araby. American Thinker. Available at: www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/05/the_muslim_brotherhood_and_spr.html. Bostom, A. (2013). What went wrong with Bernard Lewis. American Thinker. Available at: www. americanthinker.com/2013/03/bostom_interview_what_went_wrong_with_bernard_lewis. html#ixzz2Nsbum2fA. Bruner, J. (1991). The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquiry, 18(1), 1–21. Calvert, J. (2008). Islamism: A documentary and reference guide. Westport: Greenwood Press. Derrida, J. (1976). Of grammatology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Diggs-Brown, B. (2011). Strategic public relations: Audience- focused practice. Boston: Wadsworth Publishing Co. Inc. Du Pasquire, R. (1992). Unveiling Islam. Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society. Eikmeier, D. (2007). Qutbism: An ideology of Islamic-Fascism. Parameters, 36(1), 85–98. Elliott, M. (2004). Our list of the most influential people in the world today (2004, 26 April). The Times Magazine, 163(17). Available at: www.time.com/ time/ specials/ packages/ article/ 0,28804,1970858_ 1970909_1971696,00.html. Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge. London: Routledge. Fuller, G. (2003). The future of political Islam. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gibb, H.A.R. (1949). Mohammedanism: An historical survey. London: Oxford University Press. Gouanvic, J.M. (2005). A Bourdieusian theory of translation, or the coincidence of practical instances. The Translator, 11(2), 147–166. Gunning, J. (2000). Re-thinking Western constructions of Islamism. PhD thesis, University of Durham. Halliday, F. (2005). 100 myths about the Middle East. London: Saqi Books.

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Ahmed Elgindy Hanafi, H. (2009). Islamism: Whose debate is it? In: R. Martin and A. Barzegar, eds. Islamism: Contested perspectives on political Islam. California: Stanford University Press, 63–66. Hirschkind, C. (1997). What is political Islam. Middle East Research and Information Project, 27(3), 12–14. Howarth, C. (2002). Identity in whose eyes? The role of representations in identity construction. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 32(2), 145–162. Inghilleri, M. (2005). The sociology of Bourdieu and the construction of the object. The Translator, 11(2), 125–146. Inghilleri, M. (2009). Translators in war zones: Ethics under fire in Iraq. In: E. Bielsa and C. Hughes, eds. Globalization, political violence and translation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 207–221. Isaacson, W. (2005). Kissinger: A biography. New York: Simon & Schuster. Jackson, R. (2007). Constructing enemies: Islamic terrorism in political and academic discourse. Government and Opposition, 42(3), 394–426. Jodelet, D. (1991). Madness and social representations. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Jowett, G.S. and O’Donnell, V. (2010). Propaganda and persuasion (5th edition). California: Sage Publications. Kramer, M. (2003). Coming to terms, fundamentalists or Islamists? Middle East Quarterly, 10(2), 65–77. Mansur, S. (2010). Canadian takes on Islamist movement (2010, 17 April). Toronto Sun. Available at: www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/salim_mansur/2010/04/16/13614511.html. Massad, J. (2009). Psychoanalysis, Islam, and the other of liberalism. Psychoanalysis and History, 11(2), 193–208. Moten, A. (1995). Political science: An Islamic perspective. London: Macmillan Press Ltd. Munday, J. (2007). Translation and ideology. The Translator, 13(2), 195–217. Osman, T. (2010). Egypt on the brink: From Nasser to Mubarak. London: Yale University Press. Pelletreau, R.H. Jr. (1996). Muslim politics of Middle East. U.S. Dept. of State Geographic Bureau. Available at: http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/bureaus/nea/960508PelletreauMuslim.html. Sivan, E. (1990). Radical Islam: Medieval theology and modern politics (2nd edition). New York: Yale University Press. Sivan, E. (2010). What does the Arab and Muslim street think (2010, 12 March). Haaretz. Available at: www.haaretz.com/ print- edition/ opinion/ emmanuel- sivan- so- what- does- the- arab- and- muslimstreet-really-think-1.266433. Stafsudd, A. (2005). The power of translation: Preserving legitimacy and self-value through the justified exclusion of other. Dissertation thesis, Lund University, Lund. Tymoczko, M. and Gentzler, E. (2002). Translation and power. Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press. Volpi, F. ed. (2011). Political Islam: A critical reader. New York: Routledge. Warner, B. (2007). The study of political Islam (2007, 7 August). FrontPageMagazine.com. Available at: www.politicalislam.com/the-study-of-political-islam/. Warren, D. (2006). Revisitation. Real Clear Politics. Available at: www.realclearpolitics.com/ articles/ 2006/03/revisitation.html. Wendell, C. (1978). Five tracts of Hasan Al-Banna (1906–1949). California: California University Press.

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15 KALĪLA AND DIMNA AS A CASE STUDY The Ibn al-Muqaffa’ and Nasrullāh Munshī translations1 Christine van Ruymbeke Introduction The Book of Kalīla and Dimna (henceforth KD) holds an iconic place in the history of Arabic translations. Its endurance through many centuries, its adoption in many cultural environments, and its complex story of propagation through translations and rewritings receive prominent mentions in works on medieval Arabic and Persian literature. These elements alert us to the KD’s importance and point towards the universal pertinence of its contents. The book’s broad relevance could explain that the core of the KD transcended the boundaries of time and culture and that it was able to adapt to new contexts, languages, and cultures. This core consists of main stories in which are embedded a number of sub- stories. Together, they constitute a mirror for princes of psychological rather than politico- administrative or moral remit. The book examines timeless interactions, denounces manipulative techniques in word and action, and exposes the positive and negative outcomes of this social manipulation. The stories require thoughtful decoding, and their form ensures that these examples are adaptable to private as well as political ends even though they seem specifically designed to guide the judgment of rulers within the jungle of the court. The elaborate structure of the text covers contrapuntal contents: several pedagogical levels and voices crisscross through the work. The wide propagation of the KD in different environments is significant for translation studies. The present chapter does not consider KD’s adoption in medieval Christian cultures even though most of its findings could no doubt usefully be carried over to these contexts. I limit the discussion to medieval Eastern-Islamic cultures, where the book has benefited from recurring interest through the centuries. It seems likely that the needs of the multiple target situations throughout time, even those with different cultural requirements, did not override global fidelity towards the core of the source text, i.e. the KD’s didactic contents and its specific structure, both remain intact throughout the existing translations and rewritings. It is made up of juxtaposed, or embedded, independent stories and characters, which distill the pedagogy through a metaphoric technique. This metaphoric technique is probably the reason why translators of the KD considered their translation’s fidelity or “equivalence”— its intertextual coherence with the source text—adequate with regard to the text’s function in its target context. Thus, at first view, in the case of the KD, the ‘skopos-rule’ (Nord, 2005: 27) did not 253

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require a change of function. What this means is that any lack of fidelity in the KD translations cannot be explained by the skopos-rule.2 The KD contributes to studies of text circulation in world literature through its renown as a paragon of multi-temporal and multicultural translation and rewriting.3 The book is, indeed, part of this network of circulation and reading defined by Damrosch (2003: 4) as ‘encompass[ing] all literary works that circulate beyond their culture of origin, either in translation or in their original language’.4 The KD’s story of translation and propagation is well documented— the text circulated in multiple languages in most medieval and pre-modern Eastern and Western cultures. Its popularity is further evident in a remarkable pollination phenomenon; independent elements of the text, haphazard mentions, references, excerpts, and retellings of single episodes appear in genres as diverse as philosophical, mystical, and political writings. It is in most cases impossible to trace whether these references to the KD rely on literary or oral sources. The KD does not stand alone in this—the corpus of texts in antiquity and the medieval and pre-modern periods demonstrates a noticeable literary cross-pollination of themes and characters (Rockwell, 1995). It is also worth mentioning that the book and its stories are still alive, whether expressly or obliquely, in the works of contemporary Middle Eastern authors and, in a lesser manner, in other contemporary literature.5 It is intriguing that despite evidence of its seminal importance, the KD is not a popular example in world literature anthologies.6 I tentatively explain this lack of representation by the dearth of academic activity in literary criticism and textual analysis applied to the KD text, which should serve as a basis for general comparative studies. There is a stark contrast between the scarcity of existing scholarship on the KD as a literary text on the one hand and, on the other, the interest in the history of its propagation, as well as the public delight with its stories. Furthermore, the traditional, single- minded scholarly fascination with the KD’s textual heredity and the recovery of its Ur- version has proposed results that no longer reach consensus.7 The study of the existing KD versions has been slowed down by the source-oriented focus and traditional disregard for the literary value of translations. There is little attraction to producing detailed textual analyses of what are considered late and unreliable avatars. This lack of attraction is exacerbated by the absence or disappearance of what are usually believed to be the three first stages of the KD’s textual heredity: the putative Sanskrit “Ur-text”, its putative Pahlavi translation, and the elusive original version of the Ibn al- Muqaffa’ (henceforth IAM) Arabic translation. This disappearance comes with the evidence of baffling differences in the length and literary style of the various surviving medieval KD versions, which appear to contradict the skopos-rule, but I would rather point toward the hazards of text and manuscript conservation.8 The present chapter moves away from the traditional KD studies and examines data on two early KD translations through the lens of translation studies. The underlying assumption is that most of the latter’s tools can be applied with equal success to assess medieval and present- day translators’ and rewriters’ logic and techniques. Translators’ fundamental aims have not changed radically over time, but textual production, reception, and circulation have evolved. I consider here two stages of the KD’s translation history involving Arabic as both a target and a source language: the available data on the elusive Arabic prose version known as “the IAM KD” and its twelfth-century Persian translation known as “the Nasrullāh Munshī (henceforth NM) KD”. In the latter case, the author provides insights on how he views his task as a translator, and these tasks mirror elements that have been identified in the available research on translation. Overall, however, and especially in the case of the IAM KD, the state of the primary sources restrict the two case studies to a discussion of hypotheses on the 254

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KD meta- texts, especially the authorial prefaces. The contents of the prefaces can usefully interact with theoretical research, and their importance is, thus, recognized in translation studies (Dimitriu, 2009).

Ibn al-Muqaffa’’s translation of KD The administrator-author Ibn al-Muqaffa’ (d. c. 757 or 760 ) is ‘chiefly remembered for his transmission, through the medium of Arabic’ of the KD (Latham, 1990: 50).9 IAM is part of the eighth- century translation movement that introduced a mixed knowledge originating from classical antiquity, Sassanian Iran, and through the latter’s channel, regions further east. Not surprisingly, given the chronological divide, we only possess sketchy information about the circumstances surrounding IAM’s literary activity. It is usually agreed that it covered the translations of didactic Pahlavi texts, as well as compiled works of advice related to the Sassanian political traditions. Only a few examples of his production have come down to us while his translated texts are lost with the exception of the KD (but see below). IAM, nevertheless, holds a prominent place in Arabic literary memory as one of the initiators of the high Arabic prose style. This opinion is based on very scarce evidence, considering that, in Bosworth’s (1983: 491) pithy remark, ‘little of the ipsissima verba scripta of [IAM] is known’.10 With regard to the KD, we speculate about the personality of the patron(s), the date of the translation, and the status of the work in late Umayyad or very early ‘Abbasid time (Arjomand, 1994). We do not possess IAM’s “original” eighth-century Arabic KD text (Gründler, 2013). The earliest known KD manuscript post-dates IAM’s death by more than four and a half centuries, and the second oldest by almost six (de Blois, 1991).11 Through how many intermediate copies these codices derive and in what proportion they reproduce the original work, we cannot say. What we can say is that the wording and contents of the one differ from the other and that the available evidence points to a varied and uncertain tradition. It is practically impossible to form an idea of what the lost original really was. I illustrate this impossibility with a passage from the chapter on Dimna’s trial and defense found in two relatively recent translations of the IAM KD. Each of these translations is based on different Arabic manuscripts or critical compilations of manuscripts containing differing textual stemmas. Neither of the two translations represents the unalloyed text of a single manuscript. The available translations of the Arabic texts in Western languages reflect the translators’ choices and interpretations amongst variations in the different editions they have used. Furthermore, the text proposed in each edition contains a further level of interpretation as it reflects the differences in the Arabic manuscripts which were selected by each different editor. As a result, the differences between the available translations of the IAM KD are more than nuances but do not change the scope of the text in the two examples. The passage I quote here from two translations of the IAM KD contains the introduction of the influential physiognomy theory within the trial debate in the hope of discrediting Dimna. I also quote the last words of the chapter when, after long debates that do not prove Dimna’s guilt, he is hurriedly convicted upon the deposition of two external witnesses (van Ruymbeke, 2016a). Dimna has already successfully refuted several accusations thanks to his mastery in rhetoric: Upon this the chief of those who were employed in the kitchen of the lion, who enjoyed great consideration on account of the post which he filled, stood up, and addressed the court in the following words: I beseech this noble and learned court 255

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to listen with attention to what I have to advance. The bounty of Providence in its dispensations towards you has gifted you with the power of ascertaining by outward signs and marks what is passing in the heart, and of distinguishing the good man from him who is of a contrary disposition: it is therefore your bounden duty to make use of this prerogative on the present occasion, and from an examination of the features of Dimna, and of the appearances which tell against him, to arrive at a knowledge of his true character. Here the judge observed to the principal cook, that as he enjoyed the talent of discrimination, to which he had alluded, in so great a degree, it became him to acquaint the court with the conclusions which he had formed from observing the countenance of Dimna … The lion therefore, having received their depositions, ordered Dimna to be put to death by torture in prison: and thus every one who seeks his own advantage by the injury of another, will find the means which he employs for the attainment of his purpose, converted into the instruments of his own destruction. (al-Muqaffa’, 1819: 177–178, 191–192) The same passage, in a more recent French translation, reads as follows: The chief of the boars, who enjoyed a strong position with the lion and his mother, spoke: ‘Listen, o soldiers assembled here, and meditate upon my words. The wise men have explained correctly and thoroughly all the signs [in order to test] what is kept silent and what is expressed. Well, the stigmas of vice are apparent on this miserable one, and additionally, he has a reputation of unkindness.’ The highest-ranking person in the guard addressed the chief of the boars: ‘We heard about this, but very few know what it actually means. Teach us what you have discovered about this miserable one’ … The lion’s mother returned to the topic, talked with her son and the latter understood that Dimna had influenced him to act unjustly and thoughtlessly. He ordered the most miserable of deaths for Dimna. And the philosopher, addressing the king, concluded: thoughtful people should pay attention to such stories. They must know that he who seeks to satisfy his own interests through someone’s death, an unjust death, obtained by lies, tricks or betrayal, will not escape the damages caused by this attitude, nor the effects and consequences that follow upon it: sooner or later, one will pay for one’s misdeeds and die, whatever one does. (al-Muqaffa’, 1957/1980: 123, 132)12 The point of contrasting these two translations is to illustrate the elusiveness of the lost original IAM KD. I do not analyze them further, although it is evident that the modern scholarly KD translations deserve attention as case studies for translation studies. Despite its elusiveness, IAM’s KD is regarded as part of the Arabic literary canon and as one of the oldest examples of the elegant Arabic literary style (van Gelder, 2011). Depending on the manuscripts used, opinions differ as to the literary quality of IAM’s KD (cf. Cheikho, 1905; Nicholson, 1995).13 IAM, a Muslim of Iranian ancestry, thus seems to have had access to works written in Pahlavi. It is plausible that he produced a rendering of a putative Pahlavi Kalilag u Dimnag. No such KD Pahlavi text has reached us; the evidence of its existence depends on the story provided by one of the meta-texts to the IAM KD and also mentioned or repeated in other sources. A famous and remarkable preface tells the prehistory of IAM’s Pahlavi source text, which is presented as itself a translation. This story is the elaborate one of Burzūya’s trip to India, financed by the Sassanian emperor Anushirvān (r. 531– 579) to steal and translate a 256

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secret Sanskrit text originally written by (a) legendary Brahmin(s) (de Blois, 1991). This passage has been considered historically reliable, although it appears in literary works that do not ipso facto claim to reproduce truth. The presence of this prefatory story creates a striking imbalance: the persona of the putative Pahlavi translator loudly contrasts with the silence surrounding the Arabic translator about whom the Arabic KD text contains no mention at all. We, in fact, can only presume in good faith that the Arabic work is by the hand of IAM, basing ourselves on the label given to the existing manuscripts and the title of one of the Arabic text’s introductory sections, ‘The subject matter of the Book of Kalila and Dimna, from the pen of Almokaffa’ (al- Muqaffa’, 1819: 47). It is perhaps even more intriguing that IAM comments nowhere on the reasons that might have guided his choice to translate that particular text. We presume he worked on commission, but he mentions neither the name nor the eulogy of the patron who, consequently, remains unidentified. Given the troubled times IAM lived through and the five-centuries-long interval before the first IAM KD textual evidence reached us, it is possible that the names of the author and the patron have been scrapped. In contrast, neither the Sassanian ruler nor Burzūya shared this fate; they seem to anchor the work in history and context, filling the void concerning the actors of the Arabic version at hand. There are, however, grounds to suggest that IAM’s “invisibility” might be the result of an authorial decision.14 In what may constitute an example of pseudo- translation, IAM might have attempted to hide behind the older, Eastern author coupled to a patron recognized as a paragon of imperial virtue and success, both recipients of even older and legendary oriental wisdom. The extensive (pseudo-)meta texts which preface IAM’s KD are a typical ingredient of such endeavors, designed to consolidate the appearance of translation (O’Sullivan, 2011).15 Toury (2005) acknowledges how difficult it is to identify such fictitious translations. This task depends in great part on ‘whether the fact that it used to function as a translation still has some reality left or whether it has been completely erased from the culture’s “collective memory”’ (Toury, 2005: 6). It is only then that one might understand ‘why a disguised mode of presentation was selected in the first place, and why it was this particular language, or cultural tradition, that was picked as a “source”, as well as what it was that made the public fall for it for a longer or a shorter period of time’ (2005: 6). In the case of IAM’s version, however, it seems that the passing of time has erased the possibility of understanding the context. A response to censure is a tempting hypothesis, but the KD’s contents specifically addressing the ruling class and proposing highly useful advice are not likely to titillate censure. As tempting as Toury’s theory is, it does not fully adapt to the KD.16 It is moot that such a model would have helped introducing the KD to the original elite aristocratic readership who were to profit most from the text’s contents. However, viewing Burzūya’s story as a literary invention does not automatically prove that the KD is an original creation by IAM; this is a jump one would hesitate to make given the uncertain state of the KD field. Rather, I am tempted to view the Burzūya episode as an elaborate authorial and patronal allegory of IAM’s own translation work, created by him and referring to his own circumstances. This view is evidenced by the way in which this introductory story mirrors the book’s central theme. The specious friendship that Burzūya establishes with the important Indian contact to access the Sanskrit original manuscript mirrors the book’s core: the denunciation of psychological manipulation through the irresistible friendship argument. The anagrammatic correspondence between IAM’s Persian name, Rūzba, and the name Burzūya might be a coincidence, but it might also be by design and represent a clue that the story allegorizes IAM’s KD translation activity. This smokescreen would correspond, one presumes, to a fashionable trend in 257

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the sophisticated literary circles of eighth-century Baghdad (cf. de Looze, 1991; D’Ancona, 2005).17 Whatever these speculations about the circumstances for its inclusion suggest, the presence of Burzūya’s story has a meaningful impact on how IAM designed the readers’ perception of his work. By mentioning this legendary origin—in effect, foregrounding his text’s origin in a different culture—IAM is hinting at two aspects. First, he whets the reader’s interest by raising awareness of a very ancient and respected text made up of Eastern wisdom that targets rulers and is worth financing a full spying mission. Second, he implicitly denies the skoposrule; the value of this source text is such that one surmises the scrupulous fidelity of Burzūya’s Sanskrit-into-Pahlavi translation and, similarly, the fidelity of IAM’s Pahlavi-into-Arabic version. It is worth remarking on the psychological clash between such implicit respect for the original texts and several conclusions reached by previous scholarship, although this might appear external to the type of evidence used in literary studies. The scholarship on the search for the Ur- text credits Burzūya with adding to the supposed core of five chapters attested in the Sanskrit Pancatantra. Similarly, IAM would also have added several further chapters (cf. de Blois, 1990, 1991).18 Considering the value the story attributes to the original, one would expect some mention of the rationale behind the translator’s additions in the existing authorial prefaces to IAM’s version. The Arabic translator provided no such explanation. Burzūya’s story has implications for IAM’s auctoritas. By presenting his agency as that of a translator rather than a writer, he advertises a curtailed literary authority. He is first a reader of the hypertext, thus blurring the divide between his audience and himself in the first stage.19 This blurring implies that the only authority he claims is that of a bona fide reader. In a helpful spirit, IAM does mention the optimal technique for reading the KD, which presumably served him well before he moved from the status of reader to that of translator. The reader should start at the very beginning of the text and progress in an exhaustive manner with perseverance, taking the time to ponder each element and extract its meaning. The KD finds meaningfulness not as a gathering of information but as a tool that IAM specifically compares to a grammar or rhetoric textbook (al-Muqaffa’, 1980).20 He also explains that the structure of the work, shaped in stories featuring animals, is inherited from the original unnamed (and, I suggest, probably mythical) Indian authors. IAM does not mention the style of his source text. He does not provide guidelines for the practice of his translation activity or the particular strategy for the translation at hand. We have no way of checking whether his translation exercises full fidelity to the style of what he mentions as his source. In the present state of the available editions of the Arabic KD attributed to IAM, we may conclude that circumstances create true invisibility. The absence of comments on his action on the translated text completes the silence surrounding his name as author and translator. His voice and his fidelity are not measurable either due to the uncertainties relating to his possible source text and the uncertain state of his own text.

Nasrullāh Munshī’s translation of KD I now turn toward an assessment of another KD version, separated from IAM’s text by over half a millennium and a huge geographical and cultural divide: the twelfth- century Persian prosimetric KD version by Nasrullāh Munshī (d. c. 1144; henceforth NM), an administratorsecretary to the Ghaznavid Court in Eastern Iran.21 NM’s Persian translation of the IAM KD text was apparently completed around 1143–1144 ; it seems to be his only work. This date holds a double resonance for the KD scholarship: this translation is based on a manuscript tradition that antedates the oldest surviving IAM Arabic KD manuscripts, and it constitutes 258

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the earliest surviving Persian KD version in the hereditary line. The data about it is flimsy despite its surface fame. The textual tradition was almost as unstable as in the case of IAM’s KD until a manuscript dating from 1155– 1156— that is, contemporary to the author’s lifetime— was unearthed (cf. Munshī, 1964; de Blois, 1990; Arberry, 1994; Omidsalar, 2015). By an odd coincidence, there are also remarkable similarities between what we know of IAM’s and NM’s professional biographies.22 What this similarity indicates is a comparable social milieu for the KD’s audience throughout the medieval and pre- modern worlds. Contrasting with IAM’s invisibility, NM and his patron are very visible in his authorial preface, which also includes autobiographical details, as well as a sophisticated eulogy of the patron.23 Let us briefly stand still at the Persian translator’s decision to keep the old eponymous title, Kitāb-i Kalīla wa-Dimna.24 From the point of view of rewriting practices, one could say that rewriters who keep close to the original’s title create the impression of a modest, respectful, and complementing function designed to hide at first glance the significant changes they have introduced.25 In this view, NM is making a formal global authorial commentary on his text: he wishes to advertise it as a faithful reflection of the Arabic source. Full fidelity suggests the great worth of the text, impacting the way he wants the reader to approach his work. Several points in NM’s authorial preface relate to his views on his translation task. NM establishes his source as the Arabic text by IAM and identifies the latter’s elusive patron. A lengthy passage describes the background to IAM’s KD: the beauties of ‘Abbasid Baghdad and the wisdom and generosity of the caliphs. This suggests that NM had access to an IAM authorial preface mentioning this data or that he did some research for these details, which presumably would have been welcomed by his target audience. We might also view these mentions as an attempt to give IAM and his patron a luster mirroring that of the Sassanian emperor, which spills over on NM’s translation. Indeed, NM has also taken over the story of Burzūya’s literary theft and, thus, adopts IAM’s pride as a translator positioned in the isnādlike heredity chain of rewriters of this ancient text. Such an attitude puts a noticeable emphasis on the value of the text while also suggesting the fidelity of the new translation’s contents. Implicit in the chain is a rejection of other translators and rewriters, whom, as we shall see, NM judged to be below the standards of bona fide servants of the text.26 The mention of the noble heredity chain becomes the norm in all further post-NM rewritings in Persian. This tradition puts the text, and not the authors, at the hub of the creative activity. It is remarkable how by mentioning existing older versions, NM also introduces his Persian KD as both a re- translation and relay- translation. By describing the Burzūya episode in his preface, NM introduces his Persian KD as a relay-translation— a third-level translation— with roots stretching from Sanskrit to Pahlavi to Arabic and now to Persian. He creates an awareness of the increased distance from the Ur- text— one notch further than IAM’s earlier relay- translation. This awareness emphasizes respect for the text’s sheer antiquity, which is expected to be doubled with the scrupulous fidelity of the translation even though this is not expressed at first. It also confirms the image of the KD as one of these texts of great cultural authority likely to trigger chains of new interpretations or creative responses (cf. Venuti, 2004). Incidentally, the impressive genealogical tree of KD translations, which is mentioned so often in current scholarship in relation to the KD text, is, thus, made up of relay- translations; they are all understood to relate back to IAM’s translation. NM also presents his work as a re-translation, this time in relation to the Arabic IAM version functioning as the source text. He is aware that there are prior Persian KD versions, and he gives special mention to that made by the poet Rūdakī (in NM’s words: ‘When IAM had translated the book, and when Rūdakī had shaped it as a poem, it was further translated several times’) (Munshī, 1964, 1996). Rūdakī enjoys a formidable reputation as the first poet of 259

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note in the New Persian medium; sadly, his KD masnavī is lost to us but for a number of stray verses. NM does not express admiration for Rūdakī’s or any of the other translations. He has not used them but claims to work directly from the Arabic text. His assessment of his forerunners’ KD versions is informative. He does not react against the actual practice of introducing variations in the translations; it is their quality and effects which he criticizes, thus adopting the attitude of an ‘active re- translator’, who re- translates ‘against’ others with whom he shares cultural and temporal locations, indicating ‘disagreements over translation strategies’ and challenging the validity of the previous translations (Pym, 1998: 82–83): Every [author] has progressed according to his own skill, in the field of clear expression. But it is evident that their intention has been to narrate the tales and write the stories, not teach the wisdom and advice. What beautiful words have they mutilated, in addition to abbreviating the stories! (Munshī, 1964: 25; 1996: 383) NM understands the successive rewriters’ attempts as progressive stages toward clarity, toward doing full justice to the content. Somewhat aggressively, as a reason for his own translationrewriting, he claims that the existing versions have mutilated the source in both form and contents. Frustration at what he considers a badly managed job challenges his ambition to do better. This sounds like a ploy to dethrone these earlier translations and claim distinction and legitimacy for his new translation that is based directly on the Arabic original. I also read in this a hint that he has done comparative research on existing versions.27 There is no copyright issue: although NM names his predecessors, the source text appears to be common property, which is remarkably similar to the view held in classical antiquity (cf. Rockwell, 1995; Kelly, 1991).28 Translation and rewriting both cover two aspects: the meaning of the text (the shadow form) and its style or language (the material form), the former to be respected and the latter to be challenged and adapted. Failure on either of these plains—or both as in the case of NM’s predecessors— is a direct challenge to younger rewriters who will, in turn, strive to obtain a harmonious union of form and thought (Rockwell, 1995). Even if a predecessor has contributed a text that is perfect in both aspects, changes external to the text, such as the readership’s aesthetic and ethical standards, might warrant the need to adapt the piece to contemporary ideals (Fiske, 1920). With our KD case study, this logocentric aspect of the re-translation theory, as propounded by Berman (1990), might, at first blush, appear conclusive, but the context complicates and eventually blurs the picture. With the KD, the theory’s results are tentative from the inset as necessarily based almost entirely on sand; the Persian translations that NM criticizes are unidentifiable, neither the IAM Arabic source text nor the Rūdakī masnavī can be said to have reached us as reliable tools to gauge their translators’ techniques. Nevertheless, we may attempt to apply the theory with a broad brush through the angle of the purity of the Persian language wielded by both translators, Rūdakī and NM. According to Berman’s re-translation model, an early translation uses a domesticating strategy, erasing a great portion of the source text’s cultural idiosyncrasies (Berman, 1984/ 1992). This erasure, we may presume, would indeed have been the case with the Rūdakī verse translation.29 The poet is famous for his robust Persian idiom, and his surviving work shows to be almost free of Arabic vocabulary. It appears to follow Berman’s re- translation model, suppressing the alterity of the translated text (Berman, 1984/1992). In contrast, the re-translation by NM basks in the foreignizing ambiance—it contains such an important proportion of Arabic words and quotations that it might almost be considered a bilingual version, 260

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a “literary creole”. This characterization is usually explained as part of NM’s ties with the emerging Persian chancellery style. Moreover, as laid out above, it also appears to follows Gambier’s logocentric view of the re-translation model which characterizes re- translations as a process of improvement over time and based on the illusion of an ‘immanent meaning’ contained in the source text (Gambier, 1994). However, even this superficial use of Berman’s re-translation theory is flawed because our knowledge of Rūdakī’s context is almost inexistent. Only some clues can be pieced together about NM’s context which form a picture that is bewilderingly complex. It is likely, on the one hand, that NM was striving to adapt to an ambient bilingual sophistication, which seems to have been the hallmark of the emerging chancellery or administrative, secretarial style at the Ghaznavid court itself. However, it is NM himself who is viewed as the very originator of this style, as his KD seems to be the earliest extant example of it. NM KD ‘revolutionized Persian prose’, proposing a conscious imitation of the artistic Arabic prose: balanced saj’ prose passages with rhetorical embellishments and quotations of all sorts using grandiloquent Arabic loan words, strings of synonyms, sayings in Persian and Arabic, Qur’anic citations, and Arabic and Persian verses (Omidsalar, 2015). The wish to foreignize NM’s KD re- translation could have been the motor for this bilingual, high-brow, Arabicized Persian idiom. We know that his text was experienced as culturally de- familiarizing not more than half a century later in the same Eastern Iranian region. The quantity and difficulty of the Arabic citations and vocabulary studding the NM KD had become a stumbling block for the readers. The British Library collections hold a sample of a work that proposes a Persian translation and interpretative explanation of the Arabic verses contained in NM’s KD version.30 Finally, there is NM’s intriguing explanation, which appears to contradict his use of such a bilingual style: his Persian translation is a response to the current audience’s lack of fluency in Arabic. This linguistic barrier, he says, has pushed the KD text back into the shadows. The mixed picture that emerges from all these observations indicates that NM was not translating across a stark cultural divide. It is clear that his target audience was to a certain extent able to read Arabic texts, but fashion was pointing towards the use of the grammatically less challenging Persian as literary language: ‘[P]eople no longer wished to study books written in Arabic, and [KD’s] rules and counsels remained forsaken, even obliterated’ (Munshī, 1964: 25; 1996: 383).31 Dissatisfaction with Arabic texts or Arabic quotations and passages appears to be a convenient literary topos adduced by Persian translators and rewriters throughout the medieval and pre- modern periods.32 We should hesitate to adopt uncritically what it seems to tell us about the reluctant bilingualism in Eastern Iranian courtly and intellectual milieus. NM’s authorial preface exemplifies several elements found in Dimitriu’s (2009) model. The preface’s explanatory function is well- represented; NM has justified the selection of the KD by socio- cultural factors of an extra- textual order (the great interest of the book). He then moves to the intra-textual discussion, explaining that it is the text’s Arabic language that impedes its continued success. NM does not seem to provide comments on the second point in Dimitriu’s discussion—the normative-prescriptive function. He does not provide guidelines on how to translate or comment on fidelity to the source text, but he does refer to fidelity to the target readers. By translating his work from Arabic into Persian, NM addresses the culture-specific needs of his target audience. As to Dimitriu’s third function—the informativedescriptive function—NM provides elements of text analysis in the remarks about the use of animals as characters and the stories’ different levels of complexity, taking these over from IAM’s prefatory remarks (Dimitriu, 2009). 261

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Stepping from the authorial comments to an examination of the core text, I first briefly comment on the text’s contents. NM’s “translation” is both different and more detailed than what we consider as the IAM text. This expansion fleshes out the leaner stories with anecdotal details, often enlivening the characters’ interplay. Sometimes, his additions are more meaningful than just tools to color the stories’ scope; that is, they truly bring to light the sophistication contained in the stories, which acquire a meaningfulness and gravitas under NM’s pen that are hardly palpable in the existing IAM versions. As an example, below is Dimna’s response to the physiognomy argument used against him during his trial. He triumphantly silences his accuser. In the Arabic versions, Dimna does so by trading vile insults on physical shortcomings: … and Dimna proceeded: I have asserted nothing but what is true, and to finish your portrait, I add, that you have been lame from your birth, and a very skeleton, clubfooted, and labouring under the most loathsome diseases in different parts of your body, which make you an object of aversion and disgust. At these words, the cook changed colour and the depression in his spirits which they occasioned deprived him of the means of making even the shadow of a reply. And Dimna, observing the state of despondency into which he had sunk, and that the tears were starting from his eyes, told him in a tone of malignant joy and exultation, that he would soon have greater reason to weep, when the king, becoming acquainted with his worthlessness and depravity, would not only dismiss him from the kitchen, but banish him altogether from his court and presence. Now a jackal, in whom the lion had great confidence. (al-Muqaffa’, 1980: 180–181)33 In NM’s version, Dimna silences his opponent with philosophical sophisms and rhetorical twists: Dimna replied: We can be certain that the judgment of all creatures can only be the result of prejudices and moods. On the other hand, God’s judgment is absolutely just: he is not subject to weaknesses, he does not decide wrongly or hastily and makes no mistakes. If the signs, which you have described, were to serve justice and bring proof, helping to differentiate justice from injustice, no-one should ever need to adduce evidence. Because no-one would be able to escape these physical marks, it would also become unnecessary to admire a good action, or to condemn a bad one. Based on this opinion, it would also be unnecessary, to reward the good and to punish the bad. Had I done the deed, as is being said – May god spare me from this! – when all is said, these physical signs would be responsible. As we cannot escape them, we cannot be punished for them: they were created for us. In that case, how could one condemn someone who is unable to change them? You have made of show of your stupidity: you simply repeat things, misrepresenting them according to your logic, and, what is more, out of context. Upon Dimna’s response, all those who were present held their breath and were silent. Upon this, the judge ordered that he be brought back to his cell. (Munshī, 1964: 148; 1996: 98–99) These differences are relevant for our view of the surviving IAM versions and have implications for NM’s work as a translator. We may consider that the surviving IAM versions descend 262

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from a shortened version that scrapped most of the psychological and philosophical depth that give the stories their full raison d’être. We may then consider that NM had access to a nowlost, fully developed IAM KD version and that he translated the contents in full loyalty to his source. The second, albeit unlikely, hypothesis is that NM’s source text was similar to what has reached us as the IAM KD. In that case, the Persian translator has overstepped his fidelity to the source text and has greatly expanded the stories with additions related to psychological and philosophical points not expressed in his source text. NM’s KD, in the example above, shows how Dimna’s rhetoric proficiency turns the tables on the person who has attempted to use the physiognomic argument against him. His demonstration also globally attacks the use of physiognomy as evidence in trials. Dimna shows how the theory can nullify itself—he truly wins his case here by his exceptional talent for dialectics and rhetoric. Additionally, he carries the audience’s agreement or tasdīq— they all remain silent. As I have discussed elsewhere (cf. van Ruymbeke, 2016a), this moment is an illustration of the philosophical conundrum of rhetoric used by dishonest people for dishonest causes. I suggest that it is unlikely that NM would have invented the philosophical conundrum of tasdīq that gives this passage its relevance, which in fact is likely to have fascinated IAM and his contemporaries. The discovery of Aristotle’s Rhetoric in the Muslim world happened in the late Umayyad and early ‘Abbasid times—the very years when IAM is likely to have written his KD (van Ruymbeke, 2016a). As to the style of NM’s translation, there is no evidence, and probably no awareness, of any requirement for transparency. The doubts surrounding his Arabic source text are too overwhelming to allow for any conclusion. Given our present IAM KD versions, NM’s text is longer, more detailed, and more sophisticated. As is the case with the contents discussed above, we might choose to view NM as a genial style creator, or we might suggest that he decided to transpose the stylistic sophistication of his original Arabic text (now only surviving in simplified abbreviated versions). We are, once again, hampered in our research by not only the state of the source text but also the very patchy knowledge of the context around NM’s “creation” of the Persian chancery style. We have no other text by NM that could help our investigation into forensic stylistics, a theory that attempts to understand the preferred recurring patterns of linguistic, conscious or unconscious behaviors and habits in an author’s style (Baker, 2000). NM’s text uses a mixed medium: prose passages interrupted by verse inclusions.34 Prosimetrum is present in many literary traditions, but the surviving IAM KD versions are not prosimetric. Whether or not the more sophisticated Arabic version of the text hypothesized above was also prosimetric must remain conjectural (cf. Heinrichs, 1997; Meisami, 1997).35 In any case, verse inclusions are the medium par excellence for the author, rewriter, or translator’s voice. They weave a contrapuntal web of commentaries and reflect the author’s (and probably the patron’s) intertextual references and preferences. Coming back to the question of de-familiarization and the creation of a foreignizing ambiance, we note that the NM KD contains numerous quotes of religious references in Arabic. These quotes range from brief expressions such as “Thank God” to quotations of Qur’anic passages to inclusions of several lines of poetry in Arabic. It is not clear in the present state of research on his work whether these lines are quotations for existing poems in Arabic or NM’s own creation. NM is certainly able to show off his bilingual poetical expertise when he picks up the meter of an Arabic half- verse and continues it in Persian. The comments in his authorial preface on the prosimetric structure of his text are unclear and may be interpreted in two ways: it is his intention to transform the prose into a prosimetrum, or the choice of the verses he includes within the prose is his. He does not comment on whether or not the IAM KD source text was already a prosimetrum. 263

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Overall, it is fair to say that the counterpoint created by the verse inclusions is the platform for the translator’s voice and strongly challenges the original voice of IAM with NM’s manifest presence (cf. Hermans, 1996). Meanwhile, it blurs the notion of auctoritas—the text has become a compilation. The original author’s authority is now invaded by the translator’s decision to include a separate voice expressing his versified commentary. This commentary, in turn, expresses NM’s intertextuality, which gives voice to older poets or sacred texts, thus adding a further level of authorial complexity. I suggest that the prosimetric system is the negation of the translator’s invisibility. It thus seems that the cultural norms surrounding NM’s translation did not demand the self-annihilation of the translator in order to achieve the translation’s success (Venuti, 1986).

Conclusion The confrontation of these two translation- rewritings— which illustrate KD’s migration back and forth between Persian and Arabic— with several elements developed by translation studies challenges our knowledge of the KD’s textual history. The confrontation exercise holds no anachronism because it is naturally not an attempt to suggest that medieval authors were educated in these theories. Nevertheless, it seems likely that they were exercised by the problems of translation and fidelity. It is possible to view the prosimetrum as a literary tool that might have been evolving in order to respect fidelity while also giving the translator or rewriter his voice. Thus, the present chapter also highlights the benefits of using the evidence provided by these early stages in the Arabic-Persian translation history for present-day translation studies.

Notes 1 The existing literature mentioning the Arabic and Persian KD texts is immense. I have limited the footnotes to indispensable references. The bibliography mentions the encyclopedia entries and other general tools that give an often outdated or undetailed outline of the heredity of the KD text. I refer interested readers in search of a more in- depth and critical overview of the field to van Ruymbeke (2016b) and van Ruymbeke (2018). 2 The skopos-rule is the overpowering role held by the necessity to adapt the translation to the target audience’s purpose. Nord (2005: 32) defines translation as ‘the production of a functional target text maintaining a relationship with a given source text that is specified according to the intended or demanded function of the target text (translation skopos). Translation allows a communication act to take place which because of existing linguistic and cultural barriers would not have been possible without it’. 3 Translation, according to Lefevere (1992: 9), ‘is the most obviously recognizable type of rewriting’: both activities are almost identical in their reshaping of an older text for a different target audience (cf. Munday, 2008). 4 Damrosh (2003) argues for seeing world literature as a mode of circulation and reading, not as an ungraspable canon of works. I also footnote here that the “original language” of the KD textual tradition is not identified beyond a doubt, but the text is broadly advertised as originating in Sanskrit. 5 An example is De Koe, published in 2007, which is a new relay-translation of the KD chapter of the Lion and Bull in Dutch by the Iranian-Dutch author Kader Abdolah. 6 The textbook The Norton Anthology of World Literature (Beginnings to 1650) mentions the Pancatantra but not the KD (Puchner, 2012). However, a more detailed treatment of world literature by Loy (2004) has a full entry on the KD. 7 The Middle Eastern KD text has been hitched on research done by Sanskrit scholars into the Pancatantra. This connection has three damaging consequences: the lost Sanskrit versions’ authority has never been challenged even though it has remained hypothetical; mainstream scholarly interest has never shifted away from the history of the text and onto an actual analysis of the contents; only versions deriving from the Ibn al-Muqaffa’’s hypothetical Arabic version have received some consideration.

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Kalīla and Dimna 8 The number of main and sub-stories is not fixed in the IAM KD textual tradition. In the Persian tradition, the number of 14 main stories remains stable from the Nasrullāh Munshī version onwards, but the sub-stories continue to vary. These sub-stories may be viewed as a supple platform for each rewriter to comment or add to the main stories’ meaning. 9 We have what appears to be reliable information (although, it is surprisingly well-documented for the eighth- century ) about the background, life, and career of ‘Abdallah IAM. Born in a prominent Persian Zoroastrian family, his father was already serving the Umayyad dynasty but was maimed for crimes unrecorded. This maiming earned him his name, al- Muqaffa’. The young Rūzba, IAM’s Persian name, also converted to Islam, adopting the Arabic first name ‘Abdallah. After a career as secretary and administrator at the service of the Umayyad dynasty, he survived the 750 take- over by the ‘Abbasids and continued his highflying administrative career. His cruel assassination by the caliph’s governor is a memorable part of his biography. 10 This was noted already at the inception of Pancatantra/ KD studies (cf. Benfey’s Introduction to Bickel, 1876). 11 The earliest manuscript is dated 1221 , the second 1338 . 12 This is my translation of Miquel’s French translation of IAM KD (al- Muqaffa’, 1980). The page numbers cited above refer to the pagination in Miquel’s translation. 13 S.J. Cheikho (1905) notes that IAM was not a native Arabic speaker and that his language was tainted by his foreign origin. Furthermore, he struggled with a difficult text that presented philosophical ideas to which the Arabs of the time were little used. Therefore, translations from the period are heavily impregnated with Hellenisms and “Syriacisms” to the extent that we sometimes wonder whether the translator understood the text he was translating. Surprisingly, Nicholson (1995: 346) reaches opposite conclusions: ‘The Arabic version is one of the oldest prose works in that language, and is justly regarded as a model of elegant style, though it has not the pungent brevity which marks true Arabian eloquence.’ 14 “Invisibility” in translation studies does not usually refer to the non-mention of the translator’s name and his shadowy existence, but Venuti (1986: 8) states, ‘The translator’s invisibility is thus a weird self- annihilation … Many newspapers … do not even list the translators in headnotes to reviews [and] publishers almost uniformly exclude translators from book covers and advertisements’. 15 Amongst the other KD meta-texts that I leave aside in this chapter, the intriguing chapter on Burzūya’s autobiography deserves a mention because its authorship is also doubtful (cf. Quintern and Ramahi, 2006; Marlow, 2013). 16 Toury (2005: 4) has described the technique as follows: ‘the possibility is always there to try and put the cultural gatekeepers to sleep by presenting a text as if it were translated, thus lowering the threshold of resistance to the novelties it may hold in store and enhancing their acceptability, along with that of the text incorporating them as a whole’ (emphasis in original). 17 As far as I am aware, there are no earlier notes on the anagrammatic correspondence of the two names—each of the letters of RUZBH are used to form BRZUH. Vocalized in Pahlavi, the name is noted as Borzūe; in Persian, it is Burzūyeh or Burzūya, and this is taken over in Arabic where it becomes Barzawayh. The Persian vocalization needs to insert a “y” in order for the final “h” to be silent and serve as bearer of the vowel “e/a”, similar to the variant of the ezafe vowel that needs to be introduced with a “y” when the preceding word ends with a vowel. It is worth noting that IAM’s likely literary ploy has remained undetected throughout history. A biography— be it a patchy one—of Burzūya exists. It might be a conflation of IAM’s literary character with another historical character bearing the same name, as attested by medieval authors (cf. Khaleghi-Motlagh, 1989). 18 It is worth noting that these findings are premised on the conviction that IAM’s text was based on a brief, lost Pahlavi text. The latter is believed to be reflected in a surviving hapax manuscript containing an “Old Syriac” KD version presented as a direct translation of the lost Pahlavi text. Scholars also view the lost Pahlavi text as going back to an even briefer ultimate Sanskrit version reflected in existing Pancatantra versions. In view of the doubts surrounding this Syriac text, I stay shy of using it as a comparative tool to rate IAM’s translation activity. 19 This attitude is similar to that of medieval European authors who also ‘define their authorship by representing in various ways their relationship to their predecessors, thus portraying themselves as sensitive and sometimes critical readers of established authorities’ (Partridge and Kwakkel, 2012: 5). 20 Knatchbull’s version (al-Muqaffa’, 1819) is noticeably different.

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Christine van Ruymbeke 21 I have used the Tehran edition by Mojtaba Minovi (Munshī, 1964), which is based on 12 different manuscripts, including the 1156 one. 22 NM served in the chancery of the Ghaznavid king, Bahrāmshāh (r. 1118–1152), in Eastern Iran. His family was illustrious, counting administrators and viziers, ‘all of whom have been praised for their literary skill’ (Omidsalar, 2015). He eventually became vizier under Khosrow-Malek (r. 1160–1186) but ended up in prison, where he was killed for crimes unrecorded (Omidsalar, 2015). 23 NM’s KD version appears to be an unusual case of suggested patronage. NM was not hired to produce a translation. He claims that he produced a trial chapter on his own initiative. He was then encouraged by the patron he approached, who agreed to finance the full translation undertaking. The book was accordingly dedicated to Bahrāmshāh, who became a patron after the fact. Several of Lefevere’s (1992) criteria on patronage are illustrated here, including: the economic component (the payment NM hopes to obtain) and the status component (he hopes his work will attract the attention of high patronage). 24 The connotative capacity of this title is misleading in relation to the contents. It highlights two animal characters while many of the stories also feature human actors; it emphasizes the pleasant synopses of the stories rather than the contents’ philosophical and psychological depth. Eponymous titles traditionally suggest that the characters are the heroes of a picaresque work (Genette, 1982). Hasty references to KD, often by association with the Reynard stories, imply that the pair of jackals feature in all the chapters (cf. Latham, 1990). Remarkably, the KD field has not yet engaged with the questions this eponymous title poses while it is briefly commented upon by an outsider to the field (Robert, 2009). 25 The effort to invent and reformulate titles implies that there was something potentially deficient or problematic about the old ones (cf. Seidel, 1998). 26 Interestingly, NM’s authorial preface describes the IAM KD’s unstable textual tradition, which was already prevalent at the time. NM mentions that he received a copy of KD while he already had ‘in [his] possession several copies of the book, but [he] took this as a good omen’. This receipt also witnesses that Arabic version(s) of the book were easily accessible by the Ghaznavid time and, as NM remarks, that the KD’s lessons were also targeting private individuals. NM paints the picture of a KD that is easily obtainable in Arabic (Munshī, 1964: 18, 25–26; 1996: 376, 382–384). 27 NM’s KD was translated back into Arabic in 1327 for one of the descendants of Ṣalāḥ- al- Din alAyyūbī (Omidsalar, 2015). I would explain this translation (“rétrotraduction”: Gambier, 1994: 413) as an indication that his version was recognized as a more reliable reflection of the original IAM text. Omidsalar (2015) views this translation as indicating that NM’s work was considered as an original and independent literary contribution. 28 ‘The subject matter or theme … was regarded by the ancients as common property … Hence the question for the author in any given genre was not so much what to write, but how to write it. If form did not dominate content, it at least shared the throne with it’ (Fiske, 1920: 39–40). 29 It is worth noting here that, although NM presents Rūdakī as a translator from Arabic into Persian, it might be that Rūdakī based himself on a previous prose translation in Persian documented as the Bal’amī KD translation, yet another KD version which has not reached us. 30 British Library, Persian MS Add. 5965 (Rieu, 1879–1883). Fazlallah b. Uthman b. Muh. Al-Asfarazi, Tarjuma-yi Kalīla wa Dimna. The work is dated Rajab 626 (1229 ) and is dedicated to the ‘Pride of Khwarazm’, Vizier Majd al-Dawlah Abū-l Ḥasan ‘Ali al-Mustawfī. To the best of my knowledge, this work has not yet been studied. 31 Basing ourselves on NM’s explanation above, we might need to refine the classic presumption that the KD had left a trail of high-quality resonance in the medieval Persian cultural sphere. 32 The excuse is already used by Bal’amī for the composition of the Tārīkhnāma (cf. Peacock, 2007; Richter-Bernberg, 1974). Kāshifī, who rewrites the NM KD in the fifteenth century, presents the same argument about the NM KD’s fall of fashion, and Abū’l-Fazl, who rewrites Kāshifī’s work for Emperor Akbar, uses the self-same argument about Kāshifī’s work (van Ruymbeke, 2016b). 33 Here, as elsewhere, the existing Arabic versions show differences, but none proposes anything that resembles the philosophical and rhetorical development given in the Persian version. The exception is Miquel’s version, which relates Dimna’s argumentation earlier on in the exchange (al- Muqaffa’, 1980: 123–124). The silence of the assembly is also mentioned elsewhere in the trial, but it does not suggest the provoking tasdīq conundrum. 34 Basing herself on existing sources, J.S. Meisami (1997) links prosimetrum with the chancery style. 35 Khawam suggests that such an IAM prosimetrum existed (al-Muqaffa’, 1985: 26–27).

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Further reading Brockelmann, C. (1913–1936/2012). Kalīla Wa-Dimna. In Bearman, P., Bianquis, Th., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E. and Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Available at: https:// referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/kalila-wa-dimna-COM_0427. Marlow, L. (2013). Among Kings and Sages: Greek and Indian Wisdom in an Arabic Mirror for Princes. Arabica, 60, 1–57. Niehoff- Panagiotidis, J. (2003). Ueberzetzung und Rezeption: die byzantinisch-neugriechischen und spanischen Adaptionen von Kalila wa-Dimna. Wiesbaden: Reichert. O’Kane, B. (2003). Early Persian Painting: Kalila and Dimna MSS of the Late Fourteenth Century. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. Riedle, D. (2010). Kalila wa Demna. i. Redactions and Circulation. Encyclopaedia Iranica Online. Available at: www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kalila-demna-i.

References Abdolah, K. (2007). De Koe. Amsterdam: De Geus. al-Muqaffa’, A. (1819). Kalila and Dimna or The Fables of Bidpai [trans. Rev. Wyndham Knatchbull]. Oxford: W. Baxter for J. Parker. al- Muqaffa’, A. (1957/1980). Ibn al- Muqaffa’, Le Livre de Kalila et Dimna [trans. A. Miquel]. Paris: Éditions Klincksieck. al- Muqaffa’, A. (1985). Le pouvoir et les intellectuels ou les aventures de Kalīla et Dimna [trans. R.R. Khawam]. Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose. Arberry, A.J. (1994). Classical Persian Literature. Richmond: Curzon Press. Arjomand, S.A. (1994). ‘Abd Allah ibn al Muqaffa’ and the ‘Abbasid Revolution. Iranian Studies, 27(1/ 4), 9–36. Baker, M. (2000). Towards a Methodology for Investigating the Style of a Literary Translator. Target, 12(2), 241–266. Berman, A. (1990). La retraduction comme espace de traduction. Palimpsestes, 4, 1–7. Berman, A. (1984/1992). The Experience of the Foreign: Culture and Translation in Romantic Germany [trans. S. Heyvaert]. Albany: State University of New York. Bickel, G. (1876). Kalilag und Damnag. Alte Syrische Übersetzung des Indischen Fürstenspiegels. Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus. Bosworth, C.E. (1983). The Persian Impact on Arabic Literature. In: Beeston, A.F.L., Johnstone, T.M., Serjeant, R.B. and Smith, G.R. (eds.). The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 483–496. Cheikho, S.J. (1905). La version Arabe de Kalilah et Dimnah. Beyrouth: Impr. Catholique. Damrosch, D. (2003). What is World Literature? Princeton: Princeton University Press. D’Ancona, C. (2005). Greek into Arabic: Neoplatonism in Translation. In: Adamson, P. and Taylor, R.C. (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 10–31. de Blois, F. (1990). Burzōy’s Voyage to India and the Origin of the Book of Kalīlah Wa Dimnah. London: Psychology Press. de Blois, F. (1991). The Pancatantra: From India to the West – and Back. In: Grube, E.J. (ed.). A Mirror for Princes from India. Bombay: Marg Publications, 10–15. de Looze, L. (1991). Signing off in the Middle Ages: Medieval Textuality and Strategies of Authorial Self-Naming. In: Doane, A.N. and Pasternack, C.B. (eds.). Vox intexta: Orality and Textuality in the Middle Ages. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 161–178. Dimitriu, R. (2009). Translators’ Prefaces as Documentary Sources for Translation Studies. Perspectives. Studies in Translation Theory and Practice, 17(3), 193–206. Fiske, G.C. (1920). Lucilius and Horace: A Study in the Classical Theory of Imitation. Madison: University of Wisconsin. Gambier, Y. (1994). La Retraduction, Retour et Détour. Meta, 39(3), 413–417. Genette, G. (1982). Palimpsestes: La littérature au second degré. Paris: Taurus.

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Christine van Ruymbeke Gründler, B. (2013). Les versions de Kalīla wa-Dimna: une transmission et une circulation mouvantes. In: Ortola, M.- S. (ed.). Énoncés sapientiels et littérature exemplaire: une intertextualité complexe. Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 385–416. Heinrichs, W. (1997). Prosimetrical Genres in Classical Arabic Literature. In: Harris, J. and Reichl, K. (eds.). Prosimetrum, Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 249–276. Hermans, T. (1996). The Translator’s Voice in Translated Narrative. Target, 8(1), 23–48. Kelly, D. (1991). The Arts of Poetry and Prose. Turnhout: Brepols. Khaleghi-Motlagh, D. (1989). Borzūya. Encyclopaedia Iranica Online. Available at: www.iranicaonline. org/articles/borzuya-also-burzoe-a-physician-of-the-time-of-kosrow-i-. Latham, J.D. (1990). Ibn al- Muqaffa’ and Early ‘Abbasid Prose. In: Ashtiany, J., Johnstone, T.M., Latham, J.D. and Serjeant, R.B. (eds.). ‘Abbasid Belles- Lettres. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 48–77. Lefevere, A. (1992). Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. London and New York: Routledge. Loy, P.S. (2004). Kalilah and Dimnah. In: Moss, J. (ed.). World Literature and its Times, Vol. 6. New York: Gale, 221–228. Marlow, L. (2013). Among Kings and Sages: Greek and Indian Wisdom in an Arabic Mirror for Princes. Arabica, 60, 1–57. Meisami, J.S. (1997). Mixed Prose and Verse in Medieval Persian Literature. In: Harris, J. and Reichl, K. (eds.). Prosimetrum, Crosscultural Perspective on Narrative in Prose and Verse. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 295–320. Munday, J. (2008). Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. London and New York: Routledge. Munshī, N. (1343/1964). Tarjome-ye Kalile va Demne [ed. M. Minovi]. Tehran: Entesharat-e daneshgah-e Tehran. Munshī, N. (1996). Nasrolla Monschi. Kalila und Dimna. Fabeln aus dem klassischen Persien [trans. S. Najmabadi and S. Weber]. München: C.H. Beck. Nicholson, R.A. (1995). A Literary History of the Arabs. Surrey: Curzon Press. Nord, C. (2005). Text Analysis in Translation: Theory, Methodology and Didactic Application of a Model for Translation-Oriented Text Analysis. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Omidsalar, M. (2015). Kalila wa Demna. ii. The Translation by Abu’l- Maʿāli Naṣr-Allāh Monši. Encyclopaedia Iranica Online. Available at: www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kalila-demna-ii. O’Sullivan, C. (2011). Pseudotranslation. In: Gambier, Y. and Doorslaer, L.v. (eds.). Handbook of Translation Studies, Vol. 2. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing, 123–125. Partridge, S. and Kwakkel, E. (eds.) (2012). Author, Reader, Book: Medieval Authorship in Theory and Practice. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Peacock, A. (2007). Medieval Islamic Historiography and Political Legitimacy: Bal’amī’s Tārīkhnāma. London and New York: Routledge. Puchner, M. (ed.) (2012). The Norton Anthology of World Literature (Beginnings to 1650). New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Pym, A. (1998). Method in Translation History. Manchester: St Jerome. Quintern, D. and Ramahi, K. (2006). Qarmaṭen und Iẖwān aṣ-ṣafāʾ: Gerechtigkeitsbewegungen unter den Abbasiden und die Universalistische Geschichtstheorie. Hamburg: Theorie und Praxis Verlag. Richter- Bernberg, L. (1974). Linguistic Shu’ūbiyya and Neo- Persian Prose. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 94(1), 55–64. Rieu, C. (1879– 1883). Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Library. London: British Museum. Robert, R. (2009). L’itinéraire français des fables de Bidpaï. Kalila et Dimna au XVIIIe siècle de Galland à Caylus. In: Chraibi, A. and Ramirez, C. (eds.). Les Mille et une nuits et le récit oriental: En espagne et en Occident. Paris: Éditions L’Harmattan, 139–155. Rockwell, P.V. (1995). Rewriting Resemblance in Medieval French Romance. Ceci n’est pas un grail. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc. Seidel, M. (1998). Running Titles. In: Galef, D. (ed.). Second Thoughts: A Focus on Rereading. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 34–50. Toury, G. (2005). Enhancing Cultural Changes by Means of Fictitious Translations. In: Hung, E (ed.). Translation and Cultural Change. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing, 3–17.

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Kalīla and Dimna van Gelder, G.J. (2011). Canon and Canonisation in Classical Arabic Literature. In: Fleet, K., Krämer, G., Matringe, D., Nawas, J. and Rowson E. Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. 3. Available at: http:// referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/canon-and-canonisation-in-classicalarabic-literature-COM_24378. van Ruymbeke, C. (2016a). Dimna’s Trial and Apologia in Kashifī’s Anvār- i Suhaylī: The Place of Morality in the Corrupt Trial of a Rhetorical and Dialectical Genius. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 26(4), 1–35. van Ruymbeke, C. (2016b). Kashifī’s Anvār- i Suhaylī: Rewriting Kalīla and Dimna in Timurid Herat. Leiden: Brill. van Ruymbeke, C. (2018). Authorship, Ownership and Rewriting: Vā’iz Kāshifī and Abū’l- Fazl b. Mobārak within the Noble Hereditary Line of Kalīla wa- Dimna Authors. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 45, 181–210. Venuti, L. (1986). Translator’s Invisibility. Criticism, 28(2), 179–212. Venuti, L. (2004). Retranslations: The Creation of Value. Bucknell Review, 47(1), 25–38.

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16 BEYOND ASSIMILATION AND OTHERING Theatre translation and the translator’s agency Mohammed Albakry

Introduction Even though translators may make many decisions without any conscious reflection on the norms and values that constrain their work, translation is an intended action that involves a degree of self- monitoring at every level. The translator’s intention, however, is always collective and translators are subject to ‘unacknowledged conditions’ and ‘unanticipated consequences’ (Giddens, 1979, cited in Venuti, 2003: 25). In other words, transcending individual subjectivity, the agency of the translator is determined by numerous external factors including linguistic usage, previous translations, genre expectations, literary tradition, and presumed tastes and biases of audiences, among a host of other mediating agents that have an impact on the interpretation the translator inscribes in the foreign text. All these factors are perhaps more enhanced when the translator tackles a stage play, which can only come alive through performance with all the added elements of mise- en- scène that has the potential to open up communicative spaces for subtext and nuance. Whether translating for the page or the stage, however, attending to the words’ subtle shades of meaning is the primary task of the translator. In this chapter,1 I am particularly interested in the active agency of the translator in interpreting culturally fraught keywords and accommodating their semantic nuance beyond lexicographical equivalence. The discussion is grounded in my experience working with staged translations included in my co-edited anthology Tahrir Tales: Plays from the Egyptian Revolution (Albakry & Maggor, 2016). As the title indicates, the anthology engages with Egyptian dramatic literature after the 2011 Revolution and reflects the divergent ways in which the Egyptian theatre has responded to and participated in social and political change in contemporary Egypt. To put the drama anthology translational project and the discussion in the larger context, I start by commenting on the place of drama in translation and translation studies in general, and shift to the situation of Arabic drama in translation. I then review and critique the binary model of foreignization/domestication championed by Venuti (2002, 2008), and draw on concrete examples of charged lexical items that represent some of the cultural challenges of translating Arabic drama for the American stage. These illustrative examples offer some of my own linguistic/ cultural choices when faced with specific dilemmas of translation and

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could provide insights into the unique difficulties posed by translation from Arabic. By considering several foreignizing/domesticating possibilities, I hope to show that the foreignizing strategy is not necessarily always the one most respectful of difference. Finally, I conclude by conceptualizing an alternative translational space of dialogical encounters beyond the usual logics of assimilation and othering, where moments of genuine contact with the foreign could be played out.

Drama in translation and translation studies Foreign drama in translation can provide an opportunity for the audience to gain an intimate understanding of a foreign culture and a particular moment in history. It has the potential to allow us to see the distant other on the stage not as a threat but as a figure who is different but nonetheless worthy of understanding. Through dramatizing the varied life experiences of characters from other distant cultures, foreign drama can reduce perceived separateness, and enhance a sense of shared humanity. It is an old theatrical tool to use distance, whether historical, geographical, or dramaturgical to better understand ourselves—for example, playwright Bertolt Brecht had the social and political goal of empowering the audience by distancing them from the action and the characters on the stage so that the audience could relate to the characters’ dilemmas on a more intellectual level. Brecht’s radical performing arts concept known as Verfremdungseffekt (Brecht, 1964: 122) is variously translated as alienation, estrangement effect, and sometimes simply the A-effect. Foreign drama in translation arguably comes with a built-in Verfremdungseffekt and could be capable of providing its new audience with a degree of provocative distance.2 Staging foreign drama or intercultural theatre can be viewed as having three related goals that act less as rival aims than as interconnected steps in a single process: 1. to understand the other’s difference; 2. to understand the other’s commonality; and 3. to understand ourselves differently. Encountering a different culture on the stage has the potential to disrupt the spectators’ understanding of that culture and, in turn, to transform the spectators’ self- understanding. In this sense, the spectacle of intercultural theatre (see Pavis, 1989: 37), without abolishing difference, could turn into a political presentation that requires the audience to play a more active role. Instead of being inert and passive voyeurs, the audience can become more like active agents in a communal performance or ‘emancipated spectators’ (Rancière, 2009: 4–7). Yet, drama,3 of all the literary forms, is the least represented in English translation, and very few drama translations actually receive full productions or dramatic readings in the AngloAmerican world, whether in London or on Broadway (Mateo, 2002: 49). Unsurprisingly, this marginalization extends to the place of theatre and drama in translation studies as well. Bassnett (1991a: 20) laments this neglect by pointing out that ‘the bulk of genre- focused translation study seems to involve the specific problem of translating poetry’, whereas there is ‘very little material on the special problems of translating dramatic text’. Echoing this concern, Schulte (2002: 200) states that the translation of plays in general, whether the linguistic transfer of plays or ‘the discussion of problems surfacing in the transplantation of theatrical works, is one of the most neglected areas of literary translations’.

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Drama and prose are often lumped together in translational analysis, but that position ignores the distinct nature of translating for the stage. Translating dramatic literature— like other literary genres—requires sensitivity to both the source and receiver languages. What is different is that in theatre translation, the language of the playtext is only one element in the semiotic systems of the theatrical event. Consisting of more than a written script, a theatre text is situated in an intricate web of verbal and nonverbal elements that include acting and visual stagecraft, among other elements. Translating for a theatrical performance is also a collaborative act ‘bearing the fingerprints of many subjectivities’ (Aaltonen, 2013: 385); besides the translator as a mediator between source text and target audience, both the director and the actors become collaborators and co-creators of meaning. That makes the ‘communicative circuit’ for drama translation ‘more complex than that for other types of translation’ (Rodriguez cited in Marco, 2002: 56). Now the question is: if a performed play is itself a kind of ‘intralingual’ translation, how does this change the act of ‘interlingual’ translation of a playtext? The famous opposition between page-oriented and stage-oriented translation assumes that the latter has to be more sensitive to preserving the dramatic impact and capturing the ‘performability’ of the original text (Brisset, 1996; Finburgh, 2011). Performability (also known as playability), however, is a rather fuzzy concept and not necessarily of much help to the translator since it refers to the ‘implicit, undefined and undefinable quality of a theatre text’ (Bassnett, 1985: 101). In this sense, the translator’s focus might be better directed to the linguistic elements of the playtext and their cultural connotations leaving the task of integrating the written with the other sign systems that constitute the theatrical event to the director (Bassnett, 1991b: 99–111). Nonetheless, as Bassnett (1991a: 132) herself concedes, the audience’s presence, at the very least, makes it clear that the function of theatre transcends the strictly linguistic level—found in other types of texts—and reveals ‘the public dimension of the challenges a theatre translator faces when attempting to achieve an effect’ (see also Nikolarea, 2002).

Arabic drama in translation and reception of Tahrir Tales As a translated literary genre, Arabic drama can be said to be doubly marginalized; it has the smallest market share in the already limited market for Arabic–English literary translation. In any given year, as Lynx Qualey points out, we ‘might see twenty five plus novels and a halfdozen poetry collections [from Arabic] appearing in English translation, [but] it’s a good year to find even one play translation in print’ (cited in Antoun, 2013: para. 39). Because of Arabic’s famous diglossia (the wide gap in vocabulary and grammatical complexity between the written and spoken varieties of the language)— among other reasons related to the dynamics of Western art market—few Western translators have been involved in Arabic drama translation. The division of Arabic drama into two distinct language registers poses additional challenges for the translators, demanding, among other qualifications, a high degree of ‘competence not only in the standard classical Arabic but also in one or more of its spoken variants’ (Altoma, 2005: 152). Thus, instead of issuing from translation, most Middle Eastern-themed plays tend to be written in English by American playwrights or by Arab American ones.4 As Colla claims, there is a general bias among American audiences, especially regarding the Arab point of view, in favor of literature composed in English as opposed to translated works (cited in AlMadhoun, 2013: para. 2). This often leads to the bypassing of the Arab perspective to seek out literature written from an American point of view about the Arab world.

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Against this backdrop, Tahrir Tales: Plays from the Egyptian Revolution received much attention due to the relative rarity of translating drama from Arabic.5 Because of the topicality and the perceived political relevance of these works, different theatres have expressed a great deal of interest in producing some of them, and sometimes I was under pressure to submit drafts to the directors of interested theatre groups in shorter time than I would have liked. This spike of interest in Arabic art and literature in the aftermath of the so-called Arab Spring was not unlike what happened after 9/11. Conflict and culture and politics and aesthetics may not be strange allies after all. The interest was exciting especially at the beginning, but it was also disconcerting. Some of the presenting organizations chose to advertise their events as a ‘glimpse’ into Arab culture or a ‘window’ on Arab reality. More curiously, in some productions the performers used stereotyped casting or a fake ‘Arab’ accent,6 which created an artificial distance between the play and the audience. At least that is the effect I felt, but this approach may have been the result of a poorly thought-through choice rather than a deliberate decision to distance the characters from the audience. Playing with accents on stage, however, is almost always ideologically freighted with implications and complications. It may, in some cases, be essential for dramatic portrayal of a certain character, but it may also signal a form of exoticization and linguistic profiling. Using fake accents or stereotyped casting can unwittingly function to replicate underlying ideological structures and thus has the effect of shoring up those structures rather than opening them to questioning. By imposing stilted stereotypic difference, ‘accented’ performances can draw attention to the way characters speak rather than to what they are saying. As Lippi-Green (1997) argues, accents and stereotyping often go hand in hand. In Hollywood and Disney movies (and, we may add, on the stage as well), foreign cultures can be either trivialized or demonized through linguistic means. That is because, in cinematic and theatrical portrayals of encounters with other cultures, villains, more often than not, tend to speak with fake ‘foreign’ accents, whereas characters that conform to a ‘neutral’ general American English are consistently represented as ‘the good guys’. More generally, US theatres traditionally have produced Middle Eastern- themed dramas not as a way to illuminate for the audience aspects of their own situation, but rather to take them on a sensational tour to a foreign culture. This kind of exoticization and ‘monolithic reductionism’ is a form of Orientalism that can distance or even dehumanize another culture (Said, 1995: 99). In this sense, the increased demand for Arab- themed performances can be seen as a kind of double- edged opportunity. As Litvin (2012: 165– 175) argues, ‘Along with an expanded audience comes the possibility that playgoers are there mainly to be informed about the artist’s culture of origin’ that operates according to a different logic than the audience’s own society. This anthropological or ethnographic interest, in my experience, seems to be particularly drawn to the drama that pertains to women or deal with the status of women7 in Arab societies. The most sought-after plays in the anthology turned out to be the ones that foreground women’s issues or are written by women playwrights. A case in point is the two one-woman monodramas: They Say Dancing is a Sin and The Mirror. The two plays deal with two very different women trying to assert their agency in a patriarchal society: an insecure young woman racked with self-doubt and a daring self-assured middle-aged belly dancer. Is this evidence of an ethnographic interest or an expression of increased interest in contemporary international drama in translation? Or both? It is hard to tell, but however Orientalizing the institutional frameworks of expectations and reception may be, it is also possible to challenge them. Some productions managed to subvert any stereotypical expectations by taking

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a color- blind approach to casting that represents American diversity on stage with Arab Americans as one part of that diverse picture. In such performances and dramatic readings, actors moved the characters closer to themselves and audience members’ questions and comments in talkbacks and post-show discussions suggest that the translated texts engaged them in thinking about not only life and politics within Egypt, but what they saw as parallels and connections in their own lives in the United States. For example, after a new staged reading of the play In Search of Said Abu-Naga,8 audience members in the talkback raised the issues of racism and the burden of student loans in the United States to connect American struggles with the social and economic struggles of Egypt. This is a testament that foreign drama in translation could provide an opportunity for American audiences to understand Arab culture on its own terms because they can see it in relation to their own cultural diversity and history. The understanding of the other qua other may shake up the complacency of stereotypes about Arab people and may even lead audiences to better understand themselves. Interest motivated by ‘ethnographic’ or political curiosity is still interest, and it does not necessarily have to be sinister or dismissive of the other. It is in fact commendable when audiences seek to satisfy their curiosity about foreign cultures through exposure to works of contemporary dramatic literature—as long as they remember that literature, ‘while it may provide insights, does not offer explanations; while it raises questions, [it] does not usually give comprehensive answers’ (Lindsey, 2010: para. 5). Humanism—and especially the cosmopolitan dimension of it—assures us that conversation across boundaries of identities, be they cultural, national, or religious, begins with the ‘imaginative engagement’ with ‘art and literature from other places, a wider interest in lives elsewhere[,] … the recognition that human beings are different and that we can learn from each other’s differences’ (Appiah, 2010: 4). This cross- cultural conversation, which can only be enabled by translation, as Appiah (2010: 85) maintains, may not lead to any consensus, nor is that a requirement for defining success in this respect. But it is perhaps sufficient if cross-cultural conversation could make people from different cultural backgrounds more used to one another.

Between domestication and foreignization: negotiating cultural differences Translation thus has a potentially significant role to play in intercultural and literary exchange. It is influential in representing foreign cultures, giving readers and audiences access to otherwise inaccessible works about the cultural other. It presupposes curiosity about histories and cultures not our own and acts as a partial response to our conflicting fascination with their strangeness and our desire for appropriation (Ricoeur, 2007: 32– 35). Translators, no doubt, need to be wary of robbing the foreign text of its significant cultural differences. However, it is a disservice to the text, especially the theatre text, when the translation tries to call attention to itself. The theatre translator should strive to offer the audience an engaging dialogue with no deliberate foreignization that could bar empathy and emotional involvement with the text or the actors on the stage. This brings us to Venuti’s arguments regarding strategies of domestication versus foreignization in translation generally. Venuti (2002) presents these two perspectives as oppositional, explaining that the former addresses the degree of assimilating the foreign text to the translating language and culture, while the latter resists this assimilation and signals instead the traces of foreignness of the source text. He prefers foreignization as a general rule, claiming that fluency and domesticating practices have had a prevailing detrimental effect on the canon of foreign literatures in English (2008). As translation theory continues to grapple with

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the politics and ethics of cultural- linguistic transfer between the source and target cultures, Venuti’s controversial position clearly valorizes the source culture, which has arguably been ‘obliterated rather than communicated’ in translation (Maier, 1995: 23). This more source- oriented approach, which also advocates for the visibility of translators, is a welcome corrective in raising translators’ awareness about their reflective practices vis-à- vis the foreign texts. However, it could go too far in stressing its ‘ethics of difference’ in the name of asserting the alterity of the source text and the agency of the translator. I am particularly wary of its call for linguistic experimentation; the foreignizing approach encourages a translational style that is ‘heterogeneous’, ‘non-fluent’, and ‘non-standard’ for the sake of resisting the dominant discourse and subverting its major forms (Venuti, 2008). The only thing, however, that this ‘elitist’ translation discourse is likely to subvert is the translated text itself (see Robinson, 1998), particularly if the text comes from a non- Western culture and is meant for the stage—two considerations that are particularly relevant to Tahrir Tales. Venuti is justifiably critical of translators who seek to assimilate the foreign cultural norms of the source text to the values of the receiving language. But as he exhorts translators to ‘register the linguistic and cultural difference of the foreign text, [to send] the reader abroad’, his supposedly non-ethnocentric position is still rather Eurocentric and more applicable to an intra-Western context (Venuti, 1993: 210). The concepts of foreignizing versus domesticating, as Faiq (2004: vi) points out, are not ‘fine- tuned enough as an apparatus of assessment’ for translation from non-Western cultures—including Arabic with all its particular discursive and ideological dimensions. It may be important to remind English- language readers of a translated Italian literary work, for example, that they are not reading a British or American text. The overall cultural similarities and overlaps and the shared Judeo- Christian frame of reference may assimilate and overwhelm the cultural differences of the source text. But that is not as much of a risk when translating a text from a distant language such as Arabic, steeped in its own tradition and Islamic frame of reference. Thus, any decisions regarding how much to highlight alterity in a translation should take into account linguistic remoteness and whether the foreign source text is perceived to represent desirable cultural goods or a threat to the receiving culture (Aaltonen, 2000: 8). While the twinned concepts of foreignizing/domesticating represent a dilemma that is shared by all literary translators, the decision to adapt culturally becomes more accentuated in stage translation than in other modes because of the unique temporality of the theatrical text (Hale & Upton, 2000: 7). All translators have to consider how to make the text speak to an audience, but readers of a novel, for instance, could perhaps deal more easily with cultural strangeness in a translated book, whereas audiences at the theatre do not have the luxury of rolling time back in a transitory performance. The reading process ‘allows for reflection on and absorption of strange bodies, whereas performance, on the other hand, has to make the point right away and has no second chances’ (Marco, 2002: 61, emphasis in original). In theatre production, at every moment it is essential for the translation to carry the audience with it. The language is ‘transmitted from voice to ear, rather than from page to eye, and must have immediate impact’ (Clark, 2000: 20). In Venuti’s account, we either preserve difference by foreignizing the translation or we assimilate difference by domesticating it. But the difference, as Litvin remarks, between ‘look, they are just like us’ and ‘pay attention, they have their own culture’ is a ‘delicate balance’ and needs to be handled carefully (cited in Antoun, 2013: para. 37). In other words, the ideal is to neither highlight nor mask difference, but to find the middle ground, and this could

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perhaps be done by directing attention to what the play in its own context is about, rather than insisting linguistically that it is ‘about us’ or ‘about not-us’.

Illustrative examples of lexical/cultural challenges To illustrate this point, I now turn to the sort of challenge that the translation of a single lexical item or phrase could present. The use of religious formulas tends to be common in vernacular Arabic conversation, and, naturally, this is reflected in the dramatic dialogue of plays. The challenge posed in translation is whether to convey such conventionalized expressions literally or interpretively. A case in point is the use of the common stock phrase insha’allah, which can be translated, among myriad other possibilities, as ‘God willing’; or more literally, ‘If God wills it’; or by adding a more foreignizing touch for non- Muslim audiences, ‘if Allah wills it’ (see Lynx Qualey, 2010). Another option is to transliterate or import the foreign expression wholesale into English for ambience and as a reminder of the text’s culture. All of these translational choices are acceptable depending on the context, but it seems to me that a more interpretive translation, discussed below, would come closer to striking a delicate balance. For the most part, though, none of the translational choices just mentioned seems particularly satisfactory when translating a contemporary playtext. When rendered literally, the translation could miss the intentionality of the utterance, and fails to capture the colloquial tone and the range of nonreligious meanings associated with it, which, among other things, include ‘I hope’, ‘maybe’, ‘I don’t think so’, or ‘we will see’. My point is that instead of loading the text with religious references, a more accurate translation sometimes has to deviate from ‘slavish’ literalism and give primacy to context over text. Phrases like ‘God willing’ are an integrated, understated part of the Arabic language, and they are not always religious evocations, even though they could be in certain contexts. A translation of a stage play has to be sensitive to the characters’ patterns of speech and the dramatic impact of their utterances depending on the various aspects of the performative speech act. Of course, this requires an interpretive presence for the translator, but that presence or agency, acknowledged or not, is always there, or it should be. Although, arguably, it is far more domesticating than foreignizing to drop the ‘God’ aspect altogether in favor of a secular utterance, mentioning God—in this particular case—(which hides an access of difference) or Allah (which accentuates it for non-Muslim audiences) is perhaps beside the point. A good translation here captures the folksy ‘illocutionary force’ (Austin, 1962/ 1975) and is neither foreignizing nor domesticating. Of all the options available for translating Arabic religious terms, I am particularly wary of the use of transliterations or selective foreignisms, whether or not they are followed by explanatory footnotes (another loaded option). It should be noted, however, that Venuti does not call for leaving foreign chunks of the original text in translation as a foreignizing device. He advocates creating linguistic alienation effects (à la Brecht) in the receiving language, which arguably is an effort to avoid doing an ‘ethnocentric violence’ to the linguistic and cultural values of the source culture. But foreignisms and transliterations are oftentimes used as a strategy for creating such linguistic alienation effects and can function as a form of exoticizing that ‘re-create[s] the (expected) hyper-religious Arab’ (Lynx Qualey, 2010: para. 9). Annotating notes, which signal the limits of translation, can be helpful in giving some cultural background, but they may have the unintended consequence of stressing strangeness and thereby Orientalizing the text.9 Since a theatre audience does not have the benefit of seeing reference annotations or explanatory notes when the play is performed anyway, a dramatic 276

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text, more than prose texts, needs to be as self-contained as possible. Having said that, some translator’s notes may still be necessary— indeed, unavoidable and helpful— for shedding light on cultural references and local practices, at least for directors and actors, and of course for readers of the playtexts. Another case in point of challenging religious words, or rather religio- cultural concepts, are haram and shaheed. Roughly equivalent in English to ‘sin’ and ‘martyr’ respectively, these two words/concepts have a wide range of meanings that cannot adequately be captured in one English word or phrase. They also appear centrally in two different works in Tahrir Tales. The first concept— haram— even appears in the title of one text: Dancing Is ‘Haram’, a monodrama about an independent, strong-willed, gritty but compassionate dancer reflecting on her status and profession in post- revolutionary Egypt. That this vexed word is part of the title makes any translational choice all the more fraught, as the title of any literary or dramatic work is a place of prominence that usually captures the essence of the work and becomes its first form of advertising. Table 16.1 includes some of the many options that I considered at the draft stage. Dancing Is a Sin, while short and more literal, felt inadequate in capturing the web of meanings surrounding the Arabic haram. I accepted ‘sin’ as the best possible compromise in spite of its potentially strong Christian echoes. However, the directness in English can set up expectations for a different kind of narrative than we see in the monodrama. The dancer in the play is wrestling not only with the rising religious ideology, but even more with the narrow-mindedness of societal restrictions and hypocrisy. I needed a title that expresses all the connotations of ‘religiously forbidden’ as well as the weight of social disapproval. After going through and rejecting many options, listed in Table 16.1, I finally settled on They Say Dancing Is a Sin. Rather than simply being an agentless declarative, the added phrase, in its use of the pronoun ‘they’, highlights the social presence of an antagonist. Although not literally present in the Arabic title, the attribution to ‘them’ is borne out in the text itself; that is, the added phrase is in line with the contextual use of haram in the play. The troublesome word shaheed (plural shuhada) (see Lynx Qualey, 2012) which, as previously noted, roughly translates as ‘martyr’ is central to In Search of Said Abu-Naga, a play that presents the story of the individual awakening of a petty police officer, Said Abu-Naga, who became ‘lost’ after participating in killing protestors during the 2011 Revolution. The word is used frequently and in multiple contexts throughout the play: The protestors who went to Tahrir Square and were killed are referred to as ‘martyrs’, and the protagonist’s father, who fought and died in the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, is also described as a ‘martyr’. In my translation, I thought these different uses needed some contextualization at the beginning. As the

Table 16.1 Translating haram

More literal but foreignizing option

Other more domesticating options

Dancing Is ‘Haram’

Dancing Is a Sin Dancing Is a Forbidden Sin Dancing Is Forbidden Dance Is Prohibited Dancing Is Disapproved Dance Not Allowed They Say Dancing Is a Sin

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More literal but foreignizing translation

Less literal translation using the ‘stealth gloss’ strategy

MOTHER Don’t worry, my son Said is not like that. He’s a man … better than any man … the son of his father the shaheed … (Groups of shuhada surround Said and isolate him as if in a prison. The Mother and Salem act as if Said is invisible. Said stands, scared and alienated.)

MOTHER Don’t you worry about my son Said; he’s a man … a man among men … he’s the son of a martyr, a war hero … (Groups of martyrs, victims of the protest, surround Said and isolate him as if in a prison. The Mother and Salem act as if Said is invisible. Said stands, scared and alienated.)

two examples included in Table 16.2 illustrate, I opted for what I hoped would be helpful but inconspicuous explanatory phrases, a strategy known as ‘stealth gloss’10 (Grunebaum, 2013; Randol, 2013). On encountering the play’s references to shaheed, I was concerned about whether the audience would regard a shaheed as a fanatic who died because he was seeking death. Would this new audience be able to understand the embedded cultural concept—even if it is alien to them? Of course, reactions are rarely uniform, and it is not such a simple matter to know what meanings even an audience in Cairo would make of shaheed in the context of this play performed in Arabic. Presumably, there is an interaction for each individual’s associations with this polysemous word and the range of meanings conjured by the playwright, but at least there is a shared knowledge-base for a Cairo audience that could not be presumed for an American one. The Egyptian audience is more likely to understand the intended meaning of shaheed as commemoration of suffering for a justified cause, not as justification for violence inflicted on others—a crucial difference. Besides its religious sense of ‘bearing witness to the faith’—not dissimilar to Christianity— shaheed can also mean ‘victim’ and ‘hero’, in the sense of the American notions of ‘fallen soldier’ or ‘war hero’; in certain contexts, shaheed might even combine these senses to signify ‘victim- hero’, a compound that may sound semantically odd in English. There was no escape from using the word ‘martyr’ in this case since it is the closest equivalent that could possibly approximate the important sense that a particular death was not in vain. However, at the beginning of the text I occasionally juxtaposed ‘martyr’ with ‘hero’ to prime the audience with an association for ‘martyr’ that is not limited to religious connotations. Clearly, this is not a simple issue of lexical transference; what is at issue here is the different religious and secular resonances of viewing the larger meaning of death in different cultural contexts. As Lefevere and Bassnett (1990: 8) put it, ‘neither the word, nor the text, but the culture becomes the operational “unit” of translation’. In other words, the cultural norms of the source language are refracted through the choice of words, and there is an inevitable interaction between language and culture that constrains and impacts the translation. Words with deeply religious associations are complex signifiers that may have great potential for misunderstanding and confusion in translation, but adopting foreignisms, such as insha’allah, haram, shaheed, and the like, is often not the best solution. When it comes to translation from Arabic, exoticizing often relies on maintaining certain Arabic words just for flavor. But such a strategy could evoke certain domestic stereotypes in the receiving culture and turn the foreign terms into negative linguistic signs for representing the Arab 278

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other— the borrowed words fetwa, jihad, and madrassa come to mind in this respect. Such words have quite a range of mainly positive meanings in Arabic, but only restricted pejorative senses with menacing connotations in English. As Bellos (1990: 36) argues, the ‘foreign- soundingness’ of most translations that seek ‘to give the reader a glimpse of the authentic quality of the source can only reproduce and reinforce what the receiving culture already imagines the foreign to be’. Keeping foreign words in translation does not necessarily widen the audience’s understanding of cultural differences, nor does it help much to rely on footnotes for explaining them. Inserting surreptitious glosses, however, should be kept to a minimum because such a strategy may risk ‘over- explaining’ and compromising the compactness of the text.

Conclusion We need to add more nuance to the simplistic formula of domestication versus foreignization popularized by Venuti. Where we had the terms domestication (I turn your actual difference into sameness) and foreignization (I highlight your difference)— and, we may also add, exoticization (I turn your actual difference into my fears and fantasies of the different)—we should create room in Venuti’s model for ‘the hard to find space’ where aspects of actual difference are encountered. I conceptualize this space as a place of encounter between the familiar and the foreign beyond the usual logics of assimilation and othering, where moments of genuine contact with the foreign could be played out, and cultural identity across differences negotiated. This dynamic in- between positionality can allow the texts to assert themselves without simply being appropriated, foreignized, or exoticized. I envision it as a space of ‘dialogic encounters’ and ‘multiple convergences and divergences’, without blind obedience to the dictates of any tyrannical approach (Butler, 1990: 14–16). In this fluid in-between space, translators critically engage with the source text and use multiple strategies that suit the nature of the particular text they are translating. They bring the text closer to the audience and still maintain its cultural specificity, rather than seeking to domesticate it or making a curiosity out of it by spotlighting its foreignness or exoticness. As carriers of meaning, translators ‘attend’ to the cultural connotations and the contexts from which they arise and evoke (Dingwaney, 1995: 3). This might be the essence of what Derrida has famously called ‘an ethics of the word’, a translational ethics that takes into account the additional aspects of contextual meaning and the intertextual network in which any lexical item is embedded. As Mahmoud Darwish put it more poetically, the translator is ‘not a ferryman for the meaning of the words, but the author of their web of new relations. And he [sic] is not the painter of the light part of the meaning, but the watcher of the shadow, and what it suggests’ (2008: para. 4). To this end, I have tried, to the extent that was possible, to untangle this complex web of relations and anticipate the potential for misunderstanding or stereotypical misrepresentation without localizing the plays to their new cultural environment or diminishing their authenticity. I hope that the plays’ universal themes reflecting questions of individual freedom, religious tolerance and intolerance, doubt and guilt, economic disparity, and the search for moral and social justice will resonate with new audiences. I hope that the texts will speak across differences to our common humanity, and that diverse audiences in the English-speaking world will connect with the Egyptian characters as both different in their cultural contexts, but the same in their human struggles. Instead of giving a glimpse or providing a window into Arab culture and reality, I hope the translations will extend a full invitation into the world of the 279

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texts. But my task as a translator is done. This hope now rests on the collaboration of the directors, actors, dramaturgs, and other theatre practitioners involved in bringing these texts to the stage.

Notes 1 An earlier version of this updated and revised chapter has appeared in Educational Theory, as ‘Between the familiar and the foreign: Translating Arabic drama for the stage’, 64(5): 497–514. 2 The locus classicus here is Aristotle’s Poetics, chapter 7, where he argues that the moral-educativeexistential effect of tragedy is in its producing pity and fear through the right mix of sympathy and distance, a catharsis of the emotions. See Aristotle, Poetics, trans. with an introduction and notes by Malcolm Heath (London: Penguin, 1997). 3 I am focusing here mainly on stage translation, but drama has the dual function of being both a literary form and a performative art, and it is important to take both functions into account. 4 See for example Nine Parts of Desire by Iraqi-American playwright Heather Raffo (2006). 5 Some of the plays received many staged readings and full productions at various theatres and university campuses, including Harvard University (March 29, 2012), Vanderbilt University (April 4, 2012), University of Connecticut (April 23, 2014), and New York’s Hybrid Works Theater (August 21–25, 2013), among many other venues. 6 This tendency was evident in a staged reading of the play In Search of Said Abu-Naga on March 10, 2013, produced by the International Voices Project of Victory Gardens Theater, Chicago. 7 Most recently at the Huntington Theater Company in Boston (January 14, 2016). Only a few hours after the announcement about the two plays was sent out, as the director reports, the performance space was fully booked—with a growing waiting list. 8 University of Connecticut (April 23, 2014) directed by Michael Bradford. 9 There is a long history of the use of extensive comments as an overbearing metadiscourse that engulfs the source text and turns the most mundane actions and situations into curiosities. For example Richard Burton’s literal translation of the Arabian Nights in the nineteenth century produced a ‘foreignizing’ effect with such usage. As Shamma (2009: 55) reports, in one of his footnotes, ‘Burton translates the word “Alhamdlillah” (a commonplace conversational expression equivalent to “Thank God”) as “praise be to Allah, Lord of the (three) worlds,” and informs his readers that it is “a pious ejaculation, which leaves the lips of the True believer on all occasions of concluding actions” ’. 10 A strategy that refers to weaving an explanation into the body of the text instead of a footnote.

Further reading Aaltonen, S. (2000) Time- Sharing on Stage: Drama Translation in Theatre and Society. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Brisset, A. (1996) A Sociocritique of Translation: Theatre and Alterity in Quebec, 1968–1988 (R. Gill & R. Gannon, trans.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hale, T. & Upton, C. (2000) Introduction. In: C. Upton (ed.), Moving Target: Theatre Translation and Cultural Relocation, 1–16. Manchester: St. Jerome. Litvin, M. (2012) Doomed by ‘dialogue,’ saved by curiosity? Post- 9/11 Arab performances under American eyes. In: E. Houssami (ed.), Doomed by Hope: Essays on Arab Theatre, 158–177. London: Pluto Press.

References Aaltonen, S. (2013) Theater translation as performance. Target 25(3): 385–406. Aaltonen, S. (2000) Time- Sharing on Stage: Drama Translation in Theatre and Society. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Albakry, M. & Maggor, R. (eds.) (2016) Tahrir Tales: Plays from the Egyptian Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Beyond assimilation and othering Al-Madhoun, R. (2013, July 21) The American reader seeking the Arab ‘other.’ Asharq Al- Awsat. Retrieved from https:// eng- archive.aawsat.com/ r- madhoun/ lifestyle- culture/ the- american- readerseeking-the-arab-other. Altoma, S. (2005) Modern Arabic Literature in Translation. London: Saqi Books. Antoun, N. (2013, March 17) Translating theater to and from the Arab world. Egypt Independent. Retrieved from www.egyptindependent.com/news/translating-theater-and-arab-world. Appiah, K.A. (2010) Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Aristotle (1997) Poetics (M. Heath, trans.). London: Penguin. Austin, J.L. (1962/1975) How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bassnett, S. (1985) Ways through the labyrinth: Strategies and methods for translating theatre texts. In: T. Hermans (ed.), The Manipulation of Literature, 87–102. London: Croom Helm. Bassnett, S. (1991a) Translation Studies (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Bassnett, S. (1991b) Translating for the theatre: The case against performability. TTR: Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction 4(1): 99–111. Bellos, D. (1990) Fictions of the foreign: The paradox of foreign-soundingness. In: E. Allen & S. Bernofsky (eds.), In Translation: Translators on their Work and What it Means, 31–43. New York: Columbia University Press. Brecht, B. (1964) Brecht on Theater: The Development of an Aesthetic (J. Willett, trans.). New York: Hill & Wang. Brisset, A. (1996) A Sociocritique of Translation: Theatre and Alterity in Quebec, 1968–1988 (R. Gill & R. Gannon, trans.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Clark, P. (2000) Arabic literature unveiled: Challenges of translation (Working Paper). Retrieved from University of Durham, Center for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Durham, UK. Retrieved from http://dro.dur.ac.uk/106/1/63DMEP.pdf. Darwish, M. (2008) Preface to an anthology of a French translation of his poetry, translated by Lulu Norman. Retrieved from www.banipal.co.uk/selections/21/121/mahmoud-darwish-1941–2008/. Dingwaney, A. (1995) Introduction: Translating ‘third world’ cultures. In: A. Dingwaney & C. Maier (eds.), Between Languages and Cultures: Translation and Cross- Cultural texts, 3–20. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Faiq, S. (2004) Cultural Encounters in Translation from Arabic. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Finburgh, C. (2011) The politics of translating contemporary French theater. In: R. Baines, C. Marinetti, & M. Perteghella (eds.), Staging and Performing Translation: Text and Theatre Practice, 230–248. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Grunebaum, J. (2013) Choosing an English for Hindi. In: E. Allen & S. Bernofsky (eds.), In Translation: Translators on their Work and What it Means, 156–168. New York: Columbia University Press. Hale, T. & Upton, C. (2000) Introduction. In: C. Upton (ed.), Moving Target: Theatre Translation and Cultural Relocation, 1–16. Manchester: St. Jerome. Lefevere, A. & Bassnett, S. (1990) Introduction: Proust’s grandmother and the thousand and one nights: The ‘cultural turn’ in translation studies. In: S. Bassnett & A. Lefevere (eds.), Translation, History and Culture, 1–13. London: Pinter Publishers. Lindsey, U. (2010, January 18) Arab literature. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://arabist.net/blog/ 2010/1/18/arabliterature-in-the-new-yorker.html. Lippi- Green, R. (1997) English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. New York: Routledge. Litvin, M. (2012) Doomed by ‘dialogue,’ saved by curiosity? Post- 9/11 Arab performances under American eyes. In: E. Houssami (ed.), Doomed by Hope: Essays on Arab Theatre, 158–177. London: Pluto Press. Lynx Qualey, M. (2010, June 2). How do you translate insha’allah? Arabic Literature (in English). Retrieved from http://arablit.wordpress.com/2010/06/02. Lynx Qualey, M. (2012, February 17). Do you translate ‫ ﺷﻬﺪﺍء‬as martyrs? Arabic Literature (in English). Retrieved from http://arablit.wordpress.com/2012/02/17. Maier, C. (1995) Toward a theoretical practice for cross- cultural translation. In: A. Dingwaney & C. Maier (eds.), Between Languages and Cultures: Translation and Cross- Cultural Texts, 21–38. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

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Mohammed Albakry Marco, J. (2002) Teaching drama translation. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 10(1): 55–68. Mateo, M. (2002) Power relations in drama translation. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa 14(2): 45–63. Nikolarea, E. (2002) Performability versus readability. Translation Journal 6(4). Retrieved from www. bokorlang.com/journal/22theater.htm. Pavis, P. (1989) Problems of translation for the stage: Interculturalism and post-modern theatre (L. Kruger, trans.) In: H. Scolnicov & P. Holland (eds.), The Play out of Context: Transferring Plays from Culture to Culture, 25–44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Raffo, H. (2006) Nine Parts of Desire. New York: Dramatists Play Service. Rancière, J. (2009) The Emancipated Spectator (G. Elliott, trans.). New York: Verso. Randol, S. (2013, April 30) Interview with Susan Bernofsky. Words Without Borders. Retrieved from www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/interviewwithsusan-bernofsky. Ricoeur, P. (2007) On Translation. New York: Routledge. Robinson, D. (1998) Translation and Empire: Postcolonial Theories Explained. Manchester: St. Jerome. Said, E. (1995) Embargoed literature. In: A. Dingwaney & C. Maier (eds.), Between Languages and Cultures: Translation and Cross-Cultural Texts, 97–102. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Schulte, R. (2002) The Geography of Translation and Interpretation: Traveling between Languages. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press. Shamma, T. (2009) Translation and the Manipulation of Difference: Arabic Literature in NineteenthCentury England. Manchester: St. Jerome. Venuti, L. (1993) Translation as cultural politics: Regimes of domestication in English. Textual Practice 7(2): 208–223. Venuti, L. (2002) The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference. New York: Routledge. Venuti, L. (2003) Retranslations: The creation of value. Bucknell Review 47(1): 25–38. Venuti, L. (2008) The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. New York: Routledge.

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PART IV

Translation histor y/historiography

17 MAPPING AN ARABIC DISCOURSE ON TRANSLATION Myriam Salama-Carr

Introduction Growing research on a diversity of translation traditions and knowledge transmission patterns, whether striving for a degree of inclusiveness which contests spatial and temporal boundaries (Baker & Saldanha, 2009; Ballard, 1992; Delisle & Woodsworth, 1995 amongst others), or explicitly reaching beyond the Western canon (for instance Gaddis Rose, 2000; Hermans, 2006; Hung & Wakabayashi, 2014; Cheung, 2012, 2014; Selim, 2009; Hanna, 2016 with specific reference to drama translation) has helped expand the historical grounding of the discipline. This work has questioned mainstream narratives, particularly with regard to the conceptualization of translation as an act of rewriting. In the case of the Arabic translation tradition, competing narratives range from an almost hagiographical account of the ‘medieval’ Arabo-Islamic contribution to the transmission and construction of knowledge via translation, to readings which tend to oversimplify if not negate the input of that tradition into intellectual history. This chapter will draw on an ongoing research project aimed at producing an anthology of Arabic discourse on translation, with specific focus on two iconic translation periods or movements, the Classical Age of Arabo- Islamic Science (ninth– tenth centuries) and the Nahḍah period in the nineteenth century when issues of identity and nation-building were intrinsically linked to translation and language.1 Further to sketching out the context in which the project was launched and is developing, the chapter will engage critically with the rich historiography of the Arabic translation tradition through medieval chronicles and later testimonies, and discuss the epistemological and methodological challenges inherent to the construction of an anthology.

Cultural policies and the construction of an anthology As a research project awarded national funding within wide-ranging local initiatives, the proposed anthology is bound to be anchored in cultural politics (see Jacquemond, 2009) whereby large-scale translation and translation research projects are launched and supported in parts of the Arab World, with the aim of bringing together the Islamic Golden Age and the knowledgebased society. This is in addition to established national programmes throughout the Arab 285

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World (including, amongst others, those found in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia) which have been promoting translation into and out of Arabic for a number of years. For the modern period, Jacquemond (2009) suggests that the purpose of a translation movement is twofold, based on ‘humanistic’ considerations that stress the need to translate into Arabic key instances of world literature and thought, as well as on ‘developmentalist’ agendas which aim at facilitating access to recent economic developments, through translation, and at helping modernize the Arabic language. The UN report on Arab Human Development (2003), notwithstanding its contested figures and findings, has played a key role in the launching and promotion of translation initiatives in the Arab World, including research initiatives focusing on the role of translation in the construction of knowledge, both with regard to the meta- narrative of modernity but also as a means of reviving and foregrounding the part played by Islamic science2 in intellectual development in Europe. The promotion of cultural exchanges is in this case, firmly grounded in what has been referred to as ‘transdiplomacy’ (Franjié, 2013). Whilst the focus is on the part translation can play in promoting international and intercultural understanding, its contribution to social and political change should not be overlooked. The role played by language and translation, in a plurality of forms, in the protest movements of the Arab Spring adds further significance to translation in its Arab context.3 The anthology project presented here is supported by the Qatar flagship funding programme, the National Priorities Research Program (NPRP), which aims at promoting Qatari and regional culture, heritage and intellectual capital. Within the frame of the project, translation and its history is seen as a medium to promote cultural visibility, which fits in with the disciplinary concerns discussed in the next section, and to revive iconic periods of knowledge transmission and construction. The anthology, due to its archival, testimonial nature, can therefore be seen as a way of conveying distant voices, and of recording continuities and discontinuities within the boundaries of a selected periodization and its geographical framing. In its wider cultural and political context, it is also meant to nurture knowledge exchange and cultural dialogue.

The disciplinary context: challenging and expanding geographical and linguistic boundaries In broad terms, today’s work on the history of translation can draw on a more explicitly articulated understanding of what it means to explore the history of historiography of translation, and, thanks in part to the avenues opened by post-colonial studies, will be less Eurocentric in its geographical and linguistic foci. The need to expand horizons rather than set up boundaries between traditions is already manifest in Gaddis Rose’s Beyond the Western Tradition (2000). As brilliantly demonstrated by the late Martha Cheung, scholars will endeavour to draw on ‘other’ models when theorizing and conceptualizing translation, positioning themselves in relation to what has been referred to as ‘an international turn in Translation Studies’ (Cheung, 2005: 41). Whilst in 1993 José Lambert could reflect, perhaps somewhat unjustly,4 on the remoteness of translation history work from mainstream translation studies research, the use of the metalanguage of translation studies in historical research on translation, which gives us, as Delabastita rightly argues, ‘a firmer grip on the differences and similarities’ (Delabastita, 2012: 246) of translators’ experience and praxis, is increasingly problematized. Moreover, the link between translation historiography and the need to foreground the legitimacy of a ‘new’ discipline has become itself ‘historical’ and perspectives have now changed. Beyond the argument put forward, for instance by Delisle (1997) and D’hulst (1994) that the history 286

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of translation can contribute to the training of translators, there is increasing interrogating of what is involved in ‘doing’ translation history, of one’s own approach to the selection and narration of data and of the place and role of translation history research in the wider community of translation studies.5 D’hulst had articulated possible reasons for undertaking research on the history of translation, one of which is to help ‘develop a culture of translation’ (2001: 22). Given its role of representation, and to some extent of canonization, the anthology is a way of reaching that aim.

The construction of an anthology: epistemological and methodological issues Constructing an anthology of the Arabic discourse on translation entails drawing a map of knowledge, delineating boundaries between what might count as a translation and what does not, between an overt direct discussion of translation and a peripheral engagement with it, between established texts (for instance books and literary essays) and journal articles (the latter being a particularly rich source of information on cultural, identity and modernity debates in early twentieth-century Egypt). The connection that is made between the two iconic translation movements mentioned above is more than a way of legitimizing cultural practices. The translators and essayists of the Nahḍah were often revisiting the Classical heritage and not simply invoking it. The complex relationship is well illustrated in the way Faraḥ Anṭūn (1874– 1922), writing on ibn Rushd, draws on medieval historiography and the translations on which ibn Rushd relied to study Aristotle. Furthermore, scholars have questioned the traditional boundaries that have been set between the age of the Nahḍah and that of perceived ‘stagnation’ (rukūd) or even ‘decadence’ (inḥiṭāṭ) that followed the Golden Age of Islam. This was done by pointing out that translations during the Nahḍah were often adaptations and imitations that drew not only on European originals but also on earlier forms of writing in Arabic, which would signal some continuity with earlier patterns alongside the adoption of ‘modern’ forms. The issue of the ‘chain of transmission’ in the context of the Nahḍah is developed by the Syrian literary critic al- Khaṭīb (1990), whose work is critically explored by Shamma (2014) through a comparison with Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory. The epistemological issues will include the use of a given metalanguage and projections of contemporary constructs onto past practices as studies of medieval translation have shown, together with the complexities of periodization and linguistic boundaries, when dealing with the contextualization and translation into English of the anthology texts. Periodization plays a central role in historical research, setting boundaries for a particular site of inquiry. But, as argued by Foz (2006), periodization is itself subjective and based on underlying assumptions. An example is provided by Steiner (1975: 236–239) where the whole period stretching from Cicero to the eighteenth century is framed within the idea of empiricism. This may not do justice to the Middle Ages, itself a period the duration of which remains contested between historians. Such a periodization would not map easily onto the history of translation in the Arab World, where the Classical period, seen as the Golden Age of Islam, belongs to the medieval world. A delineation which, in turn, is not without weaknesses as it might mask the continuity that the region had experienced with regard to translation activity, thanks to the work of the Christian monasteries in late Antiquity. To some extent, the disciplinary location of the researcher will help identify possible epistemological and methodological issues. When looking at the ‘translation into English’ stage of the anthology, that is the translation into English of the texts selected for inclusion and contextualization, it is clear that epistemological issues will arise. As noted by Cheung, ‘the 287

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result of the interpretive decision [the use of English “equivalents” to translate Chinese terms] is a kind of pre-emptive epistemological closure which discourages rather than stimulates any genuine interest in the Other which a monolingual reader might have’ (Cheung, 2007: 23). The risk of framing ‘Other’ discourses, for instance in the context of the Global South, with reference to one’s metalanguage is also highlighted by Judy Wakabayashi and Rita Kothari, who argue that ‘[t]he histories of translation in non- western contexts – or at least what is best documented in these histories – are so heavily dominated by translation from or into European languages that it is difficult to move beyond these conceptual limitations’ (2009: 3). The plurality of Arabic terms used to designate ‘translations’ in medieval historiographies and nineteenth-century writings signal a broad range of mediation practices. Whilst the term ‘tarjamah’ has become the standard and institutionalized designation for translation, other terms can also be found in medieval writings, whether biographies or translators’ paratexts. Terms such as ‘naql’, which evokes the idea of ‘transfer’, or ‘talkhīș’, i.e. summary, or again ‘tafsīr’, i.e. interpretation, alternate in textual material. In some instances they do indeed refer to specific writing practices such as abstracting and commenting but unless their use is exemplified case by case with specific ‘mediated’ material, it is reasonable to assume that they map the shifting boundaries of writing modes which characterize Arabic textual practices at the time and fuzzy linguistic demarcations, and are indeed found in other medieval translations. It is true that the term ‘tarjamah’ is primarily used in the sense of ‘biography’ in medieval chronicles but as argued by Wakabayashi in her exploration of the Japanese discourse on translation ‘[t]he etymologically derived implications of certain terms sometimes run counter to translational reality’ (Wakabayashi, 2009: 175). Displaying similar plurality of appellations, Nahḍawī discourse of the nineteenth century develops around terms such as ‘taḥwīl’, transformation, ‘tacrīb’, Arabization, or even ‘tamșīr’, Egyptianization which links up with the Egyptian vernacular versus Fușḥa debate that underpinned discussions of translation, identity and modernity in their Egyptian context. The multiplicity of terms and fuzziness of concepts vindicates Tymoczko’s call for a notion of ‘cluster’ concept when discussing translation with reference to different languages (2007: 98). From the perspective of methodology, the researchers will aim to capture a broad picture alongside expectations that the anthology would account for the most iconic translators and observers – in this instance Ḥunayn ibn Isḥaq (809–873), and al-Jāḥiẓ (776–868), respectively for the Classical period, and al-Ṭahṭāwī (1801– 1873) for the Nahḍah period and rely on a selection of primary and secondary sources to bring onto a single canvass an Arabic discourse of translation. Another question was that of the structure of the anthology. For the translation studies scholar a thematic organization of selected texts might constitute a particularly interesting, if challenging, endeavour. The main merit of such a structure would be to illustrate, by drawing on a specific tradition, some of the regularities and patterns of translation praxis (for instance the vagaries of texts across time and space, the need for subject knowledge, the multifaceted aspects of patronage) and conceptualization – the changing and sometimes contradictory interpretations attached to translation, the latter being seen as legitimate appropriation, or ultimately involving betrayal, dichotomies which still underpin contemporary discourse on translation. The risk of adopting this approach would be that of framing trends with reference to present concepts and of projecting our own conceptions onto past practices, or, as noted above, of representing other discourses through the prism of the mainly Eurocentric metalanguage of contemporary translation studies. The potential tension between reliance on the wealth of data provided by historians and philologists and the wish to position the research in the field of translation studies is identified by Rundle who argues that 288

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the more historical our research, and the more embedded it is in the relevant historiography, the less obviously enlightening it is for other translation scholars who are not familiar with this historiography; while the more we address other scholars in Translation Studies, the less we are contributing to the historical field of our choice. (Rundle, 2011: 1) Moreover, it may be that a thematic approach would lead to specific instances of a given trope of translation being selected and magnified into an exemplary role or unduly seen as representative of a particular period. This explains why a more neutral and open-ended chronological classification was selected which would also make it easier to capture more marginal texts, or statements pertaining to a more implicit discourse on translation which would not have fitted comfortably under thematic categories. Another risk that a thematic approach to translation might lead to is that of ‘homogenization’ of practice and theorizing. D’hulst (2007) argues that modern translation studies tends to assume that the shared knowledge found in writings such as reviews of or prefaces to translations corresponds to the translations themselves. Foregrounding the potential disconnect between the discourse and the practice of translation, D’hulst (2001) challenges the assumption that past translation practice and its contemporary discourse are necessarily homogeneous and grounded in shared knowledge. In order to capture a discourse on translation it is necessary not only to include lesser known authors alongside the iconic figures of translators who will have reflected on their practice, but also to contextualize such discourse more systematically by drawing on a more indirect discourse on translation as reflected in paratexts and chronicles. The perspective of the translator, withstanding D’hulst’s call for caution, brings together theory and practice but discourse is also constructed by others and does not necessarily reflect actual development. One much-cited text is that of the fourteenth-century writer al-Şafadī, quoted in Bahā’ al-Dīn al-c Āmilī’s sixteenth- century compilation, al- Kashkūl, who distinguishes between two methods of translation when referring to translators of the eighth and ninth centuries. This reference can be found in numerous general studies of medieval translation into Arabic although the clear distinctions it spells out between generations of translators are criticized by scholars such as Gutas who rejects these dichotomies. If we are to agree with Gutas’ convincing argument based on philological studies of the translations, al-Şafadī’s text can no longer be used to ‘describe’ a chronology of past practices in the case of medieval translation into Arabic but it certainly plays a part in the construction of a discourse on translation, and in the representation of a given translation movement, bringing to the fore the ‘progress model’ which is a dominant discourse in translation studies, if a contested one6 (see D’hulst 1995 and 2014 for instance). This is where the work of historiographers comes in, certainly when mapping the translation space of medieval Islam, providing biographies of translators, lists of translated works and last, but not least, offering classifications of science in which translation was included, and thus represented within larger networks of knowledge and construction of knowledge. Tracing back the transformation and semantic shifts of key concepts over time and space is no mean task; it entails a reconstruction of the way a term comes to be used and of the epistemological process that underpins it. When exploring and foregrounding Chinese discourses on translation, the late Martha Cheung, whose illuminating work on ‘other’ traditions is much of an inspiration to historians of translation, carefully defines what the term ‘Chinese’ is meant to encompass as follows: ‘The adjective “Chinese” denotes not so much ethnic origin as linguistic preoccupation, in the sense of discourses on topics pertaining to translating from 289

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other languages into Chinese’ (Cheung, 2009: 223, footnote 1). In the same way, ‘linguistic’ concerns, i.e. translation and writing about translation into Arabic, underpin the construction of this anthology when mapping particular instances of a translation discourse written in Arabic in a given cultural matrix and at the heart of Islamic learning, and are mindful to avoid essentialist references to ‘Islamic culture’ or ‘Western thought’. When discussing the GraecoArabic translation movement in early Abbasid society, Dimitri Gutas reminds us that ‘support for the translation movement cut across all lines of religious, sectarian, ethnic, tribal, and linguistic demarcation. Patrons were Arabs and non- Arabs, Muslims and non- Muslims, Sunnīs and Shī’ites, generals and civilians, merchants and land-owners’ (1998: 5). In the same vein, it is the Arabic language which is at heart of the second iconic translation movement of the Nahḍah in the nineteenth century, which shared with the Golden Age of Islam a connection to the Greek classical heritage (see Pormann, 2006) alongside its centrality to the development of Arab nationalism and modern identity. Translation as a contested practice underpins a number of theological debates recorded in historiographies. The narrated encounter in al- Tawḥīdī (d. circa 1023) between the logician and translator Mattā ibn Yūnus (d. 940) and the philologist Abū Sacīd al- Sirāfī (c. 903– 978) contributes to a discourse on translation (al-Tawḥīdī, 1939–1944). In this particular case, Mattā stresses the role of translation in safeguarding knowledge, whilst his interlocutor questions the validity of translation as a means of transfer (Salama-Carr, 2000). In later Christian–Muslim dialectics, critics of Christianity such as ibn Taymiyya (1263– 1328) see in the multiplicity of Biblical translations, and the textual variations this entailed, evidence that the message of Christ had been corrupted and misrepresented. In contrast, the translation of the Bible was promoted in the Christian East, which foregrounds translation as a means to disseminate faith and to demonstrate the universality of the conveyed message.7 The contextualization and historicization of these debates where translation features is provided by historiographical sources. In the very productive literary production of medieval Islam, historiography is said to occupy a particularly key position, initially closely related to the Tradition and religious sciences (see Cahen, 1986). Robinson shows how Persian and Turkish historiographies which developed in later centuries are grounded in the Arabo-Islamic tradition, historiography having ‘expanded its domain in both space and time’ (Khalidi, 1975: xiii), constituting a ‘massive project of rethinking history’ (Robinson, 2003: 41). Scholars have commented on the richness of Mamluk historiography (between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries) and in his study of John Wansbrough’s work on the historiography of medieval Egypt, Michael Brett (2001) describes the chancery practices [that] dictated the arrangement of the text and identified the equivalent terms to be employed. On this basis the parallelism of the Arabic and Italian versions of the commercial treaties … is the result of their parallel composition by Arab and Italian scribes familiar with the format and the vocabulary to be employed, collaborating with each other to produce two equivalent texts. (Brett, 2001: 3) This seems to suggest the existence of a translation-language which challenged strict distinctions between original and translation and blurred demarcations between source and target texts. Brett reminds us that Wansbrough’s study of the various diplomatic and commercial documents exchanged between the Mamluk powers and the Italian city states also pointed to the difficulty of ‘deciding the precise relationship of the Italian and Arabic versions to each other, to what extent, if at all, were they translations the one of the other’ (Brett, 2001: 1). As 290

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for modern Arab historiography, Choueri places it at the beginning of the nineteenth century ‘in conjunction with the rise of a relatively well-defined territorial unit, governed by a quasiwestern state’ (1989: 5). Translation plays a part in this revival of historiography, as reflected in the work of al-Ṭahṭāwī, iconic figure of the Nahḍah and its early translation movement, who places much emphasis on the translation of history books from French (Choueri, 1989). The prominence of translation is illustrated in the particular instance of Sulaymān al-Bustānī (1856– 1925) whose Arabic translation of Homer’s Iliad (1904) is celebrated with an event which gathers high government officials and eminent writers and frames translation as a practice which introduces new forms of writing (al- Bustānī draws on canonized Arabic literary devices as well as on the popular dimension of poetry) and contributes to the ‘revival’ (iḥyā’) of the Arabic language (Mitrī, 1905). In his preface to the verse translation, which includes a whole section on the history of Arabic poetry, al- Bustānī articulates his approach through revisiting both the Greek and Arab- Islamic textual traditions (Holmerg, 2006) and bringing them together, reflecting on his work in the language of Arabic literary criticism and extolling the beauty of the Arabic language.

Narratives of translation In the same way as history under the pen of medieval Arab historiographers could appear as the unfolding of a divine plan, the history of translation into Arabic is often framed in religious terms in Arabic writings, including contemporary studies. Durūbī’s work, which has the merit of shedding light on underexplored periods and modes of translation, such as under Mamluk rule, and drawing on a range of Arabic compilations and historiographies spanning centuries, is a clear example of contemporary Arabic writing on the history of translation in the region. Translation is legitimized with reference to Islam (Durūbī’, 2007: 13), and the discussion is generally underpinned by the perception of Arabic as a language under siege, for instance, from the influences of other languages. The religious exhortation to seek science is often foregrounded to either legitimize the translation project, and fend off possible objections, or to explain the development of the translation movement, in medieval Baghdad but also in the context of the Nahḍah. It remains, however, that the notion of translation as part and parcel of a nation-building project, as well as its centrality in the development of pan-Arabism, also feature in modern Arab historical writing, for instance Jamāl al- Dīn al- Shayyāl’s account of translation in Egypt following Napoleon’s Expedition (al-Shayyāl, 1951), or the way in which the work of al-Ṭahṭāwī is framed in a project of national revival (al-Shayyāl, 1951: 1958). Historiographies function as modes of representation and legitimization of cultural practices. This is clear in Fihrist al- cUlūm, the work of ibn al- Nadīm which describes cultural and intellectual life in tenth-century Baghdad, under the Abbassid dynasty. Al-Fihrist, or The Catalogue or Index of Sciences, to be understood here as encompassing all human knowledge, and written c. 377 / 987 , brings together cultural practices and authors under conventional categories which range from writing conventions to alchemy, through grammar, theology, jurisprudence and philosophy amongst others. The category on philosophers is of particular significance to historiographies of translation practices as it refers to the translators of ancient Greek works and thus foregrounds translation in both transmission and construction of knowledge. Transmission can be understood with reference to the fate of original manuscripts destroyed in the vagaries of war, religious disputes (ibn al-Nadīm refers to the fate of philosophical writings in Byzantium), and construction in the sense that the translation work was part and parcel of intellectual development. Within these historiographic accounts, translators are alternatively introduced as such, or as scholars in a particular discipline, translation 291

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as an activity being alternatively foregrounded in the particular biography or allocated lesser significance. This classification is in line with ‘The treatment of subjects as members of a group, however defined, [which] remained the most common technique of Arabic biographical writing’ (Reynolds, 2001: 38). If we take for example writings on the iconic figure of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥaq in biographical dictionaries and historiographies we can see, through close comparative reading of the sources, that his input is framed in different ways in different compilations. In his authoritative Kitāb al- Fihrist, ibn al- Nadīm, a near contemporary of Ḥunayn, first includes him in the list of translators from foreign languages into Arabic, prior to allocating a section to Ḥunayn’s medical expertise (ibn al- Nadīm, 1929/ 1930: 340– 341 and 409– 410). The Cordovan ibn Juljul’s biographical dictionary, Țabaqāt- al- A ṭibbā’ walḤukama’ (Classes of Physicians and Philosophers), completed during the same period, lists Ḥunayn amongst physicians and philosophers (1955: 68). Whilst such variations can indeed point to the breadth of knowledge and intellectual achievements of Ḥunayn, together with the situatedness of the motives, they also signal the shifting boundaries between realms of knowledge which tend to characterize medieval accounts. In Kitāb al- Milāl wal- Niḥāl (The Book of Religious and Philosophical Sects) written by al- Shahrastānī (d. 1153), Ḥunayn features in the list of philosophers of Islam (1923: 348). ibn al-cIbrī (d. 1226) in Tārīkh Mukhtașir alDuwal (A Summary of the History of Countries) foregrounds Ḥunayn’s position as physician to the Caliph al- Mutawakkil and attributes to him a number of translations. This position at the court is also foregrounded in cUyūn al- Anba’ fī Ṭabaqāt al- A ṭibba’, ibn abī Ușaybica’s (d/= .1270) very rich and detailed compilation which provides a wealth of information on Ḥunayn. The dual fame of Ḥunayn, translator and physician, is also referred to by other medieval Arab chroniclers, for instance Ibn Khallikān (d. 1282) and ibn al-Qifṭī (d. 1249). Gutas (1998: 137) emphasizes that ‘It was the development of an Arabic scientific and philosophical tradition that generated the wholesale demand for translations from the Greek (and Syriac and Pahlavi), not, as is commonly assumed, the translations which gave rise to science and philosophy’. Such a distinction helps to approach in a more critical way circulating narratives of translation as a mere (and sometimes decried for the distortions it was claimed to be associated with) historical and linguistic step for Europe to reclaim its Greek heritage. Although the significance of medieval translations into Arabic is stressed in the context of nineteenth-century orientalism, Brentjes observes that: Even today they [Arabic-speaking and -writing Muslims, Christians and Jews in European Islamic societies] are not recognised as full objects and subjects of European history. Their acquisition of Greek knowledge was transitory at best. This knowledge was not theirs to keep and transform. Their role could only have been to pass it on. (2010: ix) Further on, she argues that Much of our own historical perspective on the sciences in late medieval and early modern Islamic societies has been formed by narratives invented by early modern Catholic and Protestant travellers and their colleagues at home and their subsequent modifications … Serious and careful deconstruction of these narratives, as well as a better understanding of the practices that led to their construction is needed to recover the past on its own terms. (2010: xxix) 292

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Conflictual accounts of the impact of ‘Islamic’ science, which developed and disseminated through translation, have been convincingly unpacked by historians of science such as Saliba (2007) and Rached (1996). The lack of recognition, which in its most extreme forms will unleash fierce rejections of the very notion of Islamic or Arab science, will generally feed into given political agendas couched in a veneer of scholarship, but is also framed in academic discourse with varying degrees of openness. One particular instance is the polemical work by Sylvain Gouguenheim who sets about to refute any debt owed by Europe to the Arabo- Muslim civilization. When made in obvious political contexts, such claim can be readily dismissed but the author here is a medievalist whose argument was given much publicity at the time in serious media outlets in France and elsewhere. Needless to say, major Arabists and medievalists were quick to express outrage at what they considered a rewriting of history and textual analyses. The point I want to stress here is that what may have been, in other contexts, a largely ignored scholarly dispute over an instance of what has been called ‘islamophobie savante’ (‘scholarly islamophobia’) (see de Libera et al., 2009), became an intensely mediatized issue which went far beyond the boundaries of academic disagreement and was rapidly framed with reference to religious and political perspectives. Dominant narratives tend to oversimplify very complex realities with regard to the construction of knowledge within the linguistic and historical boundaries set by this anthology project. As research on other non-Western traditions shows, the challenge to the researcher is to navigate between Eurocentric master narratives and the risks of essentializing given that an anthology will help reinforce an identity and privilege certain voices. When dealing with the medieval period, it should also be borne in mind that several historians reject the East/ West construct when mapped onto medieval cultural exchanges and that Arab- Islamic historical thought was not entirely cut off from the rest of the world (al-Khalidi, 1994). With regard to the later period, that of the Nahḍah, translation shaped indeed the discourse on modernity but its impact cannot be reduced to a conflict between modernity and tradition when, as convincingly argued by Tageldin (2011) in the colonial context of Egypt, more complex relations based on politics of seduction and dominance are at play. The anthology will attempt to position the Arabic tradition in the wider context of histories of translation which challenge the progress model (see D’hulst, 2014) and will seek convergence with more recent work on Asian translation traditions and contribute, beyond the regional impetus to this project of cultural memory (Ricoeur, 2003), to the translation studies of the Global South, and thus to the development of a ‘culture of translation’.

Notes 1 Led by Tarek Shamma, at the Translating and Interpreting Institute of Hamed bin Khalifa University in Doha, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Manchester, the three- year anthology project is part of the National Priorities Research Program funded by Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), a member of Qatar Foundation. The collected Arabic texts have been compiled in a critical edition of Arabic discourse on translation, along with introductions, commentaries, annotations and footnotes. An English version of the anthology, Arabic Discourse on Translation: An Anthology, is in preparation and is scheduled to be published with Routledge in The Translation Studies in Translation series. 2 The terms ‘Islamic science’ and ‘Arabic science’ are interchangeable in this context and there is some degree of fluctuation in their use, sometimes with the same author. Cooper (2010: 69) suggests that the term Arabic Science (see for instance Rached, 1996) ‘has the advantage of referring to the linguistic tradition, but which ignores important works in Persian’ whilst Islamic Science, which he prefers, ‘emphasizes the dominant culture and civilization within which these scientific activities took place’. This echoes Rosenthal’s discussion of knowledge as ‘a powerful, and perhaps, the most rallying force

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3 4 5 6 7

in medieval Islam’ (Rosenthal, 1970: 341) and is articulated by Saliba as ‘an enterprise that was … carried out during Islamic times’ (2007: 2). For a study of how translation and translation activist networks can be a core aspect of revolutionary action in the particular case of Egypt see Baker (2016) and Mehrez (2012). See for instance Lieven D’hulst (1993) and Paul Saint- Pierre’s (1993) reflections on methodological and epistemological issues encountered in translation history research. The relationship between translation and history was debated in a special issue of Translation Studies (2012) and a useful critical synthesis of the disciplinary field is provided by Tahir Gȕrçağlar (2013). D’hulst (1995: 14– 15) argued for the need, in a historical perspective on translation, to highlight the earlier sources of today’s knowledge and to contextualize earlier discourse on translation. The issue of ‘cumulative progress’ is also discussed (D’hulst, 2014: 23). See Thomas (2007) for instances on Christian and Muslim polemics.

Further reading Baker, Mona & Sameh Fekry Hanna (2009). Arabic Translation. In: Mona Baker & Gabriela Saldanha (eds), Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. London and New York: Routledge, 328–333. Gutas, Dimitri (2000). Greek Philosophers in the Arabic Tradition. Variorum Collected Series. London and New York: Routledge. Hanna, Sameh (2005). Othello in Egypt: Translation and the (un)Making of National Identity. In: J. House, M. Ruano, M. Rosario & N. Baumgarten (eds), Translation and the Construction of Identity, First Yearbook of the International Association of Translation and Intercultural Studies, 109–128. Jacquemond, Richard (1992). Translation and Cultural Hegemony: The Case of French- Arabic Translation. In: L. Venuti (ed.), Rethinking Translation: Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideology. London: Routledge, 139–158.

References al- Āmilī, Bahā’ al-Dīn (1961). Al-Kashkūl. Ed. Ṭāher al- Zāwī. Cairo: Dār Iḥya’ al- Kutub al-cArabiyya. Vol 1. Anṭūn, Faraḥ (2001). Ibn Rushd wa falsafatuh. Beirut: Dār al-Fārābī. 2nd edition. Arab Human Development Report. http:// hdr.undp.org/ sites/ default/ files/ rbas_ ahdr2003_ en.pdf (last accessed 16 April 2018). Baker, Mona (ed.) (2016). Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian Revolution. London and New York: Routledge. Baker, Mona & Gabriela Saldanha (eds) (2009). The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. London and New York: Routledge. Ballard, Michel (1992). De Cicéron à Benjamin: Traducteurs, traductions, réflexions. Lille: Presses universitaires de Lille. Brentjes, Sonja (2010). Travellers from Europe in the Ottoman and Safavid Empires, 16th- 17th Centuries: Seeking, Transforming, Discarding Knowledge. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate. Brett, Michael (2001). Lingua Franca in the Mediterranean: John Wansbrough and the Historiography of Medieval Egypt. In: Hugh Kennedy (ed.), The Historiography of Islamic Egypt c 950–1800. Leiden, Boston and Köln: Brill, 1–11. Cahen, Claude (1986). L’historiographie arabe: des origines au vii siècle H. Arabica, 33(2), 133–194. Cheung, Martha (2003). From Theory to Discourse: The Making of a Translation Anthology. Bulletin of the SOAS, 66(3), 390–401. Cheung, Martha (2005). ‘To Translate’ Means ‘to Exchange’? A New Interpretation of the Earliest Chinese Attempts to Define Translation (‘fanyi’). Target, 17(1), 27–47. Cheung, Martha (2006). An Anthology of Chinese Discourse on Translation. Volume 1: From Earliest Times to the Buddhist Project. Manchester: St Jerome Publishing. Cheung, Martha (2007). On Thick Translation as a Mode of Cultural Representation. In: Dorothy Kenny & Ryan Kyongjoo (eds), Across Boundaries: International Perspectives on Translation Studies. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 22–36. Cheung, Martha (2009). Introduction. Chinese Discourses on Translation: Positions and Perspectives. The Translator, 15(2), 223–238. c

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Mapping an Arabic discourse on translation Cheung, Martha (2012). The Mediated Nature of Knowledge and the Pushing- Hands Approach to Research on Translation History. Translation Studies, 5(2), 156–171. Cheung, Martha (2014). An Anthology of Chinese Discourse on Translation. London and New York: Routledge. 2nd edition. Choueri, Youssef M. (1989). Modern Arab Historiography: Historical Discourses and the Nation-State. London and New York: Routledge-Curzon. Cooper, G.M. (2010). Natural Sciences in the Islamic Context. In: Albrecht Classen (ed.), Handbook of Medieval Studies: Terms-Methods-Trends. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 69–81. Delabastita, Dirk (2012). Response. Translation Studies – Rethinking Methods in Translation Studies, 5(2), 246–248. De Libera, Alain, Marwan Rashed & Irène Rosier- Catach (eds) (2009). Les Grecs, les Arabes et nous. Enquête sur l’islamophobie savante. Paris: Fayard. Delisle, Jean (1997). Réflexions sur l’historiographie de la traduction et ses exigences scientifiques. Equivalences, 26(2), 21–43. Delisle, Jean & Judith Woodsworth (eds) (1995). Translators through History. Amsterdam: John Benjamins & Unesco Publishing. D’hulst, Lieven (1993). Observations sur l’expression figurée en traductologie française (XVIIIe – XIXe siècles). TTR, 6(1), 83–111. D’hulst, Lieven (1994). Enseigner la traductologie. Pour qui et à quelles fins? Meta, 39(1), 8–14. D’hulst, Lieven (1995). Pour une historiographie des théories de la traduction: questions de méthode. TTR, 8(1), 13–33. D’hulst, Lieven (2001). Why and How to Write Translation Histories. Crop, 6, 21–32. D’hulst, Lieven (2007). Questions d’historiographie de la traduction. In: Harald Kittel, Armin Paul Frank, Norbert Greiner, Theo Hermans, Werner Koller, José Lambert, Paul Fritz, Juliane House & Brigitte Schultze (eds), Ubersetzung Translation Traduction. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1063–1073. D’hulst, Lieven (2014). Essais d’histoire de la traduction – Avatars de Janus. Paris: Classiques Garnier. al- Durūbī, Samīr (2007). Al- Tarjamah wal- ta crīb bayn al-cașrīn al-cabbāsī wal- mamlūkī. King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies. Foz, Clara (2006). Translation, History and the Translation Scholar. In: Paul F. Bandia & Georges L. Bastin (eds), Charting the Future of Translation History. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 131–143. Franjié, Lynne (2013). Politiques et pratiques de la traduction dans les pays arabes. Bulletin du CRATIL, 10. Gaddis Rose, Marilyn (ed.) (2000). Beyond the Western Tradition. Translation Perspectives XI. Binghamton: Center for Research in Translation – State University of New York Binghamton. Gutas, Dimitri (1998). Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco- Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ‘Abbāsid Society (2nd-4th/8th-10th Centuries). London and New York: Routledge. Hanna, Sameh (2016). Bourdieu in Translation Studies: The Socio- Cultural Dynamics of Shakespeare Translation in Egypt. London and New York: Routledge. Hermans, Theo (ed.) (2006). Translating Others. 2 vols. Manchester: St Jerome. Holmerg, Bo (2006). Adab and Arabic Literature. In: Anders Pattersson, Gunilla Lindberg-Wada, Margareta Petersson & Stefan Helgesson (eds), Literary History, towards a Global Perspective. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, Vol. 1, 180–205. Hung, Eva & Judy Wakabayashi (eds) (2014). Asian Translation Traditions. London and New York: Routledge Ibn Abī Uşaybica (1884). cUyūn al-anbā’ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbā’. Cairo: al-Maṭbaca al-Waybīya. Ibn al-cIbrī, abū al-Farj (1890). Ta’rīḫ Mukḫtaṣar al-duwal. Beirut: Sālḥānī. Ibn Juljul (1955). Ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbā’ wal-ḥukama’. Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale. Ibn Khallikān (1882). Wafayāt al-acyān wa anbā’ abnā’ al-zamān. Cairo: Maṭbaca al-Būlāq. Ibn al- Nadīm, Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq (1929– 1930). Kitāb al- fihrist. Cairo: al- Maktabah al- Tijāriyya al-Kubrā. Ibn al- Qifṭī, ‘Alī ibn Yūsuf (1903). Ta’rīḫ al-ḥukama’. Edited by J. Lippert. Leipzig: Dieterich’sche Verlagbuchhandlung. Jacquemond, Richard (2009). Translation Policies in the Arab World: Representations, Discourses and Realities. The Translator, 15(1), 15–35. Khalidi, Tarif (1975). Islamic Historiography: The Histories of Mascūdī. Albany: SUNY.

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Myriam Salama-Carr Khalidi, Tarif (1994). Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. al-Khaṭīb, M.K. (1990). Takwīn al-riwāya al-carabiyya. Damascus: Wizārat al-Thaqāfa. Mehrez, Samia (ed.) (2012). Translating Egypt’s Revolution: The Language of Tahrir. Cairo: American University Press. Mitrī, Najīb (1905). Hidiyyat al-ilyādha marfū’a ilā Ḥaḍrat al-’lāmat al-mufaḍal wal-Ŝā’ir al-nāŝir alŝahīr sulaymān afendī al-bustānī șāḥib al-ilyādha al-’arabiyya. Beirut: al-Ma’ārif. Pormann, Peter E. (2006). The Arab ‘Cultural Awakening (Nahḍa)’, 1870– 1950, and the Classical Tradition. International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 13(1), 3–20. Rached, Roshdi (ed.) (1996). Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science. London and New York: Routledge. 3 vols. Reynolds, Dwight F. (ed.) (2001). Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press. Ricoeur, Paul (2003). La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Robinson, Chase F. (2003). Islamic Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosenthal, Franz (1970). Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam. Leiden: Brill. Rundle, Christopher (2011). History through a Translation Perspective. In: A. Chalvin, A. Lange & D. Monticelli (eds), Between Cultures and Texts: Itineraries in Translation History/Entre les cultures et les textes. Itinéraires en histoire de la traduction. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 33–43. al-Ŝahrastānī (1923). Kitāb al-milal wal-niḥal. Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz. Saint-Pierre, Paul (ed.) (1993). L’histoire en traduction. TTR, 6(1). Salama-Carr, Myriam (2000). Medieval Translation into Arabic: Scribes or Interpreters? In: M. GaddisRose (ed.), Beyond the Western Tradition. Translation Perspectives XI. Binghamton: Center for Research in Translation – State University of New York Binghamton, 99–105. Saliba, George (2007). Islamic Science in the Making of the European Renaissance. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Selim, Samah (ed.) (2009). Nation and Translation in the Middle East. Special issue of The Translator, 15(1). Shamma, Tarek (2014). Metalanguage and Ideology: Conceptual Frameworks of Translation in the Work of Itamar Even- Zohar and Muhammad al- Khatib. In: Marella Feltrin- Morris, Deborah Folaron & Maria Constanza Guzmán (eds), Translation and Literary Studies: Homage to Marilyn Gaddis-Rose. London and New York: Routledge, 35–43. al- Shayyāl, Jamāl al-Dīn (1951). Ta’rīkh al- tarjamah wal- ḥarakah al- thaqafiyyah fī caşr Muḥammad c Alī. Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-cArabī. al-Shayyāl, Jamāl al-Dīn (1958). Rifā ca Rāfic Ṭahṭāwī. Cairo. Dār al-Macārif. Steiner, George (1975). After Babel. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tageldin, Shaden (2011). Disarming Words: Empire and the Seduction of Translation in Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press. Tahir Gȕrçağlar, Şehnaz (2013). Translation History. In: Carmen Millán & Francesca Bartrina (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies. London and New York: Routledge. al- Tawḥīdī, abū Ḥayyān (1939– 1944). Al- Imtāc wal- mu’ānasah. Ed. Aḥmad Amīn & Aḥmad al- Zayn. Cairo: Lajnat al-Ta’līf wal-Tarjama wal-Nashr. 3 vols. Thomas, David (ed.) (2007). The Bible in Arab Christianity. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Tymoczko, Maria (2007). Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators. Manchester: St Jerome. Wakabayashi, Judy & Rita Kothari (eds) (2009). Decentering Translation Studies: India and Beyond. Amsterdam and New York: Benjamins Publishing.

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18 THEORIZING ABOUT TRANSLATION IN THE ABBASID ERA An alternative account Rafik Jamoussi

Introduction Translation preexisted the Abbasid rule and the Arab rule in the Middle East region. However, it is the Abbasid period in particular that witnessed a sustained translation effort spanning almost two centuries. This period is recognized in academia as an important episode in the assimilation, development, and transmission of (Greek) knowledge (see Rashed, 1996: iix–ix; Saliba, 1996: 59). However, for all its importance, the footprint of this translation episode quickly vanishes once one moves away from purely historical accounts and into matters of translation theory (Salama-Carr, 2006: 122, note 3). No trace is found of any theoretical input emanating from this period in translation theory anthologies such as Schulte and Biguenet (1992) or Weissbort and Eysternsson (2006). In fact, the Abbasid translation episode is explicitly portrayed as being theoretically mute, having yielded no reflections on the translation act per se, except for scanty and oft-quoted comments (Gutas, 1998). Thus, we find Rosenthal stating that Arabic translators ‘showed comparatively little interest in the theoretical discussion of translation technique’ (1975: 15). Along the same line, Montgomery (2000: 122) comments that: There is little among the writing of any of the [Arabic] translators resembling the type of discussion one can find in Cicero, Quintilian, or the younger Pliny, all of whom speak directly of the needed purpose, content, and function of translation, as well as its methods. This contrast between a formidable translation activity and an apparent theoretical muteness in the Abbasid era is intriguing and invites for an investigation of the interplay between the exercise of translation and the articulation of translation- related reflections. The general line of thought of the present contribution is that conclusions on the theoretical paucity of the period are only the expression of a perspective that privileges a Western view of translation theory (Baker and Saldanha, 2009: xx; Tymoczko, 2010: 5). Such perspective does not find in 297

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the Abbasid period any significant contributions to the translation theory topics it celebrates. In other words, the Western perspective bears a number of presuppositions, which impinge on what this theory should be about. Translation studies, it is to be admitted, developed primarily as a Western discipline and was therefore shaped by Western circumstances (Tymoczko, 2010: 5). However, these circumstances are often overlooked and the theories they give rise to, though ‘limited by the dominant ideological perspective of their time’ (Tymoczko, 2003: 1), are promoted as universal and become a default model against which other periods are gauged. Following this line, the present contribution contends that (1) any quest for reflections on translation in the Abbasid context should be a quest for reflections on native topics arising from the local social and political context, and that (2) such endeavor entails expanding on the traditional concept of theory and on the topics it addresses. The investigation is framed within a sociological approach (Angelelli, 2014; Gouanvic, 2005; Osman, 2014; Wolf, 2010; Wolf and Fukari, 2007) that brings to bear the interplay between, on the one hand, the trajectories of authors of reflections on translation and their social positioning (habitus), and, on the other hand, the field in which they evolve. As a first step, the present contribution undertakes to dislodge the assumptions imbricated in the arguments of theoretical paucity. These assumptions relate to the themes that a theory of translation should address. The focus here is laid on two major topics of early translation theory, namely, translation methods and translatability, emphasizing each time the interaction between the tenor of these reflections and the social and ideological settings that fostered them. This preliminary work paves the way for a reinvestigation of the Abbasid era, where it is argued that the theoretical paucity observed in this era should be put into perspective. This translation movement emerged in circumstances that did not favor the development of reflections on translation germane to those of the kind common in the classical and early medieval periods. On the other hand, these very circumstances led to the emergence of a different type of reflections that were largely centered on professional and technical considerations.

Assumptions of the Western perspective A fundamental assumption that is imbricated into the Western perspective of medieval translation theory is that such a theory should address specific topics, revolving around translation methods and translatability. However, these topics are neither natural nor universal as they emerged out of specific historical and political conditions. The theoretical focus on translation method has its origins in the classical period. It is well established that in the episode of the Roman transfer of the Greek literary legacy translation was not solely undertaken to make texts available to readers who did not know the source language— usually taken as the primary function of translation. The target language audience being often fluent in both source and target languages (Bassnett, 1980: 45; van Hoof, 1991: 14), translation had a purpose other than transmission. The translation effort focused on texts with salient oratory qualities and was a feature of a self-construction process, which by dint of absorbing the rival Greek legacy purported to supplant it (see Copeland, 1997: 173). To that effect, it was necessary, in fact vital, for a translation method that would best serve this purpose to be stated explicitly, giving birth to presumably the earliest pronouncements on translation. Cicero’s tackling of questions of translation method fits within this scope and is most obvious in the preface to his translation of the speeches of Demosthenes and Aeschines. His insistence on the use of free translation, in contrast with a more literal rendering, reflects an ideological agenda: ‘I did not translate them as an interpreter, but as an orator, keeping the same ideas and the forms, or as one might say, 298

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the “figures” of thought, but in language which conforms to our usage’ (Cicero, 1949: 14–15, emphasis added). Sense- for- sense translation was deemed the most appropriate method to free the translator from what was considered servitude to the original text’s style and, consequently, to establish a rhetoric proper to Latin (see van Hoof, 1991: 14). With other central works similarly advocating free translation, as in Horace’s Ars Poetica (Pratt, 1991: 4), one gets a glimpse of the ideological dimension of this transfer movement. The issue at stake in the theorizing of that period was not the success or failure of a translation but the success or failure of a whole national project. In the early medieval period, the discussion of translation method shifted to a broader debate over translatability, one of the major theoretical themes of the age according to Steiner (1975: 251). There is a consensus among scholars that the most significant reflections here relate to the translation of religious texts (Ballard, 1992: 82; Copeland, 1989: 20; 1997: 177; van Hoof, 1991: 14). This was a translation ‘in the narrow sense’ (Toury, 2002: xiii), i.e. a translation that was not undertaken for evangelization purposes but was rather meant to attend to the needs of populations of Christians who were not conversant in the original language of the religious texts and who, therefore, depended heavily on the mediation of churchmen. This translation represented a challenge to established versions and the (religious) power of their keepers (see Cary, 1963: 9; originally cited in Delisle and Woodsworth, 1995: 171).1 The tension between the opponents and proponents of this ‘politics of access’ (Evans, 2002: 1) represented a fertile ground for the development of thinking on the issue, and was principally conducive to the emergence of concepts such as ‘copy’ and ‘original’ and the question of translatability. Resistance to this translation was inevitably couched in religious terms. Those who could read the text in its original language were thus protecting their power and prerogatives by shedding doubts on the felicity of the passage of the Word from one language to another and claiming that this translation was ‘dubious or frankly evil’ (Steiner, 1975: 251). Translators were particularly in the line of fire. Within a context where their status and careers (as was the case with Saint Jerome) and sometimes even their lives (William Tyndale) were at stake, translators had to provide justifications to demonstrate that the way they handled the texts was not blasphemous. Independently from the actual methods used, and which usually consisted of a mix of literalness and freedom, literal translation represented the main line of defense of these translators against their detractors. By arguing in favor of such an approach, translators reiterated their deference of the Word and thereby their abidance by the Christian doctrine (Foz, 1991: 36). Saint Jerome’s ‘Letter to Pammachius’ is an instance of a ‘spirited defence’ (Pratt, 1991: 3) of a translation, in this case his Vulgate, and of reliance on literal translation as a line of argument: ‘I admit and confess most freely that I have not translated word for word in my translations of Greek texts, but sense for sense, except in the case of the scriptures in which even the order of the words is a mystery’ (quoted in Lefevere, 1992: 47, emphasis added). The overview provided above illustrates the historical grounding of early reflections on translation and the inextricable linkage between the nature of theoretical production and the context that gives rise to it. Translation in the classical period was a rhetorical project (Copeland, 1989: 20), and contemporaneous theoretical reflections focused on the translation method that would serve this project, a rationale that led to an emphasis on free translation as a way of resignifying and reinventing the original text. With the early medieval era, theory was part of the debate about the uncorrupted signified versus linguistic multiplicity, or, as Copeland puts it, about ‘recuperating the signified beyond the accidents of human linguistic multiplicity’ (1989: 20), which in turn paved the way for an emphasis on literal translation. 299

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Now, if the topics of translation method and translatability can be said to define Western translation theory, the Eurocentric perspective consecrates them as reference points in the investigation of other traditions. This reference can be overt, as in Montgomery’s comment above where a comparison with the classical tradition is openly established. The comparison can equally be implicit, as in the overview of the Spanish translation tradition (Pym, 2009) where open reference to ‘theory’ in the study appears only in conjunction with the emergence of debates over translation method (Pym, 2009: 535– 536), despite evidence of earlier reflections (Pym, 2009: 535). Equally focusing on the Spanish tradition, Foz justifies the presumed absence of reflections in twelfth-century Spain in terms of the urgency and haste of the translation: As a matter of fact, their primary concern being to recover as quickly as possible knowledge that was to prove capital for the development of Western thinking, it is not surprising that 12th century translators did not spell out in writing their conception of language or translation.2 (Foz, 1991: 40–41, my translation) Such an explanation remains conjectural for want of evidence, especially relative to the particular circumstances of these translations. More importantly, the passage illustrates the effacement of historicity that characterizes the Eurocentric perspective (Tymoczko, 2006: 14) whereby theorizing about translation is portrayed as a natural offshoot of any translation activity.

Toward an investigation of endemic theoretical themes of the Abbasid translation period Salama- Carr clearly situates theoretical cogitations emanating from the Abbasid era within such sources as historiographies, philosophical studies, and paratext, i.e. the annotations left by translators themselves (2006: 122). Helpful as this listing of potential sources is, it still needs to be supported by an identification of native themes (see Baker and Hanna, 2009: 333). Away from a Eurocentric reading that would assume Western theoretical stereotypes as the sole valid topics of theoretical production, an investigation of reflections on translation emerging from a translation movement, such as the one witnessed in the Abbasid era, should understandably take into consideration the particular historical, cultural, and political context of the period (Hirschler, 2006: 3). In the Abbasid era, translation activities could not have stemmed merely from a pious devotion to scholarship among its patrons and sponsors (Fakhry, 1970: 9; Gutas, 1998: 189; Vagelpohl, 2008: 21f.). The succinct overview below will help to substantiate the wellestablished fact that the circumstances of the period gave rise to specific translation needs and that those needs oriented the translation effort toward certain texts and genres, while at the same time discarding others. It is historically established that with the seventh- century Muslim conquests, vast areas came under Muslim rule that were inhabited by non- Arabic speakers (Vagelpohl, 2008: 18). This situation called for a large- scale Arabization endeavor aiming at supplanting Greek, the language of administration and erudition. The multicultural and multiethnic melting pot of the time additionally fostered active proselytism and religious polemics. This context fueled a scramble among Muslims for sophisticated argumentative techniques to use in philosophical and theological disputations. As a response to these contextual features, the translation agenda initially consisted in the acquisition of pragmatic and 300

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semi- pragmatic texts and comprised disciplines such as medicine, alchemy, and astrology. This agenda was subsequently extended with the incorporation of philosophical texts (Fakhry, 1970: 5–8; Vagelpohl, 2008: 26, 29). These same contextual particularities ruled out other text types. In the Abbasid translation episode, sacred texts were not on the agenda. Arabic translations of the Bible and translations of the Qur’ān, though already available at that time,3 are not considered part of the mainstream translation movement. Translations of the Qur’ān were not substitutes to the original but complementary texts meant to ‘reinforce integration of believers into the Islamic community’ and ‘not to secure conversion’ (Delisle and Woodsworth, 1995: 179). Also absent from the Abbasid translation agenda were foreign belles lettres (Vagelpohl, 2008: 37). Exceptions do exist, such as Kalila wa Dimna, a translation from Pahlawi (middle Persian) by the eighthcentury Persian ibn al- Muqaffa’ (724– 759 ) of an initially Sanskrit work: the Fables of Bidpai. Another exception is maxims, a literary form halfway between folklore and popular wisdom, with which Arabs were already familiar (Salama-Carr, 1990: 68). Other texts could be added to the list if, following the argument put forth by Jazzar (1989: 117), we apply a broader definition of translation which would be more akin to compilation and editing (see also Burnley, 1989: 39, and Tymoczko, 2003: 19). This helps consider as translations other works the authors of which drew heavily on the multicultural, philosophical, and literary background of the time, such as al-Tawhīdī’s Al-Imtā’ wal-Mu’ānasa. Nevertheless, even with this input, we fall far short of the magnitude of the intake of literary texts that took place in the classical period (van Hoof, 1991: 15). Consequently, the general atmosphere that reigned in the Abbasid era was not favorable to the emergence of a translation agenda akin to what could be found in Western periods. The absence of sacred and literary text types from the Abbasid translation agenda and the alternative focus on pragmatic texts signifies that issues of translated text identity and translated text status did not resound as loudly as they did in Western contexts. A few sources from the Abbasid period, rare and succinct, seem to echo some Western translation themes, such as translatability (text 1). However, for want of contextually driven calls for more elaborate articulations, it is believed that these thoughts remained embryonic and did not evolve into full-fledged and self-aware theoretical statements and discussions about translation. (1) Among those who defend poetry, treating it with high regard and arguing in support of it, there are those who declare that the translator can never render what the philosopher says, including the proper meanings, the truths of his doctrine, the subtleties of his concision, and the intricacies of his definitions. (Al-Jāhiẓ, 1: 75, quoted in Salama-Carr, 1997: 390, note 13) The two subsections below provide an attempt at identifying native Abbasid themes with an overview of the contextual elements that give rise to them.

The theme of language and terminology The contextual configuration of the Abbasid translation episode, with its focus on pragmatic, semi- pragmatic, and philosophical text types, meant that it was confronted with a major issue; the linguistic and terminological limitations of Arabic as a vehicle for these imported ideas. Different studies attest to the changes the Arabic language went through as it absorbed the massive amounts of administrative, scientific, and philosophical texts (Gutas, 301

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1998; Montgomery, 2000). These transformations are most salient at the level of terminology (Troupeau, 1986: 11–13; 1994),4 word formation (Hugonnard-Roche, 1994: 23, 26–28; Jacquart, 1994: 7; Vagelpohl, 2008: 137), and the handling of the missing copula (Afnan, 1964: 29f., 89f.; Thillet, 1994: 43; Vagelpohl, 2008: 32). It is argued here that these contextual elements provided a fertile soil for the emergence of reflections on linguistic divergences and more specifically on terminology and its standardization. Affinities between the fields of terminology and translation studies may not have been evident in the past. However, some aspects of terminology, and more particularly terminology management, are now fast evolving areas that are firmly anchored within translation studies (Olohan, 2016: 26– 29). It is from this perspective that reflections on terminological issues from the Abbasid era could be considered valuable items that contribute to a native theoretical tradition. Some of our available sources provide preliminary indications that such topics were indeed addressed. Traces of reflections on terminology can be found in glosses that were added by translators to bring clarifications or to express personal stands vis-à- vis the terms they were handling. In the examples below, taken from the translation of Physiognomika, a text usually attributed to Aristotle, we find Ḥunayn5 commenting on Aristotle’s terminological choices. The first extract features the standard formulation Ḥunayn used to signal his glosses: Qāla Ḥunayn (i.e. Ḥunayn notes, literally Ḥunayn said) (Grignaschi, 1974: 288–290). (2) Ḥunayn notes: He [Aristotle] should have applied the expression of of fine strength in place of of a noble type.6 (Grignaschi, 1974: 287)

(3) His use of an unfamiliar word here is no less reproachable than his previous uses.7 (Grignaschi, 1974: 290) Glossaries and dictionaries produced to review earlier translations (Vagelpohl, 2008: 35f.) can equally represent a valuable source of reflections on issues of terminology. As is already acknowledged by Salama- Carr (2006: 122), traces of reflections on terminology can equally be found in the writings of other authors, such as historiographers and philosophers. The philosopher and polymath al-Kindī (801–873 ) contributed to the revision of some translations and the coining of terms (Vagelpohl, 2008: 32). The philosopher al- Fārābī (872– 950 ) discusses in his Kitāb al-ḥurūf (The Book of Letters) structural and semantic differences between Greek and Arabic (and other languages) with a focus on the absence of the copula (Vagelpohl, 2008: 7).8 In the quote below, we find al-Fārābī explaining his stand on the felicity of the quasi-systematic use of Arabic equivalents for Greek technical terms, as opposed to the use (at least partial) of transliteration. (4) 156. Those who transferred it [Greeks philosophy] have endeavored, in designating the concepts present in it, to follow the courses that we have mentioned. We find some who exaggerate and go too far to express them all in Arabic. This leads them into homonymy. For example, they have given the following two concepts one word in Arabic: they have named isṭaqis [Greek stoikheion] al-cunṣur, and they have 302

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also named hayūlā [Greek hulē] al-cunṣur. Isṭaqis is not to be named al-māddah or hayūlā. Sometimes they use hayūlā, and sometimes they use al-cunṣur in place of hayūlā. However, the words they have left in Greek are few.9 (Quoted in Khalidi, 2005: 25)

The theme of quality The Abbasid translation movement was very much of an ‘imperial policy’ (Gutas, 1998: 107) and had a variety of other patrons who all vied with the Caliphs in their pursuit (Fakhry, 1970: 9). However, the quest for Hellenistic knowledge was not without its detractors. Either directly or indirectly, the opposition to Hellenist knowledge was bound to affect the agents that were making it available in Arabic; the translators, themselves believed to be aliens, at least to the language they were translating into. The translators usually involved in the translation movement were mostly Christians of the Nestorian or the Jacobean sects (Fakhry, 1970: 16; Vagelpohl, 2008: 15) and their native language was Syriac. As Arabic supplanted Syriac or Greek as the language of the state, members of this community further reinforced their position (Fakhry, 1970: 14) as the custodians10 and translators into Arabic of an increasingly sought after but equally controversial corpus (al-Kindī in Ivry, 1974: 58; Nwyia, 1974: 317). Thus, contrary to other periods, the very holders of the source language texts were the providers of these texts into the target language. This situation fostered court animosities and rivalries (Nwyia, 1974; Swanson, 2011). One of our primary sources, the erudite al- Tawhīdī (c. 930– 1023), provides an illustration of the unease toward this alien corpus. In Al-Imtā’ wal-Mu’ānasa, al-Tawhīdī reports a controversy between the Aristotelian thinker and translator Matta ibn Yunis and the grammarian Abū Sa’īd al-Sirāfī. The preliminary incitement of the host, Vizier ibn al-Furāt, which is at the origin of the debate, is quite eloquent. (5) Wouldn’t one of you challenge Matta in his argument in support of logic? He claims: ‘the only way to tell right from wrong, truth from untruth, good from evil, evidence from falsehood, and hesitation from certainty is to apply logic’ … There ought to be among you those who can call his words and arguments in question and refute his allegations, as I consider you inexhaustible sources of erudition, champions of faith and its followers, and guiding stars of truth and its seekers.11 (Al-Tawhīdī, 2003: 79, my translation) The episode testifies to a climate of contention between the proponents of import and a substantial section of more conservative intellectuals who were hostile to the influx of what was referred to as ‘alien knowledge’ (Fahd, 1974: 277; Vagelpohl, 2008: 12, citing Badawi, 1968). Another instance is reported by the compiler Ibn Abī Usaybi’ah (text 6), wherein Ḥunayn complains about having been subject to criticism that cost him the wrath of the caliph alMutawakkil, a jail sentence, and the loss of his library (Salama-Carr, 2000: 100; Strohmaier, 1974: 319). The episode of the Burhān (Proof) of Abu ‘Isa Yahya Ibn al-Munajjim’s provides another illustration. The Burhān is a letter in which Ibn al-Munajjim ‘attempts to construct a proof of Muhammad’s prophethood’ and which he addressed to both Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq and Qustā ibn Lūqā (c. 835–c. 920?) (Swanson, 2011: 173). The Jawāb (Response) from Qustā ibn Lūqā was quite a caustic and blunt refutation, as Qustā was writing from Armenia and enjoying the patronage of a Christian prince. Ḥunayn, who was at the Abbasid court, constructed 303

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his response in a more tactful manner. The contrast between the two responses represents an eloquent illustration of the ‘delicacy of interreligious apologetics’ (Swanson, 2011: 182) at the Abbasid court (see also Nwyia, 1974: 314). It can, therefore, be safely argued that translators of this period were evolving in a milieu where their work was questioned and sometimes even their very existence endangered. This is reminiscent of the fate that befell many of the Bible translators. In both contexts, translators were victimized. However, a different defense strategy emerged in each. As was addressed above, translators of Christian sacred texts justified their work through an emphasis on literal translation with the argument that this approach preserved the sacred texts from distortion. For translators in the Abbasid era, the main line of argument was to underscore their professionalism. Through valorizing their work in such a way, translators emphasized that they represented essential intermediaries for the sought after knowledge and that they deserved the status they acquired and the favors they were receiving from the court and various other patrons. This standpoint is evidenced in the passage below by Ḥunayn: (6) They could see that I was superior to them by virtue of my science, my work and my translation for them of great sciences, from languages they did not master and did not know, and with most eloquence without any errors in the eyes of the grammarians and rhetoricians who are well versed in the rules of syntax, and who could not find any fault, flexion or meaning which was incorrect, and all this was in the most pleasant and limpid style which can be understood by the non-expert in the field of medical science or by he who does not know anything of the ways of philosophy. (Ibn Abi Usaybia, 190, quoted in Salama-Carr, 2000: 100) It is our belief that justifications and explanations produced in this context could contribute a wealth of primary resources to a theoretical focus on aspects of quality. The issue of quality represents another important facet of contemporary translation studies, especially in its applied side as Munday’s elaboration on Holmes’ map of translation studies clearly shows (2001: 13). This contemporary focus on quality has a number of facets, many of which find an echo in primary sources from the Abbasid period. It is thought here that an investigation of these sources is likely to reveal further details on the translation steps, division of labor, the sorts of contracts between the translator and the commissioner, etc. In the Abbasid translation period, an initial aspect of quality was the quality of the manuscripts that served as the source texts for translation. These manuscripts were often damaged, had missing folios, or mistakes made by copyists. A constant effort was therefore made to lay hands on different manuscript copies of a work for cross-checking and collating before it was translated, as is attested in Ḥunayn’s Risālah (text 7). The use of intermediary Syriac manuscripts (Vagelpohl, 2008: 16–17) equally attests both to this quest for quality manuscripts as a basis for translation and to the vital role of translators. (7) For the first six books only a single manuscript, and besides a very faulty one, was at my disposal at the time. I was therefore unable to produce these books in the manner required. Later I came across another manuscript and collated the text with it and corrected it as much as possible. It would be better if I could collate a third manuscript with it if only I were fortunate enough to find one.12 (Quoted in Rosenthal, 1975: 21) 304

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Also, at least at a first stage, translators were not native speakers of Arabic and lacked linguistic and stylistic sophistication (Gutas, 1998: 137f.; Vagelpohl, 2008: 30). These facts represented a singular feature of the translation movement of the time and understandably brought up questions of linguistic competence (text 8, cf. text 6). (8) We know that when the translator speaks two languages, he does wrong to both, as each one influences the other, they borrow from and contradict each other. How can the translator know both languages with the competence that he would with only one? (Al-Jāhiẓ, 1:76, quoted in Salama-Carr, 1997: 388, note 6) A third aspect of quality is the focus on knowledge of the subject field. Quote 6 already shows Ḥunayn’s awareness of the issue, himself being a physician and a teacher of medicine. This is what he says about his translation of The Treatise on Bones: (9) Sergius had already produced a bad translation of it into Syriac. A few years ago, I myself translated it for Yuhanna ibn Masawaya, and I tried in so doing to reproduce its meaning in the clearest possible way as this man likes clarity and always exhorts us to adopt it. (Al-Ibādī, 1925: 7, my translation) Similar to the theme of terminology, discussions of issues of quality involve contributions from actors other than translators, such as al-Safadi (text 10), al-Jāhiẓ (texts 11 and 12), and al-Hasan Ibn Suwar13 (text 13). (10) There is no need to improve the works of Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq. The exception is those dealing with the mathematical sciences, which he had not mastered, in contrast with works on medicine, logic, natural science and metaphysics whose Arabic translations require no corrections at all. (Quoted in Rosenthal, 1975: 17–18) (11) The more difficult and arduous a science is and the fewer are those that know it, the more difficult translation is and the greater the risk that the translator will err. (Quoted in Salama-Carr, 1997: 388, note 7) (12) The translator can never do him [the philosopher] justice or express him with fidelity, being unable to fulfil the mandate that he was given. How can he [the translator] express this, and render the meaning faithfully, without possessing the knowledge of the author as regards the subject, the way in which the terms are employed, and the interpretation of their ramifications. (Quoted in Salama-Carr, 1997: 390, note 13)

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(13) Yahia [the translator] had translated this treatise prior to commenting it, which explains the problems of comprehension as he did not grasp the meaning and had followed the Syriac language in his translation. (Quoted in Salama-Carr, 2000: 103) All these aspects led to constant revisions and retranslations of previously done jobs following the discovery of better manuscripts, the availability of more linguistically and technically competent translators, and/ or because of the better readiness of the Arabic language at subsequent stages to integrate these new elements (Hugonnard- Roche, 1994: 28, 29; Peters, 1968: 65; Salama-Carr, 1997: 386–387). The preliminary investigation provided above shows that the Abbasid translation period fostered reflections that were primarily centered around terminology and terminology management, some procedural aspects in translation such as manuscript collation and translation editing, as well as reflections on translator competence, whether linguistic or relative to subject field. All these represent topical foci in professional translation and are well- anchored subdisciplines of present-day translation studies.

Re-investigating the medieval Arabic corpus The overview of the theoretical foci undertaken in the previous section is far from complete. Rather than a comprehensive survey, the present contribution more modestly highlights contexts that represent the necessary ground for the articulation of native theoretical interests and for which some evidence is already available. A comprehensive investigation of the classical Arabic corpus to identify reflections on translation is not a novel idea (see Vagelpohl, 2008: 4– 5). Such a project requires a clearly delineated scope within which the object of the investigation should be geared towards endemic themes and comprise texts produced by translators as well as other authors (philosophers, biographers, etc.). Equally important is that our quest for ‘texts’ should not focus on full- sized texts, in the common sense of the term. It helps to bear in mind in this respect that theoretical discussions in the early Western tradition were often remarks within larger texts (Toury, 2002: xiii), usually prologues to translations, where theorizing on translation issues as such did not represent the focal point (Evans, 2002: 2). In Saint Jerome’s letter to Pammachius, De optimo genere interpretandi, presumably devoted in its entirety to translation, passages that tackle genuine translation theory aspects are infrequent.14 Theoretical reflections emanating from the Abbasid period do not derogate to this rule. The passages we are looking for could be very brief, sometimes amounting to glosses, as was discussed above. Equally important is that the investigation focuses not solely on finding novel texts but should equally comprise rehabilitating ones that are already established but that were dismissed following a Eurocentric reading. Examples of texts that were victims of the quest for constants (Salama- Carr, 2006: 124– 125) and that may deserve to be reconsidered comprise the passage by al-Jāhiẓ addressing the untranslatability of religious texts.15 Within a Western reading, the reflections in this passage have been assimilated to the debate over Bible translation (Salama-Carr, 1997: 389), without giving thought to the discrepant social and religious contexts of the instances being compared. Another example is the passage where the historiographer al- Safadi (1296– 1363 ) argues over different translation methods used in the Abbasid translation era. 306

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(14) The translators use two methods of translation. One of them is that of Yuhannā b. alBitrīq, Ibn an-Nā’imah al-Ḥimsī and others. According to this method, the translator studies each individual Greek word and its meaning, chooses an Arabic word of corresponding meaning and uses it. Then he turns to the next word and proceeds in the same manner until in the end he has rendered into Arabic the text he wishes to translate. This method is bad for two reasons. First, it is impossible to find Arabic expressions corresponding to all Greek words and, therefore, through this method many Greek words remain untranslated. Second, certain syntactical combinations in the one language do not always necessarily correspond to similar combinations in the other; besides, the use of metaphors, which are frequent in every language, causes additional mistakes. The second method is that of Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq, al- Jauharī and others. Here the translator considers the whole sentence, ascertains its full meaning and then expresses it in Arabic with a sentence identical in meaning, without concern for the correspondence of individual words. This method is superior. (Quoted in Rosenthal, 1975: 17) A Eurocentric reading of this passage readily identifies a reflection on word-for-word/sensefor-sense translation methods on a par with discussions taking place in the classical and early medieval periods. It is irrefutable that the author here provides an analysis of translation methods based on the use of translation units of different sizes. However, for want of cultural identity stakes similar to the ones in place in the classical era or of a theologically based insistence on the sacredness of the word looming over the debate, as was the case in medieval Europe, al- Safadi’s reference to word- for- word or sense- for- sense translation cannot possibly have the same tenor. Hence, a substantial part of criticism qualifying this extract as simplistic and baseless (Gutas, 1998: 142; Montgomery, 2000: 122) can be ruled out if the passage is investigated, within its own context, as a testimony of the concern for the transmissibility of the scientific content and for translation quality.

Conclusion It is commonly held that the Abbasid era only produced an insignificant number of theoretical reflections on translation. It has been argued in this contribution that this view has to be qualified as it is the expression of a fundamentally Eurocentric perspective which brings to bear Western assumptions of what the nature and scope of this theorizing should be. Consequently, most contributions from the Abbasid era were discarded either because they did not address these same themes or because they were wrongly interpreted as addressing them, and were naturally found to be superficial in their analyses of them. Exposing these assumptions, it was demonstrated that the emergence of written reflections on the translation process and product is not a natural outgrowth of the translation activity, and the impetus for theorizing on a translation activity is therefore not to be found in the translator. Just as a translation activity cannot be understood apart from the social, political, and ideological history of which it was an integral element, theoretical reflections on this same translation activity are fundamentally bound to their context. Therefore, theoretical productions from different periods are bound to be different as long as the reception dynamics of the translations and the heritage they convey within the multiethnic and political contexts of the time are different. 307

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Theoretical cogitation over sense-for-sense and word-for-word translation approaches and the overall question of translatability, which both represent the core themes of early Western reflections on translation, hardly emerged in the Abbasid era. This, it was argued, should not be considered anomalous as the social and political conditions of the time favored the emergence of a different set of reflections, focused this time on technical and professional considerations, such as the themes of terminology management and quality. Though texts substantiating this thesis are already established, some of them have been used throughout the present contribution, a comprehensive investigation of the classical Arabic corpus is necessary to identify and catalog primary sources of reflections on translation emanating from the Abbasid translation era. This compilation would then represent the basis for a more exhaustive investigation of this theoretical legacy.

Notes 1 As expressed by Saint Augustine, any changes brought to the texts people are accustomed to were experienced as ‘contrary to the authority of the Septuagint’ (1: 95) (quoted in Delisle and Woodsworth, 1995: 169). This power issue becomes more obvious later with translations of the Bible from Latin into the emerging European vernacular languages. These translations represented as many overt challenges to the established balance of power and to the monopoly of the Church. In fact, the Reformation, it is argued, ‘was primarily a matter of dispute over the freedom to translate the Bible into the vernacular’ (Cary, 1963: 9) (quoted in Delisle and Woodsworth, 1995: 171). 2 ‘De fait, leur souci premier étant de récupérer le plus rapidement possible un savoir qui allait s’avérer capital pour l’évolution de la pensée occidentale, il n’est guère étonnant que les traducteurs du douzième siècle n’aient pas exposé par écrit leur manière de concevoir la langue ou la traduction.’ 3 Cf. Sa’adia ben Joseph’s (882–942) Arabic translation of the Old Testament. 4 See also Anawati (1974) and Fahd (1974: 278) for a focus on medical terminology. See Hitti (1937: 311, note 1) and Fahd (1974: 281– 282) for lists of transliterations from Greek. See Hughes (1986: 212) on al-Khawarizmi’s terminology. 5 Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq al-Ibādī (c. 809–873). 6 .‫ﻗﺎﻝ ﺣﻨﻴﻦ ﺃﺧﻠﻖ ﺑﻪ ﺃﻥ ﻳﻜﻮﻥ ﺍﻧَﻤﺎ ﻛﺘﺐ ﻣﻜﺎﻥ ﺷﺮﻳﻒ ﺍﻟﺠﻨﺲ ﺣﺴﻦ ﺍﻟﻘ َﻮﺓ‬ 7 .‫ﻓﻘﺪ ﺍﺳﺘﻌﻤﻞ ﺍﺳﻤﺎ ﻏﻴﺮ ﺑﻴَﻦ ﻭﻟﻮﻣﻲ ﻟﻪ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺫﻟﻚ ﻟﻴﺲ ﺑﺪﻭﻥ ﻣﺎ ﻟﻤﺘﻪ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﻓﻴﻤﺎ ﺗﻘﺪَﻡ‬ 8 Other difficulties relative to terminology are addressed in his Introductory Sections on Logic and his commentary on de Interpretatione. 9 (156) ‫ ﻭﻧﺤﻦ ﻧﺠﺪ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﺮﻓﻴﻦ ﻭﺍﻟﻤﺒﺎﻟﻐﻴﻦ‬.‫ﻭﻗﺪ ﺗﺤ ّﺮﻯ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﻧﻘﻞ )ﺍﻟﻔﻠﺴﻔﺔ( ﻓﻲ ﺗﺴﻤﻴﺔ ﺍﻟﻤﻌﺎﻧﻲ ﺍﻟﺘﻲ ﻓﻴﻬﺎ ﺃﻥ ﻳﺴﻠﻚ ﺍﻟﻄﺮﻳﻖ ﺍﻟﺘﻲ ﺫﻛﺮﻧﺎﻫﺎ‬ ‫ ﻓﺈ ّﻥ ﺍﻷﺳﻄﻘﺲ ﺳ ّﻤﻮﻩ‬:‫ ﻣﻨﻬﺎ ﺃﻥ ﻳﺠﻌﻠﻮﺍ ﻟﻬﺬﻳﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﻌﻨﻴﻴﻦ ﺍﺳﻤﺎ ﺑﺎﻟﻌﺮﺑﻴّﺔ‬.‫ ﻭﻗﺪ ﻳُﺸﺮﻛﻮﺍ ﺑﻴﻨﻬﺎ‬.‫ﻓﻲ ﺃﻥ ﺗﻜﻮﻥ ﺍﻟﻌﺒﺎﺭﺓ ﻋﻨﻬﺎ ﻛﻠّﻬﺎ ﺑﺎﻟﻌﺮﺑﻴّﺔ‬ ‫”ﺍﻟﻌﻨﺼﺮ“ ﻭﺳ ّﻤﻮﺍ ﺍﻟﻬﻴﻮﻟﻰ ”ﺍﻟﻌﻨﺼﺮ” ﺃﻳﻀﺎ ﻭﺃ ّﻣﺎ ﺍﻷﺳﻄﻘﺲ ﻓﻼ ﻳﺴ ّﻤﻰ ”ﺍﻟﻤﺎﺩّﺓ“ ﻭ ”ﺍﻟﻬﻴﻮﻟﻰ“ ﻭﺭﺑّﻤﺎ ﺍﺳﺘﻌﻤﻠﻮﺍ ”ﺍﻟﻬﻴﻮﻟﻰ“ ﻭﺭﺑّﻤﺎ‬ .‫ ﻏﻴﺮ ﺃ ّﻥ ﺍﻟﺘﻲ ﺗﺮﻛﻮﻫﺎ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺃﺳﻤﺎﺋﻬﺎ ﺍﻟﻴﻮﻧﺎﻧﻴّﺔ ﻫﻲ ﺃﺷﻴﺎء ﻗﻠﻴﻠﺔ‬.“‫ﺍﺳﺘﻌﻤﻠﻮﺍ ”ﺍﻟﻌﻨﺼﺮ“ ﻣﻜﺎﻥ ”ﺍﻟﻬﻴﻮﻟﻰ‬ 10 A large portion of the corpus that was in demand was already established in the region as it represented, at least initially, the local syllabus of Greek learning (Vagelpohl, 2008: 16). Though the need was quickly felt for texts that were not available locally, these translators’ mediation still proved indispensable. 11 ‫ ﻻ ﺳﺒﻴﻞ ﺇﻟﻰ ﻣﻌﺮﻓﺔ ﺍﻟﺤﻖ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺒﺎﻁﻞ ﻭﺍﻟﺼﺪﻕ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻜﺬﺏ ﻭﺍﻟﺨﻴﺮ‬:‫ ﻓﺈﻧﻪ ﻳﻘﻮﻝ‬،‫ﺃﻻ ﻳﻨﺘﺪﺏ ﻣﻨﻜﻢ ﺇﻧﺴﺎﻥ ﻟﻤﻨﺎﻅﺮﺓ ﻣﺘﻰ ﻓﻲ ﺣﺪﻳﺚ ﺍﻟﻤﻨﻄﻖ‬ ‫… ﻭﷲ ﺇﻥ ﻓﻴﻜﻢ ﻟﻤﻦ ﻳﻔﻲ ﺑﻜﻼﻣﻪ‬،‫ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺸﺮ ﻭﺍﻟﺤﺠﺔ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺸﺒﻬﺔ ﻭﺍﻟﺸﻚ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻴﻘﻴﻦ ﺇﻻ ﺑﻤﺎ ﺣﻮﻳﻨﺎﻩ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻤﻨﻄﻖ ﻭﻣﻠﻜﻨﺎﻩ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﻘﻴﺎﻡ ﺑﻪ‬ .‫ ﻭﻟﻠﺤﻖ ﻭﻁﻼﺑﻪ ﻣﻨﺎﺭﺍ‬،‫ ﻭﻟﻠﺪﻳﻦ ﻭﺃﻫﻠﻪ ﺃﻧﺼﺎﺭﺍ‬،‫ﻭﻣﻨﺎﻅﺮﺗﻪ ﻭﻛﺴﺮ ﻣﺎ ﻳﺬﻫﺐ ﺇﻟﻴﻪ ﻭﺇﻧﻲ ﻷﻋﺪﻛﻢ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﻌﻠﻢ ﺑﺤﺎﺭﺍ‬ 12 Ḥunayn’s epistle to Ibn Abi Usaybia in ‘Uyun al-anba’ fi tabaqat al atiba’ about his Syriac translation of Galen’s De methodo medendi. 13 Al-Hasan Ibn Suwar is a tenth-century editor and reviser of the Arabic translation of The Sophistic. 14 According to Steiner, it is a text coming much later, Pierre Daniel Huet’s De optimo genere interpretandi (1680) that is ‘one of the fullest, most sensible accounts ever given of the nature and problems of translation’ (1975: 248). 15 Al-Jāhiẓ, Kitāb al-Hayawān (1:76).

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Further reading Taylor, D.G.K. (2002) Bilingualism and diglossia in late antique Syria and Mesopotamia. In: Adams, J.N., Janse, M. and Swain, S. (eds.) Bilingualism in Ancient Society: Language Contact and the Written Word. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 298–331. Vagelpohl, U. (2011) In the translator’s workshop. Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 21(2): 249–288. Watt, J.W. (2010) Commentary and translation in Syriac Aristotelian scholarship: Sergius to Baghdad. Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture 4: 28–42.

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Rafik Jamoussi Gutas, D. (1998) Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ‘Abbasid Society (2nd-4th/8th-10th Centuries). London: Routledge. Hirschler, K. (2006) Medieval Arabic Historiography: Authors as Actors. London and New York: Routledge. Hitti, P.K. (1937/1970) History of the Arabs: From the Earliest Times to the Present. London: Macmillan St Martin’s Press. Hughes, B. (1986) Gerard of Cremona’s translation of al- Khwārizmī’s al- Jabr: A critical edition. Mediaeval Studies 48(1): 211–263. Hugonnard-Roche, H. (1994) La formation du vocabulaire de la logique en arabe. In: Jacquart, D. (ed.) La Formation du Vocabulaire Scientifique et Intellectuel dans le Monde Arabe. Turnhout Belgique: Brepols, 22–38. Ivry, A.L. (1974) Al-Kindi’s Metaphysics. A Translation of Ya’qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi’s Treatise ‘On First Philosophy’. Albany: State University of New York Press. Jacquart, D. (1994) Préface. In: Jacquart, D. (ed.) La Formation du Vocabulaire Scientifique et Intellectuel dans le Monde Arabe. Turnhout: Brepols, 7–10. Jazzar M (1989) Al- tarjamah al- adabiyah [Literary translation]. In: Omrane, K. (ed.) Al- Tarjamah wa Naẓariyātuhā [Translation and its Theories]. Tunis: Beit al-Hikma, 107–144. Khalidi, M.A. (2005) Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lefevere, A. (1992) Translation, History, Culture: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge. Montgomery, S.L. (2000) Science in Translation: Movements of Knowledge through Cultures and Time. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Munday, J. (2001) Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. London: Routledge. Nwyia, P. (1974) Actualité du Concept de Religion Chez Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq. Arabica 21(3): 313–317. Olohan, M. (2016) Scientific and Technical Translation. London and New York: Routledge. Osman, G. (2014) ‘The sheikh of the translators’: The translation methodology of Hunayn ibn Ishaq. In: Angelelli, C.V. (ed.) The Sociological Turn in Translation and Interpreting Studies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 41–55. Peters, F.E. (1968) Aristotle and the Arabs: The Aristotelian Tradition in Islam. New York and London: New York University Press and University of London Press. Pratt, K. (1991) Medieval attitudes to translation and adaptation: The rhetorical theory and the poetic practice. In: Ellis, R. (ed.) The Medieval Translator II. London: Centre for Medieval Studies, Queen Mary and Westerfield College, University of London, 1–28. Pym, A. (2009) Spanish tradition. In: Baker, M. and Saldanha, G. (eds) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. London: Routledge, 533–542. Rashed, R. (1996) Preface. In: Rashed, R. (ed.) Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science. London: Routledge, vii–xii. Rosenthal, F. (1975) The Classical Heritage in Islam. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (1951/1956) Letters. New York: Fathers of the Church. Salama- Carr, M. (1990) La Traduction à l’Époque Abbaside. L’Ecole de Hunayn ibn Ishaq et son Importance pour la Traduction. Paris: Didier Erudition. Salama- Carr, M. (1997) Translation as seen by al- Jāḥiẓ and Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq: Observer versus practitioner. In: Agius, D.A. and Netton, I.R. (eds) Across the Mediterranean Frontiers: Trade, Politics and Religion, 650–1450. Brussels: Brepols, 385–393. Salama- Carr, M. (2000) Medieval translators into Arabic: Scribes or interpreters? In: Gaddis Rose, M. (ed.) Beyond the Western Tradition: Translation Perspectives XI. Binghamton: New York State University, 99–105. Salama-Carr, M. (2006) Translation into Arabic in the ‘Classical Age’: When the Pandora’s box of transmission opens … In: Hermans, T. (ed.) Translating Others. London: Routledge, 120–131. Saliba, G. (1996) Arabic planetary theories after the eleventh century . In: Rashed, R. (ed.) Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science. London: Routledge, 59–128. Schulte, R. and Biguenet, J. (1992) Theories of Translation: An Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Steiner, G. (1975) After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation. London: Oxford University Press. Strohmaier, G. (1974) Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq et le Serment Hippocratique. Arabica 21(3): 318–323. Swanson, M.N. (2011) A curious and delicate correspondence: The Burhān of Ibn al-Munajjim and the Jawāb of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq. Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 22(2): 173–183.

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19 THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF TRANSLATING FOR ARAB CHILDREN (1950– 1998) Sabeur Mdallel

Introduction The shift from prescriptive to descriptive approaches to translation has been accompanied by another shift in translation units. Developments in semantics and semiotics have made it clear that the word alone cannot be a valid and viable unit of translation. That is because a single word may have different and varied levels of meaning such as referential, connotative, affective, social, and reflected (cf. Leech, 1981). Consequently, the sentence was considered the most viable translation unit. Holmes (1988/ 2004: 187) argues that ‘most linguisticallyoriented research … has until very recently taken the sentence as its upper rank limit, largely ignoring the macro- structural aspects of entire texts as translation problems’. It was quickly realized that the sentence too is not a valid and viable translation unit and that context and cotext (the linguistic context) are of utmost importance in understanding the text to be translated. The shift in translation units from word to sentence and from text to discourse as a whole brought about a new trend in translation studies that sees the translator as discourse generator. It also highlighted the important role that extrinsic factors such as translator, translation context, trends within the publishing industry, and translation policy play in determining the translation product. The new trend has also served to establish links between research on translation and discourse studies, which acknowledge discourse to be a social product. This new vision of translation led to the proliferation of various approaches to translation that stressed a more ‘humanized’ view of translation as opposed to the rather ‘mechanistic’ approaches in the pre- theoretical era, which perceived translation as a mere textual relationship, as if the transfer were made by a machine in a social and cultural vacuum. The role of the translator as rewriter of the original has been brought to the fore. That is due to calls by translation scholars, such as Venuti (1995), that translators should enjoy the same visibility and respect reserved to original writers. Thus, the new questions to be answered are: Which books are translated, and which are not? How is the transfer made? In which context? By whom? For whom and for what purpose? Many theories which were first meant to be applied to discourse production have been used to study translated discourse, such as Bakhtin’s dialogics (cf. Oittinen, 1993), the sociological approach (cf. Wolf, 2007), and Foucault’s archaeology of discourse (cf. St- Pierre, 1993), to name but a few. 312

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Aim and scope The archaeology of discourse is a term initially coined by Foucault to refer not to ‘the mass of texts gathered together at a given period’, but the set of rules which at a given period and for a given society define … the limits and forms of the sayable … the limits and forms of conservation … the limits and forms of memory … the limits and forms of reactivation … the limits and forms of appropriation. (Foucault, 1968/1991: 59–60) St-Pierre (1993) explored the possibility of applying Foucault’s archaeology to translated discourse. Within the new framework, the limits and forms of the ‘sayable’ are replaced by the limits and forms of the ‘translatable’ and consequently all other categories acquire new significance in accordance with the new discourse type which is translated discourse, although their appellations (‘conservation’, ‘memory’, ‘reactivation’, and ‘appropriation’) remain unchanged. This chapter aims to apply one of the Foucauldian categories, i.e. the limits and forms of conservation, to translated discourse of fiction aimed at Arab children and based on the only comprehensive bibliographical guide to published Arab children’s books (henceforth Guide) covering the period 1950–1998, compiled by Faissal Abdullah Al-Hajji (1990, 1995, 1999).

The archaeology of translation Studying the archaeology of translation is part of a new trend in translation research which is concerned with the sociology of translation. This research area primarily deals with the translation product.1 The limits and forms of conservation involves looking closely at the corpus of books translated and retranslated and those published and republished while examining the frequency and purposes of translation and publishing. St- Pierre (1993: 67) argues that while translation can be a means to avoid censorship (by publishing a book in another language or attributing it to a foreign author), it ‘can also be an occasion to suppress elements of an original text’, whether in the name of ‘taste, of morality, or of the “genius” of the language’. St-Pierre (1993) states that translation offers a good pretext to manipulate the source text. This chapter will evaluate, among other things, some of the manipulation strategies adopted if the text selected for translation contains certain elements that cannot be translated for ideological, ethical, or poetic reasons.

Methodology I will proceed by defining the theoretical contours of the study, conceptualizing the Foucauldian limits and forms of conservation and related practices, and then transposing them to translated discourse from the St-Pierre perspective. My choice to address this category only is dictated by space limitations, for studying all the categories would require a much greater space than one book chapter. Then, using Al-Hajji’s Guide, I will provide both a quantitative and a qualitative analysis of the Foucauldian category addressed in terms of translation policies and translation strategies adopted. The textual manipulation strategies will be illustrated by two examples from published translations followed by an analysis of the factors that might have led to their adoption. 313

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Undeniably, bibliographical references and anthologies of Arabic children’s books published in the Arab world and elsewhere are rare and hard to find (cf. Alqudsi-Ghabra, 2004). Al- Hajji’s Guide constitutes one of the rare attempts to provide a comprehensive guide to children’s books in the Arab world. Despite the fact that it was the aim of the author to include all the Arabic children’s books published between 1950 and 1998, he admits that his bibliographical Guide fell short of its goal because he was unable to get data from publishers and public authorities in some Arab countries such as Somalia, Djibouti, and the Comoros Islands. Consequently, the findings of my quantitative analysis based on this Guide may not be the most accurate reflection of the situation of translating for children, especially in relation to the countries I have just mentioned. Chesterman (2007) distinguishes three research models in translation studies, comparative, process, and causal. Comparative models see translation as a textual relationship and explore the similarities and differences between source and target texts. Process models are concerned with the cognitive operations while translating. Process models have also been proposed for the sociological study of translation for they cover the various ‘phases in the observable translation process from the initiation by the client, via preparation, drafting and revision, to the final payment’ (Chesterman, 2007: 174). Causal models, as Chesterman (2007: 174) argues, ‘aim to show cause and effect relations’. In other words, they explore the factors responsible for bringing about a translation product and show how translation products are causes of other effects such as the clients’ judgments or their impact on readers. That is, the causal model links linguistic or textual choices in translation to extra-linguistic or socio-cultural factors. I intend to adopt causal models in my analysis, as comparative models go against the aim and intention of this chapter, and process models are not feasible with regard to the nature of the working corpus. It is noteworthy that Chesterman (2007: 176) asserts that translation research can only provide ‘quasi-causal’ explanations such as the probable cause of a given translation policy or strategy. All the explanations/ interpretations provided in my analysis below should, therefore, only be interpreted as ‘quasi-causal’ ones.

The archaeology of translating for children in the Arab world In the Arab world, relatively little research has been done on the archaeology of translated discourse in general, let alone that of translating for children. There have been several attempts to explore different aspects of the archaeology of translating for children. However, these studies have targeted only certain genres, text types, or aspects of the archaeology. While Al-Mahadin (1999) examined the strategies adopted by Arab translators to domesticate or localize Western children’s literature in the Arabic context, Zitawi (2004) dealt with the contextualization of Disney cartoons translated into Arab culture(s). Moreover, Alsiary (2016) studied the impact of the socio- cultural norms on translation flows in the field of Saudi Arabian children’s literature and on translation process and product. Additionally, Mdallel (2018) investigated the archaeology of translating for children into Arabic including translation policy and the textual manipulation strategies observed in those translations published for children.

Corpus: Al-Hajji’s three-volume bibliographical Guide The study only covers the period 1950–1998; it corresponds to the period covered by AlHajji’s three-volume bibliographical Guide (1990, 1995, 1999), the only comprehensive guide available. All the other guides are either area- restricted, dealing with only one type of 314

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children’s publication, such as the Encyclopedia of Children’s Magazines in the Arab World (2005), or dedicated to children’s authors and illustrators in just one country, such as Kutub al- ’Aṭfāl wan- Nāshi’a fī Tūnis: Dalīl al- Kuttāb war- Rassāmīn (2005) (Books for Children and Young People in Tunisia: Guide of Authors and Illustrators) and al-Kutub al-Mutarğamah ‘ilal-‛Arabiyya fil-Mamlaka al-‛Arabiyya as-Sa‛udiyya (2007) (Translated Books in Arabic in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia). Where Al-Hajji’s Guide fails to provide accurate information, I have had to resort to other guides to provide the missing information, especially to source author names and other bibliographical details. These guides were not of much help in the quantitative analysis. It is notable, however, that Al- Hajji’s Guide presents a number of problems related to its anthological quality, which I have tried to solve with the aim of increasing the reliability of the conclusions I draw. For instance, in the first volume that covers the period 1950–1989, the author chose to cite series as single entries and only mentioned the number of books published in that same series. However, the titles of books in the series are listed in alphabetical order in the title index (cf. Al-Hajji, 1990). In fact, while there are 1,051 entries in the first volume, the number of books is 6,675. Similarly, while there are 152 entries of translated fiction, the number of books is 911. To improve the anthological value of Al-Hajji’s work, I listed all the titles of these series together with all the related entries in the annotated index that I devised (cf. Mdallel, 2018), together with the source titles and the names of source authors. Besides, many publications appeared in the wrong volume, because the author had been unable to include them in the previous one. Many publications prior to 1990 were included in the 1990–1994 volume and many others published before 1995 were included in the 1995– 1998 volume. To solve this problem, I reorganized the indexes so that all the translated books appear in the correct period. This revision remains incomplete since 29.13 percent of the entries in the second annotated index, and 66.55 percent in the third, have no publication date. The absence of publication dates in Volume I is not problematic, for children’s literature before the 1950s was scarce in the Arab world (cf. Index I, II, and III in Mdallel, 2018). Much revealing information, such as source titles, is missing in the Guide, while source authors and genres are mentioned on an irregular basis. I have tried to fill this gap and sourced all the missing information, when possible, from other guides. I have also back-translated all the translated book titles whose original title could not be found (such as the Chinese books) and I have relied on the English translation for others. I have also tried to classify the translated books— at least those to which I had access— into genres. Genre classification constitutes the basic data of the thematic analysis of the translated books that will follow. Furthermore, many translations in the Guide were mistakenly labeled as Arabic fiction, while many Arabic fictional works were labeled as translations. For instance, entry 211 (Tintin) in the index is a translated series that contains 17 stories which are not labeled as translations in the Guide (Al- Hajji, 1990). I was very careful to check all the entries in AlHajji’s Guide in an attempt to solve this problem. In total, I have rectified the classification of 30 entries. Thus corrected, the annotated Index covering the books translated for children constitutes a revised and more accessible version of Al- Hajji’s Guide, and a more accurate tool for researchers. However, Al- Hajji’s Guide remains the unique comprehensive guide to Arabic children’s books, containing much necessary bibliographical data that constitutes a springboard for researchers in the field. In the introduction, Al-Hajji states that the Guide is an attempt ‘to study all the books published for Arab children, including translations’ (1990: 10). He believes that these translations ‘have been rendered literally without any changes or amendments to adapt them to the Arab [world]’— a position which I contest— or published with ‘the avowed purpose of changing 315

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the culture and values of the Arab child using multi-colored pictures and quality printing at a low cost’ (1990). Al-Hajji’s suspicion of translations epitomizes a general feeling among Arab educators, decision-makers, and even translators. Similarly, Abdel-Tawwab Youssef (1985), a renowned children’s author, warns that Arab children are being threatened by a cultural invasion from the West2 and that the waves of translated books that fill the markets of the Arab world are preventing the spread of local children’s literature (cf. Manaa, 2001). The figures in Table 19.1 are based on Al-Hajji’s Guide and my own calculations of entries and the different indexes available. This table is a corrected version of the table published in Meta in 2003 after the reorganizing of the entries (Arabic books and translations) to conform to the year of publication (cf. Mdallel, 2003). All figures marked with an asterisk are AlHajji’s and the other figures are based on my calculations. Before reaching any conclusions about the above figures, it is notable that although the first volume of Al-Hajji’s Guide covers the period 1950–1989, it lists only 11 publications for the period prior to 1979. This appears to be an inaccurate and an unreliable figure. One of the reasons for this might be that the author of the bibliographical Guide failed to find all the titles published between 1950 and 1978 (Mdallel, 2003). It could also be explained by the relative dearth of publications in that period especially since the literacy level in many Arab countries was very low. Publishers will naturally shy away from publishing books if the market prospects are not promising. Alec Ellis (1963: 2– 3), an English historian, confirmed the link between literacy level and the spread of children’s books and stated that the proliferation of schools in the nineteenth century in the Western world brought about an urgent need for schoolbooks and other books for children, including religious and recreational ones. According to Table 19.1, 6,675 books, including fiction and nonfiction, were published between 1950 and 1989 while 5,648 were published in less than a decade thereafter. Countries like Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Iraq produced most of the books published for children in the Arab world. Iraq, which was strongly present in the Table 19.1 Children’s books published in the Arabic language

Genre/theme

1950–1989

1990–1994

1995–1998

Biography of the Prophet Biography Religious fiction Science fiction Translated fiction Fictional books of different genres including realism, fantasy, and traditional literature Plays Historical fiction Poetry Rediscoveries* Total fiction Nonfiction including religious education books, encyclopedias, simplified scientific books, and translated nonfiction Total

230 290 448 82 911 2,612

24 136 193 82* 236 820

277 530 285 128 287 816

531 956 926 292 1,434 4,248

117 205 123 1 5,019 1,656

25 26 33 12 1,587 794

62 235 34 40 2,694 573

204 466 190 53 9,300 3,023

6,675

2,381

3,267

12,323

Note: * These are classical Arabic stories rewritten for children in Modern Standard Arabic.

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first volume of the bibliographical Guide covering the period 1950–1989, is totally absent in the two subsequent volumes covering, in concert, the period 1990– 1998, which coincided with the first and second Gulf Wars and the years of embargo. The Guide mentions Arabic translations of Russian and Chinese children’s books published in Russia and China. Although findings about the translation of mainly Russian books will be discussed below in the analysis of the books translated, samples of Arabic translations from these two languages will not be included for reasons of linguistic accessibility.

Corpus of (re)translated and (re)published books Based on Al- Hajji’s Guide, the rate of translations for children in the Arab world during the period 1990–1998 (9.34 percent) is much lower than that in some Western countries (see Table 19.2). For instance, in the Canadian province of Quebec, one of the 13 provinces and territories in Canada, the rate of translations for children in 1996 was 40 percent (Pouliot, 2008). The rate of translations published in Western Europe is even higher. In Finland, for example, the rate in the early 1990s was 80 percent (Oittinen, 1993). This clearly shows that translation is generally resisted in this semiosphere.3 This confirms the international translation trend whereby translations into English are much fewer than translations into the languages of the rest of Western European countries. In fact, today, translations for children ‘only represent 3% of publications in the UK and the US, and that fiction only makes less than 1% of this figure’ (Elfassy- Bitoun, 2016). Elfassy- Bitoun adds that since the beginning of translation, the books translated into English ‘can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and most of them are not recent’ (2016). The Anglo- American semiosphere, as referred to by Venuti (1995), seems not to feel the need to import from the inferior ‘other’. Al-Hajji’s Guide contains many adaptations of the same book published by different publishers in the same Arab country or in other Arab countries. For instance, the story of Cinderella is published by many publishing houses and mentioned 15 times as a separate entry. The same applies to Snow White (15 entries), Little Red Riding Hood (11 entries), Sleeping Beauty (11 entries), and many others. The rate of translations slightly decreased in the period 1995–1998 compared with 1990–1994 and 1950–1989 (see Table 19.2). This decrease is most probably explained by the fact that translations from Russian and Chinese practically stopped after the collapse of the Soviet Union (USSR) and the return of China to the market economy together with the fading away of the Cultural Revolution instigated by Mao Zedong. Another reason lies in the relative increase of the number of publications of original children’s books Table 19.2 Percentage of books translated into Arabic and published in the Arab world and elsewhere* between 1950 and 1998

Translations into Arabic Arabic fiction Percentage of translated fiction/Arabic fiction Fiction and nonfiction Percentage of translated fiction/Arabic fiction and nonfiction

1950–1989

1990–1994

1995–1998

Total

911 5,019 18.15 6,675 13.64

236 1,587 14.87 2,381 9.91

287 2,694 10.65 3,267 8.78

1434 9,300 15.41 12,323 11.63

Note: * Many of the Arabic translations were published in the USSR, China, Belgium, Switzerland, and other countries.

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in Arabic. While 5,019 fictional titles were published between 1950 and 1989, 4,281 were published in less than a decade (1990– 1998) (see Table 19.2). The decrease seems to have coincided with the worries voiced by critics and educationalists, as well as general skepticism, about translating Western children’s books into Arabic. Most of what has been translated belongs to the traditional story primary genre4 that includes folktale, fable, myth, detective novels, sport realism, Walt Disney and HannaBarbera’s stories, picture books, and some romances destined for adolescents.

The classics The classics constitute the greatest proportion of books translated for Arab children. Classics translated include stories by H.C. Andersen, R. Kipling, L. Carroll, the Brothers Grimm, many of Perrault’s fables, thrillers such as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes or Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five, most of Gianni Rodari’s tales, and many adventure books. One can also find translations of nineteenth- century British and American novels that were intended initially for adults but are read by children such as Charles Dickens’ realistic novels, some of Mark Twain’s stories, and some young adult romances. We also find translations of novels by H. Melville, E. Hemingway and W. Faulkner and all of Shakespeare’s plays including comedies, problem plays, and tragedies. Classics translated display the same format as traditional original stories presented for Arab children. These books represent chronotopes and social structures that are not different from those found in most Arab children’s books and the themes dealt with are quite frequent in Arab children’s literature. Such themes include magical metamorphoses, wicked stepmothers, the marriage of a prince to a poor girl, etc. However, as the Western classics might involve elements which are considered taboo in Arab- Muslim societies, such as Christian symbols or culinary items like wine and pork meat, these elements are automatically deleted in all translations; the same thing applies to Shakespeare’s plays, which are generally translated for children in a traditional story format and not as plays.

Walt Disney and the classics in the Gulf countries Most Gulf countries have translated Walt Disney picture books, during the period 1995– 1998 (cf. Zitawi, 2004, 2008). Zitawi (2008) states that the rights of reproducing such books for children were first sold to Dār al-Hilāl in Egypt in the late 1950s and that during the 1990s, 70,000 to 80,000 copies of Mickey magazine were printed every week in Cairo. However, the rights were sold later to a company in Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the Saudi market represents 50 percent of the Disney market in the Gulf region, while the United Arab Emirates (UAE) represents 20 percent (Zitawi, 2008). Many Disney stories are rewritings of old classics translated massively in the Arab world such as the stories from The Thousand and One Nights, Beauty and the Beast, Beauty and the Tramp, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty. I have found in Al- Hajji’s (1999) third volume that there were 87 (30.41 percent) Walt Disney translations out of the 287 translations published, 30 of which were published in two Gulf countries, namely, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and the rest mainly in Lebanon and Egypt. As I see it, the entertaining nature of such books makes them less threatening to publishers and parents and more appealing to children. Moreover, these books seldom need any publicity, for children watch the adapted versions on TV on a regular basis. However, although some of these stories and picture 318

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books are usually perceived as representing certain ideological threats (religious symbols and certain behavior patterns) the ideological manipulation strategies adopted in translation will neutralize them. Indeed, Zitawi (2008: 155) states that Disney- Jawa, the Saudi company with the marketing rights for Disney products in the Arab world, ensures, before any translations of Disney stories into Arabic are published, that they will be free of ‘anything that might be deemed religiously or culturally offensive or unacceptable’, given that many of the Disney productions contain negative stereotypical images of Arabs and Islam. Quite understandably, no Russian translations have been published in the Gulf countries, undoubtedly for ideological reasons and quite possibly because of the lack of diplomatic and economic ties between these countries and the USSR, especially during the Communist era. Zitawi (2008) states that the turnover of the Disney-Jawa company responsible for selling Disney products in the Arab world is small in the Maghreb area possibly because some children can read them in French while some others will read the Arabic translations imported from the Gulf countries, especially since these books are available in public libraries. Indeed, the teaching of French has been a major part of the school curriculum since the early years of primary school in the Maghreb countries and, quite understandably, a number of pupils manage to achieve sufficient proficiency in French to allow them to read such books.

Politically committed children’s literature in Libya Before the February 2011 revolution, Libya was officially called the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. At the political level, the country was run according to a nationalist socialist ideology which saw in the West a reminder of previous colonizers. Libya had long sought union with the Arab countries but when its efforts failed, it turned to Africa to seek union. Until recently, many Western countries, including the United States, were perceived as the worst enemies of the former Libyan regime. A look at the several books translated for Libyan children will help the reader establish a close link between official political orientations and the books chosen for translation. AlHajji’s Guide shows that all the books are published by two state- run publishers, al-Dār al-‘Arabyya lil-Kitāb (15 books) and al- Munša’a al- ’Amma lin- Našr wat- Tawzi’ wal- ’i’lān (three books). The geographical distribution of the languages translated is quite significant and reveals Libya’s political and economic alliances: three Russian books displaying official propagandist ideology, two from the German Democratic Republic, one from Poland, two from China, two American Indian books, one from Laos, and the rest from various African countries. Translating for children in Libya— and elsewhere in the Arab world—could be better understood when studied in light of post-colonial translation theory, for this country has long claimed to be fighting colonialism and imperialism and defending people’s right to selfdetermination. Post-colonial translation theory is of utmost importance to understand literary production in the Arab world for the simple reason that translating for Arab children has taken place within a post-colonial context which has shaped literary production since the first contact with the colonizer and after independence. It is my opinion that Libyan officials saw in the translation of children’s literature from capitalist Western countries a form of neo-colonialism. This view is supported by the fact that Western music was banned under Qaddafi’s regime and has only recently been allowed after the 2011 revolution (cf. Holder, 2013). 319

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The classics and politically committed children’s books in Syria According to Al- Hajji’s Guide, there are 86 translations from Russian, 59 of which were published in Russia by Russian publishing houses. Almost all the other Russian books for children were translated into Arabic by Syrian publishing houses, both state- owned and private, due to the ideological affinities, economic ties, cultural exchanges, and even military cooperation linking the two countries. Up to 1991 and the collapse of the USSR, Communism was still the official state ideology. The Soviet regime was keen on exporting Communism to curb capitalist expansion (Komissarov, 1998/ 2001). After the collapse of the USSR, governmental interest in Communist propaganda faded away. These publishing houses were no longer financed by the state and many of them went bankrupt or had to reduce their output drastically (Komissarov, 1998/ 2001). The period was also marked by China’s return to the market economy and the fading away of the Cultural Revolution instigated by Mao Zedong (see Table 19.3 based on Al- Hajji’s Guide). This publishing effort was taken over by some Arab countries most of which had adopted socialism such as Syria (15) and Libya (3), and which, as stated earlier, translated many books from other socialist countries such as China, the former regime in Poland, and Laos (cf. Al- Hajji, 1990, 1995, 1999). Gianni Rodari (1920– 1980) was an Italian writer who was one of the most prolific writers for children in the twentieth century. He was condemned by the Catholic Church for his propagandist Communist literature for children. Al-Hajji’s volumes also show that almost all of Gianni Rodari’s writings (11 entries) were translated by Syrian publishing houses, both state-owned and private. Similarly, many of the Russian books translated, whether in Russia or Syria, were written by authors known for their commitment to writing a literature which sought to promote Communist values and ethics, such as Arkady Gaidar, Alexei Tolstoy, Yevgeny Charushin, Vitali Bianchi, Sergei Mikhalkov, Agniya Barto, and Nikolai Nosov (cf. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s literature 2006, s.v. ‘Russia’). However, I have not been able to reach conclusions about Chinese translations because of the language barrier and the dearth of information about Chinese literature and authors. Kanaan (1999), a Syrian children’s literature scholar, enumerates nine values that should be introduced in children’s books to socialize children appropriately. I find that these values are representative of the values being promoted in children’s literature and the leitmotif of many strategies of ideological manipulation adopted in translated fiction for children (see Example 1). They include nationalism, patriotism, and economic values, inter alia. Within nationalist values he includes love of the homeland, the sense of pride in belonging to the Arab nation, sacrifice and martyrdom, and combating enemies, which means at the local level struggling against feudalism and capitalism, and abroad, fighting Zionism and imperialism (Kanaan, 1999). Within economic values he includes love of work and workers, developing handicrafts, increasing and protecting national productivity, the ‘protection of common property (socialism), and hard work’ (Kanaan, 1999: 266). The selected values show Syria’s keen

Table 19.3 Arabic translations published in China and Russia between 1950 and 1998

Country

1950–1989

1990–1994

1995–1998

Total

China Russia

48 52

5 7

– –

53 59

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interest in politically socializing its children to face the short- and long- term political, military, social, and economic challenges. They also disclose Syrian translation policies and the parameters governing the archaeology of translating for children.

Untranslated genres I stated earlier that there is a general distrust of translations for children in the Arab world (see author’s introduction in Al-Hajji, 1990). After studying a corpus of 60 published translations for children, the Syrian researcher Aziza Manaa came to the conclusion that 75 percent of these books had ‘harmful’ themes (2001: 209). For instance, she lamented the fact that some illustrations in her corpus portrayed children with European features such as blue eyes and a fair skin: such details could result in the child being torn between reality and dreams. Reading Manaa’s study, one feels that she is generally suspicious of translated literature for children, as are many other Arab scholars in the field. However, many Syrians have a fair complexion and blue eyes, especially given that around 10 percent of the Syrian population are Christians of European origin. I, therefore, contest Manaa’s conclusions. In fact, my examination of Al-Hajji’s Guide and my study of the great majority of the books mentioned using different other sources, including the internet, have allowed me to assert that few translated books could be rated as relatively subversive. Moreover, most of the ideologically committed books, such as the Russian and Chinese translations that praise Communism, were translated in countries that shared that ideological commitment. Arguably, Manaa was speaking from a post-colonial background governed by the socialist nationalist ideology of the Syrian Baath Party. In the same vein, Abdel- Tawwab Youssef (1985), a famous children’s author, warned that Arab children were being threatened by a cultural invasion from the West and that the wave of translated books filling the markets in the Arab world prevented the spread of local children’s literature. In order to outline the types of children’s books whose translation is avoided in the Arab world, I surveyed Zipe’s The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature (2006), Watson’s The Cambridge Guide to Children’s Books in English (2001), Hunt and Ray’s The International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature (2004) together with other reference books like Hunt’s An Introduction to Children’s Literature (1994) and tried to sort out the main genres and themes that are widely covered in the West. To translate or not to

Table 19.4 Russian titles translated into Arabic between 1950 and 1998*

Country

Titles

Syria Lebanon Libya Egypt Iraq Russia Total

15 3 3 4 2 59 86

Note: * The table does not take into consideration the Russian stories published in children’s magazines. For example, there were Russian stories published in Irfan, a Tunisian magazine for children.

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translate a given text, and how to translate it, is often the decision of a number of stakeholders including publishers, translators, child educators, governmental bodies, and parents. All communities have established tacit and explicit norms according to which the translatability of a text is measured. The choice to translate a genre is indicative of the values embraced in one semiosphere. Conversely, the genres avoided in the Arab world are a clear indication of the values decision-makers are keen to protect the pliable young from. The Cambridge Guide has set itself a wide task, which is to include, apart from authors and illustrators, ‘works published in English, believed by the editors to have made a significant impact on young readers anywhere in the world’ (Watson, 2001: vi). The same task is shared by the editors of the other encyclopedias. Unsurprisingly, many of the genres and themes, which constitute the cornerstones of the literature published for children in the West and elsewhere, were totally avoided in the Arab world. In what follows, I will introduce these genres and themes and analyze the ideological content which might have prevented their being translation into Arabic. These genres and themes include religious fiction, certain types of historical fiction such as that evoking the Crusades, Jewish and Holocaust children’s literature, imperialistic literature, and realistic stories including secret diaries. They also include problem-solving fiction dealing with certain social problems such as juvenile pregnancy, drug addiction, and domestic violence, gay and lesbian literature for children, and books portraying sex and nudity or featuring same-sex parents.

Religious fiction Entries referring to such literature are numerous in the Oxford Encyclopedia and the Cambridge Guide. According to Al- Hajji’s Guide, not a single book from this category has been translated into Arabic. Several reasons could explain this situation. First, child educators believe that such books are subversive of the prevailing religious order and will have no value for Muslim children, who already have the Islamic faith. Second, it is widely agreed that the literature presented to children should be a basic means of Islamic socialization (cf. Khamis, 2006: 24 and other papers in the same volume). When the famous Egyptian children’s author Abdel-Tawwab Youssef (1985: 13) was asked why most of his writings dealt with the Prophet Muhammad, he replied: ‘I want him to be a guide … an ideal … for all Arab children … we want to follow in his footsteps … and take the way he took.’ Third, although there are many Christian micro societies in Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, and Syria that could constitute an interesting market for these translations, the absence of translations of Christian stories for children could partly be explained by the fact that some children in these micro societies can read Christian stories in the original languages, such as French and English, since their ethnic origin makes them more likely to speak foreign languages. The fourth reason could be that Al- Hajji did not check the output of the printing presses and publishers associated with churches and religious institutions that might have published these books.

Jewish children’s literature Norton (2001) devoted a whole chapter in her book Multicultural Children’s Literature Through the Eyes of Many Children to Jewish literature for children, which includes Jewish folklore, Jewish historical fiction, picture books, etc. The Oxford Encyclopedia states that around 500 books have been written about the Holocaust, many of them destined for children, such as Jane Yolen’s The Devil’s Arithmetic (1988) or Jackie French’s 322

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Hitler’s Daughter (1999). An examination of Al- Hajji’s Guide shows that none of these books has been translated into Arabic for obvious religious, historical, and political reasons. Indeed, there reigns in the Arab world a partial denial of the Holocaust, as most Arabs and Muslims and even some Western scholars believe that the Holocaust atrocities have been exaggerated to gain the world’s sympathy and take possession of Palestine (cf. Puchot, 2009). Moreover, the Jewish literature depicting the lives of immigrant Jews in Palestine and the wars they fought with the Arabs has not been—and will probably not be—translated into Arabic mainly because of the antagonism with which the Muslim and Arab world perceives Israel. A great many of these writings also present a negative image of Palestinians as being dirty, violent, and ugly, with dark faces (cf. Gharib- Bayoumi, 2002; Kissen, 1991; Iskander, 1997). Indeed, most literature about children’s books in the Arab world insists that Arab children should be spared Israeli children’s literature, and that this should only be translated for research reasons, i.e. to explore the ways Israeli children are socialized and values inculcated. Kinani (2000), for instance, devoted a chapter to the Israeli children’s writer Yuri Evans and his book The Prince and the Moon and was highly critical of the values of ‘hatred’ and ‘war’ found in it. It is worth highlighting that it is extremely rare to find Israeli books for children which have been translated into Arabic, a cultural embargo which is part of the economic and political embargo imposed on the State of Israel by almost all its Arab neighbors. Even countries which have political and economic relations with Israel, such as Egypt and Jordan, do not have any official cultural ties with it.

Empire in children’s literature Richards (1989: 2–3) states that, in Britain, imperialism was ‘the dominant national ideology, transcending class and party divisions’. This national ideology partly found its expression in the literature produced during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Imperialistic children’s literature exalted all the actors of empire such as warriors, explorers, engineers, etc. (cf. Hunt, 1994). Captain Marryat (1792–1848), a naval officer who started writing adventure books for children in his retirement, wrote many books like Masterman Ready, The Wreck of the Pacific, and The Settlers in Canada (Hunt, 1994), which laud empire and British achievements overseas. Similarly, Captain Mayne Reid (1818– 1883) wrote The Desert Home and George Alfred Henty, a former war correspondent, produced books of adventure for children depicting imperialist adventure and violence as heroic. However, only Marryat’s The Children of the New Forest has been translated into Arabic and published in Syria. Marryat’s book does not promote imperialistic ideology but is considered the first historical novel for children, telling the story of the English Civil War (1642–1645) (cf. Hunt, 1994). Another book that treats the theme of empire and which has been translated into Arabic is Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. However, imperialism is a minor theme in this book, as Robinson is said not to have been happy with his metropolitan life and to have been more interested in local fauna, flora, and inhabitants on the island. All the Arabic versions of Robinson Crusoe avoid Robinson’s racist behavior and words to Friday the native. The main reason behind this reluctance to translate imperialist literature could be that many Arab countries had been subjugated to colonial violence, and the publication of such books would be a sad reminder of a loathed period at a time when a good many children’s books are patriotic and even nationalistic, generally written in post-colonial contexts and from a post-colonial perspective. Al- Hajji’s Guide (1995) informs us that Hergé’s Tintin books have been translated into Arabic except Tintin au pays de l’or noir, which takes place in the Middle East and is 323

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subversive of many religious, social, and political institutions through the recurrent use of irony. In the book, Arab figures are frequently mocked and portrayed as ignorant, naïve, and even cruel. For instance, on page 19 a guard is shown speaking to the tribal chief: ‘Powerful sheik, an aircraft is flying over the camp’ (Hergé, 1963: 19). The tribal leader is shown threatening to kill his followers if they dare read the tracts dropped by the English planes. Soon after, he is shown smashed by a pile of tracts dropped by the planes (Hergé, 1963). The Arab character is made to swear by ‘the beard of the Prophet’, which, although it does not amount to blasphemy, is, I believe, ironic. The oath breaks an Islamic rule which forbids swearing by anything or anybody—even the Prophet—but Allah, as is clear in the following Hadith:5 Yahya related to me from Malik from Nafi from Abdullah ibn Umar that one time the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was speaking to Umar ibn al- Khattab while he was travelling with a troop and Umar swore by his father and he (the Messenger) said: ‘Allah forbids you to swear by your fathers. If anyone swears, let him swear by Allah or keep silent’. (ibn Anas, 2010: 188)

Realism and problem literature As I see it, the move toward realism in children’s literature is a very significant one, especially if we accept that children’s literature is ‘often identified with forms of fantasy, escapism, wish fulfillment’ (Hunt, 1994: 166). Modern realistic children’s fiction in the West is closely related to the social context of its production, and reflects the problems Western societies—including children— are facing. Problem- solving literature, or problem literature for children and adolescents dealing mainly with drug addiction and juvenile pregnancy, which is so popular in the United States (Nikolajeva, 1996), has not been translated into Arabic. Yet the reason is not that these problems are unknown to Arab societies; quite the contrary, many countries in the Arab world make considerable efforts to combat such problems. Rather, behind the publishers’ decisions lie the moralizing and educating roles assigned to children’s literature in the Arab world, as well as the general belief that children should be spared such problems, and the conservatism which generally characterizes Arab societies (Mdallel, 2003). Moreover, almost all the papers presented at the international symposium about Qadhāyā aṭ-Ṭifl min Manẓūr Islāmī (Children’s Issues from an Islamic Perspective), which was organized by the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, affirm that children’s literature should be a major tool of Islamic socialization (Touijri, 2006).

Gay and lesbian children’s literature A quite surprising theme of children’s literature, especially for Arab readers, is what is labeled as gay and lesbian children’s literature in the Oxford Encyclopedia and the Cambridge Guide. Homosexual practices are punished by law in Islamic countries, for they are condemned by Islam and other monotheist religions and seen as a threat to the value of the family and society in general. This genre of writing appeared officially in the United States in 1969, with characters clearly depicted as gay. Since then, over 160 young adult titles presenting similar themes had been published by 2006 (cf. Cart, 2006). Instances of such books include John Donovan’s I’ll Get There: It Better Be Worth the Trip. Books like Aidan Chamber’s Dance on My Grave or Lesléa Norman’s Heather Has Two Mommies deal with subjects like homosexuality and

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same-sex marriage that are taboo in Arab societies and have little or no chance of being translated into Arabic. To conclude, none of the books that are subversive or represent a seemingly ideological, moral, or religious threat to Muslim societies have been translated. One may argue, as has been made explicit earlier, that Al- Hajji’s Guide does not include all the books written or translated for Arab children, which is the reason why I have undertaken other bibliographical searches in other bibliographical guides such as the Tunisian and the Saudi. Moreover, as Tunisia is one of the most secular and liberal countries in the Arab world, the absence of these books in it is a good indication of their absence in other more conservative parts of the Arab world.

Words/texts censored Many critics in the field believe that manipulating children’s literature in translation is sometimes necessary to preserve cultural identity and avoid being just a copy of the other. For example, in his paper At- Takhṭīṭ li-’Adab aṭ-Ṭifl al-Muslim (2006) (Planning Muslim Children’s Literature), Badr Yahmadi (2006) argues that texts destined for children should be selected with the utmost care so that they play their expected role, i.e. inculcating Islamic morality and values in young people. He criticizes the existence of bad and cheap translations on the market, which threatens the Islamic identity of Arab children (2006). This view is shared by almost all the authors of the papers in the same book (cf. Touijri, 2006).

Manipulation strategies Translation policy, or the choice of books to be translated, constitutes the first protective measure countries adopt to curb any ideological threat coming from translated books. Whether or not to translate for children is often a conscious political choice. However, the translatability of a certain book within a certain semiosphere is not dictated by ideological imperatives alone, as financial considerations are also important (most of the books translated do not fall under copyright law). The second protective measure is embodied by the ideological manipulation of the textual, narrative, and pictorial elements of the book selected for translation, which will be discussed in the following examples.

Example 1

The setting is a crucial component of the rhetoric of narrative. It locates the action in both space and time, and has clear implications for the ideological impact of the text. In my opinion, a translation which changes the location of the action to the country of the translation is ideologically much more powerful than a story taking place in a distant place, for the values inscribed in the text are situated in a real setting the child knows perfectly and may easily identify with. Stephens (1992: 209) maintains that ‘actual settings implicate attitude and ideology because writers of fiction are content to use the spatio- temporal dimension of setting merely as an authenticating element of the narrative’. Similarly, I believe that a story which takes place in modern times is ideologically much more powerful for modern readers than a story taking place in a distant setting, such as myths and fairy tales, which generally take place in olden times and far away. The

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manipulation of setting could definitely change the significance of the story and alter its ideological content. One may wonder why subversive books should be translated in the first place. The answer is that there are international books for children the translation of which is a safe venture for a publisher either because the book is no longer under copyright law or because the author and the book are too well-known to be overlooked. Instead of the British countryside and cities, the translator of Sewell’s Black Beauty, simplified by Swan, situated the action in Damascus and other Syrian cities and villages such as Sueida, Aleppo, Homs, Antioch, and Hama. These cities were introduced in the chapter entitled ‘Summer Excursions’. The translator introduced some equestrian sports and horse racing activities organized in these places, which were not in the original text.

Source (translated) text ‫ ﻭ ﺗﺬﻛﺮﺕ ﻭﺍﻟﺪﻱ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ‬.‫ ﺗﺬﻛﺮﻧﺎ ﺑﺄﻣﺠﺎﺩ ﺧﺎﻟﺪ ﺑﻦ ﺍﻟﻮﻟﻴﺪ‬،‫ﻓﻲ ﺳﻬﻮﻝ ﺣﻤﺺ ﺭﺃﻳﺘﻬﺎ ﺗﺴﺎﺑﻖ ﺍﻟﺮﻳﺢ ﻓﻲ ﻣﺒﺎﺭﻳﺎﺕ ﻋﺪﻳﺪﺓ‬ .‫ ﻋﻨﺪﻣﺎ ﻛﺎﻥ ﻳﻔﻮﺯ ﺩﺍﺋﻤﺎ – ﻓﻲ ﻣﻨﻄﻘﺘﻪ – ﻋﻠﻰ ﺯﻣﻼﺋﻪ ﺍﻷﺣﺼﻨﺔ ﺍﻟﻤﺘﺴﺎﺑﻘﺔ ﻣﻌﻪ‬،‫ﺣﺪﺛﺘﻨﻲ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﺃﻣﻲ‬ (Al-Jamāl al-’Aswad, 1990: 36)

Back translation I saw them [horses] in the plains of Homs outrunning the wind in many races, which reminds us of Khālid ibn al-Walīd. I also remembered my father, about whom mother talked to me. He would always defeat the other horses in the region. The setting of Sewell’s Black Beauty has become Damascus and other Syrian cities and villages in the translation, to confer more credibility on the actions and characters introduced by the translator and to enhance the didactic impact. The passage above introduces an Arab Muslim war hero, Khālid ibn al-Walīd, who fought many wars that helped expand the Islamic Empire. Indeed, Syria had been part of the Roman Empire before being conquered by this war hero (cf. Donner, 1981). The translation also introduces themes which do not exist in the source text, and which will be much more effective when the action is placed in a setting familiar to the young readers. Black Beauty, the horse, is depicted as a horse of Arab breed known for its generosity, courage, nobility, hard work, and beauty. Setting the action in Syria was necessary to consolidate the theme of pride in belonging to the Arab nation; Syria, together with Iraq and Egypt, during the rule of President Nasser, were the champions of Arab nationalism. The introduction of the historical figure Khālid ibn al- Walīd together with the new setting is very significant in this respect.

Example 2

The extract is taken from H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. The book was translated into Arabic in 1990 in Egypt.

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Source text Here and there among the greenery were palace- like buildings, but the house and the cottage, which form such characteristic features of our own English landscape, had disappeared. ‘Communism,’ said I to myself.

Arabic translation .‫ ﺳﺒﺤﺎﻥ ﷲ‬:‫ ﻓﻘﻠﺖ ﻓﻲ ﻧﻔﺴﻲ‬.‫ﻭﻟﻢ ﺃﺭ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻷﺭﺽ ﺑﻨﺎء ﻏﻴﺮ ﺗﻠﻚ ﺍﻟﻌﻤﺎﺭﺍﺕ ﺍﻟﻀﺨﻤﺔ ﺍﻟﺘﻲ ﺗﺸﺒﻪ ﺍﻟﻤﺒﻨﻰ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﺩﺧﻠﺖ ﺇﻟﻴﻪ‬ (‘Ālat Az-Zaman, 1990: 22)

Back translation I could only see huge buildings similar to the one I went into: ‘Great is Allah,’ said I to myself. In the example above, the Time Traveler explained the absence of small individual houses in the city of ‘Eight Hundred and Two Thousand’ by a possible shift to ‘Communism’. The translator not only deleted the reference to Communism but also replaced it by a religious reference, ‘Great is Allah’. It is the divine providence that gave the new city such a shape. Communism is skeptical of all religions, including Islam, and Islamic theologians are skeptical about Communist theories and precepts, as is the Catholic Church (cf. Madsen, 2013). In the Arab world, Islamist and Communist parties diverge largely regarding their construct of society, the role of religion in political and social life, class relations, the distribution of wealth, role of men and women, etc. Had the Time Machine been translated in the 1960s, during the presidency of the nationalist President Nasser, the word ‘Communism’ would probably not have been deleted as socialism was the official state ideology, and the USSR was the major ally of Egypt, at a time when the West was Egypt’s enemy (the time of the 1956 war). In the 1970s, after the death of Nasser, Egypt adopted a liberal economy, which probably explains why the word ‘Communism’ was deleted in the translation.

Conclusion The study of the Foucauldian category ‘limits and forms of conservation’ in the Arabic translations of children’s literature clearly shows that translation in this semiosphere is strongly resisted. The rate of published translations compared with original books published in Arabic is only 11.63 percent compared with 80 percent in Finland or 40 percent in the Canadian province of Quebec. As this chapter demonstrated, ideological untranslatability is not absolute, for the Arab world presents a variety of cultures with different economic, social, and political structures. Books which may be acclaimed in one context/country could be categorically rejected in another. According to Al-Hajji’s Guide, Syria is the only Arab country that has regularly translated Russian children’s literature, while Disney comics have mostly been translated in Egypt and the Gulf countries, especially in Saudi Arabia. No Disney comics (which are an American cultural icon) were translated in Libya in the period 1950–1998, as the relationship between the two countries had always been antagonistic since the late Qaddafi ascended to power in 327

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1969. Instead, Libya has translated books from other parts of the world, which is a clear indication of Libya’s political affiliation, and, more importantly, that translated children’s literature in the Arab world may respond not only to economic but also to political considerations. Moreover, the chapter established that most translated children’s books belong to traditional story genre and generally show a few elements of subversion, which attests to the fact that texts that make their way to translation have to predominantly subscribe to the values and traditions prevalent in the Arab world. The few controversial elements that might be found, such as references to wine or sexuality, are systematically deleted in translation. The genres untranslated in the Arab world include religious literature, Jewish literature, gay and lesbian children’s books, problem-solving literature, and ‘imperialistic’ children’s literature. All these genres are likely to include ideas and words that Islamic theologians and child educators in the Arab world are, majoritively speaking, keen on protecting Arab children from, in order to maintain and reinforce their Islamic identity. The analysis presented in this chapter showed that some political and religious concepts are added, on occasion, in the process of translation for ideological or religious reasons, as shown, for example, in the translation of The Time Machine and Black Beauty. However, the Arab world is not a monolithic bloc and the post-1998 period, which marks the end year of the analysis in this chapter, may bring significant changes to the anthology of children’s books translated as signaled by the translation of Poupart’s Le nombril du monde (1990) by the Tunisian translator Fatma Lakhdar-Magtouf, which was published in 2004. Although the book contains a number of subversive elements, the translator chose to remain generally faithful to the source content, thus challenging the dominant norms of translating children’s literature in the Arab world in the pre-1998 period.

Notes 1 Product-oriented descriptive translation studies is an area of research which studies the translation product, and involves two phases. The first is concerned with the description of individual translations and the second with comparative analyses of source and target texts (Holmes, 1988/2004). 2 ‘In the contemporary cultural meaning, the phrase “Western world” includes Europe, as well as many countries of European colonial origin with substantial European ancestral populations in the Americas and Oceania’ (ScienceDaily, n.d.). In the Arab mind, the cultural West includes Christian and Capitalist societies particularly those that had colonial aspirations in the region in the past. 3 This concept was originally developed by Lotman (2005) to designate the semiotic space necessary for languages, in the broader sense of the word, to exist and function. When source and target semiospheres share many common traits, the zone of translatability will be large. When, on the contrary, both semiospheres have little in common, the zone of non-translatability will be greater, which might lead to the rejection of the source text by the recipient culture. 4 Lukens (1999) divided all the fiction written for Western children into what I may call “primary” and “secondary” genres. There are five primary genres: realism, fantasy, traditional literature, poetry, and nonfiction. These primary genres are divided into secondary ones. 5 Hadith are accounts that report the words and deeds of the Prophet and his Companions. They are the primary source for Muslim knowledge of Muhammad’s Sunnah, or exemplary practice (Kecia and Leaman, 2008).

Further reading Mdallel, S. (2003). Translating for children in the Arab world: The state of the art. Meta, 48(1–2): 298–306. Mdallel, S. (2018). The strategies of ideological manipulation in Arabic translations of children’s literature. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Manouba, Tunisia. St-Pierre, P. (1993). Translation as a discourse of history. TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction, 6(1): 61–82.

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References Al- Hajji, F. (1990). ad- Dalīl al- Bibliyūġrāfī li- Kitāb aṭ-Ṭifl al- ’Arabī (Bibliographical guide to Arab children’s books). Sharjah: Dā’irat aṯ-Ṯaqāfa wa-l-i’lam. Al- Hajji, F. (1995). ad- Dalīl al- Bibliyūġrāfī li- Kitāb aṭ-Ṭifl al- ’Arabī (Bibliographical guide to Arab children’s books). Sharjah: Dā’irat aṯ-Ṯaqāfa wa-l-i’lam. Al- Hajji, F. (1999). ad- Dalīl al- Bibliyūġrāfī li- Kitāb aṭ-Ṭifl al- ’Arabī (Bibliographical guide to Arab children’s books). Sharjah: Dā’irat aṯ-Ṯaqāfa wa-l-i’lam. Al- Mahadin, L.K. (1999). The text and the image: Translating children’s literature from English into Arabic. Unpublished PhD thesis. The University of Edinburgh, UK. Alqudsi- Ghabra, T. (2004). Arabic children’s literature. In: Hunt, P. (ed.), International companion encyclopedia of children’s literature. London: Routledge, 954–959. Alsiary, H.A. (2016). Mapping the field of children’s literature translation in Saudi Arabia: Translation flow in accordance with socio-cultural norms. Unpublished PhD thesis. The University of Leeds, UK. Arab Council for Childhood and Development. (2005). Encyclopedia of children’s magazines in the Arab world. Arab Council for Childhood and Development. Cart, M. (2006). Gay and lesbian children’s literature. In: Zipes, J. (ed.), The Oxford encyclopedia of children’s literature vol. 2. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 124–125. Chesterman, A. (2007). Bridge concepts in translation sociology. In: Wolf, M. and Fukari, A. (eds.), Constructing a sociology of translation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 171–183. Donner, F.M. (1981). The early Islamic conquests. Guilford: Princeton University Press. Elfassy-Bitoun, R. (2016). Translating children books: Difficulties and reluctances. The Artifice. Available at: https://the-artifice.com/translating-children-books. Ellis, A. (1963). A history of children’s reading and literature. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Foucault, M. (1968/1991). Politics and the study of discourse. In: Burchell, G., Gordon, C., and Miller, P. (eds.), The Foucault effect. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 53–72. Gharib- Bayoumi, A. (2002). At- Ttarbiya As- Siāsiyya fī ‘Adab al- ’Atfāl: Dirāsa muqārana bayn Misr wa ‘Isrā’īl (Political socialization in children’s literature: A comparative study of Egypt and Israel). Cairo: Arab Civilization Center. Holder, S. (2013). It (was) oh so quiet: The music of Libya. Asfar. Available at: www.asfar.org.uk/it-wasoh-so-quiet-the-music-of-libya/. Holmes, J.S. (1998/2004). The name and nature of translation studies. In: Venuti, L. (ed.), The translation studies reader. New York and London: Routledge, 180–192. Hunt, P. (1994). An introduction to children’s literature. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Hunt, P. and Ray, S. (eds.) (2004). International companion encyclopedia of children’s literature. London: Routledge. ibn Anas, M. (2010). Al- Muwatta of Imam Malik Ibn Anas: The first formulation of Islamic law (trans. A.A. Bewley). London and New York: Routledge. Iskander, S. (1997). Portrayals of Arabs in contemporary American picture books. Bookbird, 35(3): 11–16. Kanaan, A. (1999). ‘Adab al- ’Aṭfāl wal- Qiyam at- Tarbawiyya (Children’s literature and educational values). Damascus: Dār al-Fikr. Kecia, A. and Leaman, O. (2008). Islam: The key concepts. London and New York: Routledge. Khamis, A.H. (2006). ‛Usus thaqāfat al- Aṭfāl al-’Islamiyya wa khaṣā’iṣuhā (The foundations of Islamic children’s cultures and its specificities). In: Touijri, A.b.O. (ed.), Qaḍāyā at-Ṭifl min Manzūr Islāmī (Children’s issues from an Islamic perspective). Rabat: ISESCO, 23–33. Kinani, M.N. (2000). Siḥr al- Qiṣṣa wal-Ḥikāya (The magic of stories and tales). Damascus: Arab Writers Union. King Fahd National Library. (2008). Translated books in Arabic in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Complied by Indexing and National Bibliography Department. Riyadh: King Fahd National Library. Kissen, R.M. (1991). The children of Hagar and Sarah. Children’s Literature in Education, 22(2): 111–119. Komissarov, V.N. (1998/2001). Russian tradition. In: Baker, M. (ed.), Routledge encyclopedia of translation studies. London and New York: Routledge, 541–549. Leech, G. (1981). Semantics: The study of meaning. London: Penguin Books. Lotman, J. (2005). On the semiosphere (trans. W. Clark). Sign System Studies, 33(1): 205–229. Lukens, R.J. (1999). A critical handbook of children’s literature. New York: Longman. Madsen, R. (2013). Religion under communism. In: Smith, S.A. (ed.), The Oxford handbook of the history of communism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199602056.013.034.

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Sabeur Mdallel Manaa, A. (2001). Al-’Adab al-Mutarjam liṭ-Ṭifl: Dirāsa Taḥlīliyya li-l-Madhmūn at-Tarbawī (Translated literature for children: An analytical study of the educational content). Arab Journal of Culture, 21(2): 201–226. Mdallel, S. (2003). Translating for children in the Arab world: The state of the art. Meta, 48(1–2): 298–306. Mdallel, S. (2018). The strategies of ideological manipulation in Arabic translations of children’s literature. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Manouba, Tunisia. The Ministry of Culture of Tunisia. (2005). Kutub al-’Aṭfāl wan-Nāši’a fī Tūnis: Dalīl al-Kuttāb war-Rassāmīn (Children and the youth’s books in Tunisia: Guide of authors and illustrators). Tunis: Ministère de la Culture et la Sauvegarde du Patrimoine. Nikolajeva, M. (1996). Children’s literature comes of age: Toward a new aesthetic. New York and London: Garland Publishing. Norton, D.E. (2001). Multicultural children’s literature through the eyes of many children. New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall. Oittinen, R. (1993). I am me – I am other: On the dialogics of translating for children. Tampere: University of Tampere. Pouliot, S. (2008). Etat des Lieux de l’Edition Postcoloniale Québécoises pour la Jeunesse Francophone (State of play of publishing postcolonial Québécoises for Francophone youth). In: Pinhas, L. (ed.), Situations de l’Edition Francophone d’Enfance et de Jeunesse. Paris: l’Harmattan. Puchot, P. (2009). Why Holocaust denial is on the rise in the Arab world. Truthout. Available at: http://truthout.org/archive/component/k2/item/86741:why-holocaust-denial-is-on-the-rise-in-the-arab-world. Richards, J. (ed.). (1989). Imperialism and juvenile literature. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ScienceDaily. (n.d.). Western world. ScienceDaily. Available at: www.sciencedaily.com/terms/western_ world.htm. Stephens, J. (1992). Language and ideology in children’s fiction. London and New York: Longman. St-Pierre, P. (1993). Translation as a discourse of history. TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction, 6(1): 61–82. Touijri, A.b.O. (ed.). (2006). Qaḍāyā aṭ-Ṭifl min Manẓūr Islāmī (Children’s issues from an Islamic perspective). Rabat: ISESCO. Venuti, L. (1995). The translator’s invisibility: A history of translation. London and New York: Routledge. Watson, V. (ed.). (2001). The Cambridge guide to children’s books in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wolf, M. (2007). Introduction: The emergence of a sociology of translation. In: Wolf, M. and Fukari, A. (eds.), Constructing a sociology of translation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1–38. Yahmadi, B. (2006). At-Taḫṭīṭ li-’Adab aṭ-Ṭifl al-Muslim (Planning Muslim children’s literature). In: Touijri, A.b.O. (ed.), Qaḍāyā at-Ṭifl min Manzūr Islāmī (Children’s issues from an Islamic perspective). Rabat: ISESCO, 23–85. Youssef, A. (1985). Kutub al-’Atfāl fī ‛Ālaminā al-Mu‛āṣṣir (Children’s books in modern times). Cairo and Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-lubnānī and Dār al-Kitāb al-Miṣrī. Zipes, J. (ed.). (2006). The Oxford encyclopedia of children’s literature. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Zitawi, J. (2004). The translation of Disney comics in the Arab world. Unpublished PhD thesis. The University of Manchester, UK. Zitawi, J. (2008). Disney comics in the Arab culture(s). In: Zanettin, F. (ed.), Comics in translation. Manchester: St Jerome Publishing, 152–171.

Children’s books Hergé (1963). Tintin au pays de l’or noir. Casterman. Poupart, J.-M. (1990). Le nombril du monde. Montréal: La courte échelle. Poupart, J.-M. (2004). Ṣurrat ad- Duniyā (Le nombril du monde) (trans. F. Lakhdar). Tunis: La Maghrébine pour l’Impression, l’Edition et la Publicité (MIP). Sewell, A. (simplified by D.K. Swan). (1991). Al-Jamāl al-’Aswad (Black Beauty). Damascus: Ministry of Culture. Wells, H.G. (1895/2011). The time machine. New York: Atria Paperback. Wells, H.G. (1990). ‘Ālat Az-Zaman (The time machine) (trans. M.F. Abu Hadid). Cairo: Dār al-Ma’ārif.

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PARTV

Interpreting Theorizing practice

20 MODERN STANDARD ARABIC AS A TARGET LANGUAGE IN SIMULTANEOUS INTERPRETING Cognitive strains and pedagogical implications Marwa Shamy

Introduction In an article which he described as ‘a plea against neglecting language-pair-specific problems in translation and interpreting’,1 Schneider (2001: 95, my translation) stressed the significance of addressing linguistic issues in translation and interpreting. In light of the new challenges and turns that the field was witnessing, he contends that there was a tendency to overlook linguistic problems and push them towards the periphery. The defining difference between language- pair- specific translation and interpreting studies and contrastive linguistics is that the former goes beyond a mere comparison of two language systems and is rather oriented towards finding solutions to linguistic problems in translation and interpreting (Schneider, 2001: 87). According to Schneider, the role of language-pair-specific interpreting studies is ‘to point out strategies by means of which interpreters can deal with the … differences between source language and target language, and to show how the respective strategies can be conveyed didactically’2 (2001: 90, my translation). To a certain extent, there has been a response to Schneider’s plea in simultaneous interpreting (SI) studies. This is exemplified, inter alia, by the fact that journals published special issues fully dedicated to specific aspects of translation and interpreting from and into a certain language. Interpreting, for instance, published an issue in 2009 (volume 11, number 2) entirely devoted to different aspects of interpreting from and into Chinese. A large number of studies examined language- specific aspects and explored how directionality can affect strategic action in various language combinations (see Zanetti, 1999; Donato, 2003; Bartłomiejczyk, 2006; Chang and Schallert, 2007; Seeber and Kerzel, 2012). Although Arabic is the official language of 22 countries and an official and working language of the United Nations, it has only received limited scholarly attention in interpreting studies. The aim of this chapter is to provide the theoretical foundations that shed light on the difficulties associated with interpreting into Modern Standard Arabic (henceforth MSA) and to make a case for investigating language- pair- specific problem triggers for pedagogical 333

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purposes. The chapter will start with an overview of the development of language- specific approaches in interpreting studies before shifting the focus to MSA as a target language. Special emphasis will be placed on the diglossic nature of Arabic, as the substantial linguistic mismatch between MSA and the spoken dialects makes the notion of ‘native language’ one which is not clear-cut. Drawing on Gile’s Gravitational Model of Language Availability (1995/ 2009: 226– 244), the cognitive strains of interpreting into MSA will be discussed. The pedagogical implications will be presented in the final section where the importance of identifying language-pair-specific problem triggers within a language-pair-dependent teaching approach will be highlighted.

Language specificity in simultaneous interpreting As is the case for interpreting studies at large, research into language specificity in simultaneous interpreting has undergone a shift from experience-based theorizing to empirical investigation leading to evidence-based conclusions. There is to date little accord among researchers over the relevance of language- specific factors in simultaneous interpreting. The competing accounts and the empirical evidence gathered to substantiate them will be presented below.

Arguments for the language-specificity thesis Scholars who make a case for language- specific approaches in simultaneous interpreting (Kirchhoff, 1976; Ilg, 1978; Wilss, 1978; Riccardi, 1996; Ross, 1997; Zanetti, 1999; Schneider, 2001; Donato, 2003; Bartłomiejczyk, 2006; Gile, 2011; Seeber, 2011, among others) argue that their importance stems from the characteristics of this particular form of language mediation. While translators have the time to ponder their options and the possibility of resorting to the co- text to construe meaning (the latter also applies to consecutive interpreters), simultaneous interpreters’ hands are tied by the constraints pertinent to this mode, namely, the time constraint, the linearity constraint and the unshared knowledge constraint (Shlesinger, 1995: 194). As the text unfolds only piecemeal to the simultaneous interpreter, heed is paid to linguistic signals in an attempt to listen and deliver it intelligibly. As Hatim and Mason (1997: 42) noted, ‘the simultaneous interpreter has to settle for a partial view of both context and text structure and has therefore to rely heavily on the emerging texture in order to make and maintain sense’. In other words, s/he has to rely heavily on bottom-up indicators. For Riccardi (1996: 214), bottom-up factors are intratextual linguistic elements ‘providing important contextual information on the further semantic development of the text’. Top-down factors, on the other hand, are extratextual, knowledge- bound information. In monolingual communication, ‘textual/ bottom- up indicators are very short- lived and will be forgotten as soon as enough top- down information has been activated’ (Kalina, 1992: 253). By contrast, simultaneous interpreters resort to storing bottom-up indicators for a longer period of time in order to compensate for the lack of top- down information (Kalina, 1992: 253). Thus, much of the underlying sense is inferred based on the overt structure of the source text. And, it is also based on this overt structure that interpreters decide on how to relay the meaning. Consequently, the processing of the surface organization steers much of the cognitive activity involved in the task of simultaneous interpreting. The way the wording of a text is decoded in the source language and encoded into a target language is language- pair specific. Discrepancies between source and target language can have repercussions on cognitive processing during SI. Structural divergences can ‘[force] the interpreter to process longer chunks or to restructure the message completely, these structures 334

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may cause an overloading of the interpreter’s total capacity of mental resources, thus causing the loss of vital information’ (Donato, 2003: 103). Hence, it is necessary for interpreters to develop strategies to deal with language- specific difficulties (Schneider, 2001: 90). Having the possibility of choosing from an array of solutions is of paramount importance in simultaneous interpreting, given that time and processing capacity are at a premium and have to be managed with great caution. The importance of addressing language-pair-specific aspects is supported by the cognitive models purporting that cognitive resources are limited and need to be effectively managed in SI. They include Gerver’s information processing (1976), Moser’s information processing model (1978), Gile’s Effort Model (Gile, 1995/2009) and the Cognitive Load Models adopted by Seeber (2011). According to these models, if interpreters have readily available strategies to deal with language- specific linguistic problems, they can make processing decisions more swiftly. That, in turn, reduces the strain on their processing capacity enabling them to have more capacity available for other cognitive tasks like dealing with cumbersome phraseology, or specialized terminology. As a result of this theoretical rationale, language-specific approaches in simultaneous interpreting have been gaining momentum in interpreting studies. Studies providing the theoretical foundation of language specificity in SI have been complemented by an increasing body of literature seeking to provide empirical evidence to substantiate the theoretical basis. Bacigalupe (2010) set out to test the hypothesis that very often micro- segments in SI are processed in a linear way and that the TL rendition in consequence is influenced by bottom- up indicators and differs from the way spontaneous thought is expressed. If the hypothesis is to be confirmed, the TT should ‘retain a visible formal trace of the external structure specific to the ST’ (Bacigalupe, 2010: 41). Spanish target texts which were simultaneously interpreted by eight experienced professionals from English were compared to Spanish original texts on the same topic using ‘markers of literalness’ (Bacigalupe, 2010: 42). The results show that the target renditions are at least in part dictated by phonological, lexical and morphosyntactic features of the source text. This suggests that cognitive operations are indeed influenced by bottom-up factors, making the interpreting activity language specific (Bacigalupe, 2010: 44–50). Gile (2011) sought to investigate whether simultaneous interpreting in some language combinations is cognitively more taxing than in others. Years earlier, Riccardi (1996: 213) had reached a conclusion on that matter based on her experience as a practitioner: ‘Personal experience has led me to the conviction that interpreting from English into Italian is far less fatiguing than from German into Italian because the syntactic structures of German differ more than those of English from Italian.’ To test this contention, Gile (2011) analyzed the interpretations of President Obama’s inaugural speech into French, German and Japanese as broadcast by TV stations. Based on existing research (Wilss, 1978; Kurz, 1983; Ito-Bergerot, 2006; Kondo, 2008), Gile’s point of departure was that ‘syntactically, lexically and culturally, French could be considered closest to English, followed by German and then by Japanese’ (Gile, 2011: 213). The analysis revealed that much more errors, omissions and infelicities were found in the Japanese rendition, although the Japanese interpreters were more experienced and had more time to prepare the speech compared to their German and French counterparts (Gile, 2011: 213). This provides some evidence supporting the idea that language-pair-specific idiosyncrasies can make interpreting more difficult. Other research providing empirical data in support of the language- specificity thesis includes Seeber and Kerzel’s (2012) study which proved through pupillometric measurements that syntactic asymmetry between German and English increases cognitive load during simultaneous interpreting. There are also various studies which investigated strategy use as a function of the language pair and the language direction in question. Donato (2003), for 335

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instance, analyzed the strategies employed by 20 students when interpreting from German and from English into Italian and corroborated the hypothesis that strategic processing is indeed affected by SL features. Bartłomiejczyk (2006) conducted an experiment with 36 advanced students where they were asked to interpret one speech from English into Polish and a second one from Polish into English. Based on the subjects’ retrospective remarks she observed considerable differences in strategy use depending on the language direction. These differences were mainly ascribed to directionality and language specificity. Similar results were obtained by Chang and Schallert (2007) whose experiment involved ten professionals interpreting speeches from Mandarin Chinese to English and vice versa.

Arguments against the language-specificity thesis Scholars who do not consider language- specific factors as relevant parameters in simultaneous interpreting (Seleskovitch, 1978; Lederer, 1981; Willett, 1974; Setton, 2006) emphasize the importance of top-down over bottom-up indicators. They start from the premise that meaning is derived based on the synthesis between extralinguistic knowledge and syntacticsemantic information in the source speech. Discourse processing in SI is based on the notion of ‘deverbalization’ which purports that sense remains invariable despite the change of its linguistic vehicle (Lederer, 1994: 13). Interpreters only retain a deverbalized form of the ideas expressed and can accordingly transpose the meaning into the target language, while surface structures disappear (Lederer, 1981: 147). Hence, ad hoc language-specific strategies are deemed of no benefit to the simultaneous interpreter. Proponents of the non- specificity thesis are ‘against modelling SI in terms of a juggling of attentional resources’ (Setton, 2006: 377). Understanding the meaning is regarded as ‘the manifestation of ordinary human mental function’ (Seleskovitch and Lederer, 1986: 268– 270). The difficulty in interpreting, thus, resides in the simultaneity of comprehension and production, not in relaying the meaning. Only factors that can hamper monolingual communication can have an adverse effect on SI. This claim is considered by opponents of the language- independent approach to SI as tenuous, as it is unsupported within an SI paradigm and ‘does not consider the temporal dynamics of the modern interpreter’s working environment’ (Seeber, 2011: 186). Within the non- specificity paradigm, considerable weight is attached to language proficiency. Perfect command of the working languages is seen as a precondition in SI. Ivars et al. (2014) have shown that there is a positive correlation between language competence and interpreting performance in a study that included 281 final-year interpreting students at University Jaume I in Spain. The output of students with high command of their B-language was compared to the performance of those with a low command. Tzou et al. (2012) examined the English into Mandarin simultaneous output of 36 participants with various proficiency levels in their working languages and concluded that differences in language mastery may underlie differences in performance levels. This empirical data show that high language proficiency is indeed conducive to better simultaneous performance. However, as Gile (2011) has shown, performance flaws can still occur even if interpreters possess sufficient linguistic and extralinguistic knowledge. Special emphasis is also placed on the role of context and the communicative and situational setting by proponents of the non-specificity approach. According to Setton (2006: 374), ‘simultaneous interpreting (SI) is performed in live situations in which the interpreter shares most of the manifest cognitive environment with the participants and is thus better able to project and control the contexts in which her addressees will process her utterances’. Given 336

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the temporal and processing constraints characteristic of this mode, Setton (2006: 382) argues that simultaneous interpreting is only possible because interpreters have real- time access to the shared context and can rely heavily on the inferential abilities of the participants in the meeting. This view is not shared by authors in the language- specificity camp who contend that since the interpreter is not the intended addressee, s/ he ‘does not share the same reference frame with the speaker and is therefore less likely to boast the same level of expertise in the field’ (Gumul, 2006: 173). In many cases, this can create a knowledge disparity that can adversely affect the communication process (Gumul, 2006: 173). Empirical support for the non- specificity thesis has been limited. Lederer (1981: 148– 164) analyzed a 63- minute German–French interpreting corpus and made observations that corroborate the non-specificity thesis. However, her study has been criticized for selectivity in data interpretation. The most comprehensive study was that carried out by Setton (1999) where, upon analysis of interpretations into English, German and Chinese, he concluded that syntactic differences between source and target language have no bearing on the interpreting process. His data show that effects of syntactic asymmetry only arise when combined with other determinants, such as lack of pragmatic markers or new referents (Setton, 1999: 264–265).

Reconciling language-specific with non-language-specific approaches The accounts presented above create the impression of a deep discord between proponents and opponents of the language- specificity thesis. Some may even see a contradiction between the notion of deverbalization and language specificity in SI (Gile, 2003: 57). However, it is possible to reconcile these seemingly divergent accounts if the focus is shifted from the academic theories, which tend to emphasize the differences rather than the common ground, to viewing interpretation in practical terms (Gile, 2003: 58–59). There is sufficient data to show that the interpreting activity involves two distinct levels. At the ‘deep’, ‘conceptual’ level, text comprehension and text production operations occur on the basis of the analysis of the informational content of the speech and the intentions of the speaker. This is in line with what the deverbalization principle postulates and is valid regardless of the language pair. At the practical implementation level, i.e. the level of surface organization, language- specific factors come to the fore (Gile, 2003; Kondo, 2003). As Bacigalupe (2010: 50) explains: In principle, information processing in SI follows two parallel routes, bottom- up and top- down, in a complementary and non- exclusive system. Interpreters seem to use both modes, adapting their choices to suit ongoing circumstances, and probably depending on factors such as the type of speech, the units that make up the ST, the rate of delivery, their own personal limitations, or perhaps a combination of all these factors. There may also be interpreters who use one strategy or the other on the basis of the training received or the type of market where they provide their services. Consequently, instead of attempting to capture the cognitive variables at play in SI through ‘new theories of communication which shift the focus from linguistic stimuli to stimuli- incontexts’, as Setton (2006: 388– 389) advocates, attention should be equally given to both types of stimuli to create a more complete picture of what actually transpires during simultaneous interpreting. Against this background, this chapter, while acknowledging the importance of drawing on top-down indicators in simultaneous interpreting, will focus on bottom-up 337

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processing, specifically the characteristics of MSA as a target language and the structural discrepancies between English and MSA that have the potential of increasing cognitive load during simultaneous interpreting.

The language pair English–Arabic Having looked at language specificity in simultaneous interpreting in some detail, attention now turns to the language pair English–Arabic. This section will address the diglossic nature of Arabic before raising the question of whether MSA can be considered as a native language. Gile’s Gravitational Model of Language Availability (1995/ 2009: 226– 244) will be applied to MSA as a target language in simultaneous interpreting and the cognitive strains that are associated with working in this direction will be highlighted.

Arabic diglossia In a seminal article by Charles Ferguson (1959) the term ‘diglossia’ was defined as a stable language situation in which the primary dialects and ‘a very divergent, highly codified (often grammatically more complex) superposed variety’ exist side by side (Ferguson, 1959: 17). Dickins et al. (2002: 167) offer the following explanation of diglossia in Arabic: Arabic differs from English in that the standard language – i.e. Standard Arabic – is not the native language of any speakers; that is to say, nobody is brought up speaking Standard Arabic. Rather, everyone starts out learning the dialect (‫ )ﻋﺎﻣﻴﺔ‬of the area in which they live, and if they go on to achieve literacy, they subsequently learn Standard Arabic (‫ )ﻓﺼﺤﻰ‬in an educational environment. This binary distinction between the dialects on the one hand and Modern Standard Arabic on the other is, however, a simplified representation of the language situation in Arabic speech communities. The reality is that there are intermediate forms between those two ends of the continuum and native speakers of Arabic may combine elements of their respective dialect with elements of MSA (Al- Batal, 1992: 285; Bassiouny, 2006: 7). This has been the subject of investigation in a number of studies which attempted to define those intermediate levels and identify their salient features (Blanc, 1960; Badawi, 1973; Mitchell, 1986; Hary, 1996; Mejdell, 2012). Shifting along the diglossia continuum is context-dependent and is governed by educational, sociolinguistic and discourse- related factors, among others. In conference interpreting settings, this diglossic shifting can be challenging when Arabic is the source language. While in formal conferences participants are expected to speak MSA, it cannot be ruled out that in some instances they resort to their respective dialects. This becomes challenging for interpreters if they are not familiar with the dialect of the speaker. Interpreters working into Arabic, however, are almost always required to strictly speak MSA. Ferguson (1959: 5) identifies the specialization of function for the superposed variety and the regional dialect as one of the main characteristics of diglossia. In the case of Arabic, the dialect can hardly ever be used for the written mode. MSA ‘is felt by many to be the only variety compatible with the written mode’ (Hatim and Mason, 1997: 99). Arabic native speakers are used to MSA in the written mode as text receivers and to a much lesser extent as text producers. The various dialects constitute the variety which dominates everyday communications and is used in semi-formal contexts (Al-Batal, 1992: 285). Using MSA in the oral mode is restricted to highly formal contexts, such as political speeches, religious sermons and news 338

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broadcasts (Ayari, 1996: 244). Arabic native speakers are used to MSA in the oral mode as text receivers, but not as text producers, unless their job requires delivering highly formal speeches on a regular basis.

MSA: a native language? As mentioned above, in the context of conference interpreting, MSA is almost always the only accepted variety when Arabic is the target language. This constitutes a challenge for aspiring interpreters, since it is a language variety which most of them have never resorted to as text producers in the oral mode. The difficulty of this task owes to the significant differences in grammatical structure, lexis and phonetics between MSA and the regional dialects. One of the many examples of grammatical discrepancy is presented by Ferguson (1959: 11) who points out that MSA has three nominal cases, marked by endings, while dialects have none. With regard to lexis, there are often two entirely different lexical items, which do not share the same root, referring to fairly common concepts, for instance, the MSA word for ‘to see’ is ‘raʼā’, in the Egyptian dialect it is shāf (Ferguson, 1959: 13). As to phonetic differences, the phonemes /θ/ and /ð/, for instance, are characteristic of ‘pure’ MSA and are substituted by /s/ and /z/ respectively in Syrian and Egyptian Arabic. Arabic dialects vary widely along geographic, religious and socioeconomic lines (Al-Batal, 1992: 285), and it is beyond the scope of this study to delineate the discrepancy between MSA and the various dialects. However, ‘it is important to keep in mind that this discrepancy (the magnitude of which varies from one dialect to another) is, on the average, considerable, and exists at various linguistic levels’ (Ayari, 1996: 245). What should also be borne in mind is that the difficulties associated with MSA proficiency are exacerbated in the Maghreb countries due to Arabic–French bilingualism (Ayari, 1996: 245) and in the Arab world in general when the language of education is not Arabic. This considerable linguistic discrepancy between MSA and the spoken dialects raises the question of whether MSA amounts to a second language for native speakers of a dialectal variety of Arabic. As stated by Ferguson (1959: 8– 9), the superposed variety is not utilized by parents to communicate with their children and thus is not learned until formal education. As such, it is not acquired in the home or through intergenerational transmission. The grammatical structure of the dialect is internalized as a result of continuous exposure. By contrast, learning MSA requires overt grammar instruction, i.e. grammatical concepts need to be discussed explicitly in terms of rules to follow (Ferguson, 1959: 9). The question of whether MSA can be considered as a second language has received some attention in psycholinguistic research. Eviatar and Ibrahim (2000) attempted to answer this question by measuring children’s metalinguistic skills and using them as an indicator of bilingualism. Starting from the premise that bilingual children show heightened metalinguistic awareness as a result of them acquiring two language systems, the researchers compared the metalinguistic skills of Hebrew monolingual, Russian–Hebrew bilingual and newly literate Arab children (whose first language was spoken Arabic, but who were exposed to MSA through formal instruction). The results of a number of metalinguistic tests revealed that Arabic speakers deliver similar performance levels to Russian–Hebrew bilinguals and a higher performance compared to Hebrew monolinguals. It was concluded that ‘exposure to literary3 Arabic may require the same intensive language analyses as are done for children who are exposed to two languages as different as Hebrew and Russian’ (Eviatar and Ibrahim, 2000: 462).

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Ibrahim (2009) investigated the cognitive basis of diglossia in Arabic, specifically the lexico- semantic organization. His results show that the status of MSA is consistent with the typical organization of a second language in a separate lexicon. This confirms his postulation that ‘from a psycholinguistic perspective, the literate4 Arabic speaker may be considered de facto as bilingual’ (Ibrahim, 2009: 104). Against this backdrop, it is questionable whether AIIC’s definition of the A-language as ‘the interpreter’s native language (or another language strictly equivalent to a native language), into which the interpreter works from all her or his other languages in both modes of interpretation, simultaneous and consecutive’ (AIIC, 2012) is applicable to Arabic. Interestingly, an Arabic UN interpreter who joined AIIC in the 1980s indicated in her language combination that Arabic and English were both B- languages, since she did not regard MSA as a native language. What she considered to be her native language was Egyptian. This is, however, a language variety that is not included in the conference interpreter’s portfolio. AIIC responded by stating that she must identify an A- language and that it was not permissible to only have two B-languages (personal communication, February 11, 2016). The notion of ‘native language’ related to Arabic is one which is not unambiguous. This has implications on the conceptualization of the interpreting process. When interpreting simultaneously into MSA, the cognitive mechanisms at play in production and monitoring are akin to those occurring when interpreting into a B- language. The claim that simultaneous interpreters work more comfortably and effectively when they interpret into their A-language proved to be not necessarily applicable to the English/Arabic context. It was refuted by a study which used a questionnaire to elicit responses from interpreters whose working languages are English and Arabic and whose experience exceeds five years (Al-Salman and Al-Khanji, 2002). The participants in Al-Salman and Al-Khanji’s study were asked which direction they prefer and were given criteria such as ‘time lag’, ‘switching’, ‘oral fluency’, ‘omissions’, ‘speed of talk’, ‘anticipation’, ‘syntax’ and ‘resistance to tension’ (Al-Salman and Al-Khanji, 2002). The majority of the respondents were more comfortable interpreting into English than into Arabic. This finding runs counter to the generally accepted and partly scientifically substantiated notion that interpreting into one’s A- language is easier. It is conventionally expected that EU interpreters, for instance, work exclusively into their native language. One of the reasons to which the authors attribute this finding is the considerable differences between dialectal Arabic and MSA (Al- Salman and Al- Khanji, 2002: 624). In other words, the diglossic nature of Arabic may be a factor that poses additional difficulties for the interpreter. One of those difficulties is related to what is referred to as ‘language availability’ (Gile, 1995/ 2009: 226). Sufficient linguistic availability is essential to produce a smooth rendition and avoid cognitive saturation during interpreting (Gile, 1995/ 2009: 226). The co- existence of two language varieties may affect availability levels of MSA, which in turn impacts the interpreting process and output. This can be illustrated through Gile’s Gravitational Model of Language Availability.

Applying Gile’s Gravitational Model of Language Availability to MSA as a target language Gile’s Gravitational Model of Language Availability (1995/2009: 226–244) illustrates the different availability levels of language constituents relying on a graphical representation which resembles that of an atom (see Figure 20.1). The term ‘language constituents’ (LCs) in this model collectively refers to lexical units, compositional rules of general language (grammatical, stylistic, pragmatic and social rules) and finally the rules of languages for special 340

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LCs

Sector

Figure 20.1 The Gravitational Model of Language Availability (Gile, 1995/2009: 227)

purposes. The LCs known to any user of any given language have different availability levels, ‘ranging from what seems to be instantaneous and totally effortless retrieval from long- term memory to the tip- of the tongue phenomenon in which a word (or perhaps some language rule) is known to be “known” but is unavailable at a given moment’ (Gile, 1995/2009: 227). The distance between an orbit and the center of the Model reflects the level of availability. The closer LCs are to the center, the higher their availability. The gravitational diagram captures LC availability at a specific time and in a specific situation. Gile emphasizes that LC availability is not static and that it can increase (i.e. inward migration of the respective LCs) or decrease (i.e. outward migration of the respective LCs). One of the key factors driving the dynamics of the Model is stimulation. Based on observations and narratives by translators and interpreters, Gile formulates the following rules: LC availability tends to increase if they are stimulated, and to decrease if they are not stimulated; active stimulation (writing and speaking) has a stronger centripetal effect than passive stimulation (reading and hearing); and the more frequent the stimulation, the stronger the centripetal effect (Gile, 1995/2009: 222–231). When applying these rules to Arabic, some challenges to LC availability, which are largely attributable to diglossia, can be identified. Since MSA is not the language of orality, active stimulation through speaking is almost entirely ruled out. Passive stimulation does not come naturally as a result of living in an Arab country or being surrounded by Arabic speakers, as MSA is not the communication vehicle for everyday life. Hence, active effort has to be made to ensure sufficient passive stimulation. This can be achieved by resorting to written materials, which would not exhibit features characteristic of the spoken discourse, or by listening to formal speeches and discussions, which might include elements of one of the dialects. The lack of active stimulation and the relatively low frequency of passive stimulation can adversely affect the availability of LCs in MSA. Another challenge is related to the different domains of use for each variety. Since MSA is strongly associated with formal discourse, the LCs needed to interpret this type of discourse are more readily available than those required to interpret informal, casual talk. Interpreters working into MSA typically face this challenge during after-dinner speeches, at smaller conferences that allow a degree of informality or when anecdotal evidence is used to make a point or substantiate an argument. Lexical items, stylistic and pragmatic rules, for instance, 341

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are harder to retrieve when interpreting ordinary conversation into MSA, as this usage runs counter to the typical functional allocation of this variety.

Pedagogical implications Given the challenges outlined above, the difficulties associated with interpreting from English into MSA are worthy of pedagogical attention. This section will look at identifying languagepair- specific problem triggers as a step toward developing a language- pair- specific syllabus. It will then present seven problem triggers which can encumber the performance of students working from English into Arabic and will highlight the importance of addressing them in class.

Language-pair-specific ‘problem triggers’ The term ‘problem triggers’ was coined by Gile (1995/2009: 192) and was later widely used by interpreting scholars, for instance, Sabatini (2000), Agrifoglio (2004), Gumul and Łyda (2007) and others. Assuming that processing capacity deficits are the overarching cause for online problems during simultaneous interpreting, Gile (1995/ 2009: 192ff.) puts forward some of the factors and circumstances which are likely to engender cognitive saturation. A distinction is made between chronic and occasional reasons. The former refers to particular individual cognitive potentials as well as to the status of students who have not yet acquired the skills and sub-skills necessary to successfully manage the cognitive operations involved in the process of simultaneous interpreting. Occasional reasons, on the other hand, come to the fore when particular circumstances in a given interpreting situation, or particular characteristics of a given source speech, impede cognitive processing. Detrimental factors related to the interpreting environment include poor sound quality or strong accents, while speech- related factors can be high delivery rate or convoluted style. Linguistic, semantic and physical features of a source speech which could constitute a cause for cognitive saturation are labeled by Gile as ‘problem triggers’ (1995/2009: 192). This chapter is more concerned with problem triggers which derive from the differences between the languages in a language pair, in this case English–Arabic. Even if a speech is delivered at an average rate, i.e. 100 to 120 wpm (Gerver, 1971), is characterized by predominantly unmarked structures, addresses a general subject matter and is not informationally dense, there are still language-pair-specific coefficients which place a strain on the cognitive activities. Language-specific aspects in simultaneous interpreting for the language combination English/Arabic have received only scant scholarly attention. As a matter of fact, there are only two studies which fall into this category (see Al- Rubaiʼi, 2004; Shakir and Farghal, 1997). There is, however, a considerable body of research which investigates translation-related contrastive issues as well as general contrastive linguistic issues in this language combination. With a view to identifying language- pair- specific problem triggers which are relevant to simultaneous interpreting I carried out a review of the relevant literature in interpreting studies, contrastive translation studies and contrastive linguistics as part of my doctoral research. In order to filter out those problem triggers, it was deemed appropriate to exclude any contrastive issues which are (a) non- language- pair- specific, e.g. the category of collocations which occurs throughout all language pairs, (b) relevant to translation, but not to simultaneous interpreting, e.g. issues involving the restructuring of large chunks of a text and (c) fall into the category of language proficiency, e.g. the correct use of irregular verbs. Based on 342

MSA as target language Table 20.1 Merten’s semiotic levels of discourse (translated version adopted from Titscher et al., 2000: 61–62)

Discourse level

Object of analysis

Syntactic level

Letters, syllables, words or sentences and their structures, in so far as those are purely formal Influence of syntactic structure on meaning formation Meanings of words, sentences and so on Relationship between syntax and textual effect Relationship between particular meaning-bearing words or sentences Pragmatic structures which govern the reception of the text

Syntactic-semantic level Semantic level Syntactic-pragmatic level Semantic-pragmatic level Pragmatic level

Table 20.2 Problem triggers for the language pair English–Arabic

Level of discourse

Language-pair-specific problem trigger

Syntactic level

Acronyms Word order Passive constructions Argumentation styles Definite article as means of emphasis Modals Discourse markers

Syntactic-pragmatic level

Semantic-pragmatic level

my personal experience as a practicing conference interpreter and the review of the literature I identified seven problem triggers for the language pair English–Arabic. Those problem triggers are associated with different levels of discourse. Merten’s (1983: 101ff.) typology of semiotic discourse levels, shown in Table 20.1, will be used to classify the problem triggers. Table 20.2 gives an overview of the problem triggers that have been identified. The seven language-pair-specific problem triggers will be outlined below. An explanation will be provided as to why they pose a challenge to interpreters working from English into Arabic.

Problem triggers for the language pair English–Arabic Acronyms Interpreting acronyms constitutes a well-known challenge for students and professionals alike (cf. Gile, 1995/2009: 194; Pöchhacker, 2007: 134). Although it might seem that acronyms are non-language-specific problem triggers, there is another layer of difficulty added to the equation when interpreting from English to Arabic, even when acronyms are non- culture- bound and refer, for instance, to well- established international institutions or bodies. The difficulty lies in the fact that Arabic, as opposed to Indo- European languages, has only a handful of native acronyms and tends to use words in their entirety in the vast majority of cases (AlQinai, 2007: 386). Hence, when relaying acronyms from English to Arabic every component of that acronym needs to be spelled out. This has implications on processing time and 343

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processing effort in SI. Since both are at a premium, it is necessary to look into the strategies which interpreters could fall back on to deal with this language- pair- specific aspect of interpreting acronyms. They can include resorting to glossaries or using a shortened form of the spelled- out version, such as reducing the ‘United Nations Supervision Mission in the Syrian Arab Republic’ to the ‘United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria’.

Word order In one of the rare articles that tackle language-pair-specific problem triggers between English and Arabic in simultaneous interpreting, Al- Rubai’i (2004) identifies what she refers to as ‘problematic linear arrangements’. They are defined as word order patterns ‘that force the English-into-Arabic simultaneous interpreter to lag behind the speaker for a time that exceeds his mean time lag of three seconds until he receives a certain key word in the sentence’ (Al-Rubaiʼi, 2004: 249), thus raising the risk of short-term memory overload. Some of these arrangements result from the fact that English is typed as an Subject- Verb- Object language, while Arabic is a Verb- Subject- Object language (Hawkins, 1980: 196). Other arrangements, for instance when a noun is pre-modified by a string of adjectives, are difficult to interpret, as English is a head- final language, while Arabic is a head- initial language. For aspirant interpreters to be able to deal with such arrangements they need to develop and practice specific strategies, for instance lengthening the ear- voice- span, i.e. the time lag between the source text input and the interpreter’s rendition, or taking notes during interpretation to alleviate the load on the interpreter’s memory.

Passive constructions Passive phrases are used much less frequently in Arabic than they are in English (El- Yasin, 1996: 20; Khafaji, 1996: 19). The fact that Arabic does not favor the passive voice is compensated for by the presence of other tools which indicate passivization (see Farghal and Al- Shorafat, 1996). They include the use of a pleonastic verb, i.e. ‘a verb that is devoid of semantic meaning’ (Farghal and Al-Shorafat, 1996: 106), followed by a verbal noun or resorting to pseudo- intransitive phrases. In other words, Arabic features a number of structures which are passive in meaning, but not passive in form. Thus, when relaying the passive, especially the agentive passive, from English into Arabic, it is a linguistic norm to resort to alternative ways of expressing passivization or to transpose the passive construction into a corresponding active sentence (Cantarino, 1975: 53; Khalil, 1993: 169). Adhering to this linguistic norm entails structural adjustments for which there might be neither time nor processing capacity in SI. Therefore, students need to be aware of the prevailing linguistic norms and practice those structural adjustments with targeted exercises. This would enable them to better manage the cognitive operations and automatize them when dealing with passive constructions.

Argumentation styles English and Arabic vary significantly in terms of argumentation styles. Modern Standard Arabic favors through- argumentation (Hatim, 1991: 194), which is characterized by a statement of a thesis to be endorsed extensively or ‘argued through’ (Hatim, 1991: 192). In contrast, English displays a distinct preference for counter-argumentation, which ‘is initiated by a selective summary of someone else’s viewpoint, followed by a counter-claim, a substantiation 344

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outlining the grounds for the opposition, and finally a conclusion’ (Hatim, 1997b: 40). The difficulty in relaying argumentation lies in the fact that some of the signals indexing one of the argumentation styles are not ‘text-typologically equivalent in English and in Arabic’ (Hatim, 1997a: 212). In certain sub-types of counter-argumentation, there is a lack of overt signaling. The task of inferring underlying semantic relations without the help of overt signals is further complicated in SI by the linearity constraint and the time constraint.

Definite article as means for emphasis There is one usage of the English definite article which presents the Arabic interpreter with a particular challenge. It is when the definite article is used in its phonemic variation /ði:/ for emphasis. In this case it ‘refers to a specimen “par excellence” (the best, the well-known, the only one worth mentioning)’ (Hawas, 1989: 24). Speakers resort to emphasis to give prominence to certain parts of their discourse which ultimately helps them convey their message. In Arabic it is not possible to use the definite article for emphasis, since it is expressed through the proclitic / ’al/ . As such, it cannot receive various levels of stress (Hawas, 1989: 25). In the absence of this linguistic tool in Arabic, interpreters need to resort to different linguistic devices to accentuate certain parts of the sentence. They include adding a modifier to express emphasis or using sentence-initial emphatic particles.

Modals Interpreting modal expressions from English into Arabic involves various challenges. The first challenge lies in the considerable formal divergence in the way modality is realized. While modality in English is typically associated with modal auxiliaries, ‘modality in Arabic is not associated with a distinct, unitary formal category, but rather is expressed by means of a heterogeneous set of categories’ (Eades, 2011: 283). Abdel- Fattah (2005: 45) argues that the Arabic modal system tends to be more lexical than grammatical. It is often through the interplay of various elements, which belong to different grammatical categories and are dispersed throughout the utterance, that modal sense is conveyed (Al-Qinai, 2008: 40). Another difficulty for interpreters working with this language pair stems from the diglossic nature of Arabic. In some cases there are differences in the semantics of modal expressions between the dialects and MSA (Abdel-Fattah, 2005: 42; Al-Qinai, 2008: 48; Eades, 2011: 300). It is of paramount importance for interpreters to display heightened sensitivity to modal expressions. Inaccurate rendering of modality has the potential of altering the nature of the relationship between the addresser and the addressee or misrepresenting the speaker’s confidence in the factuality of a given proposition.

Discourse markers There are considerable disparities between English and Arabic with regard to discourse markers. English generally opts for a higher degree of implicitness and often dispenses with the use of overt signals. Textual evidence of this observation was provided by Taboada (2006). In contrast to English, Arabic is characterized by syndetic linkage. The surface text realization of the meaning relations between discourse units is indispensable. Against this background, most translational activities from English into Arabic would involve making implicit meaning relations explicit. The difficulty of recovering unsignaled relations is of course aggravated in SI as a result of the constraints characteristic of this mode (see Arguments for the 345

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language- specificity thesis). To avoid coherence impairment in the target text interpreters need to be able to appropriately render cohesive links into Arabic. Targeted exercises can contribute to heightening their awareness of the significance of discourse markers in indexing the structure of a given discourse.

Addressing language-specific problem triggers in the interpreting classroom To advance the teaching of simultaneous interpreting for the language pair English–Arabic, language- specific problem triggers need to be addressed systematically in the interpreting classroom and time needs to be devoted to practicing specific strategies to deal with them. This pedagogical approach would fall under what Riccardi (1996: 221) calls ‘problem- oriented training’ which ‘helps interpreters to recognize, separate and focus on single difficulties thus facilitating a conscious development of diversified simultaneous interpreting strategies’. For interpreter training programs to be able to meet the standards they promulgate and attain the ambitious goal of producing market- ready professionals, teaching practices must be theory- backed and in line with research findings. In order to solidify the foundations of interpreter instruction in the English–Arabic combination language-pair-specific factors need to be investigated on the basis of empirical data. The output of professionals in authentic interpreting situations can be analyzed with the aim of detecting the strategies they employ to deal with language- pair- specific problem triggers and to impart those strategies to students. Analyzing the performance of interpreting students is equally important, as it can reveal to what extent language- pair- specific problem triggers impede their performances. Applying complementary methods, such as retrospection, which involves reporting on mental processes that occurred during SI after performing the interpreting task, can help researchers gain at least partial insight into cognitive operations and can help identify the type of problems that students encounter and the strategies they employ (cf. Shamy and Recoy, 2017). This type of empirical data is essential to lay the groundwork for designing a language- pair- specific syllabus in SI and inform the development of pedagogically sound practices that help students deal with the cognitive strains associated with interpreting from English into MSA.

Conclusion This chapter has attempted to show that the diglossic nature of Arabic creates additional challenges to the English-into-Arabic interpreter. The differences between MSA and the dialectal varieties are so significant that MSA is considered by some researchers as a second language. Arabic diglossia can also result in low availability of some language constituents which could slow down the rendition into Arabic. These challenges affect the interpreting process as well as the interpreting product and need to be taken into account in interpreter education. The difficulties associated with Arabic diglossia reinforce the necessity to address language-specific aspects in the interpreting class. Making students aware of potential problem triggers and having them develop strategies to deal with them would lead to a better use and coordination of cognitive efforts. Language- pair- specific pedagogy for the language pair English–Arabic and for the language direction English into Arabic is an area which remains under-researched. More research in this field will not only contribute to enhancing the process- oriented approach to teaching simultaneous interpreting and making intepreting training more relevant to the respective language combinations, it will also help create reflective practitioners that possess the analytical skills necessary to continuously hone their interpreting skills. 346

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Notes 1 Original text: ‘Plädoyer gegen die Vernachlässigung der sprachenpaarbedingten Probleme.’ 2 Original text: ‘Aufgabe der sprachenpaarbezogenen Translationswissenschaft ist es aufzuzeigen, mit Hilfe welcher Strategien Dolmetscher mit den … Unterschieden zwischen Ausgangs- und Zielsprache umgehen, und darzulegen, wie die entsprechenden Strategien didaktisch vermittelt werden können.’ 3 The authors use the term ‘literary Arabic’ to refer to Modern Standard Arabic. 4 The term ‘literate’ is used in this context to refer to Arabic speakers who have acquired MSA.

Further reading Hild, A. (2011) Effects of linguistic complexity on expert processing during simultaneous interpreting. In: Alvstad, C., Hild, A. and Tiselius, E. (eds.) Methods and Strategies of Process Research: Integrative Approaches in Translation Studies. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 249–267. Orlando, M. (2016) Training 21st Century Translators and Interpreters: At the Crossroads of Practice, Research and Pedagogy. Berlin: Frank and Timme. Pöchhacker, F. (2010) The role of research in interpreter education. Translation and Interpreting, 2: 1–10.

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21 SPECIFICITIES OF TRAINING AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE OF ARABIC SIMULTANEOUS INTERPRETING The Arabic–Spanish language combination Bachir Mahyub Rayaa

Introduction and theoretical background It has been said that interpreting, understood as mediating between two people who do not speak the same language, is one of the oldest professions— older even than translation, given that speech pre- dates writing (Haensch, 1965). Nevertheless, the research community nowadays almost unanimously agrees that conference interpreting (simultaneous and consecutive), as we know it today, has its origins in the First World War (Baigorri, 2014: 133– 164). According to Baigorri (2014: 211– 246), this profession would reach maturity in the Nuremberg Trials (1945–1946). In the case of the Arabic– Spanish language combination (AR- SP), there are important historic indications of the activity of interpreters from Arabic to Spanish dating back to the period of coexistence in Al- Andalus and the later Spanish colonization of North Africa. However, despite the notable demand for professional Arabic interpreters, which resurfaced in the 1980s, and it being fully included in Spanish university syllabi since the beginning of the twenty- first century, interpreting in this language group has scarcely been researched. Therefore, although interpreting between Arabic and other Indo- European languages commonly used in professional practice (English, French, Spanish, etc.) could serve as a perfect subject for study, until now research in the field has not contributed to solving problems in training and professional practice. This lack of specific research could be due to the fact that, according to the Theory of Sense, interpreting is a cognitive act regardless of the linguistic combination (Seleskovitch and Lederer, 1984: 108, Déjean Le Féal, 1998: 43, among others). However, specialized literature since the end of the 1970s highlights that certain language pairs pose other formal difficulties (Longley, 1978; Wilss, 1978) and require specific strategies (Stenzl, 1989: 24). Thus the teaching of interpreting should also consider the specificities of the language combination (Ilg, 1978; Le Ny, 1978; Gile, 1995). Kelly (2003) states that, from the point of view of translation, there are regional, national, cultural and professional differences that must 350

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be considered when planning curricula. The theoretical problem therefore also poses professional and educational consequences. Meanwhile, specialized literature on simultaneous interpreting (SI) from or into Arabic remains extremely scarce. According to El Aamid (2006), between 1970 and 2005, only three out of 260 monographs on interpreting address this language combination. Darwish (2003) addresses the pillars of Arabic–English SI from a prescriptive approach based on his professional experience; Bessafi (2003) generally addresses language training and the relationship between linguistics, translation and interpreting, with a few examples from the AR-FR combination; and Khogali (2004) studies SI training and its introduction in the Sudanese education system. El Aamid (2006) has not included in his survey a key study on SI, i.e., Al-Salman and Al-Khanji (2002). Since El Aamid’s publication (2006), the following works have been published: Haddad (2008), Hassan (2009), Khogali (2012) and Mahyub Rayaa and Zarrouk (2013), of which only Hassan (2009) partly addresses the current issue of our study. The author criticizes the Theory of Sense, stating that the specificity of the language pair has a significant impact in practice, which should be acknowledged in training. In her intuitive analysis of AR-FR SI, the author highlights specificities, such as the difference between linguistic structures and syntagmas, and proposes a future study of the impact of variation in Arabic, terminology-related problems and cultural differences. The impact of diatopic1 and diastratic2 variation in Arabic simultaneous interpreting, according to Hassan (2009), has not been empirically investigated, and has been addressed as a phenomenon that is almost exclusive to community interpreting (Feria, 2001; Taibi, 2006; Ortega, 2010). This is due to the common belief that in SI Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the only register that may be used in interpreting and, in theory, the only register used by speakers in formal situations. Only Wilmsen (2003) points out that Arabic speakers, when addressing an audience, frequently change from MSA to informal Arabic. Recently literature has begun to underline the need to bear in mind this polyglossic reality from the earliest stages in translator and interpreter training (Mahyub Rayaa, 2015; Ilhami, 2016).

Objectives This chapter intends to carry out a three- way study between teachers, students and professional interpreters in order to: 1. obtain quantitative and qualitative data leading to an improved understanding of the situation of training and professional practice in AR-SP SI, and define future areas of empirical research; 2. analyze the linguistic, academic and professional profile of the three surveyed groups; 3. find out whether differentiating specificities exist in AR-SP SI; 4. if such specificities do exist, determine whether they require taking a different approach for teaching Arabic SI; 5. find out what educational materials are used in training, their source, and subject matter.

Materials and methods The total investigative population comprises seven SI lecturers and 43 students of Arabic, English, German and French, in combination with Spanish, from the University of Granada, the sole university in Spain that teaches AR-SP SI. After consulting different professionals, 351

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a third group was defined comprising 12 professional interpreters that represent almost all those who occasionally or regularly work in AR- SP SI in Spain. Given the objective of this study, lecturers and student groups will be limited to AR- SP (two lecturers and seven students), although I will mention the results of the other three language combinations when relevant. The data were obtained from three parallel questionnaires sent by email on July 19, 2010. The deadline was November 12, 2010, and 21 anonymously completed questionnaires were received by AR-SP subjects (two lecturers, seven students and 12 interpreters), meaning 84 percent of recipients responded (13 percent error rate and 90 percent level of reliability). When drafting the first version of the questionnaire the proposals of Iglesias (2003) and Manuel (2005) were taken into consideration. The first version was subjected to peer review. The finalized questionnaire included 45 items (14 closed, 20 open and 11 semi- closed questions) divided into three sections: subject profile, education and professional practice, and use of educational materials. At the end of each section, the respondents were able to provide comments, suggestions and observations believed to be relevant.

Results Results from the questionnaires are presented below prior to their analysis and discussion.

Questionnaire respondents’ profiles Lecturers One hundred percent (2) of lecturers are male, 48 and 45 years of age, first- language Arabic speakers (L1) and second-language Spanish speakers (L2). Both have studied translation and interpreting at the University of Granada, to doctorate and graduate level respectively. Their experience in teaching AR- SP interpreting ranges from five to ten years. However, although they have studied translation and interpreting, neither works in SI.

Students Of the students, 71.42 percent (5) are female and 28.57 percent (2) male, their age ranging from 20 to 30 years. Some 57.14 percent state that Spanish is their L1 and Arabic is their L2, while 42.85 percent state that Arabic is their L1 and Spanish is their L2. Three respondents also claim to have a third language (L3): two citing French and the other English.

Interpreters Eighty- three percent (10) are male and 17 percent (2) female, with ages ranging from 25 to 60 years; 75 percent were between 35 and 50 years of age. Their professional experience ranges from five to over 20 years in AR-SP SI. Sixty-seven percent of respondents were university graduates. Of these, 42 percent had formal training in translation and interpreting, 25 percent had other university degrees (Semitic philology, Hispanic philology and political sciences) and 33 percent did not specify. Without taking into account university studies, 75 percent had had training in SI. The time spent in training in interpretation ranged from six months to four years. 352

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Eighty- three percent state that Arabic is their L1, and 92 percent state that they interpret to and from Arabic. Fifty percent state that French is their L3, and 42 percent have L3 English. All respondents state that their L3 is passive (i.e., they only interpret from them into Arabic). One hundred percent of simultaneous interpreters state that they have other professions apart from interpreting. Seventy-five percent work in translation, 50 percent teach translation and interpreting on an occasional or ongoing basis, 58 percent are self-employed workers, and the rest are employed by academic or public government institutions. Therefore, we can consider that the group has extensive experience and a good level of training that will provide meaningful information for this study.

Specificities of Arabic–Spanish simultaneous interpreting One hundred percent of the subjects state that their language combination has differentiating specificities. In the case of an affirmative response, the respondents were asked to select one or several options to explain the nature of the specificities. Results are shown in Figure 21.1. In the ‘others’ section, the respondents were invited to explain the specificities, and three did so. The two first (a lecturer and an interpreter) highlighted the problem of diglossia and dialectal variation, given that speakers may use informal Arabic in formal contexts. The second explained code-switching, in which speakers change from Arabic to French or English and then suddenly change back to Arabic.

Additional difficulties and solutions One hundred percent of the lecturers and 57.14 percent of the students stated that the specificities of the language combination posed additional difficulties, while 42.85 percent of the latter stated that they did not. 84 percent of interpreters stated that the specificities suppose an

100%

Lecturers 75%

Students 50%

Interpreters Total (three groups)

25%

0%

Figure 21.1 Specificities of training and professional practice of Arabic simultaneous interpreting: The Arabic-Spanish language combination

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additional difficulty in the profession in comparison with other combinations that they also know, whereas 8 percent stated that they did not, and 8 percent did not respond. In the case of an affirmative response, the subjects were asked to explain how to solve the problem in an open question. The following solutions were suggested by the respondents: (1) Teaching/learning Arabic–Spanish simultaneous interpreting: • ‘Expose the student to the largest possible number of Arabic diatopic variations when practicing SI, because not all students are accustomed to hearing speeches in variants that differ greatly from “standard” Arabic. The problem becomes more evident when the student is not a native Arabic speaker.’ • ‘Carry out realistic training through the use of real teaching materials in the classroom.’ • ‘Practice with suitable educational material from different Arab countries to acquire local terms and different accents. The lack of educational material is a problem for AR-SP SI.’ • ‘Increase Arabic language competence.’ (2) Interpreting between Arabic and Spanish: • ‘Translate the meaning rather than the structure.’ • ‘Slow interpreting down, summarize or paraphrase, particularly when the speaker uses a dialect that is difficult for the interpreter.’ • ‘In literary events when very formal language or an archaic variety of Arabic is used, instead of translating, clarify the speakers’ words or paraphrase.’ • ‘If there is an alternation in code that poses difficulties for the interpreter, either between Arabic varieties or another language, turn to a booth colleague for help.’ • ‘When interpreting to Arabic: given that numbers in Arabic are formed differently from those in Spanish, reorder them using the classic form in Arabic (e.g. “wāḥid wa tis’ūn wa tis’umia wa alf” for 1991).’ All these difficulties and solutions will be analyzed and discussed further.

Respondents’ perception of AR-SP SI specific teaching approaches One hundred percent of lecturers believe that a specific approach should be used when teaching AR- SP SI, as do 71.42 percent of AR- SP students, whereas 28.57 percent of these students disagree. As far as the interpreters were concerned— remember that 50 percent of respondents are translation and interpreting teachers— 50 percent responded that a specific approach should be used, 25 percent did not feel it was necessary and 25 percent did not respond. In the case of an affirmative response, the subjects were asked to explain the specific teaching approach and give a reason. (1) According to lecturers and students: The subjects (both lecturers and students) did not explain which specific teaching approach should be used, but they did justify the adoption of an approach of some kind. The following are some examples of their responses: • ‘The essence of general speech in Arabic and Spanish justifies the adoption of a specific didactic approach. A sober and concise speech of English is not the same as a flowery one in Arabic loaded with adjectives and religious references. This, in 354

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addition to the linguistic varieties of Arabic, which comprise at least six large dialect groups’, according to one of the lecturers. • ‘We start from the same theoretical basis, but when applying it one must consider the differentiating characteristics of each language combination. The cultural and religious elements of Arabic speech pose unique problems.’ • ‘Sentence structure in Arabic and Spanish is very different.’ • ‘Arabic and Spanish have different origins, compared to Romance languages, which are relatively easier to interpret due to their similarities. When interpreting from Arabic to Spanish considerable syntactic and morphosyntactic changes must be made which need more time and cognitive effort.’ • ‘Arabic, as such, consists of a mixture of Modern Standard Arabic and dialects that are often used in speech. Despite this fact, the current syllabus does not take this into account.’ (2) According to professional interpreters: • ‘Strengthen the ability to summarize in order to eliminate the differences in speech between Arabic and Spanish (Arabic is much more wordy) and to save time.’ • ‘Provide tools to order syntactic structures and correctly order numbers.’ • ‘Strengthen cultural knowledge to solve problems arising from interpreting highlevel registers (the Koran and poetry).’ These teaching approaches will be discussed in depth further.

Educational materials: source and subject matter studied When asked about the source of educational materials used, the subjects responded as shown in Table 21.1. Three interpreters also stated that they used ‘live speeches by native speakers who are invited to class to speak about their field of specialization’; ‘educational material from their own experience and that of their colleagues (technical and symbol glossaries for taking notes, etc.)’; and ‘UN documents and all kinds of glossaries’. They were also asked about the subject matter addressed in education and professional practice (see Table 21.2).

Table 21.1 Source of educational materials according to the three groups

Source

Lecturers

Students

Interpreters

Total (three groups)

Media (TV, radio, etc.) Written press Recordings from conferences, seminars, meetings, etc. Internet (websites of organizations and institutions, etc.) Scholarly publications Others

100% 100% 50%

100% 71.42% 85.71%

41.66% 50% 25%

66.66% 61.90% 47.61%

100%

28.75%

8.33%

23.80%

100% -

14.28% -

16.66% 25%

23.80% 14.28%

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Bachir Mahyub Rayaa Table 21.2 Subject matter addressed according to the three groups

Subject matter

Lecturers

Students

Interpreters

Total (three groups)

Law and international relations Politics Cooperation and development Culture Religion Society Economy Science and technology Others

 50% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% -

71.42% 85.71% 57.14% 71.42% 71.42% 71.42% 28.57% -

100% 75% 91.66% 50% 50% 50% 75% 33.33% 66.66%

85.71% 80.95% 76.19% 61.90% 61.90% 61.90% 52.38% 19.04% 38.09%

In the open answer field, the interpreters added: tourism, agriculture, water resources, sports, humanities, immigration and the environment.

Complementary aspects about AR-SP SI training and professional practice These are the observations from the final open-response section: (1) Arabic–Spanish simultaneous interpreting training: • ‘The lack of suitable realistic educational material undermines AR-SP SI training.’ • ‘A special emphasis needs to be put on acquiring language competence in modern Arabic and its dialects before starting to practice SI.’ • ‘Training requires constant realistic practice in SI.’ (2) Arabic–Spanish simultaneous interpreting professional practice: • ‘Interpreting in Arabic requires a high level of cultural knowledge.’ • ‘Due to the wealth of registers and varieties of Arabic, stronger language competencies are also needed.’ • ‘Greater adaptability, because Arabic does not have the same tradition of lexical expansion as other languages, and is constantly incorporating neologisms and new fields of terminology.’ • ‘This specificity also has other requirements including promoting subject matter specialization over the training period.’ • ‘The AR-SP combination needs to include revising the period of training, improving knowledge on the theory of interpretation, abandoning the idea that interpreters are born, not created, and raising awareness of the professional-ethical aspects.’

Discussion The results presented above will be analyzed and discussed in this section as previously stated.

Profile of the respondents The results obtained from the three groups show a notable diversity in linguistic profiles. For the lecturers, L1 is Arabic and Spanish is their L2, even though they are responsible 356

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for teaching SI from Arabic to Spanish, which is not their native language. Of the students, 42.8 percent also have Arabic as L1 and Spanish as L2. To complete the triangle, 83.3 percent of interpreters surveyed indicate that Arabic is their L1 and Spanish is their L2, although 91.6 percent of the latter group claims to carry out SI from Spanish to Arabic and vice versa. This situation, which in my opinion could greatly influence the training of new translators and interpreters, has begun to interest researchers in this field, e.g., Feria (2014), Mahyub Rayaa (2014) and Ilhami (2016), whose works provide a number of reasons for taking the linguistic and sociocultural profile of AR- SP students into consideration when planning the syllabus for this specialty. Feria (2014: 203) warns that: Arabic, especially in the case of students enrolled in the University of Granada, is not always a foreign or a completely foreign language. ‘More than 30% of them with Arabic as a B language come from Morocco’ (Quoted in Ilhami, 2016) and they are representative of the large structural variety in Moroccan linguistic, cultural and educational backgrounds. For some of them, particularly for graduates from Spanish primary and secondary schools in Morocco, according to Lázaro et al. (2010), written MSA is not strictly speaking an A language, but rather a C language, at the beginning of their training. According to Ilhami (2016: 224–284), over 15 percent of the remaining Spanish students have ‘Arab’ or Berber families, including those socialized in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, who have Moroccan Arabic and/ or Riffian Berber as a heritage language, but are functionally illiterate in Arabic when they commence their training. To complicate things even more, many students have Spanish as an A language, Arabic is not their heritage language at all, and their MSA is much closer to a C than to a B language. All in all, at the University of Granada only about 35 percent of students with Arabic as a B language declare they had an advanced level of Spanish and an intermediate or an advanced level of Arabic when they enrolled in the program (Ilhami, 2016). Practical problems arising from such student heterogeneity in Arabic translation and interpreting classrooms in Spain, and all over the world, cannot be ignored. In professional practice, the findings suggest that several factors including unexpected demand, the minority status of Arabic as a spoken language in Spain, and the lack of native Spanish-speaking professionals have forced the demand to be covered by biactive booths, i.e., interpreters interpret into their L1 and L2. In this regard, some of the findings of Al- Salman and Al-Khanji (2002: 608–624) for SI AR-EN should be noted. Interpreters surveyed by these authors preferred to interpret from Arabic into English (their L2) and were better at it than interpreting from English into Arabic (their L1). However, it is worth noting that these results contradict the parameters of professional and teaching praxis of supporters of the Western model, which highlight the ease native speakers have in interpreting into their L1 and that interpreting into L2 could undermine quality (Seleskovitch and Lederer, 1989; Thiéry 1989, among others). Nevertheless, as Gile (2005: 20) mentions, many arguments in favor of one or another position are based more on personal experiences and ideology than on scientific facts. Another important result shown from the lecturers’ profiles is that neither of them works in SI, which is not the case for the other three linguistic combinations (Mahyub Rayaa, 2015: 141– 142). This issue has been debated in the academic community almost since the beginning of regulated training in interpreting. Some outstanding authors (Mackintosh, 1995: 120; Weber, 1989: 17; Iglesias, 2003: 102– 103) consider that professional experience in interpreting 357

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guarantees quality education, as it brings experience into the classroom. Nevertheless, in spite of the advantages, other authors including Pöchhacker (1992: 219) and Collados (2000: 232) argue that the teacher-interpreter profile has some serious educational limitations. If we accept that professional experience in conference interpreting is necessary for teaching, the academic community must also agree that interpreters involved in teaching should be familiarized with basic theoretical concepts of interpreting.

Specificities of Arabic–Spanish simultaneous interpreting In the light of these results, it is clear that peculiarities are inherent to this language combination. Regarding the nature of these specificities, several differences between the three groups can be appreciated (see Figure 21.1). Below we analyze and discuss the most important specificities.

Linguistic and cultural distance between Arabic and Spanish Obviously, the lack of formal symmetry referred to by the respondents can be explained by the linguistic distance, a variable that is difficult to measure and on which, as far as I know, there are no empirical data concerning Arabic and Spanish (Borin and Saxena, 2013). In any case, here we are not interested in the distance itself, but rather its consequences, such as the absence of shared concepts between the two cultures, requiring a higher cognitive capacity on the part of the interpreter and the need to apply strategies of paraphrase and reformulation to get the message across. Beenstock et al. (2001) and Chiswick and Miller (2005) have examined the consequences of linguistic and cultural distance with data related to language competence in Hebrew and English between immigrants in Israel, the United States and Canada. These authors’ results clearly show the consequences of distance between English and Arabic, and at the same time the difference between Arabic and Hebrew. The respondents also point out sociocultural factors as being one of the main specificities of this language combination. This cultural asymmetry and its influence on the process of translation (Hatim, 1997) and interpretation (Al- Salman and Al- Khanji, 2002: 624; Hassan, 2009; Mahyub Rayaa and Zarrouk, 2013) has already been made evident in specialized literature. The interpreters surveyed provided a revealing insight by stressing that the cultural and linguistic differences intermingle, in the sense that cultural asymmetry gives rise to difficulties at a formal level. The subjects make specific note of the added difficulties due to the Islamic religious and legal terminology, which often has no equivalent in Spanish. The linguistic and cultural distance between Arabic and Spanish has also been addressed in the field of community interpreting by researchers including Feria (1999) and Ortega (2010). Although this chapter addresses SI, a different modality from community interpreting, the cultural distance is underlined since we refer to the same languages and their speakers and, ultimately, to a similar process of interpretation. In fact, the above-mentioned authors indicate that, in order to guarantee satisfactory AR- SP interpreting, the interpreter should be able to manage cultural differences and adapt to the register used by the different participants in a conversation.

Language variation Independently of the linguistic difference between Arabic and Spanish, the respondents underline the difficulty caused by a diglossic, multiglossic and pluriglossic linguistic reality 358

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(Badawi, 1973; Youssi, 1983; Versteegh, 1997; Lamrani, 2002). The literature highlights that, although diglossia ‘is not exceptional in itself, it is interesting that the distance between extreme registers (in Arabic) is far greater than that in other languages in our environment’ (Ferrando, 2001: 136). This situation, as we can see, is a major problem even for interpreters with ample experience and whose L1 is Arabic. Although code- switching between different varieties of Arabic increases with the spontaneity of speech, speakers also use it in formal speech to explain a concept they believe unfamiliar to the audience, give spontaneity and empathize with the public, employ a humoristic or ironic tone, resort to intertextuality, or play with the different meanings of a word or expression in different registers (Holes, 1993: 13– 45; Bassiouney, 2006: 3– 14; Moshref, 2012: 1– 21). In any case, when using a formal register, diaphasic variation becomes more evident, particularly in accents, which is similar to what occurs in combinations with English or French. Although the respondents do not mention it, not everything in the multiglossic reality is negative for interpreters, as long as they know the dialect utilized by the speaker: spontaneous dialogues in dialect are generally less dense, less redundant and more fluid than speeches in MSA, especially those that are read. Respondents show in their answers that they believe that language variation is not an option for SI interpreters, who have to use MSA due to the formality of the circumstances in which they interpret— conferences, meetings and so on. Nevertheless, this situation is reversed in the case of consecutive and bilateral community interpreting, in which interpreters normally use informal Arabic, unless asked to do otherwise (Feria, 1999; Taibi, 2006). Consequently, in practice when employing a team of interpreters, the linguistic profile of speakers or Arabic clients and their preferences must be considered.

Terminological variation and code-switching The respondents also highlight the difficulty of terminological variation, which in Arabic occurs both in terms representing different concepts and in concepts that are expressed differently in different countries. This issue has already been covered by Aamami (1997) regarding fisheries, Wilmsen (2003: 77) regarding agriculture and food, and Wilmsen and Osama Youssef (2009: 191–210). The latter work highlights that even though the phenomenon exists in other languages, such as English, in Arabic terminological variation affects all scientific and technology-related disciplines. This variation dates back to the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Middle East and Egypt began the modernization of Arabic and the coining of terms for modern science and technology (Abdul Aziz, 2003; Crozet, 2003). The situation worsened throughout the twentieth century under the influence of colonial languages, and although efforts were made to normalize the terms and neologisms (e.g., the Jordan Academy of Arabic, 2012–20153), there is nothing to indicate that the problem is likely to be solved in the short term. A consequence of this variation is the use of Arabic terms combined with their equivalents in a foreign language, mentioned by one of the respondents. This type of codeswitching was noted both in the formal and informal variety and allows speakers, often with specialized training in English or French, to avoid the uncertainty caused by terminological variation in Arabic. The phenomenon has been described by Abulghar (2003) in the field of medicine and is documented in real speeches interpreted in Mahyub Rayaa and Zarrouk (2013: 23–43).

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Respondents’ perception of AR-SP SI specific teaching approaches The perception of respondents who have received training in SI or who currently teach it and at the same time work as simultaneous interpreters, supports the view that educational activities should take the specificities of this linguistic combination into account. Ultimately, their responses reflect the findings in all specialized literature including Al-Salman and Al-Khanji (2002) and Haddad (2008), who call for the adaptation of exercises used in postgraduate programs in interpreting in the University of Ottawa (Canada) for those used in Syrian universities;4 Hassan (2009) supports the adaptation of training in SI for the AR-FR combination, and Feria (2014), Mahyub Rayaa (2015) and Ilhami (2016) call for the adoption of a specific approach for teaching AR- SP translation and interpreting, which considers its surrounding linguistic, sociocultural and professional reality. For AR-SP, it is especially important to strengthen the technique of syntactic and semantic anticipation from contextual and extra-linguistic clues and phrasal units. The greater the interpreters’ linguistic competence, the greater their ability to anticipate speech structures and to gain knowledge of the type of text and communicative situation (such as a conference), enabling them to carry out extra-linguistic anticipation based on speaker profiles, the needs of the public, their interest and position on the topic (Wilss, 1978: 343; Gile, 1995: 178). Such a specific training approach, which would take into account the peculiarities of the Arabic language and its interpretation into other languages belonging to a different language family, could also be extrapolated to other combinations including Arabic and other IndoEuropean languages (AR-EN, AR-FR, AR-DE, etc.), given that, in principle, they have similar asymmetries, as pointed out by authors including Hassan (2009) for AR- FR, and Khogali (2012) for AR-EN.

Learning materials The lack of specific materials for teaching and learning AR-SP SI is an aspect that both teachers and students point out. The lack of learning materials, particularly in audiovisual format, leads to the frequent use of the written press in this combination (see Table 21.1). This has certain disadvantages, given that newspaper articles in Arabic have specific characteristics and are not written to be read aloud in public. Audio recordings are also used, but these do not give the learner visual contact with the speaker or the possibility of interaction with their body language (Harris, 1992: 264; Gile, 1995: 154). It therefore seems innovative that current SI training has adopted the functionalist approach of ‘the communicative event as hypertext’ (Pöchhacker, 2004), as this requires the introduction of realistic speeches that cover all communicative situations occurring during professional practice. However, further research is required regarding the homogenization of difficulty parameters in these educational materials and their gradation in line with learning stages (Manuel, 2005: 150–154). The subject area dealt with in both training and professional practice is characterized by its wide variety. As lecturers do not work in SI, the selection of topics in the training phase may be a result of more subjective criteria or criteria of other language combinations taught in the same faculty. It is worth noting that during the training period neither the topic of science and technology nor the topic of economy are covered. The data collected do not shed light on the exact reasons why these areas are not covered. However, in professional practice, which is equally variable, there is often demand for work on economic and scientific-technological topics, suggesting that their absence from AR-SP SI 360

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training is not justified. Mahyub Rayaa and Zarrouk (2013: 48– 65) give samples of realistic speeches which have been interpreted and deal with economic and scientific- technological areas. These areas require specialized training which, in the light of the results shown here, has not been provided.

Conclusions and future research perspectives The main conclusions of the exploratory study according to the objectives proposed are as follows:

Profile of the respondents 1. The sample of the three groups surveyed is highly representative of the reality of teaching and working in AR-SP SI and comprised lecturers, students and professional interpreters with extensive experience, some of whom also have experience as teachers. 2. The linguistic profile of the three groups is heterogeneous, with the combination L1 Arabic, L2 Spanish and L3 French and English (in this order) being that of the majority. 3. Training in AR-SP SI is taught by lecturers who do not work in SI professionally. 4. All AR-SP interpreters practice other professions in addition to interpreting.

Specificities of Arabic–Spanish simultaneous interpreting 5. The subjects clearly agree that AR-SP SI has specificities due to different types of asymmetry, which also notably occur in the professional environment. 6. The subjects consider that the asymmetry in the AR-SP combination affects linguistic and sociocultural levels that intertwine, and that this asymmetry is more accented in the ARSP combination than in the SP-EN and SP-FR combinations that interpreters work in. 7. The subjects highlight the following specificities: linguistic distance, language and terminological variation (diatopic and diastratic variation and code- switching between Arabic, English and French), Arabic intertextuality (Koran and poetry) and cultural distance. 8. The subjects’ opinions, apart from being credible due to their extensive professional and teaching experience, coincide with all previous literature on AR- EN and AR- FR combinations.

Training approaches 9. The subjects with training and teaching experience agree that, contrary to the views defended by the Theory of Sense, these specificities should be taken into account in training, which should be adapted to each language combination. 10. The previous conclusion requires the definition of a specific theoretical-teaching framework for Arabic SI. There is an acute need for such a specific framework, currently lacking in interpreter training, with a special focus on asymmetries, in line with proposals in the literature for other asymmetric language pairs. 11. The previous conclusion could also be extrapolated to other linguistic combinations that include Arabic and other Indo-European languages (AR-EN, AR-FR, AR-DE, etc.), given that in principle they show similar asymmetries.

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Learning materials 12. Learning materials for AR- SP training are scarce and outdated, meaning that written press has to be used with the disadvantages that this source implies when teaching SI. 13. There is an urgent need to compile learning materials that are specific to Arabic SI training and that address the peculiarities mentioned by the respondents and the specificity of the educational approach. 14. Given the particular importance of variation in Arabic as a specific difficulty, students should be taught AR-SP SI using spontaneous speeches that familiarize them with different Arabic accents and registers. 15. In both training and professional practice, a high level of heterogeneity is observed in topics covered. 16. Scientific, technological and economic topics are not addressed in the AR- SP training phase, although they occur with relative frequency in professional practice. Given their additional degree of terminological and conceptual specialization, their inclusion in training new interpreters is recommended. Most of the above conclusions support previous literature (Wilmsen, 2003; Feria, 2014; Ilhami, 2016, etc.), which calls for a revision of the syllabus in line with the suggestion of Hassan (2009). The peculiarities observed in the profile of the three groups (lecturers, students and interpreters) also seem to support these findings. Finally, the findings described above open up various lines of empirical research in the future, such as the following: 1. To measure the effect of Arabic–Spanish linguistic distance on real SI, in order to validate or reject the claims made both by the respondents and in the specialized literature regarding word and phrase order and differences in discourse. 2. To measure the real index of variation and alternation of codes between Arabic speakers in formal SI contexts and their effect on real interpreting. 3. The previous conclusion [11] may lead to research on asymmetries in other language combinations with Arabic and other Indo-European languages that are not included in the cultural area of the Islamic world. 4. To study the parameters of difficulty in Arabic speeches used in teaching SI and propose a progressive scale, on the basis of which a corpus of real speeches in Arabic could be compiled for SI training. From these parameters, collect and propose a corpus of real speeches in Arabic to teach interpreting.

Notes 1 2 3 4

Variation according to place or geographical variation. Variation according to social class or to the social group to which a speaker feels they belong. See: http://goo.gl/nKnd3p. By adopting some training stages (memory, sight translation and sight interpretation) from the screening instruments used to select applicants for the Graduate Diploma Program at the University of Ottawa, appropriately locating them on the different rungs and specifying their aims (Haddad, 2008: 31).

Further reading Baddeley, A.D. and Hitch, G. (1974) Working memory. Psychology of Learning and Motivation 8: 47–89. García Becerra, O., Pradas Macías, E.M. and Barranco- Droege, R. (eds.) (2013) Quality in interpreting: Widening the scope. Granada: Editorial Comares.

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Arabic simultaneous interpreting Wilmsen, D. (2003) One global standard or multiple regional standards? A problem in the practice and pedagogy of Arabic interpreting. In: Collados, Aís A., Fernández Sánchez, M.M., Pradas Macías, E.M., Sánchez Adam, C. and Stévaux, E. (eds.) La evaluación de la calidad de la interpretación: docencia y profesión. Granada: Comares, 69–79. Wilmsen, D. and Osama, Youssef R. (2009) Regional standards and local routes in adoption techniques for specialised terminologies in the dialects of written Arabic. The Journal of Specialised Translation 11: 191–210. Wilss, W. (1978) Syntactic anticipation in German- English. In: Gerver, D. and Sinaiko, H.W. (eds.) Language interpretation and communication. New York and London: Plenum Press, 343–352. Youssi, A. (1983) La triglossie dans la typologie linguistique. La Linguistique 19(2): 71–83.

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22 AN INVESTIGATION OF COGNITIVE EFFORTS IN SIMULTANEOUS INTERPRETING INTO ARABIC A case study of Egyptian undergraduate students Sama Dawood

Introduction Simultaneous Interpreting (SI) refers to the instant, oral transference of messages from the Source Language (SL) to the Target Language (TL). In order to facilitate communication, interpreters should be able to receive and comprehend the incoming message and then render its meaning in the other language as accurately and communicatively as possible (Campos et al., 2009: 482). Christoffels and De Groot (2005: 455) identify three main approaches that have been followed by scholars in this field. The first approach addresses the analysis of interpreters’ output; the second one focuses on exploring the cognitive aspects of SI; and the third approach is based on comparing the performance of professional interpreters with SI learners. Among the issues that have attracted the attention of many scholars interested in SI is training. Until 2000, training accounted for about 20 percent of the publications on this mode of interpreting (Gile, 2006). Scholars’ contributions on this issue have ranged from exploring teaching methodologies and training approaches to analyzing the performance of both professional interpreters and students. But while the bibliographic items on SI training are relatively rich in the world’s different languages, according to the Conference Interpreting Research Information Network bulletin (Gile, 2014), similar studies in an Arabic context can hardly be found. And despite the effort of some dedicated Arab scholars of translation/ interpreting (including Mona Baker, with her numerous publications on translation studies; Al-Khanji et al. (2000); and Al-Salman and Al-Khanji (2002)), the contributions of Arabs in the field of SI are still limited in number. Darwish (2010: 247) believes that the main reason behind this is the fact that SI in the Arab world is a recent phenomenon, dating back to early 1990s and developed mainly due to wars and conflicts. Furthermore, most of the studies conducted on interpreting into or from Arabic focuses on analyzing the live performance of professional interpreters; studying the output of the novice is still an area that needs further investigation. The current chapter attempts to curb that defect by exploring an important aspect related to the difficulties that Arab learners of SI face within 366

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the framework of Gile’s (2009) Effort Model (EM) with the aim of offering insights to interpreting instructors/trainers and helping them design more effective syllabuses of interpreting courses. This is done through answering the following questions: (1) Does being a native speaker of a language guarantee smooth interpreting performance into that language? (2) What are the cognitive efforts required by Arab learners of SI while interpreting into their A language (i.e., Arabic)? (3) Are there common production-related linguistic difficulties that Arab learners of SI face when they interpret into Arabic? The study hypothesizes that being a native speaker of a language does not necessarily imply that interpreting into that language poses fewer challenges, and that Arab learners of SI face considerable linguistic difficulties when they interpret into their mother tongue.

SI and the controversy on directionality Directionality in the context of SI refers to the direction of interpreting whether into an A language or a B language. Although the International Association of Conference Interpreters states that interpreters should only interpret into their A language (Gile, 2005: 9), the issue of directionality is still controversial. Some scholars, such as Seleskovitch (1968), hold the view that interpreters function better while interpreting into their mother language. This is because interpreters’ fluency in that language helps them produce ‘spontaneous and idiomatic’ utterances. In the same vein, Newmark (1988: 3) maintains that accurate and effective rendition can only be achieved when one is working into their mother tongue. Gile (2005: 9) points out that other researchers, mainly in the former Soviet Union, believe that interpreters’ performance is better when they work into a B language, as they can fully understand the intended message delivered in their A language and render it more effectively. Among those scholars are Denissenko (1989: 157), Pavlović (2007: 91), and Dailidenaité (2009: 13), who all maintain that interpreting into an A language may turn into a disadvantage as interpreters’ command of their mother tongue could make them unable to choose from various linguistic options. Lonsdale (1998/ 2001: 66) believes that if there is no ‘cultural proximity’ between the SL and the TL, interpreting into one’s mother tongue becomes challenging. Gile (2006) points out that the decision to interpret into or from one’s A language depends on a number of factors such as the listening conditions, the speaker’s accent, the pace of delivery, and the kind of language used. However, generally, he goes on saying, it could be said that interpreters should work from or into the language with less processing capacity required in the effort, be it listening or production. Seeber (2015b: 84) believes that although the argument of whether to interpret from or into one’s native language is based on language proficiency, the direct relation between language proficiency and interpreting proficiency is not yet proven. Furthermore, Gile (2005: 10) highlights that such disagreement among scholars concerning directionality is probably due to lack of enough empirical research and the reliance on personal experience. He, therefore, concludes that decisions on directionality when recruiting interpreters should be made on a ‘case-by-case basis’ (2005: 25). Unfortunately, very few studies have been conducted on the issue of directionality in an English/Arabic context. The contribution of Al-Salman and Al-Khanji (2002: 624) is probably 367

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the most influential one in this regard. The co- authors conducted an empirical research on twenty-two Arab professional interpreters. The findings of the study showed that interpreters preferred working from their mother language (Arabic) into the B language (English) as they were more able to easily use relevant coping tactics. Al-Salman and Al-Khanji conclude that the various dialects used by Arabs could be one of the reasons why the subjects might not prefer working into Arabic. This chapter is another contribution in this regard. It sheds light on the effort- related difficulties that Arab learners of SI encounter while interpreting into the A language and the reasons that make interpreting into Arabic, for some of them, burdensome. This is thought to be attributed to the fact that Arabs in their everyday life use a variety of dialects that differ, to varying extents, from Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which is usually understood but not intuitively spoken by all Arabs. Moreover, as there are different school educational systems in Arab countries, such as Arabic-, English-, and French-speaking schools, the problems that Arab students face while working from the B or C language and into their A language are likely to be different.

Gile’s Effort Model as a tool to analyze SI difficulties for the novice One of the models envisaged to account for the difficulties observed in SI and explain the errors that beginners and professional interpreters alike make is Gile’s Effort Model (2009). The first version of the model was outlined by Gile in 1983 and he has made many modifications since then (Gile, 2009: 158). The basis of the EM is that SI is a process that requires four types of efforts: The Listening and Analysis Effort (L) which includes all comprehension- related cognitive tasks, starting with hearing the SL utterance, through realizing the meaning of lexical items, to deciding the most adequate TL utterance. The Memory Effort (M) that interpreters exert to store and retrieve the information of the SL utterance. The Production Effort (P) that is exerted by the interpreter to look for the lexical and syntactic equivalents in the TL to render the SL utterance. The Coordination Effort (C) which refers to the ability to create a balance among the three aforementioned core efforts. It is the basis of smooth interpretation, and it dictates dividing attention among the three main tasks (Gile, 2009: 160–166). Thus, Gile (2009: 169) summarizes SI with the following equation: I=L+M+P+C (I stands for interpreting, L for listening and analysis, M for memory, P for production, and C for coordination). Lesson (2005: 57) points out that Gile’s equation means that in order to achieve smooth interpretation, interpreters need to exert equal amounts of all these efforts. However, during an interpreting session, one or two of these efforts may take priority over the others, depending on the processing capacity requirements. Furthermore, Gile (2009: 170) underlines five conditions to guarantee accurate interpretation. These conditions are all about the relation between the Required (R) and the Available (A) capacities for each of the efforts:

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(1) listening processing capacity requirements should be equal to or not greater than the processing capacity available for listening (LR ≤ LA); (2) memory processing capacity requirements should be equal to or not greater than the processing capacity available for memory (MR≤ MA); (3) production processing capacity requirements should be equal to or not greater than the processing capacity available for production (PR≤ PA); (4) coordination processing capacity requirements should be equal to or not greater than the processing capacity available for coordination (CR≤ CA); and accordingly, (5) the total processing capacity requirements should be equal to or not greater than the total available processing capacity (TR ≤ TA). If one or more of these conditions are not fulfilled, the interpreter will reach what Gile (1999: 159) calls mental saturation, that is, the case where the total capacity utilization becomes closer to the total available capacity. At this stage, any increase in the processing capacity requirements or any failure on the part of the interpreter to coordinate the mental efforts can cause problems in the output. Gile (2008: 60) points out that most of the errors that even professional interpreters make while interpreting are caused by the fact that they usually work close to saturation in at least one of these efforts. This was quite evidently proven in an experiment where ten interpreters were asked to interpret the same speech twice. The results show that some of them made mistakes in the second time while interpreting parts they did correctly the first time (Gile, 1999). Gile’s EM has been appreciated by many scholars, such as Pöchhacker and Shlesinger (2002: 145) who believe that although this model does not offer a detailed analysis of the process of SI, it explains the nature of the ‘cognitive constraints’ that could lead to interpreters’ failures. Lesson (2005: 57) considers the EM a major contribution in the field of SI as it helps scholars of SI come up with useful techniques that interpreters can follow to cope with the difficulties they face. Furthermore, Russell and Takeda (2015: 97) mention that this model sheds light on the techniques that interpreters can employ to achieve better performance. Whyatt (2010: 84), on the other hand, criticizes the model for lacking in-depth illustration, though he admits that its simplicity is the main reason why translation/ interpreting scholars appreciate it. Similarly, Seeber (2015a: 22–23) thinks that some aspects in the process of SI go beyond Gile’s suggested efforts. He, therefore, came up with his ‘competing’ Cognitive Load Model. It is to be noted that such opposing views were already addressed by Gile (1999: 188) when he clarified that the EM is holistic and does not provide detailed exploration of the relation between its components because it is mainly designed to explain common interpreting obstacles and to advise learners on how to overcome them. It could be said that the significance of the EM lies in its effectiveness to account for the mistakes made by professional and would-be interpreters alike. And although the model was originally intended to be used in interpreter training, as Whyatt (2010: 83) points out, and has been developed to explain the errors of both novices and professional interpreters, as Gile (1998/ 2001: 44) himself states, not many studies have been conducted to analyze the performance of the former category with the aim of enhancing their skills and cognitive abilities. Another importance attached to Gile’s EM is that it draws attention to the question of directionality, which the model tackles in terms of processing capacity requirements, that is to say, if the listening effort requires extra processing capacity, then interpreting should be done from the A language into the B language; whereas if the production effort is the one that

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requires additional processing capacity, the direction should be from the B language into the A language (Gile, 1998/2001: 45).

Methodology Procedure This chapter sheds light on the linguistic obstacles that Arab learners of interpreting encounter while working from their B or C language (English) into their A language (Arabic). The scope of research is limited to one speech delivered by the American president Barack Obama in 2011, commenting on the Egyptian 25 January Revolution. The speech was selected because its subject is familiar to all the students participating in the study, since they all have witnessed this revolution. It does not contain any specialized or unfamiliar terms that may require extra comprehension effort. A group of students studying an introductory SI course were asked to interpret the speech into Arabic once, and then to answer a questionnaire (Appendix 22.1) about the difficulties they faced while interpreting. The questionnaire focuses on the two core efforts of the EM: Listening and Production. Memory and coordination efforts were ruled out, firstly because, as Gile (2005: 11) indicates, they are not related to the question of directionality – the concern of this chapter – and secondly because they may vary according to the students’ mental capacities and attention distribution skills. The design of the questionnaire is based on Gile’s (2008: 60) view that the difficulties in SI arise mainly either from being unable to understand the SL utterance, or to produce the adequate interpretation. It consists of two main closed-ended questions, each addresses one of the obstacles highlighted by Gile. The first question is related to the difficulties that the students faced while listening to the English speech (the B or C language), whereas the second question is intended to highlight the production problems they came across while interpreting into Arabic (the A language) at the syntactic and semantic levels. All the students were asked to mark the type of high school education they received and to respond to the same set of questions. The results were analyzed statistically to show whether or not they prove the hypothesis of the research. The figures represent the general percentage of the respondents who chose each of the answers as well as how this percentage is distributed among the three types of high schools at which the students studied.

Subjects The subjects in the study are native speakers of Arabic studying at the Faculty of Languages and Translation in a private Egyptian university. They all had completed four courses in written translation and are enrolled in an introductory interpreting course that is designed to acquaint them with the basics and challenges of SI into/from Arabic and the coping strategies interpreters usually resort to. The study is conducted in the middle of the course after students practiced fifteen hours (five weeks/three hours per week) of in-class SI sessions from and into Arabic: nine hours for interpreting from English into Arabic and six hours for the opposite direction. For the purpose of this chapter, students from different high school backgrounds were asked to interpret one speech from English into Arabic and then to fill in a short questionnaire that consists of two main multiple-choice questions. The total number of the respondents was twenty- eight. Their high school education and linguistic background falls into three groups, according to textbooks and instruction language used by each school system: sixteen of them studied at Arabic Egyptian schools (English is the B language), six went to English schools 370

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(English is the A language), while another six studied at French schools (English is the C language).

Analysis Students’ answers in the questionnaire were analyzed, taking into consideration the various high school backgrounds that the students belong to. The first question is related to comprehension effort; it requests the students to choose from three options that reflect their ability to fully grasp the message of the speech they interpreted. Respondents need to say whether they were able to comprehend (a) most of the SL speech, (b) half of it, or (c) less than half. The analysis of the answers to this question shows that only 3.5 percent of the respondents were able to comprehend most of the English speech, 43 percent chose option (b) for they were able to comprehend half of the speech, and 53.5 percent chose option (c) as they understood less than half of it. None of the students who studied at Arabic schools or French ones chose the first option, and the percentage comes only from one student who studied at an English school. Option (b) was selected by half of the students who received their high school education at Arabic schools, half of those who studied at English schools and only one of those who were at French high schools. Option (c) was chosen by the highest percentage of the respondents. Five of the students who ticked this answer were from a French high school background; eight students were from Arabic schools, and two students were from those who studied at English schools (Table 22.1). As for the production effort, the answers to the relevant question yielded interesting results about the difficulties faced by learners working into their A language. The question is divided into two parts to account for the two core components of a language: syntax and semantics. The first part asks the students to select whether they were able to produce: (a) grammatically correct sentences; (b) some fragments and incomplete sentences; or (c) individual words without clear grammatical relation. The students’ answers to this part were as follows: 54 percent of the respondents said that they were able to come up with grammatically correct Arabic sentences, 32 percent said they produced fragments, and 14 percent said they used separate words. The first option was selected by four of those who studied at English schools, four of those who studied at French schools, but by only seven of those who studied at Arabic schools.

Table 22.1 Results of question one

1) While interpreting the English speech, you were able to comprehend Options

% of respondents choosing the option

Distribution of answers across school types

a. most of the SL speech

3.5%

b. half of the SL speech

43%

c. less than half of the SL speech

53.5%

Arabic English French Arabic English French Arabic English French

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1 8 3 1 8 2 5

Sama Dawood Table 22.2 Results of question two (A)

2) A- While interpreting into Arabic, you produced Options

% of respondents choosing the option

Distribution of answers across school types

a. grammatically correct sentences

54%

b. some fragments and incomplete sentences

32%

c. individual words without sound structure or clear relation

14%

Arabic English French Arabic English French Arabic English French

7 4 4 5 2 2 4 -

Table 22.3 Results of question two (B)

3) B- While interpreting into Arabic, you Options

% of respondents choosing the option

Distribution of answers across school types

a. used Modern Standard Arabic all along

21%

b. used few colloquial words

54%

c. mixed between both

25%

Arabic English French Arabic English French Arabic English French

6 6 3 6 4 3 -

The number of the respondents who ticked the second option is distributed as follows: two students of those who were at English schools, two of those who studied at French schools, and five of those who were at Arabic schools. As for the third option, it was chosen by four students only and they were all from those who studied at Arabic schools (Table 22.2). The second part of question two sheds light on the lexical problems faced by the learners when they work into their A language. Since in each Arab country there are at least two varieties of Arabic, the MSA and the dialect specific to that country, the question asks the students to mention whether they felt able to use the MSA fluently while interpreting or they had to mix it with some words from Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA). They had to choose between the three options of whether they (a) used MSA all along, (b) used few ECA words, or (c) mixed between both. The answers show that only 21 percent of all the students felt able to use MSA all along, 54 percent chose option (b) that they used few ECA words, and 25 percent switched between both. Those who chose the first option were all from those who studied at Arabic schools (six students). The highest percentage of the respondents used few ECA words while interpreting: half of those who were at English schools, all of those who 372

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studied at French schools, and six of those who studied at Arabic schools. The third option was selected by three of those with an English school background, and four of those with an Arabic school one (Table 22.3).

Discussion Twenty-eight students completed the questionnaire to comment on the effort-related difficulties they encountered during an interpreting session. Despite the limited number of respondents, the overall responses are illuminating and clearly reflect the challenges that Arab students of SI generally face due to their varying educational backgrounds. Although the topic of the speech is familiar to all the students as it is related to the Egyptian revolution, most of the students faced difficulties in comprehending it. This is contrary to the argument of Al-Salman and Al-Khanji (2002: 622) and Pavlović (2007: 90) that interpreters perform better when the subject matter is familiar to them. Those who studied at French schools were less able to comprehend the SL speech, followed by the students who went to Arabic schools. This sounds logical since students at Arabic schools, unlike those who study at English ones, are not exposed to many English authentic texts. The result conforms to the common belief that comprehending a speech in a B or C language is challenging especially if learners lack adequate linguistic background about it. This supports the point made by Denissenko (1989: 157) that comprehension in a foreign language is harder than in the mother tongue. Analyzing the results from an EM perspective, it seems that listening processing capacity available to English school students was generally higher than that of Arabic or French school students. As for the Arabic school students, they divided their answers equally between comprehending half of the speech or less than a half. This means that, in their case, the listening processing capacity requirements were greater than the capacity available. For French school students, who are working from their C language, interpreting was more challenging. Most of them failed to provide the required listening processing capacity and said that they only managed to comprehend less than half of the SL speech. The answers of this question are in agreement with the responses of the survey conducted by Bartloniejczyk (2004: 14) which shows that comprehension is an obstacle when working from a B into A language. Concerning the production effort, again students’ responses varied according to their high school backgrounds although they all have the same mother tongue. More than half of the students ticked the first option that they felt able to produce grammatically correct sentences. What was unexpected is that the lowest percentage of the students who selected this option was among those who studied at Arabic schools and who are supposed to be more familiar with authentic Arabic texts than their peers from English or French schools. Furthermore, four students of this group said that they could not come up with meaningful sentences while interpreting, that is, their production processing capacity could not meet the required capacity, and thus, they failed to work smoothly into their A language. It seems that failure is not due to the students’ inability to decide among the various linguistic decisions in their own mother tongue, but possibly due to the fact that the majority of the participating students lack the adequate linguistic background in MSA. This conclusion is based on the performance of these students in interpreting other texts into Arabic as part of the course taught by the researcher. They have demonstrated an inability to interpret into MSA even speeches they fully understood. This result contradicts the views of Seleskovitch (1986: 43) and Newmark (1988: 3) who both believe that interpreting into one’s mother tongue is less challenging than working into a B language. 373

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The answers to the second part of question two were similarly unexpected. Only six of those who studied at Arabic schools felt able to use MSA, the other ten students faced the same difficulties faced by the other two groups of students. Furthermore, the analysis shows that those who studied at English schools struggled the most with using MSA vocabulary, and they had to insert dialect-specific words. As for those who went to French schools, all of them had to use few colloquial words while interpreting. To sum up, most of the students, at varying degrees, failed to meet the production processing capacity requirements while they were working into their A language. The main reason behind this seems to be their lack of mastery of MSA. Although the sample of this research is still too small for a fine analysis, it clearly reflects one major aspect of directionality in SI for Arab students. The results reveal that there is no general rule when it comes to the processing capacity requirements when Arab learners of SI work from their B or C language into their mother tongue. Unlike the students who studied at English schools, the listening processing capacity of the students who were at Arabic or French schools where English is their B or C language, respectively, did not meet the required processing capacity. As for the production effort, the required processing capacity was greater than the available processing capacity of the three groups of students due to their inability to fluently use the formal variety of their A language. Referring back to the research questions, one can find that the questionnaire responses back the belief that interpreting into one’s mother tongue is not as easy as it is expected. The respondents faced different production difficulties, although they are all Arabic native speakers. The fact that there are various dialects of Arabic with syntactic and lexical features that are distinct from those of MSA makes interpreting into Arabic burdensome for Arab interpreting learners. Most of the subjects felt that interpreting into Arabic is challenging due to their inability to use MSA fluently. This is in line with the findings of Al- Salman and Al- Khanji (2002: 624) who revealed that most Arab interpreters do not feel comfortable when working into their mother tongue due to the different dialects used across the Arab countries. This is to a large extent true in the case of ECA which is, according to a study conducted by Jabbari (2012: 34), completely different from MSA at the phonological, morphological, lexical, and syntactic levels.

Conclusion This chapter explored the cognitive efforts of SI in an English/Arabic context with the aim of investigating the correlation between the high school education background of Arab SI learners and the amount of listening or production effort they need to exert to achieve successful interpretation from their B or C language into their A language. Although all the subjects in the study were Arabs, they showed differences in the type and amount of effort they need to exert while interpreting. Comprehending the B language did not require an excessive amount of energy from English school students. The opposite case was among the Arab learners who studied at Arabic or French schools, as they needed to exert additional effort to fully comprehend the SL speech. As for the production effort, all students, regardless of their school education, faced difficulty to produce grammatically sound TL utterances with the appropriate vocabulary. This is because in all Arab countries MSA is not usually used in everyday communication. In other words, Arabic for Arab learners of SI cannot be looked at as a genuine A language, as they lack mastery of MSA with the sophisticated style usually used in speeches. This proves the research hypothesis that directionality is not a matter of being a native speaker of a 374

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language; it rather depends on how much the user of a given language is exposed to that language, especially if it has different dialects such as Arabic. Therefore, developers of SI training programs for Arab learners should design curricula that address the different needs of these students. Preparatory interpreting exercises that aim to enhance students’ comprehension in their B language and oral expression in their A language are quite necessary. Not all Arab students of SI struggle the same way when it comes to their processing capacities for each effort. Therefore, SI trainers should try to avoid copying other programs designed for learners who belong to other cultures where there are no different varieties of the A language. Interpreting exercises and assignments need to be specially tailored to cater for the students’ various language backgrounds. Shadowing and summarizing exercises from and into MSA are extremely important for Arab students because they address both efforts: they can enhance students’ comprehension skills and equip them with the most appropriate vocabulary and structures used in formal settings. Listening to authentic texts in English is no less important for the Arab learners whose English is considered their B or C language. This should not be taken to mean that students of different educational backgrounds should be trained separately, but rather that trainers need to carefully plan the curriculum to allow for activities that integrate the two skills. It should be emphasized that this chapter is just a contribution in the research on the cognitive problems faced by Arab learners of SI, and the results cannot be generalized to Arab practitioners of SI. One of the limitations of this research is that its findings are entirely based on the answers of the questionnaire. This is not enough to reach welldefined conclusions; interviews with the students would have been desirable to enhance the responses obtained. Furthermore, an open-ended question could have also been added to the questionnaire so that students can add any more comments concerning the difficulties they faced. Future research could be done on the problems that Arab learners come across when they work from their A language (Arabic) to the B or C language (English) to see whether there will be similar results. Further studies are also needed to analyze the type of errors that Arab learners usually make when they interpreter into their A, B, or C language to detect markers of linguistic interference and their effect on the intended message of the SL.

Further reading Bartłomiejczyk, M. (2006) Strategies of simultaneous interpreting and directionality. Interpreting 8(2): 149–174. Dimitrova, B. and Hyltenstam, K. (eds.) (2000) Language Processing and Simultaneous Interpreting. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Schwieter, J. and Ferreira, A. (2017) The Handbook of Translation and Cognition. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons.

References Al-Khanji, R., El-Shiyab, S., and Hussein, R. (2000) On the use of compensatory strategies in simultaneous interpretation. Meta 45(3): 548–557. Al-Salman, S. and Al-Khanji, R. (2002) The native language factor in simultaneous interpretation in an Arabic/English context. Meta 47(4): 607–625. Bartloniejczyk, M. (2004) Simultaneous interpreting A- B vs B- A from the interpreter’s standpoint. In: Hansen, G., Malmkjar, K., and Gile, D. (eds.) Claims, Changes and Challenges in Translation Studies. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 239–249.

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Sama Dawood Campos, V., Visintin, A., and Baruch, R. (2009) Main problems of language and communication in interpretation. Memorias Del V Voro De Estudios en Lenguas Internacional: 481–491. Available at: http:// fel.uqroo.mx/ adminfile/ files/ memorias/ Articulos_ Mem_ FONAEL_ V/ Portillo_ Campos_ Vilma_ et_ al.pdf. Christoffels, I. and De Groot, A. (2005) Simultaneous interpreting: A cognitive perspective. In: Kroll, J.F. and De Groot, A. (eds.) Handbook of Bilingualism: Psycholinguistic Approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 454–479. Dailidenaité, A. (2009) Directionality: Types and frequency of repairs in simultaneous interpretation. Vertimo Studijos 2: 9–25. Darwish, A. (2010) A Journalist’s Guide to Live Direct and Unbiased News Translation. Sydney: Writescope. Denissenko, J. (1989) Communicative and interpretative linguistics. In: Gran, L. and Dodds, J. (eds.) The Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Teaching Conference Interpretation. Udine: Campanotto Editore, 155–157. Gile, D. (1998/2001). Conference and simultaneous interpreting. In: Baker, M. (ed.) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. London and New York: Routledge, 40–45. Gile, D. (1999) Testing the effort models’ tightrope hypothesis in simultaneous interpreting: A contribution. Hermes 23: 153–172. Gile, D. (2005) Directionality in conference interpreting: A cognitive view. In: Godijns, R. and Hindedael, M. (eds.) Directionality in Interpreting: The ‘Retour’ or the Native? Ghent: Communication and Cognition, 9–26. Gile, D. (2006) Conference interpreting. In: Brown, K. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (Volume 3). Oxford: Elsevier, 9–23. Gile, D. (2008) Local cognitive load in simultaneous interpreting and its implications for empirical research. Forum 6(2): 59–77. Gile, D. (2009) Basic Concepts and Models for Interpreter and Translator. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Gile, D. (ed.) (2014) Conference Interpreting Research Information Network. Available at: www.cirinandgile.com/Bulletin%2047%20Jan%202014.pdf. Jabbari, M. (2012) Diglossia in Arabic: A comparative study of the modern standard Arabic and Egyptian colloquial Arabic. Global Journal of Human Social Science 12(8): 22–35. Available at: https://globaljournals.org/GJHSS_Volume12/3-Diglossia-in-Arabic-A-Comparative-Study.pdf. Lesson, L. (2005) Making the effort in simultaneous interpreting: Some considerations for signed language interpreters. In: Janzen, T. (ed.) Topics in Signed Language Interpreting: Theory and Practice. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 51–68. Lonsdale, A. (1998/2001) Direction of translation (Directionality). In: Baker, M. (ed.) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. London and New York: Routledge, 63–67. Newmark, P. (1988) A Textbook of Translation. New York: Prentice Hall. Pavlović, N. (2007) Directionality in translation and interpreting practice: Report on a questionnaire survey in Croatia. In: Pym, A. and Perekrestenko, A. (eds.) Translation Research Projects 1: 79–95. Pöchhacker, F. and Schlesinger, M. (eds.) (2002) Interpreting Studies Reader. London and New York: Routledge. Russell, D. and Takeda, K. (2015) Consecutive interpreting. In: Mikkelson, H. and Jourdenais, R. (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Interpreting. London and New York: Routledge, 96–111. Seeber, K. (2015a) Cognitive load in simultaneous interpreting: Measures and methods. In: EhrensbergerDow, M., Göpferich, S., and O’Brien, S. (eds.) Inerdisciplinarity in Translation and Interpreting Process Research. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 18–34. Seeber, K. (2015b) Simultaneous interpreting. In: Mikkelson, H. and Jourdenais, R. (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Interpreting. London and New York: Routledge, 79–168. Seleskovitch, D. (1968) L’interprète dans les Conférences Internationals: Problèmes de langage et de communication. Paris: Minard Lettres Modernes. Seleskovitch, D. (1986) Interpreter pour traduire. Paris: Didier Erudition. Whyatt, B. (2010) Bilingual language control in translation tasks: A TAP study into mental effort management by inexperienced translators. In: Arabski, J. and Wojtaszek, A. (eds.) Neurolinguistic and Psycholinguistic Perspective on SLA. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 79–92.

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Appendix 22.1 Questionnaire This questionnaire will serve as an instrument in the fulfillment of a research on comprehension and production problems that Arab learners of simultaneous interpreting face when interpreting into Arabic. Your response will be confidential and will only be used for research purposes. Thank you very much for your time and support. School and type of educational system: _____________________________________________ Please circle the choice that describes your preference the most. 1)

2)

3)

While interpreting the English speech, you were able to comprehend a. most of the SL speech b. half of the SL speech c. less than half of the SL speech A- While interpreting into Arabic, you produced a. grammatically correct sentences b. some fragments and incomplete sentences c. individual words without sound structure or clear relation B- While interpreting into Arabic, you a. used Modern Standard Arabic all along b. used few Egyptian colloquial words c. mixed between both

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PART VI

Technical translation Issues and challenges

23 TRANSLATING ARABIC NAMED ENTITIES INTO ENGLISH AND SPANISH Translation consistency at the United Nations Carmen Sainz-Quinn and Manuel Feria

Introduction The United Nations (UN) committees are in charge of monitoring the implementation of human rights instruments by the 193 Member States. A dialogue is established periodically between each committee and State. It is initiated by a State’s report and ends with the concluding observations of the committee. Each dialogue or reporting cycle involves a constant flow and exchange of generally public information. The documents generated include a huge amount of institutional information, which is eventually made available through the Internet. The complexity and variety of monitoring mechanisms as well as the time distance have generated a vast amount of text corpora and information. As a result, Information Retrieval (IR) and Information Extraction (IE) are essential tools for monitoring the implementation of human rights at a national, regional, and international level. In this sense, the Arabic language has attracted a significant amount of attention in recent years, particularly in regard to IR and IE of Arabic Named Entities (ANEs). This cross- institutional, supra- national dialogue is subject to the principle of multilingualism. Thus, each reporting cycle comprises a set of documents (i.e., State report, list of issues, written replies, and concluding observations) as well as their translations. For instance, a State report submitted in Arabic to the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) is usually translated into English, French, and Spanish by translators in the United Nations Division of Conference Management (DCM), never by government translators. The committee’s written replies, which are in English, are also translated by the DCM staff at least into Arabic, Spanish, and French (if not into more languages). All reports are available online. Presumably, the State will make use of the DCM’s Arabic translation of the committee’s answer. When the State replies in Arabic, its answer is once again translated into English by the DCM staff. Regardless of the number of reporting cycles and languages involved, this complex process should always be envisaged as a single communicative act, in which translation plays a crucial role.

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Garre (1999) argues that each category of human rights texts differs and embodies translation problems of varying nature and importance. More specifically, the monitoring reports analyzed here are the bulk of the Arabic texts to be translated at the UN, and they are a source of translation difficulties. Based on our professional experience, State reports written in Arabic reflect a wide variety of translation issues. These include, among others, the following: (1) culture-specific references (including religious and taboo-related matters); (2) targetlanguage lexical and terminological gaps (including legal concepts related to Sharia Law); (3) lack of terminological standardization in Arabic (particularly in scientific and administrative terminology); (4) identification, translation, and/ or transliteration or transcription of Named Entities (NEs); and (5) the quality and lack of documentary resources available. From a process-oriented perspective, translators working from Arabic must have outstanding skills to successfully handle dissimilarities and gaps. When translation is viewed as a product rather than a process, State reports in Arabic are also problematic, mainly because of their lack of consistency as will be demonstrated in this study for the first time. Such inconsistencies obviously have a negative impact on information extraction, and may hamper the constructive dialogue and monitoring of human rights instruments over time and across committees. The consequences of this should be thoroughly analyzed. Inconsistency in the translation product may be due to any or all of the following: (1) the high frequency of NEs (2.4 per sentence, according to Samy et al., 2004); (2) the complexity of the information flow in the UN; (3) the chronological distance between cycles; and (4) the rapid evolution of the national scenario described in the texts. In the case of Arabic, consistency is also negatively affected by the previously mentioned process-related issues, the insufficiency of information and documentation sources (Fall and Zhang, 2011), and the unavailability of efficient computer- assisted translation tools, which are now crucial for ensuring consistency in institutional translation (Koskinen, 2011). Moreover, as highlighted by Garre (1999: 54), inconsistencies in the translation of human rights instruments into national languages ‘create confusion and uncertainty about how human rights texts are to be understood’, and as a consequence, original texts become unclear or even non-existent (Garre, 1999). In our case, inconsistencies in State reports translated from Arabic hinder the extraction and retrieval of relevant institutional information and thus create confusion, not about how human rights instruments are to be understood at a national level, as proven by Garre, but rather about how they have been implemented on the ground. Using a corpus-based approach, this chapter presents the results of an exploratory research study on translation consistency of two types of ANEs: national corporate entity names and regulation names (NCENs and RNs), in State reports submitted to the UNOG. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the translation of ANEs, IR, IE, and Named Entity Recognition (NER) has been addressed in any depth. The remainder of the chapter is structured as follows: discussion of the state of the art on the topic, followed by the objectives of this study. Thereafter, we will describe the corpus and the methodology used for data extraction, present the data obtained, and discuss the results. Finally, we will list the conclusions and propose further research.

State of the art Translation consistency and NEs In the last decade, consistency has been used as a parameter for the assessment of machine translation quality or of machine translation versus human translation quality. Itagaki et al. (2007), for example, measured consistency within a single document by extracting translations for 382

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compound nouns from a bilingual corpus using a Gaussian mixture model classifier. Guillou (2013) performed a corpus-based analysis of the translation consistency of frequent words classified by grammatical category and highlighted the high number of studies on lexical consistency in machine translation in comparison to those on human translation. However, it is difficult to automatically measure general translation consistency since the polysemy inherent in natural language makes the choice of lexical equivalents context-sensitive. Nonetheless, it is true that ‘semantically heavy words are more likely to have unique counterparts in other languages, so they tend to be translated more consistently than semantically lighter words’ (Melamed, 1997: 41). Nevertheless, this is not the case when translating NEs. NEs included in the reports submitted by Arab States to UN committees may already have English or French institutionally established equivalents (Molina and Hurtado Albir, 2002), given that those States are bilingual in theory or in practice. These English or French institutional equivalents, referring to realia, should be consistently maintained when Arabic reports are rendered into those languages. If there is no institutional equivalent, which is always the case in Spanish, the UN translation services should provide one. In both cases, regardless of the accuracy of the national equivalent or the rendition proposed, a one-to-one degree of consistency should be expected in the translation of NEs in all documents referring to the same State. This is a well- defined scenario for analyzing consistency in institutional translation and its role in the connection between a supranational organization and the outside world. Surprisingly, this is an issue that has not been sufficiently explored in translation studies, especially in regard to under-researched source languages such as Arabic. Research in translation consistency, which has also been largely ignored in literature on legal translation from Arabic (for instance, El- Farahaty, 2015), opens interesting fields of cross- linguistic research. For example, in regard to the translation of proper names from English into Spanish, Moya (1993, 2000) underlined the importance of strategies such as transference, literal translation, paraphrases, and the use of original acronyms. These strategies may be somewhat less relevant for translation from Arabic because of the different conceptions of transference (which include transliteration or transcription in our case) and of literal translation (for a greater linguistic asymmetry and a lower cultural permeability), and the potential lower percentage of acronyms in Arabic. More specifically, only 1 percent of the total number of NEs recorded in the corpus used in Samy et al. (2004) were found in Arabic as acronyms, in contrast to 4 percent in the English and Spanish corpus. The Arabic unicase alphabet, the unavoidably polysemous nature of the Arabic language (Zanned, 2005), and other language- specific challenges may make it difficult even for experienced translators to decide whether the types (using NER terminology) should be meaning-translated or simply transliterated (a problem not found when translating from English into Spanish, for example). Automatic NER is also affected by these features of Arabic (Habash, 2010; Shaalan, 2014). The connection between NE language- dependent patterns, NER, and translation is an innovative approach in translation studies, which has only been addressed in Arabic by Samy et al. (2004) and Samy (2005), who also used a parallel corpus of UN texts. However, their seminal work hardly exhausts the topic, and their objectives did not coincide with ours. First, because of the questionable representativeness of Samy’s analyzed sample (300 Arabic– Spanish sentence pairs = about 9,000 Spanish words).1 NE translation was only addressed to a very limited extent, and a study of translation consistency was thus not feasible. Second, the NE tagging system used in Samy et al. (2004) was not suitable for our purposes since it does not include the names of regulations. Nor does it consider directionality (i.e., source language and target language), despite the 383

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fact that this is a crucial issue in translation studies. She only makes the observation that the remarkable resemblance between the Arabic and English texts in the corpus ‘can be explained if we consider the probability that the Arabic text was originally translated from the English text’. Therefore, her conclusions cannot be taken into account in translation studies. Despite these flaws, Samy’s analysis of language- dependent patterns is of great value given its originality.

Arabic Named Entity Recognition (ANER) NER research has played a crucial role in information extraction since the 1990s. NER can be defined as ‘the task that attempts to locate, extract, and automatically classify Named Entities into predefined classes or types in open- domain and unstructured texts, such as newspaper articles’ (Nadeau and Sekine, 2007, quoted in Shaalan, 2014: 470). Evidently, this kind of tool would be extremely useful for our purposes. ANER, however, has not proved to be a simple task (Farghaly and Shaalan, 2009; Habash, 2010; Shaalan, 2014). For example, Florian et al. (2004: 3) highlight the difficulties linked to Arabic language peculiarities for mention detection (in their terminology). An example is segmentation ambiguity, because of Arabic root- and- patterns and pronoun attachment, all of which require complex Natural Language (NL) tasks (e.g., tokenizing and sometimes remerging prefixes and suffixes to stems using a probabilistic model). Mohit (2014: 230) also insists on the difficulties that Semitic languages present for NER: Named entity recognition inherits many of the general problems of Semitic NLP; complex morphology, the optional nature of short vowels (diacritics) and generally the non- standard orthography are well known problems involved in the processing of Semitic languages which also affect NER. Named entity tagging in multilingual corpora including Arabic was first studied by Samy et al. (2005) and Samy (2005). These authors rightly stress the importance of using named entity tags for aligning parallel corpora that include languages with a weak or even with no graphic relationship. They also add that ANER and transliteration (and transcription) should be comprehensively addressed. Since transliteration only covers one subset of NEs, there is the need for a detailed study of the other NE categories in Arabic scripted languages, in particular, without limiting the approaches to transliteration (Samy et al., 2005). This is precisely the objective of our study. The BAMA (Buckwalter Arabic Morphological Analyzer) bilingual lexicon, exploited by the MADA (Morphological Analysis and Disambiguation for Arabic) system, includes capitalization, which evidently facilitates the localization of ANER (Shaalan, 2014). Nonetheless, despite the possibilities provided by the MADA+TOKAN toolkit (Habash et al., 2009) and other NER systems (Shaalan, 2014), ‘most of the efforts to develop reliable ANER systems have been undertaken for commercial purposes’ (Shaalan, 2014: 490) and thus could not be accessed. ANER, unlike IR and IE, has made considerable progress since 2015, as reflected in the research presented at the First International Conference on Arabic Computational Linguistics. However, all the attempts to trigger the efficiency of ANER systems presented there (Elsayed and Elghazaly, 2015; Mesmia et al., 2015; Trabelsi et al., 2015) lack a sufficient quantity of linguistic data. Furthermore, no Named Entity Tag Set currently available at the moment is 384

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suitable for our purpose since none includes a tag for regulation names (Samy et al., 2006; Shaalan, 2014). This is evidently a serious flaw.

Translation at the UN The first institutional report on this issue states that ‘translation is essential to UN system international information and communication responsibilities, but no comprehensive study of the system’s translation process has ever been made’ (Allen et al., 1980). However, as underlined in a more recent UN report, it is universally acknowledged that ‘the number of official documents to be translated has dramatically increased in the last decades … However, there has not been a matching increase in resources’ (Fall and Zhang, 2011: 24). Rather surprisingly, there is still very little institutional research on translation at the UN. The few studies available exclusively focus on translation from English into Arabic, though never from Arabic into any other official language. One of the purposes of our study is to fill this gap. In the academic world, the first study on translation at the UN was Lafeber’s seminal work (2012), which analyzes the abilities and competences required to be a UN translator and their implications for staff selection processes. The short list of academic work on translation at the UN ends with Feria (2013), who found that Islamic concepts and terminological variation were the main difficulties in the translation of UN texts from Arabic. There are also very few, if any, institutional or pseudo- institutional guidelines on translation from Arabic at the UN or on consistency in the translation of NEs. Only Sánchez- Ratia (electronic resource) mentions this topic, though with an exclusive focus on issues related to transliteration, Hijri calendar and others used in the Arab countries, personal and location names, and Qur’an quotes. The United Nations Editorial Manual Online (‘United Nations Editorial Manual Online’, n.d.) also provides a set of basic rules concerning the use of capital letters in all English documents, according to which all NCEN and RN should be written with initial capital letters when translating from Arabic into English. Finally, a series of recommendations for the Spanish Translation Service published in 2015 concerning the translation of legal documents (‘Orientaciones para la traducción de textos jurídicos – Paginilla’, n.d.) also refers to the use of capital letters for laws, national agencies, ministries, and other political bodies.

Objectives The main objective of this research is to obtain qualitative and quantitative insights into the translation of ANEs, particularly in terms of translation consistency and translation techniques, and their possible implications for IR and IE. For that purpose, we quantified inconsistency in two categories of ANE (NCENs and RNs). The variations thus detected were then classified and quantified. In our opinion, the research findings obtained provide valuable information regarding the institutional translation of Arabic at the UN and its translation policies.

Corpus and methodology Corpus Our sample was extracted from a corpus which comprised all the national monitoring reports submitted between 2000 and 2014 by Arab States to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). This corpus consisted of 6.9 million words in Arabic, English, and 385

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French, of which 5 million were originally submitted in Arabic. The corpus fully met confidence requirements. The documents were downloaded directly from the OHCHR website and are not subject to intellectual and industrial property rights. According to Alotaiby et al. (2010), clitics represent 41.3 percent of the total number of characters in an Arabic text. Therefore, in order to facilitate cross-linguistic comparisons, the number of Arabic words in our corpus (and in all our calculations) was calculated by multiplying the number of graphical words by 1.413. A subsequent analysis of the corpus showed that Yemen was the Arab State that had submitted the highest number of words in Arabic in national monitoring reports (722,704), followed by Lebanon and Jordan. Accordingly, Yemen was considered to be the most representative State for our purposes. Once the country had been chosen, the next step was to select a committee, depending on the availability of documents in different reporting cycles separated by as much time as possible. This was done in order to be able to study consistency from a diachronic perspective. In addition, all documents had to be available in Spanish as well as English. Therefore, due to the characteristics of this study many reports were unavoidably excluded. Although the task proved to be more difficult than initially expected, the following documents were finally included in our sample: • •

Two reports submitted by Yemen to the Committee Against Torture (CAT) over a span of six years: CAT/C/16/Add.10 (2003) and CAT/C/YEM/2 (2009). Two reports submitted to the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESCR) over a span of 12 years: E/ 1990/ 5/ Add.54 (2002) and E/ C.12/ YEM/ 3 (2014).

Consequently, the sample comprised 304,461 words (see distribution of words per language and report in Table 23.1). The number of Arabic words included in our sample (103,290) corresponds to 28.9 percent of the total analyzable corpus from the total bulk submitted by Yemen, which comprised a total of 357,509 words in Arabic. Yemen being the most significant State in the Arab world in terms of number of words submitted to the UNOG, we can assure that our sampling is statistically sound. Table 23.1 shows the number of words in English, Spanish, and Arabic in each report.

Methodology There is a lack of computer applications for automatic data extraction and collection supporting Arabic. The few existing tools are trained on news corpora. They have names of people, organizations, and locations (Mohit, 2014), but do not have any Named Entity Tag Set. For

Table 23.1 Number of words in the sample

Arabic English Spanish

CAT/C/16/Add.10

CAT/C/YEM/2

E/1990/Add.54

E/C.12/YEM/3

Total

19,019 18,367 18,760

37,819 34,511 38,869

24,647 22,488 24,505

21,805 19,783 23,888

103,290 95,149 106,022

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this reason, the extraction of items was performed manually and relied on ‘human annotation and verification’ (Shaalan, 2014: 477). The location of equivalents in English and Spanish was relatively simple since all paragraphs followed the same numbering. All variations found were taken into account. After extracting our data from the sample, we calculated the absolute percentages of the items that were inconsistently translated. To calculate the degree of variability of those items, we finally decided to use an adapted version of the algorithm developed by Jaro (1989). The Jaro distance is a string metric for measuring the difference between two sequences of characters. Informally, it is the minimum number of single- character edits required to change one string into another. The greater the distance, the more similar the strings are. The score is normalized such that 0 equates to no similarity and 1 is an exact match (Winkler, 1990; Christen, 2006). The Jaro distance metric was improved after finding that ‘fewer errors typically occur at the beginning of names’, resulting in the Jaro- Winkler algorithm, which ‘increases the Jaro similarity measure for agreeing initial characters’ (Christen, 2006). However, the Jaro- Winkler distance was found to be unsuitable for our purposes, since any variation in any part of the string directly affected the consistent use of the items in our research. For this reason, the algorithm finally selected was the Jaro distance. Nonetheless, as previously mentioned, it quantifies similarity, whereas our purpose was to quantify dissimilarity. It was thus necessary to ‘adapt’ this algorithm by calculating the difference between 1 and the Jaro distance so as to obtain the degree of variability or the difference between items. Furthermore, inconsistencies can be described as simple variations or as mistakes. By variation we mean a translation that is semantically and grammatically correct but which is different from other correct translations of the same ANE, thus hampering IR. One example of variation is ‘criminal code’ and ‘penal code’ for ‫ﻗﺎﻧﻮﻥ ﺍﻟﻌﻘﻮﺑﺎﺕ‬. In contrast, an error is a translation of a source-language NE that is semantically erroneous or grammatically incorrect. Since errors are not within the scope of this research, in what follows, the concept of inconsistency refers to variation.

Data Inconsistency A total of 8.9 percent of the items were repeated in both documents submitted to the CAT, 7 percent in those submitted to the CESCR, and 11.4 percent in those submitted to both UN committees. Tables 23.2, 23.3, and 23.4 specify the number of ANEs and the number of inconsistent NEs in the intra-textual, cross-textual, and cross-committee analyses. Table 23.2 Inconsistent NE translations (intra-textual analysis)

Inconsistent NEs ANEs

CAT/C/16/Add.10 CAT/C/YEM/2 E/1990/5/Add.54 E/C.12/YEM/3

English

Spanish

RN

NCEN

RN

NCEN

RN

NCEN

18 43 41  9

 8 71 38 34

0 3 5 1

1 7 1 0

3 11 6 1

3 6 1 2

387

Carmen Sainz-Quinn and Manuel Feria Table 23.3 Inconsistent NE translations (cross-textual analysis)

Inconsistent NEs UN Committee

ANEs

CAT CESCR

English

Spanish

RN

NCEN

RN

NCEN

RN

NCEN

9 4

5 7

8 4

2 2

7 2

3 4

Table 23.4 Inconsistent NE translations (cross-committee analysis)

Inconsistent NEs ANEs

English

Spanish

RN

NCEN

RN

NCEN

RN

NCEN

13

12

11

4

12

10

Table 23.5 Inconsistency expressed as percentages of absolute values

English

CAT CESCR

CAT/C/YEM/Add.10 CAT/C/YEM/2 E/1990/5/Add.54 E/C.12/YEM/3

Spanish

Intratextual

Crosstextual

Crosscommittee

Intratextual

Crosstextual

Crosscommittee

3.9% 8.8% 7.6% 2.3%

71.4%

44%

23% 15% 9% 7%

71.4%

88%

54.6%

54.6%

Table 23.6 Average point of variability of each inconsistent item, expressed as percentages

English

CAT CESCR

CAT/C/YEM/Add.10 CAT/C/YEM/2 E/1990/5/Add.54 E/C.12/YEM/3

Spanish

Intratextual

Crosstextual

Crosscommittee

Intratextual

Crosstextual

Crosscommittee

1% 14.6% 18.5% 41.3%

26.2%

20.8%

10% 25% 18.9% 17.6%

47.2%

19.1%

21.8%

19.9%

Tables 23.5 and 23.6 show the degree of intra-textual, cross-textual, and cross-committee inconsistency for both target languages, expressed as percentages of absolute values and as ‘adapted’ Jaro distance values. 388

Translating Arabic Named Entities Table 23.7 Categorization of variation in ANE translations into English and Spanish

Target-to-target inconsistencies

Linguistic phenomenon

Example

Orthographic choice

Indistinct use of upper case, hyphenation, parentheses, and so on: ‘Social reform institution for boys’ and ‘Social Reform Institution for Boys’, for ‫ﺩﺍﺭ ﺍﻟﺘﻮﺟﻴﻪ‬ ‫ﺍﻻﺟﺘﻤﺎﻋﻲ ﻟﻠﺒﻨﻴﻦ‬ Use of synonyms to render the same concept: ‘Council of Ministers Decree’ and ‘Council of Ministers Decision’, for ‫ﻗﺮﺍﺭ ﻣﺠﻠﺲ ﺍﻟﻮﺯﺭﺍء‬ Use of different morphosyntactic structures to render the same meaning (for instance, /noun+adjective+noun/ or /noun+preposition+noun/): ‘Department of Prisons’ and ‘Prisons Department’, for ‫ﻣﺼﻠﺤﺔ‬ ‫ﺍﻟﺴﺠﻮﻥ‬

Lexical choice

Morphosyntactic choice

Source-to-target inconsistencies

Translation technique

Example

Amplification/ compression

Addition or suppression of elements, for instance: ‘Ley de prisiones’ [literally, ‘Prison Act’] and ‘Ley de reglamentación de la Dirección General de Prisiones’ [‘General Directorate for Prisons Regulation Act’], for ‫ﻗﺎﻧﻮﻥ ﺍﻟﺴﺠﻮﻥ‬

Generalization/ particularization

Use of, respectively, hyperonyms or hyponyms; for instance: ‘Hogar para delincuentes juveniles’ [‘Juvenile Center’] and ‘Hogar para niñas delincuentes’ [‘Female Juvenile Center’], for ‫ﺩﺍﺭ ﺭﻋﺎﻳﺔ‬ ‫ﺍﻟﺠﺎﻧﺤﺎﺕ‬

Variation A qualitative analysis of the data showed two types of variation: 1. Target-to-target inconsistencies: those explainable by linguistic phenomena only related to the target language. 2. Source- to- target inconsistencies: those explainable by the translation technique used to render the source item (Molina and Hurtado Albir, 2002). Table 23.7 shows these categories in more detail and with examples. Figures 23.1–23.5 illustrate the quantification of those categories of variations intratextually, cross- textually, and cross- committee in English and Spanish. Given that the same item can have different types of variation, stemming from lexical as well as orthographic choices, the sum of the percentages exceeds 100.

389

CAT (English) 36.36%

Variation: Orthographic Variation: Lexical choice

10% 0% 80% 27.27% 40%

Variation: Morphosyntactic

27.27% 30%

T.t.: Amplification/compression 9.09% 10%

T.t.: Generalization/particularization

Intra-textual analysis

Cross-textual analysis

Figure 23.1 Variations in English of the CAT intra-textual and cross-textual analyses

CESCR (English) Variation: Orthographic

0% 0% 57.14%

Variation: Lexical choice

83.33% 42.86% 50%

Variation: Morphosyntactic 28.57% 16.67%

T.t.: Amplification/compression T.t.: Generalization/particularization

0% 0%

Intra-textual analysis

Cross-textual analysis

Figure 23.2 Variations in English of the CESCR intra-textual and cross-textual analyses

CAT (Spanish) 17.39%

Variation: Orthographic

30% 56.52%

Variation: Lexical choice 39.13%

Variation: Morphosyntactic T.t.: Amplification/compression T.t.: Generalization/particularization

80% 90%

13.04% 40% 4.35% 10%

Intra-textual analysis

Cross-textual analysis

Figure 23.3 Variations in Spanish of the CAT intra-textual and cross-textual analyses

Translating Arabic Named Entities

CESCR (Spanish) Variation: Orthographic

20% 0% 40%

Variation: Lexical choice

50%

Variation: Morphosyntactic

16.67% 30%

T.t.: Amplification/compression T.t.: Generalization/particularization

83.33%

16.67% 0% 0%

Intra-textual analysis

Cross-textual analysis

Figure 23.4 Variations in Spanish of the CESCR intra-textual and cross-textual analyses

Cross-committee analysis Variation: Orthographic

9.09% 9.09% 45.45%

Variation: Lexical choice

63.64% 63.64%

Variation: Morphosyntactic

50% 27.27% 31.82%

T.t.: Amplification/compression T.t.: Generalization/particularization

18.18% 9.09% English

Spanish

Figure 23.5 Variations in English and Spanish of the CAT and CESCR cross-committee analysis

Discussion of results The following can be derived from the data section: Inconsistency for absolute values was found to be higher in the cross-textual analysis than in the intra-textual analysis for both target languages, particularly in English. For the CAT, the average was 7.5 times higher: 11.3 times higher for English, and 3.8 times higher for Spanish. For the CESCR, the average was 9 times higher: 11 times higher for English and 7 times higher for Spanish. This difference is very significant. For Spanish reports, inconsistency in the cross- committee analysis was 1.4 times higher than in the cross-textual analysis. However, the same was not true for English. Significant differences were also found between the target languages in the intra-textual and cross-committee analyses where English translations showed a higher level of consistency.

391

Carmen Sainz-Quinn and Manuel Feria Table 23.8 Parallelism examples in CAT

English 2003

Spanish 2003

English 2009

Spanish 2009

Consultative Council

Consejo Consultivo

Penal Code

Código Penal

Code of Conduct for Lawyers

Código de conducta de los abogados

Shura (Advisory) Council Code of Offences and Penalties Law Profession Regulation Act

Consejo de la Shura (asesor) Código de Delitos y Penas Ley de ejercicio de la profesión jurídica

The Spanish translations were an average of 3.9 times more intra- textually inconsistent than the English ones in the CAT, and an average of 2 times more intra- textually inconsistent than the English ones in the CESCR. The Spanish translations were 2 times more inconsistent in the cross- committee analysis than the English translation. Therefore, the inter- language difference is very significant at the intra- textual level, and particularly in the CAT. Furthermore, the Spanish translations showed a higher point of average variability of each inconsistent item than the English translations in the CAT. The rest of the analyses (the CESCR and cross-committee) showed similar values in both languages. It is hardly surprising that, regardless of the target language, the degree of translation consistency was negatively affected by changing the committee to which the translation was forwarded, and as the time gap between the source texts increased. In contrast, the high degree of inconsistency was quite unexpected, especially since it could dramatically affect IR and IE for several States and committees over long periods of time. Cross-linguistically, the very high degree of inconsistency in the intra-textual analyses for Spanish in comparison to English could be explained by the impact of total or partial relay. As is well known, this involves tighter deadlines and probably the intervention of several translators. The fact that the Spanish translations showed astonishingly similar parallelisms with the English ones supports this hypothesis. The parallelisms were particularly noticeable in the CAT reports (see Table 23.8), and it is precisely in those reports where the level of intratextual inconsistency is higher. Relay translation may have been an unavoidable necessity because of the lack of translators from Arabic into Spanish. Regardless of the reason, this remarkable rate of intra- textual variation could very well contribute to the diachronic proliferation of inconsistency. Since Spanish is not a co- official language in any Arab State and ANEs are not easily found in the United Nations Multilingual Terminology Database (UNTERM), Spanish translators are forced to rely on previous translations carried out within the institution rather than on national sources. On the other hand, most intra-textual inconsistencies in English were due to orthographic variations in CAT, which would not hamper IR and IE. In contrast, at all levels of analysis both in English and at cross- textual and cross- committee levels in Spanish, most variations were found to be due to linguistic phenomena such as lexical choices and morphosyntactic variations rather than to translation choices. This seems to highlight the impact of the linguistic asymmetry of the source and the target languages. The absence of translation techniques such as borrowings and calques in our data, which are crucial when translating NEs from English into Spanish, also supports the idea 392

Translating Arabic Named Entities

that equivalence, at least at the word and grammatical levels, as defined by Baker (1992), becomes blurred as linguistic and cultural asymmetry between source and target languages increases. Different alphabets can also be considered a factor denoting linguistic distance. In this sense, the total absence of transliteration or transcription as a translation technique for rendering ANEs in our data is indeed noteworthy. This appears to be evidence of low cultural permeability that would probably not surface in the opposite translation direction (e.g., translating from Spanish or, particularly, from English into Arabic) in the same institutional setting. This signifies that ‘natural equivalence’, according to which translating from A to B is the same as translating from B to A, is an illusion even in regard to NE translation. This highlights the social, economic, and political asymmetry of languages (Pym, 2010). The absence of acronyms in our data, which contrasts to their relative presence in Samy et al. (2004), may also point to different strategies in different translation directions at the UN. This result suggests that the corpus used by Samy et al. (2004) mainly or exclusively comprised translations into Arabic, and never from Arabic. Our data reflect an asymmetric relation between the languages involved with English as the dominant language at the national and supranational levels. This again leads us back to relay translation, a technique that can positively or negatively affect peripheral languages in all professional fields (Heilbron, 2010). At the UN, relay translation may become a thorny political issue yet the ‘line between control and convenience can be difficult to draw’ (Ringmar, 2012: 141). ‘Globally, the structures of relay translation align with a hierarchic “translational world system” (Heilbron, 1999), insofar that the IT [intermediate text] is, as a rule, in a dominating language whereas the original SL [source language] (and possibly the TL [target language]) is dominated’ (Ringmar, 2012: 143).

Conclusions and future research This research successfully measured inconsistencies in the translation of ANEs into English and Spanish in human rights texts submitted to the UNOG, and established a typology of variations with a statistically representative sample. We also calculated the average level of variability for each inconsistent item. The results obtained point to the relevance of NEs in national monitoring reports and the complexity of multilingual communication in large institutional settings as the UN. The main conclusion is that, regardless of the target language, the degree of translation consistency is negatively affected by changing the committee to which the translation is forwarded. Furthermore, the impact is greater as the time gap increases between the source texts. Our findings also provide significant insights into the language and culture-dependent nature of NE translation processes, and into the asymmetry that defines the relationship between different languages and the process of their translation in a supranational organization. They also suggest that the translation inconsistencies found may negatively affect IR and IE. The degree of inconsistency could be explained by the lack of human resources (translators from Arabic) as well as of specific guidelines to translate NEs within the institution and academic contexts. Solutions to this problem may include focusing on these items during the quality control process, avoiding relay translations, and enlarging the UN’s terminological databases. Given the exploratory nature of this study, further analysis and corpus enlargement would be advisable in order to confirm our findings. Nevertheless, the sample analyzed in this study was sufficiently representative in order to obtain significant results. 393

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The results of this study also open the path to new research areas and topics, such as the impact of translation inconsistency in monitoring the national implementation of human rights instruments, and translation policies at international organizations and their consequences on multilingualism and, in particular, on translation from Arabic. Future research directions include: • • • • • • • •



Compiling a larger multilingual corpus of genre- specific original Arabic texts with annotated multilingual NEs and human-tagged data. Preparing a large predefined list of typed ANEs, and analyzing them at all linguistic levels. Training and testing a machine learning-based NER system using these data. Cross- linguistically analyzing the impact of linguistic and cultural asymmetry between languages in the translation of NEs. Gaining insights into the consequences of relay translation in international organizations. Collecting data on the diachronically ripple effect of translation inconsistency in institutional settings. Calculating ANE coverage in UNTERM to show the extent to which database weakness in this field may have helped to foster translation inconsistency. Examining the reasons why there is a higher degree of translation inconsistency in Spanish from the perspective of the sociology of translation and translation policies. Measuring the impact of ANE translation inconsistency on IR and IE and on monitoring the human rights situation in the Arab world.

In our opinion, the study presented in this chapter will contribute to the improvement of Arabic translation in international organizations. At the same time, it provides valuable insights into multilingualism within supranational organizations and institutional translation of under-researched languages. Finally, it is also our hope that this research will facilitate the dialogue between Arab States and the community of nations in the field of human rights.

Note 1 The total corpus consisted of 1,200 sentence pairs and is available at www.lllf.uam.es/ ESP/ Arabe_ espa%C3%B1ol.html. The number of Spanish words is an estimation made by the authors of this chapter.

Further reading Al- Onaizan, Y., and Knight, K. (2002). Translating named entities using monolingual and bilingual resources. In: Proceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting on Association for Computational Linguistics. Association for Computational Linguistics, 400–408. Nóbrega, M. (2008). La traducción en las Naciones Unidas: la Torre de Babel o a orillas del East River. In: Actas del III Congreso El Español, Lengua de Traducción. Contacto y contagio. Brussels: Esletra, 135–142. Available at: http://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/esletra/pdf/03/013_nobrega.pdf. Piskorski, J., and Yangarber, R. (2013). Information extraction: Past, present and future. In: Poibeau, T., Saggion, H., Piskorski, J., and Yangarber, R. (eds.). Multi- Source, Multilingual Information Extraction and Summarization. Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer, 23–49.

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References Allen, M.E., Sibahi, Z., and Sohm, E.D. (1980). Evaluation of the Translation Process in the United Nations System. Geneva: Joint Inspection Unit, United Nations. Available at: www.unjiu.org/ en/ reports-notes/JIU Products/JIU_REP_1980_7_English.pdf. Alotaiby, F., Foda, S., and Alkharashi, I. (2010). Clitics in Arabic language: A statistical study. In: Otoguro, R., Ishikawa, K., Umemoto, H., Yoshimoto, K., and Harada, Y. (eds.). Proceedings of the 24th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation (PACLIC 24). Institute of Digital Enhancement of Cognitive Processing: Waseda University, 595–601. Available at: www. aclweb.org/anthology/Y10-1068. Baker, M. (1992). In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation. London and New York: Routledge. Christen, P. (2006). A comparison of personal name matching: Techniques and practical Issues. In: Sixth IEEE International Conference on Data Mining – Workshops (ICDMW’06). Hong Kong: IEEE, 290–294. El-Farahaty, H. (2015). Arabic-English-Arabic Legal Translation. London and New York: Routledge. Elsayed, H. and Elghazaly, T. (2015). A named entities recognition system for Modern Standard Arabic using rule- based approach. In: Proceedings of the 2015 First International Conference on Arabic Computational Linguistics (ACLing). Cairo: IEEE Computer Society, 51–54. Fall, P.L. and Zhang, Y. (2011). Multilingualism in the United Nations System Organizations: Status of Implementation. Geneva: Joint Inspection Unit, United Nations. Available at: www.unjiu.org/ en/ reports-notes/JIUProducts/JIU_REP_2011_4_English.pdf. Farghaly, A. and Shaalan, K. (2009). Arabic natural language processing: Challenges and solutions. ACM Transactions on Asian Language Information Processing (TALIP) 8(4): 1–22. Feria, García M. (2013). Algunos obstáculos en el proceso traductor de textos de las Naciones Unidas sobre derechos humanos redactados en árabe, o redactados en otras lenguas oficiales si incluyen conceptos islámicos. In: Alonso, I., Baigorri, J., and Campbell, H.J.L. (eds.). Translating the Law: Theoretical and Methodological Issues. 1st edn. Granada: Comares, 47–55. Florian, R., Hassan, H., Ittycheriah, A., Jing, H., Kambhatla, N., Luo, X., Nicolov, N., Roukos, S., and Zhang, T. (2004). A statistical model for multilingual entity detection and tracking. In: Marcu, D., Dumais, S., and Roukos, S. (eds.). Proceedings of the Human Language Technologies Conference 2004 (HLT- NAACL’04). Boston: Association for Computational Linguistics, 1–8. Available at: http:// acl.ldc.upenn.edu/ hlt- naacl2004/ main/ pdf/ 128_ Paper.pdf%5Cnpapers2:// publication/ uuid/ 1F731352-9B63-4D94-A8F3-C2945E5B097C. Garre, M. (1999). Human Rights in Translation: Legal Concepts in Different Languages. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press. Guillou, L. (2013). Analysing lexical consistency in translation. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Discourse in Machine Translation. Sofia: Association for Computational Linguistics, 10–18. Available at: www.aclweb.org/anthology/W13-3302. Habash, N.Y. (2010). Introduction to Arabic natural language processing. Synthesis Lectures on Human Language Technologies 3(1): 1–187. Habash, N.Y., Rambow, O., and Roth, R. (2009). MADA+TOKAN: A toolkit for Arabic tokenization, diacritization, morphological disambiguation, POS tagging, stemming and lemmatization. In: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Arabic Language Resources and Tools. Cairo, 102–109. Available at: www.researchgate.net/ publication/ 228529836_ MADATOKAN_ A_ toolkit_ for_ Arabic_ tokenization_ diacritization_ morphological_ disambiguation_ POS_ tagging_ stemming_and_lemmatization. Heilbron, J. (1999). Towards a sociology of translation: Book translation as a cultural world system. European Journal of Social Theory 2(4): 429–444. Heilbron, J. (2010). Structure and dynamics of the world system of translation. In: UNESCO International Symposium on Translation and Cultural Mediation, Paris. Available at: http://portal.unesco.org/culture/es/files/40619/12684038723Heilbron.pdf/Heilbron.pdf. Itagaki, M., Aikawa, T., and He, X. (2007). Automatic validation of terminology translation consistency with statistical method. In: Proceedings of MT Summit XI. Redmond: European Association for Machine Translation, 269–274. Available at: www.eamt.org. Jaro, M.A. (1989). Advances in record-linkage methodology as applied to matching the 1985 census of Tampa, Florida. Journal of the American Statistical Association 85(406). Available at: www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01621459.1989.10478785.

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Carmen Sainz-Quinn and Manuel Feria Koskinen, K. (2011). Institutional translation. In: Gambier, Y. and van Doorslaer, L. (eds.). Handbook of Translation Studies: Volume 2. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 54–60. Lafeber, A.P. (2012). Translation at Inter-Governmental Organizations the Set of Skills and Knowledge Required and the Implications for Recruitment Testing. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. Tarragona: Universitat Rovira i Virgili. Available at: www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/83500? show=full. Melamed, I.D. (1997). Measuring semantic entropy. In: Proceedings of the SIGLEX Workshop on Tagging Text with Lexical Semantics. Philadelphia, 41–46. Available at http:// acl.ldc.upenn.edu/ W/ W97/W97-0207.pdf. Mesmia, F.B., Friburger, N., Haddar, K., and Maurel, D. (2015). Transducers cascades for an automatic recognition of Arabic named entities in order to establish links to free resources. In: Proceedings of the 2015 First International Conference on Arabic Computational Linguistics (ACLing). Cairo: IEEE Computer Society, 61–67. Mohit, B. (2014). Named entity recognition. In: Zitouni, I. (ed.). Natural Language Processing of Semitic Languages. Berlin: Springer, 221–245. Molina, L. and Hurtado, Albir A. (2002). Translation techniques revisited: A dynamic and functionalist approach. Meta 47(4): 498–512. Moya, V. (1993). Nombres propios: su traducción. Revista de Filología de la Universidad de La Laguna 12: 233–247. Available at: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/91799.pdf. Moya, V. (2000). La Traducción de los Nombres Propios. Madrid: Cátedra. Available at: https://dialnet. unirioja.es/servlet/libro?codigo=96926. Nadeau, D. and Sekine, S. (2007). A survey of named entity recognition and classification. Lingvisticae Investigationes 30(1): 3–26. Pym, A. (2010). Exploring Translation Theories. London and New York: Routledge. Ringmar, M. (2012). Relay translation. In: Gambier, Y. and van Doorslaer, L. (eds.). Handbook of Translation Studies, Volume 3. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 141–144. Samy, D. (2005). Named entities: Structure and translation. A study based on a parallel corpus (ArabicEnglish-Spanish). In: Proceedings of Corpus Linguistics 2005. Birmingham. Available at: www.lllf. uam.es/~doaa/Publications/NamedEntitiesCorpusLinguistics05.pdf. Samy, D., Moreno, S.A., and Guirao, J.M. (2004). An alignment experiment of a Spanish-Arabic parallel corpus. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Arabic Resources and Tools (NEMLAR 2004). Cairo, 85–89. Available at: http:// elvira.lllf.uam.es/ ESP/ Publicaciones/ AlignmentPaper04. pdf. Samy, D., Moreno, S.A., and Guirao J.M. (2005). A proposal for an Arabic named entity tagger leveraging a parallel corpus. In: Proceedings of Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing RANLP. Borovets, 459–465. Available at: http://elvira.lllf.uam.es/ESP/Publicaciones/ArabicNE_RANLP.pdf. Samy, D., Moreno, S.A., José, M.G., and Enrique, A. (2006). Building a parallel multilingual corpus (Arabic-Spanish-English). In: Proceedings of the 5th Intl. Conf. on Language Resources and Evaluations, LREC- 06. Genoa. Available at: www.lllf.uam.es/ ING/ Publicaciones/ MultiCorpusPaperMod.pdf. Sección de Traducción al Español de las Naciones Unidas (2015). Orientaciones para la traducción de textos jurídicos – Paginilla. Available at: http:// conf.unog.ch/ paginilla/ recursos- de- traduccion/ orientaciones-para-la-traduccion-de-textos-juridicos. Shaalan, K. (2014). A survey of Arabic named entity recognition and classification. Computational Linguistics 40(2): 469–510. Trabelsi, F.B.F., Zribi, C.B.O., and Kouki, W. (2015). Combined classification for extracting named entities from Arabic texts. In: Proceedings of the 2015 First International Conference on Arabic Computational Linguistics (ACLing). Cairo: IEEE Computer Society, 55–60. Winkler, W.E. (1990). String comparator metrics and enhanced decision rules in the Fellegi- Sunter model of record linkage. In: Proceedings of the Section on Survey Research. Washington, 354–359. Available at: http:// scholar.google.com/ scholar?hl=en&btnG=Search&q=intitle:String+Comparator +Metrics+and+Enhanced+Decision+Rules+in+the+Fellegi- Sunter+Model+of+Record+Linkage#0 %5Cnwww.amstat.org/sections/srms/Proceedings/papers/1990_056.pdf. Zanned, L. (2005). Root formation and polysemic organization in Arabic lexicon: A probabilistic model. In: Alhawary, M.T. and Benmamoun, E. (eds.). Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XVII- XVIII: 85– 116. Available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2357579.

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24 A SURVEY OF THE UPTAKE OF CAT TOOLS IN OMAN Facts and implications Rafik Jamoussi and Isam Shallal

Introduction This chapter reports on the findings of an exploratory survey conducted at the beginning of 2016 to gain a comprehensive understanding of the adoption of CAT tools in the translation market in the Sultanate of Oman. The chapter equally purports to assess the role of different stakeholders, especially local translator training institutions, against the backdrop of the translator profile emerging from the study. Originally, the ambition to leverage computing power for translation aimed to develop fully automatic high quality Machine Translation (FAHQMT) systems. However, despite initial expectations and intensive investment in various research projects, results were disappointing. The 1966 Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee (ALPAC) report signaled the virtual end of research into early automatic translation systems, and expressed, among other recommendations, the need to reorient research towards approaches that enhance human translation (1966: 34) rather than supplant it (see Hutchins, 1998, and Somers, 2001, for a review of the history of translation technology). It is this very perspective that subsumes approaches and practices coming under the umbrella term of CAT. With CAT systems, translators resume their central role in the translation process while technology assists them. Procedures coming under CAT are fast evolving but usually comprise terminology extraction and management, bilingual or multilingual text alignment, and translation memory (TM) (Olohan, 2016: 42– 45).1 Among other particulars, the new generations of CAT tools feature the integration of MT into their workflow, albeit as an additional resource or an ‘optional adjunct’ (Garcia, 2015: 68; Sin-wai, 2015: 20) at the disposal of the translator. CAT technology has gone through different development stages since it emerged in the 1990s. Having focused on stability and computing power over its conventional era (Garcia, 2015: 69), more recent developments in CAT are characterized by the integration of previously standalone components, a migration from local computers or Local Area Networks to cloud computing, and the shift to interactive rather than individual and primarily sequential workflows (see Cronin, 2013: 98– 99, and Sin- wai, 2015: 13– 22). Though identified here as discrete, all these developments, in fact, feed into one another. CAT technology has gained such momentum that it has come to represent a paradigm shift in the translation profession, one that practitioners could not ignore (Bowker, 2015: 88).2 As for academics, they have on 397

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the whole advocated its integration in translator training curricula (Enríquez Raído, 2013; Pym, 2013). At the time of writing, studies that investigate translation technology in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are few and far between. In most cases, the handling of CAT only represents a spin-off of research projects that are broadly articulated around Natural Language Processing (NLP) and translation automation aspects with a focus on MT (see Zantout and Guessoum, 2000; Nassar, 2010; AlMutawa and Izwaini, 2015; Argeg, 2015). The most pertinent literature usually consists of national case studies. In chronological order, we can mention here Fatani (2009) for a focus on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Nassar (2010) for an investigation of the situation in the United Arab Emirates, Husseini (2011) for a focus on Egypt, and Argeg (2015) for a partial focus on Libya. Despite variations in foci between the different studies, and notwithstanding the fact that they report on different periods of time (as can be gathered from the publication dates), a number of common traits emerge. Thus, there seems to be a consensus among authors that the adoption of translation technology, and of the workflow that it imposes, is still in its early stages (Fatani, 2009; Husseini, 2011; AlMutawa and Izwaini, 2015: 392; Thawabteh, 2013: 81, 87). Equally apparent is the tendency at the institutional level to opt for MT rather than CAT (Fatani, 2009; AlMutawa and Izwaini, 2015: 392–393), either because this alternative is thought to require less specific expertise and is therefore deemed more economically viable (Husseini, 2011), or due to the sheer ignorance of the distinction between MT and CAT tools. In contrast to institutions, individual practitioners show a better awareness of CAT tools, though their use of them remains constrained by considerations of cost (Husseini, 2011), a still valid question (Bowker, 2015: 94) despite the emergence of less costly or even free alternatives and of the Software- as- a- Service (SAAS) option. At the level of training, the available literature on the MENA region provides a number of accounts and discussions of the integration of translation technology and specifically CAT tools in higher education institutions (HEIs) curricula, whether at the undergraduate or the postgraduate level.3 The rationales provided for this integration (see Husseini, 2011; Alotaibi, 2014: 66; Idir, 2014: 20) usually converge on the line of thought that HEIs are expected to align with newly identified requirements in the profession (see Gouadec, 2007; Frérot, 2016: 38; Bowker, 2015: 88– 90).4 Equally emerging from this roundup is that little or no thought has been given to the interaction between HEIs and the situation of the local market (see Fatani 2009 as an exception), or the role HEIs can play in upgrading knowledge of CAT technology therein.

The survey The survey is principally built around the following three objectives: (1) establishing the demographic profile of professional translators (age, gender, location, education, familiarity with general purpose technology), (2) establishing a professional profile of these translators (years of experience, workflow habits, translation areas, involvement in translation associations, client constraints), and finally (3) establishing an estimate of the integration of different categories of CAT tools among this target population. The questionnaire survey was chosen as the most appropriate data collection method in view of the quantitative data we were seeking. This type of exploratory survey among professional translators takes its lead from a body of research projects that were initiated towards the beginning of the new millennium (see Fulford and Granell- Zafra, 2005) and replicated ever since (see Sikora, 2012).5 398

CAT tools in Oman

In Oman, the strong presence of international companies whose working language is English makes translation an unavoidable aspect of communication, if only with government bodies where the official language is Arabic. The existence of a significant expatriate population6 equally makes translation a ubiquitous feature of everyday life. Despite this favorable context, translation remains an unorganized trade with no translator association or accurate official register.7 This setting makes it arduous to establish the number of professional translators or the proportions of their different categories.8 Given this situation, the only method that could be used to collect data was convenience sampling. This sampling method is common in translation studies (Saldanha and O’Brien, 2013: 34– 35, 164). It is a non- probability sampling method that relies on ‘recruiting the research participants … that are most easily accessible’ (Saldanha and O’Brien, 2013: 34). This method is often criticized for producing a sample with a low confidence as to the representativeness of the population being generalized to (Saldanha and O’Brien, 2013: 34– 35; Saunders et al., 2007: 234). Nevertheless, this sampling technique remains plausible for exploratory research of the kind undertaken in this chapter and is sufficient to gain initial insights into the situation under consideration and to generate hypotheses. The questionnaire was piloted over its development stages. This testing helped identify a number of lacunas and rephrase elements with interpretation issues. The survey questionnaire was designed with an introductory section that clearly explained the research focus. Following its validation, the survey was uploaded to an online survey service and advertised via social media. This data collection method is becoming increasingly popular (Saldanha and O’Brien, 2013: 47) for the advantages it provides over traditional methods (Saldanha and O’Brien, 2013: 166–167). Eight questionnaires were equally completed on hard copies due to the discomfort some translators experienced with online survey technology. The survey was conducted from January to March 2016.

Overview of survey findings A total of 84 responses were received. The online survey service allows for options such as making answers ‘compulsory’ for some or all questions. With this option, only questionnaires that are properly completed reach the researcher. The online survey equally allows for the use of skip logic. This option is built into the questionnaire design so that one or more questions can be skipped depending on the answer provided to an earlier question. This function optimizes the relevance of the questions for each respondent. Both options reduce the issues of unanswered questions or unfinished questionnaires and drastically limit the number of rejected responses that are due to these anomalies. Consequently, out of the 84 responses received for this survey, only one was eliminated, as the respondent in question was not located within the geo-political boundaries of Oman. The use of the online survey alternative and of social media as a vehicle for its dissemination entail that sample size, and consequently response rate, could not be quantified. However, given the overall population size of Oman, which amounts to 4.5 million according to the October 2016 Monthly Statistical Bulletin published by the National Centre for Statistics and Information in Oman, the number of returned responses can be considered satisfactory. A comparison, albeit crude, with similar studies supports this conclusion. Fulford and Granell- Zafra surveyed freelance translators in the UK in 2003 and collected 591 responses for a population of almost 60 million people. Sikora’s 2012 exploratory survey conducted in Poland returned 159 responses for a population exceeding 38.5 million people (Sikora, 2012). The Mellange survey on the use of corpora as a translation tool conducted at a pan-European 399

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level in 2006 and including the UK, France, Germany, and Italy (with an overall population of 265 million people) totaled 740 respondents (cited in Frérot, 2016: 46).

Respondent profile Survey results indicated that over 60 percent of respondents were Omani nationals, with the remaining 40 percent being expatriates. Males represented 60 percent of those surveyed. The population of respondents was found to be relatively young with 40.47 percent belonging to the 20– 30 age group. Percentages decreased steadily over the other age categories (Figure 24.1). Respondents were spanning across the major cities of the country. However, over 58 percent of them were found to geographically converge on the area of the capital Muscat, which represents the primary economic hub and the major population concentration of the country. Regarding educational background and qualifications, the majority of respondents were holders of a BA (over 57 percent), or of an MA (almost 31 percent). These degrees were mainly in the area of translation studies (almost 56 percent) and English studies (over 27 percent) (Figure 24.2). Concerning professional categorization, it was found that over 45 percent of respondents were freelancers, compared to about 31 percent in- house translators9 and almost 24 percent working full- time in translation agencies. Over 30 percent of respondents reported spending between two and ten hours per week on the job. This category consisted of a majority of freelancers (almost 54 percent). Conversely, the other end of the range (over 30 hours per week) represented over 21 percent of respondents and mainly consisted of in-house translators and translators working in agencies (Figure 24.3). Respondents came with a broad range of experience. The 2– 5 year category came out on top (almost 30 percent) and was closely followed by the 6– 10 year category (25 percent). The rest of the categories in the range, 11–15 and over 15 years, came out at 15.5 percent and over 17 percent respectively. The focus on local market characteristics revealed the predominance of Arabic and English as the working language pair of the totality of respondents. Other foreign languages, such as French, German, Spanish, and Urdu, remain marginal. In terms of subject areas, the results indicate that the highest demand is for general translation, followed in descending order by legal, financial/business, medical, and technical translation (Figure 24.4).

50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% 20–30

31–40

41–50

Figure 24.1 Respondent age distribution

400

51–60

Over 60

Other 2.38%

BA, 2.38

IT 2.38%

BA, 2.38

Business 2.38%

MA, 1.19 PhD, 1.19

Sciences 4.76%

Other, 1.19 BA, 2.38 PhD, 1.19

Foreign Languages 4.76%

BA, 1.19 MA, 3.57 Other, 1.19

English Studies 27.38%

BA, 19.04

MA, 4.76 PhD, 2.38 Other, 2.38

Translation Studies 55.95%

MA, 21.428

PhD, 2.38

0

5

10

15

20

25

BA, 29.76

30

35

Figure 24.2 Educational background

14 12 10

Freelancers

8 In-house translators

6

Translators in translation agencies

4 2 0 < 2 hrs

2–10 hrs

11–20 hrs

21–30 hrs

> 30hrs

Figure 24.3 Time spent on the job per week per professional category

General

80%

Legal

55%

Financial/business/commercial

47.50%

Medical

43%

Technical (Science & Technology)

40%

Literary

20%

Other

13%

Webpage localization Software localization Subtitling

10% 7.50% 4%

Figure 24.4 Distribution of translation jobs by subject areas

Rafik Jamoussi and Isam Shallal

40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Usually working on their own Usually working within a team Freelancers

In-house translators

Translators in translation agencies

Figure 24.5 Professional categories with working mode

The survey equally revealed that translation in Oman is a profession for individuals working solo. This working mode reaches 94.7 percent among the total number of freelancers and 92.3 percent among in-house translators. Even with respondents working in translation agencies, an environment that is supposedly more conducive to collaboration, results are unexpectedly high (80 percent) (Figure 24.5). The predominance of this working mode in the Omani context goes against the current global trend, whereby collaboration, in particular online and simultaneous collaboration, is becoming a salient feature of the translation workflow, powered by a universal convergence toward cloud computing (Gaspari, 2015: 585; Sin-wai, 2015: 14, 22). The widening usage of such concepts as (real- time) community translation and distributed translation attest to such development (Cronin, 2013: 90, 134; Gaspari, 2015: 585; Kelly et al., 2011: 77–78). Respondents equally displayed a low participation rate in online discussion groups (28 percent) and an even lower membership in professional associations (18.75 percent). It is believed that this partakes of the same translator-as-a-solitary-worker trait depicted above, as participation in online discussions removes barriers usually imposed by physical distance and enhances cooperation and consultation (Gaspari, 2015: 579–580). Data gathered about the uptake of general Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills revealed the standard use of word processing among translators, contrasting with a quasi- total absence of the use of other tools, such as optical character recognition (OCR), desktop publishing, or web publishing. Equally revealing is that over 17 percent of respondents reported relying on no ICT tools for their translation work. These results equally contrast with the standard skills that translators are increasingly expected to have and work practices they are expected to adopt (see Massey and Ehrensberger- Dow, 2011: para. 1; Frérot, 2016: 42– 43). This degree of familiarity, or indeed unfamiliarity, with ICT tools tallies with responses relative to the means translators deployed to promote their services. In this respect, relying on word- of- mouth comes first (over 36 percent), followed by social media (over 33 percent) (Figure 24.6).

Focus on clients A depiction of the translator profile would not be complete without a focus on clients. Responses indicated that the client category of individual natural persons dominated the market (over 57 percent). The private sector represented the second largest client category 402

CAT tools in Oman

36.25%

33.75%

21.25%

11.25%

11.25% 7.50% 1.25%

Word-of-mouth

Social media

Other

Own website

Online marketplace

Newspaper adverts

Yellow pages

Figure 24.6 Vehicles for promoting translation services (not including in-house translators since these are salaried employees)

70% 60%

58%

50%

46.25% 38.75%

40%

28.75%

30% 20%

11.25% 10% 0% Individuals

Private sector institutions

Public sector institutions

Organizations

Other

Figure 24.7 Categories and proportions of clients (not including in-house translators since these are attached to a single employer)

(over 46 percent), followed by public sector institutions (over 38 percent) and other organizations (over 28 percent) (Figure 24.7).10 Respondents reported that 41 percent of their clients regularly submitted translation jobs in soft copies. This rate revealed a general paucity of basic ICT usage among clients and contributed to the general situation relative to the use of technology (see ‘Discussion and implications for training’). Specifications set by clients in relation to translation jobs were equally minimal; 11.39 percent were found to require the use of specific file formats, 6.33 percent provided restrictions on the use of terminology and style, 2.53 percent made documentation available to the translator, and 2.53 percent specified the kind of CAT tools to use.

Focus on CAT tools Since their emergence in the late 1990s, CAT tools have witnessed a rapid development cycle. Following the initial focus on stability and computing speed, and influenced by capabilities made available through cloud computing, development has taken new directions that have 403

Rafik Jamoussi and Isam Shallal

boosted initial CAT functionalities and promoted new ones (Cronin, 2013: 98–99). Apart from changes in workflow that have already been referred to above, these developments comprise the increased integration of the different tools that are subsumed under CAT and the mining of further data resources such as monolingual and comparable corpora (Sin- wai, 2015: 11, 12, 13–22). However, not all the tools available to translators have been adopted to the same extent (Frérot, 2016: 45). A case in point is that of corpora, a concept that remains ‘poorly defined among professional translators’ (Gallego-Hernández, 2015: 387). The use of corpora is equally rarely requested by the market (Frérot, 2016: 46), despite enhancements these corpora can provide to efficiency through the contextualization of segments and the identification of translation equivalents that are not handled through more mainstream CAT procedures. The present study represents a preliminary investigation of the local market; three core CAT processes have been targeted. These are terminology extraction and management, alignment, and translation memory. The rationale for terminology extraction and management for translation purposes resides in the consistency the use of terminology confers on the translation work. In essence, this process consists in mining texts toward the generation of term candidates (Hutchins, 2005: 12; Groβjean, 2009). Once validated, these terms are added to a glossary for use at subsequent translation stages. Compared to manual methods, the use of dedicated technology to identify relevant terminology can significantly boost productivity (Bowker, 2005: 17– 18; Hutchins, 2005: 21). Almost 28 percent of respondents reported making use of terminology extraction and terminology management (Figure 24.8). In comparison to results established in other studies (Fulford and Granell- Zafra, 2005; Sikora, 2012), this rate is low. Sixty- eight percent of respondents making use of terminology extraction had an educational background in translation studies (Figure 24.9). The next process the survey investigated is alignment. Alignment consists in processing legacy translations, i.e., previously translated texts, to obtain ‘aligned’ (paired) source and target text segments (Kenny, 1999: 74; Kenny and Way, 2001; Melby et al., 2015: 412). The

62.82%

45.57%

45.57% 32.91%

27.85%

26.58% 21.52%

Terminology extraction & management

19.23%

Alignment Yes

No

Never heard of them

Figure 24.8 Use of CAT tools

404

17.95%

Translation Memory

CAT tools in Oman

80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% % of TSDG among terminology extraction & management users

% of TSDG among TM users

% of TSDG among alignment users

Figure 24.9 Use of CAT tools among Translation Studies Degree Graduates (TSDG)

output of this process is a bitext, a file11 that can be fed into a translation memory tool to be reused in the translation of new texts. The share of respondents who reported using alignment tools did not exceed 22 percent. Of the 78 percent who reported not using the tools, almost 33 percent had no knowledge of the process altogether (Figure 24.8). Results showed no clear connection between the use of alignment and the respondents’ educational background (Figure 24.9). The third CAT process investigated in the survey is Translation Memory. TM proper is the process whereby legacy translations are leveraged to assist in the translation of new texts (Olohan, 2016: 44). The TM tool helps the translator by retrieving and displaying segments from the database of legacy translations according to a preset similarity rate with the segment being translated (Somers, 2003b: 31; Garcia, 2015: 68, 69). For any retrieved segment, the translator has the option to adopt the proposed translation, possibly with some editing, or to produce a different one. Although the tool can be used ‘on the fly’ (Kenny, 1999: 74), i.e., without TM imports, and rely only on memorized segments of the project under way, the power of the tool resides in the possibility of importing Translation Memory and glossary files to take full advantage of legacy translations. Depending on the text, the subject area, and the quality of the imported Translation Memory and glossary files, the use of a translation memory tool can significantly boost productivity (Bowker et al., 2008: 36; Pym, 2011: 2). Responses to the question on the use of TM tools confirmed the profile emerging from the questions on terminology and alignment. The use of TM tools among respondents reached almost 19 percent. Nearly 18 percent admitted their total ignorance of the process (Figure 24.8). Results revealed that, contrary to what was demonstrated in other studies (Bowker and Marshman, 2009: 63– 64; Lagoudaki, 2006; Sikora, 2014: 504– 505), educational background had no meaningful impact on TM usage (Figure 24.9).

Age and the use of CAT tools The use of the three CAT processes investigated is directly related to the age variable. The analysis of the age groups of respondents who reported making use of these processes revealed that these respondents tended to be remarkably younger than the overall survey population (Figure 24.10).

405

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70.00% 60.00% 50.00%

Users of terminology extraction

40.00%

Users of alignment 30.00% Users of TM

20.00% 10.00% 0.00% 20–30

31–40

41–50

51–60

Over 60

Figure 24.10 Age distribution among users of CAT tools

Discussion and implications for training This section presents a discussion of the most significant findings of the survey and of the implications they bear for key stakeholders, with a particular focus on local translator training institutions. The survey results point at a deficit in the uptake of CAT tools, especially in comparison with other contexts (see ‘Focus on CAT tools’ above). The contrast is especially striking as a substantial portion of our respondents admitted their ignorance of this type of technology and of the advantages it can confer while in the European context, translators, and especially translation agencies, ‘see CAT tools as a given’ (European Commission, 2017: 13). Explanations for this situation are to be found in contextual dynamics shaped by the availability of training opportunities and the reality of client demand. Training opportunities can be broken into three types; academic training, in-service training, and personal development. The advent of translation- related technology and of CAT in particular and the recognition of the skills related to them have been followed by a global recommendation for HEIs to integrate these new skills into translator training curricula. This emerges, for instance, in the European Master’s in Translation that defines a reference framework of competences applied to the language professions (Massey and Ehrensberger- Dow, 2011; see also Arrouart, 2003; Bowker et al., 2008: 27; Frérot, 2016: 42– 43; Olvera- Lobo et al., 2005: 134; Sikora, 2014: 502). This puts HEIs in the frontline in terms of CAT training.12 As has been mentioned earlier, a connection between the use of translation- related technology and the translator’s educational background has been established in a number of markets. Looking at the context of the present study, the fact that a sizeable proportion of respondents did not have formal training in translation studies (44 percent) goes some way toward explaining the overall low uptake of technology. However, the main explanation lies with holders of translation degrees themselves. Contrary to what has been ascertained elsewhere, it was found in the present study that translators with a formal grounding in translation studies did not use CAT tools more frequently than the overall survey population. An initial explanation for this is to be found in the fact that the introduction of CAT tools in local HEIs (see Table 24.1) is both relatively novel and limited in scope (Shallal, 2018). The population of respondents comprised a significant proportion of non-Omanis to whom the discussion of developments in translator training in local institutions is not relevant. However, the increase in the percentage of Omanis from 61.73 percent in the overall survey 406

CAT tools in Oman Table 24.1 CAT modules in translator training programs in Oman

University

Module

Degree Type

Focus

Sultan Qaboos Translating University Skills and Technology

MA

Compulsory

Sohar University

Documentary Research & Translation Tools

BA

Compulsory

University of Nizwa

Translation and Technology

MA

Elective

Translation skills 2006 (paraphrasing editing, etc.), TM 2013 Information search, Machine Translation, pre- and postediting, TM 2015 Use of Statistical Machine Translation (SMT)

Dhofar University

Machine Translation

BA

Elective

Buriami University College

ComputerAssisted Translation

BA

Elective

Use of Statistical Machine Translation TM

Launch Comments year

2008

2012

Focuses on language analysis of texts translated through SMT Not regularly offered

Provides a theoretical and practical coverage

population to 68 percent for those Omani respondents with a background in translation studies promotes an interpretation of results that underscores the responsibility of local academic training. Given the galloping development of CAT- related technology, voices from academia have risen to orient training towards the acquisition of (generic) CAT skills (see the Reference Framework of Competences defined within the European Master’s in Translation, in Massey and Ehrensberger-Dow, 2011) rather than expertise in the use of specific CAT tools that usually become obsolete by the time the trainee accesses the job market (Austermühl, 2013: 330; Bowker, 2015: 93). This highlights the importance of the second major source of CAT tool knowhow, namely, experience in translation agencies, either in the form of internships (AlQinai, 2010: 136; Garcés and Toudic, 2015: 200), or through in-service training (AlQinai, 2010: 136), i.e., the training a translator gets upon joining a translation agency. With the reallife conditions the professional setting offers, the translator is ideally exposed to a variety of CAT tools to hone and update skills acquired in the academic setting. However, this alternative source of CAT skills is to be discarded in our context as the limited use of CAT tools is endemic, affecting all professional settings, translation agencies included. A third alternative for acquiring CAT skills is individual self-development initiatives, with the two options of either self- teaching (autodidactism) or training sessions. What is meant by self- teaching here is a set of scenarios whereby an individual acquires the relevant skills 407

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through reliance on documentation and on individual practical implementation. This option is strewn with challenges as the trainee here is left to his/her own devices with minimal guidance or mentoring. Support that can be obtained from professional associations (Bowker, 2015: 91) or the community of translators in dedicated online forums is to be ruled out in the present study given the low interest our respondents show towards this mode of communication. Alternatively, a translator can opt to pursue some professional development in CAT tools through enrolling in short training courses. This kind of training is one of the services provided by commercial software suppliers upon the purchase of the dedicated software bundle. These training sessions can equally be organized within HEIs (Bowker, 2015: 91). Unfortunately, translation training opportunities in Oman are rare and usually broad in nature and do not address the technological aspects under scrutiny here. More importantly, and independently from the option that is chosen, embarking on a personal development venture of this kind represents a heavy upfront investment that is usually motivated by the urge to meet market requirements and the prospects of adequate returns on investments upon achieving better productivity. Unfortunately, these motivating factors are absent in the Omani translation market. The last point mentioned above is especially significant, since the use of CAT tools, or lack thereof, can obviously not be accounted for solely in terms of translators but is rather to be seen as the outcome of the dynamic interplay between these translators and the market they evolve in. From this perspective, the configuration of the Omani market could be considered to represent another hurdle in the way of a large- scale implementation of CAT technology. A substantial proportion of this market consists of individual clients requesting one-off jobs. Clients in this category usually approach requests for translation jobs in a passive way; providing no guidelines apart from the document to translate (often in hard copy) and relying instead on the translator to identify the appropriate requirements for the job. As for corporate clients, studies conducted in other contexts show that they are usually directly involved through their adoption of terminology standardization (Groβjean, 2009: 11– 12; Olohan, 2016: 42), in-house style policies (controlled language), and a minimal amount of ICT awareness to facilitate file exchange with the translator or the Language Service Provider. However, our survey results indicated that clients themselves did not systematically implement workflows that integrate the use of technology (soft copies, file formatting, style sheet). While this situation can be seen to pertain to the same overall picture which the survey results depict, it becomes salient (even anomalous) in responses provided by in-house translators. Indeed, among all translation clients, companies that rely on their own translators are, at least in principle, most amenable to adopting more translation- friendly work standards. Thus, the overall picture depicts a lack of adequate training on the part of the translators and a lack of awareness of what the use of technology requires and of sometimes basic ICT usage on the part of the clients. These aspects feed into each other to create a vicious circle that does not encourage the adoption of CAT tools or the emergence of personal incentives to pursue professional development in the field. Rather, this situation fosters a negative attitude toward the use of this technology.

Focus on HEIs The binary between the workplace and the HEI, or more precisely between professional setting requirements and the training program components, is often expressed in terms of professional realism. In the words of Sikora, ‘any attempt to define translator competence should be 408

CAT tools in Oman

based on professional realism and take into account real market requirements set for the future translation service providers’ (2014: 501). However, within the Omani translation market this binary raises a number of questions, given the obvious awareness deficit of CAT tools, the basic concepts that underlie them, and the advantages they can bring. A prima facie reading of this situation would encourage the view that the same professional realism which, in other contexts, advocates the integration of CAT- related skills into training curricula leads to the conclusion that a similar integration within the Omani context needs to be delayed. In other words, the argument is that these skills should not be integrated into the curriculum until a market demand for them becomes apparent. Over and above the fact that HEIs should in fact prepare graduates for a global market rather than a local one, the major issue that can be taken with this professional realism perspective, at least within the local context, is that it confines HEIs to a passive role, whereby they can only react to current market demands. An alternative proactive approach can be envisaged whereby future market developments are anticipated and acted upon. In fact, this alternative approach was at the heart of debates that took place in Western institutions at an earlier stage of the technological turn in translation, as is reflected in Arrouart’s call: ‘N’attendons pas que sonne le tocsin de la pénurie des spécialistes avant d’inculquer des connaissances qui, si elles peuvent paraître futuristes ou utopiques aujourd’hui, sauront être mises à profit dans quelques années’ (Arrouart, 2003: 477).13 The professional realism perspective is restrictive in another, more fundamental, sense as it obliterates the role HEIs have to play as active agents in the development of the local community and industry, and consequently of the changes affecting the market they prepare their graduates for. Understandably, producing translators who are conversant with CAT tools would not be sufficient if these translators find themselves in a market where these skills are not in demand. Therefore, any attempts to upgrade the translator training curriculum have to be accompanied by an upstream intervention at the level of clients, especially corporate ones. The role of a local HEI in this respect would be to disseminate the use of CAT tool procedures and requirements among corporate clients and initiate these clients to the benefits of and the processes involved in workflow adjustments, which these processes require. Such awareness raising would not only enhance the clients’ readiness to have their translation work processed through CAT tools but would represent tangible intrinsic QA benefits for the client (Groβjean, 2009: 11–12).

Conclusion This chapter reports on a survey that was undertaken among translation professionals in Oman to investigate the extent of their familiarity with and use of translation-related technology. The survey results clearly point to a minimal awareness of the technology involved and therefore to a minimal integration of CAT tools into the translators’ working habits. This conclusion was found to be comprehensive with no noteworthy variations between the respondents’ educational backgrounds or the clients they deal with. The results equally show a market characterized by a significant proportion of individual clients submitting one- off jobs. The focus on corporate clients, on the other hand, shows a lack of awareness of the procedures that any work with CAT tools requires. These clients were found to rarely supply documentation, or require the use of specific file formats. The discussion of these results explored the role of the major stakeholders in this situation. This brought to the fore the fact that training opportunities relative to CAT skills have only lately been introduced into translator training curricula and that these introductions remain 409

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limited in scope. Other traditional training alternatives, such as self-teaching and training sessions, are seemingly nonexistent, hampered by the configuration of the local market. This same market configuration raises questions about any fuller and more comprehensive integration of CAT-related skills in translator training curricula, some protagonists preferring to delay this integration until a market demand becomes more conspicuous. However, it has been argued that such a delay would engender a vicious circle that would only further postpone the prospects of a more adequate (local) market configuration, as this market cannot spontaneously change and is itself in need of a catalyst. The way out of this conundrum is that if CAT tools are deemed essential for the alignment of the local translation market to international standards, a tradition of CAT-friendly processes should be integrated into the working practices of local corporate clients. The mission of inculcating this tradition is primarily incumbent on HEIs. This confers on HEIs the double role of not only training translators for CAT but also of educating corporate clients on their benefits and helping them upgrade their skill sets and workflows toward their adoption.

Acknowledgments The authors would like to sincerely express their gratitude to Dr Yasir Ali and Dr Hatem Ramadan for their guidance during the analysis phase of the project. We equally thank Andrew McNaught for proofreading the final version of the chapter.

Notes 1 Agreement on what CAT tools comprise is difficult. Some references include more general technology such as word processing (Gouadec, 2007: 265; Somers, 2003a: 6–7). For an up-to-date and detailed account of the tools and functionalities involved in CAT tools and of the differences between CAT and MT, the reader is referred to Olohan (2016: chapter 2). 2 Among the most tangible advantages of CAT figure productivity and quality gains. However, the recognition of these advantages has not necessarily warranted a wholesale adoption (Dillon and Fraser, 2006: 68). 3 See Husseini (2011) for Egypt, Thawabteh (2013) for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Alotaibi (2014) for KSA, Idir (2014: 20) for Algeria, Shallal (2018) for the situation in Oman. 4 Familiarity with CAT equally figures on the list of translator competences of the European Master’s in Translation (EMT). See Massey and Ehrensberger-Dow (2011: para. 1) and Frérot (2016: 42–43). 5 Other studies move beyond purely exploratory objectives to investigate translator attitudes. See Dillon and Fraser (2006), Lagoudaki (2006), and LeBlanc (2013). This attitudinal investigation, though important, was thought premature in the context of the present study where preliminary data on adoption rates are missing. 6 Over 45 percent of a total population of 4.5 million, according to the October 2016 Monthly Statistical Bulletin published by the National Centre for Statistics and Information. 7 At the time of the writing, the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry trade directory shows five entries (www.chamberoman.com/En/SearchTradeDir.aspx). 8 These categories are usually considered to comprise freelance translators, in-house translators, and translators in translation agencies. See Gouadec (2007: 87–145) for a more detailed description of the categorization. 9 An in-house translator is defined in this survey as a full-time employee in a specific public or private institution part of whose duties is to handle translation jobs. 10 Each translator has a portfolio of clients of different categories. Therefore, respondents were allowed to pick more than one category for this specific question. This explains why the percentages total more than 100 percent.

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CAT tools in Oman 11 The main standards here are SRX (Segmentation Rules eXchange), XLIFF (XML Localization Interchange File Format), and TMX (Translation Memory eXchange). 12 It has to be added here that HEIs’ actual responses to these calls has been less enthusiastic (Austermühl, 2013: 326–327). 13 ‘Let us not wait until the alarm- bell of dearth of specialists sounds before we impart knowledge which, though seemingly futuristic or utopian today, will be put to use in a few years’ time’ (our translation).

Further reading Kenny, D. (ed.) (2017) Human Issues in Translation Technology. London: Routledge. Sin-Wai, C. (ed.) (2015) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Technology. London: Routledge. Sin-Wai, C. (2017) The Future of Translation Technology: Towards a World Without Babel. London and New York: Taylor & Francis.

References Almutawa, F. and Izwaini, S. (2015) Machine translation in the Arab world: Saudi Arabia as a case study. Trans-kom 8(2): 382–414. Alotaibi, H.M. (2014) Teaching CAT tools to translation students: An examination of their expectations and attitudes. Arab World English Journal (3): 65–74. Al-Qinai, J. (2010) Training tools for translators and interpreters. Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics 14(2): 121–139. Argeg, G.M. (2015) The problems of translating medical terms from English into Arabic. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Durham University. Arrouart, C. (2003) Les mémoires de traduction et la formation universitaire: quelques pistes de réflexion. Meta: Journal des Traducteurs/Translators’ Journal 48(3): 476–479. Austermühl, F. (2013) Future (and not-so-future) trends in the teaching of translation technology. Revista tradumatica 11: 326–337. Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee, ALPAC (1966) Language and Machines: Computers in Translation and Linguistics. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences National Research Council. Bowker, L. (2005) Productivity vs quality: A pilot study on the impact of translation memory systems. Localisation Focus 4: 13–20. Bowker, L. (2015) Computer-aided translation: Translator training. In: Sin-wai, C. (ed.) The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Technology. London: Routledge, 88–104. Bowker, L. and Marshman, E. (2009) Better integration for better preparation: Bringing terminology and technology more fully into translator training using the CERTT approach. Terminology 15(1): 60–87. Bowker, L., McBride, C., and Marshman, E. (2008) Getting more than you paid for? Considerations in integrating free and low- cost technologies into translator training programs. Redit: Revista electrónica de didáctica de la traducción y la interpretación 1: 26–47. Cronin, M. (2013) Translation in the Digital Age. London and New York: Routledge. Dillon, S. and Fraser, J. (2006) Translators and TM: An investigation of translators’ perceptions of translation memory adoption. Machine Translation 20(2): 67–79. Enríquez Raído, V. (2013) Teaching translation technologies ‘Everyware’: Towards a self-discovery and lifelong learning approach. Tradumàtica 11: 275–285. European Commission (2017) Language Industry Survey: Expectations and Concerns of the European Language Industry. Available at https:// ec.europa.eu/ info/ sites/ info/ files/ 2017_ language_ industry_ survey_report_en.pdf. Fatani, A.H. (2009) The state of the translation industry in Saudi Arabia. Translation Journal 13(4). Available at https://translationjournal.net/journal/50saudi.htm. Frérot, C. (2016) Corpora and corpus technology for translation purposes in professional and academic environments: Major achievements and new perspectives. Cadernos de Tradução 36(1): 36–61. Fulford, H. and Granell-Zafra, J. (2005) Translation and technology: A study of UK freelance translators. The Journal of Specialised Translation 4(1): 2–17.

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Rafik Jamoussi and Isam Shallal Gallego-Hernández, D. (2015) The use of corpora as translation resources: A study based on a survey of Spanish professional translators. Perspectives 23(3): 375–391. Garcia, I. (2015) Computer-aided translation: Systems. In: Sin-Wai, C. (ed.) The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Technology. London: Routledge, 68–87. Garcés, C.V. and Toudic, D. (2015) Technological innovation and translation: Training translators in the EU for the 21st century. Verbeia 0: 183–202. Gaspari, F. (2015) Online translation. In: Sin- wai, C. (ed.) The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Technology. London: Routledge, 578–593. Gouadec, D. (2007) Translation as a Profession. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Großjean, A. (2009) Corporate Terminology Management: An Approach in Theory and Practice. Berlin: VDM Publishing. Husseini, D.E. (2011) La traduction assistée par ordinateur dans le contexte égyptien. Etude d’un système de TAO lié à Internet (français-arabe/arabe-français). Tralogy 1, Paris. Available at: http://lodel. irevues.inist.fr/tralogy/index.php?id=98. Hutchins, J. (1998) The origins of the translator’s workstation. Machine Translation 13(4): 287–307. Hutchins, J. (2005) Current commercial machine translation systems and computer- based translation tools: System types and their uses. International Journal of Translation 17(1–2): 5–38. Idir, N. (2014) Traduire à l’ère des NTICs: de la traduction à la traductique. ‫[ ﺍﻟﻤﻤﺎﺭﺳﺎﺕ ﺍﻟﻠﻐﻮﻳﺔ‬Linguistic Practices/Journal] 22: 26–9. Kelly, N., Ray, R., and DePalma, D.A. (2011) From crawling to sprinting: Community translation goes mainstream. Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series – Themes in Translation Studies 10: 75–94. Kenny, D. (1999) CAT tools in an academic environment: What are they good for? Target 11(1): 65–82. Kenny, D. and Way, A. (2001) Teaching machine translation and translation technology: A contrastive study. The MT Summit VIII Workshop on Teaching Translation 2001, September 18– 22, 2001, Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Lagoudaki, E. (2006) Translation memories survey 2006: Users’ perceptions around TM use. ASLIB International Conference Translating and the Computer, London. LeBlanc, M. (2013) Translators on translation memory (TM): Results of an ethnographic study in three translation services and agencies. Translation and Interpreting 5(2): 1–13. Massey, G. and Ehrensberger-Dow, M. (2011) Technical and instrumental competence in the translator’s workplace: Using process research to identify educational and ergonomic needs. ILCEA. Revue de l’Institut des Langues et Cultures d’Europe et d’Amérique 14. Melby, A.K., Lommel, A., and Vázquez, L.M. (2015) Bitext. In: Sin- wai, C. (ed.) The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Technology. London: Routledge, 409–424. Nassar, H. (2010) Translation in the Emirates: Kalima and Tarjem Projects. Unpublished MA Dissertation, American University of Sharjah. National Centre for Statistics and Information (2016) Monthly Statistical Bulletin. October 2016. Muscat: National Centre for Statistics and Information. Olohan, M. (2016) Scientific and Technical Translation, Routledge Translation and Interpreting Guides. London and New York: Routledge. Olvera- Lobo, M.D., Castro- Prieto, M.-R., Quero- Gervilla, E., Muñoz- Martín, R., Muñoz- Ray, E., Murillo- Melero, M., Robinson, B., Senso, J.A., Vargas-Quesada, B., and Domínguez-López, C. (2005) Translator training and modern market demands. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 13(2): 132–142. Pym, A. (2011) What technology does to translating. Translation and Interpreting 3(1): 1–9. Pym, A. (2013) Translation skill- sets in a machine- translation age. Meta: Journal des Traducteurs / Meta: Translators’ Journal 58(3): 487–503. Saldanha, G. and O’Brien, S. (2013) Research Methodologies in Translation Studies. Manchester: Routledge. Saunders, M., Lewis, P., and Thornhill, A. (2007) Research Methods for Business Students. 4th edn. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Shallal, I.M. (2018) Integration of computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools in the curricula of translator training programmes in the Omani context. Unpublished PhD Thesis. School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, University Sains Malaysia. Sikora, I. (2012) Polish translators’ workstation: On the usage and adoption of computer-assisted translation tools with some implications for translators’ training. In: Piotrowski, T. and Grabowski, Ł. (eds.)

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CAT tools in Oman The Translator and the Computer. Philological School of Higher Education and C&M Localization Center: Wrocław. Sikora, I. (2014) Contemporary approach to terminological competence, management and terminology teaching on the basis of courses for translators offered by Polish higher education institutions. In: Budin, G. and Lušicky, V. (eds.) Languages for Special Purposes in a Multilingual, Transcultural World, Proceedings of the 19th European Symposium on Languages for Special Purposes. Vienna: University of Vienna. Sin- wai, C. (2015) The development of translation technology 1967– 2013. In: Sin- wai, C. (ed.) The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Technology. London: Routledge, 3–31. Somers, H. (2001) Machine translation: History. In: Baker, M. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. London: Routledge, 140–143. Somers, H. (2003a) Introduction. In: Somers, H. (ed.) Computers and Translation: A Translator’s Guide. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1–12. Somers, H. (2003b) Translation memory systems. In: Somers, H. (ed.) Computers and Translation: A Translator’s Guide. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 31–48. Thawabteh, M.A. (2013) The intricacies of translation memory tools: With particular reference to ArabicEnglish translation. Localisation Focus: The International Journal of Localisation 12(1): 79–90. Zantout, R. and Guessoum, A. (2000) Arabic machine translation: A strategic choice for the Arab world. Journal of King Saud University-Computer and Information Sciences 12: 117–144.

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PART VII

Language, genre and translation

25 TRANSLATING TROPES BETWEEN ARABIC AND ENGLISH 1 James Dickins

Introduction This chapter identifies metaphor, simile, metonymy and synecdoche as ‘master tropes’. It introduces two sets of basic principles: expression, sense and reference (ascription and referent), and lexicalisation and non- lexicalisation, applying these via an extended version of the topic-vehicle-grounds approach to non-lexicalised tropes and lexicalised tropes. It considers the relationship between lexicalisation and idioms. The chapter provides a refined analysis of non-lexicalised tropes, based on the insights that there are no categorical distinctions between (1) core, periphery, approximation and transfer sub-senses of words and phrases, and (2) metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche. It compares the Arab figurative tradition with that of the West and looks at a number of key aspects of tropes beyond the topic-vehicle-grounds analysis: metaphorical force, conceptual metaphor theory, purposes of metaphor and simile, and purposes of metonymy and synecdoche. Turning specifically to Arabic/ English translation, it considers works on the translation of tropes between Arabic and English, general issues of metaphor translation, congruence and incongruence, and metaphorical exuberance and density.

Master tropes: metaphor, simile, metonymy and synecdoche A trope is a ‘deviation from the ordinary and principal signification of a word [or phrase]’ (Corbett and Connors, 1999: 379). I will here consider four ‘master tropes’: metaphor, simile, metonymy and synecdoche (cf. Dickins, 2018, for a justification of these as master tropes). These can be preliminarily defined as: Metaphor: ‘a name or descriptive word or phrase is transferred to an object or action different from, but analogous to, that to which it is literally applicable’ (OED Online); e.g. (with the metaphorical expression in italics) ‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there’ (from L.P. Hartley, The go-between, 2004). Simile: ‘expresses the resemblance of one thing to another of a different category’ (Collins English Dictionary); e.g. ‘The past is like a foreign country; they do things differently there’.

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James Dickins

Metonymy: ‘the action of substituting for a word or phrase denoting an object, action, institution, etc., a word or phrase denoting a property or something associated with it, (OED Online); e.g. ‘Table three wants to pay his bill’, meaning ‘the man at table three wants to pay his bill’. Synecdoche: ‘a more inclusive term is used for a less inclusive one or vice versa, as a whole for a part or a part for a whole’ (OED Online); e.g. ‘The bald head wants to pay his bill’, meaning ‘The man with a bald head wants to pay his bill’.

Basic principles Expression, sense and reference (ascription and referent) I will first present a model of ‘wording’ and meaning, comprising three main elements: expression, sense and reference (this last comprising sub- elements referent and ascription). An expression is a word, phrase or sentence. A sense is a particular ‘abstract meaning’ this expression has. A referent is what an expression in a particular sense refers to in a particular real ‘speech/writing event’. An ascription is the category to which this referent is related. Referent and ascription together constitute reference. Thus, I can use the expression ‘the baker’ in the sense ‘the one who bakes’ (definition from OED Online) with the referent on a particular occasion of a particular individual, in which case I have ascribed him (given him the ascription) to the category ‘baker(s)’. This person (referent) could also be referred to in any number of other ways (‘your dad’, ‘her husband’, etc.) – these other ways being different ascriptions of the same referent (cf. Dickins, 2016).

Lexicalisation and non-lexicalisation A fundamental distinction is made between lexicalised and non-lexicalised tropes. ‘Lexicalised’ means that the relevant figurative sense of the expression is delimited by the basic semantic conventions of the language, i.e. that the range of ‘entities’ (things, processes, relationships, etc.) which this figurative sense has is limited in specifiable ways. An example of a lexicalised metaphor is ‘rubbish’ in ‘That argument’s rubbish’, where ‘rubbish’ has a secondary lexicalised metaphorical sense ‘Worthless or absurd ideas, talk, or writing; nonsense’, contrasting with its basic lexicalised sense ‘Waste material; refuse, debris, litter; rejected and useless matter of any kind, household waste’ (definitions from OED Online). By contrast, in ‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there’, ‘foreign country’ is a non-lexicalised metaphor; there are no basic semantic conventions of English which limit and specify the range of ‘entities’ to which ‘foreign country’ can apply in the non-literal sense.

Non-lexicalised tropes: preliminary analysis Non- lexicalised simile, metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche can be analysed preliminarily as in Table 25.1.

Non-lexicalised metaphor: preliminary analysis The non-lexicalised metaphor example in Table 25.1 is explained as follows:

418

‘The past is like another country; they do things differently there.’ Simile ‘like another country’ the past (i.e. what the phrase ‘the past’ refers to – its referent (past time, etc.); and the category to which the phrase ‘the past’ ascribes this referent – its ascription, i.e. past time) NOT APPLICABLE

Category (class, set) of entities like another country (in some non-basic respect)

Figurative expression (or trope or figure (of speech))

Topic = co-referent of figurative expression, plus ascription of this co-referent (plus sense)

Vehicle = operative more basic sense of figurative expression

Sense of figurative expression

Non-lexicalised Simile

Complex (with explicit figurative marker)

Comparative/Analogical

Immediately relevant text = immediately relevant co-text, plus figurative expression

Type of trope Feature of trope     

Table 25.1 Respondent age distribution

‘table three’ in operative more basic sense ‘piece of furniture with a flat top and one or more legs, providing a level surface for eating, writing, or working at, numbered as three’ Category (class, set) of entities associated with table three

Category (class, set) of entities like another country (in some nonbasic respect)

NONE

Metonym (or metonymy) ‘table three’

‘Table three wants to pay his bill’

Non-lexicalised Metonymy

Simple (no explicit figurative marker)

Category (class, set) of entities having (as part of them) a bald head

‘the bald head’ in operative more basic sense ‘upper part of human body above the neck lacking hair on top’

NONE

Synecdoche ‘the bald head’

‘The bald head wants to pay his bill’

Non-lexicalised Synecdoche

Meronymic (involving part–whole relationship)

‘another country’ in operative more basic sense ‘foreign state, etc.’

the past (i.e. what the phrase ‘the past’ refers to – its referent (past time, etc.); and the category to which the phrase ‘the past’ ascribes this referent – its ascription, i.e. past time)

Metaphor ‘another country’

‘The past is another country; they do things differently there.’

Non-lexicalised Metaphor

Associative

Reference of figurative expression

Type of trope Feature of trope     

Table 25.1 (Cont.)

Comparison/Analogy Category (class, set) of entities like another country in that/on the grounds that they do things differently there

Grounds = ascription of figurative expression to sub-sense

Implicit grounds (not mentioned in co-text)

Explicit grounds (mentioned in co-text)

The ‘entity’ referred to by ‘The past’ (and also by ‘like another country’; i.e. past time, the past, etc., however categorised)

Referent of figurative expression

Non-lexicalised Simile

Complex (with explicit figurative marker)

Comparative/Analogical

Comparison/Analogy Category (class, set) of entities like another country in that/on the grounds that they do things differently there (etc.)

The ‘entity’ referred to by ‘The past’ (and also ‘another country’; i.e. past time, the past, etc., however categorised)

Non-lexicalised Metaphor

Associative

Association Category (class, set) of entities associated with table three, in that they are sitting at table three

The person (entity) referred to by ‘table three’

Non-lexicalised Metonymy

Simple (no explicit figurative marker)

Meronymy (part–whole relationship) Category (class, set) of entities having (as part of them) a bald head [The ascription is to the sense, rather than the sub-sense]

The person (entity) referred to by ‘the bald head’

Non-lexicalised Synecdoche

Meronymic (involving part–whole relationship)

Translating tropes

Immediately relevant text All text immediately relevant for understanding the occurrence of the trope in question, including the figurative expression itself.

Immediately relevant co-text Everything which is part of the immediately relevant text excluding the figurative expression. Here, the immediately relevant co-text is ‘The past is __________________; they do things differently there’.

Figurative expression or trope or figure of speech Word, phrase or sentence used figuratively. Here, ‘another country’.

Topic Here, ‘The past’. This can be analysed in terms of the elements topic expression, topic sense and topic reference, with sub-elements topic referent and topic ascription. The topic-referent is the same referent as the figurative expression (here ‘another country’). The topic (‘The past’) and the figurative expression (‘another country’) are, however, ascribed to different categories (see further discussion of ‘ascription’ under ‘Grounds’ below).

Vehicle The more basic (‘literal’) sense of that expression. In the case of ‘another country’, the sense ‘foreign nation (etc.)’.

Referent of figurative expression The ‘entity’ referred to by both ‘The past’ and ‘another country’, i.e. past time, the past, etc.

Grounds (ascription to sub-sense) Ascription to the category of entities which are like another country, on the grounds that they do things differently there (etc.), involving a sub-sense of the sense of entities which are like another country. Ascriptions to sub- senses are frequently vague even where the ascription is signalled by explicit grounds as in ‘they do things differently there’. Sense and sub-sense involve two types of ascription. If I say, ‘a water molecule consists of three atoms’, I am using ‘atom[s]’ in a way that relates to the entire category of atoms in the relevant sense. If, however, I say ‘Joan of Arc was a beautiful woman’, I may not be claiming that she was physically beautiful, but rather that she was spiritually beautiful. There is, however, no categorical distinction between ‘beautiful’ meaning ‘physically beautiful’ and ‘beautiful’ meaning ‘spiritually beautiful’. There is a single sense with a range of ‘sub-senses’, such that I can say of somebody that they are ‘beautiful’ to mean ‘physically beautiful’ or ‘spiritually beautiful’ or even both simultaneously. In singling out ‘spiritually beautiful’ or ‘physically beautiful’ I am not ascribing the person/ entity referred to as ‘Joan of Arc’ to the category covered by ‘beautiful’ in its full (relevant) sense, but only the sub-sense ‘spiritually beautiful’ (see further Dickins, 1998: 210–211). 421

Synecdoche ‘wheels’ None

‘wheels’ in operative more basic sense of ‘solid discs or circular rings joined to hubs’

Metonym (or metonymy) ‘head’ None

‘head’ in operative more basic sense of ‘uppermost part of the body’

Metaphor sharp ‘rebuke’ (i.e. the particular rebuke to which ‘sharp’ also refers) ‘sharp’ in operative more basic sense ‘having an edge or point; not rounded or blunt’

‘That joke’ (i.e. the particular joke which the phrase ‘that joke’ refers to – its referent) ‘as old as the hills’ in operative more basic sense ‘equally old as a natural elevation of the earth’s surface rising more or less steeply above the level of the surrounding land’

Topic = co-referent of figurative expression, plus ascription of this co-referent (plus sense)

Vehicle = operative more basic sense of figurative expression

‘Have you got wheels?’

Lexicalised Synecdoche

Simile ‘as old as the hills’

‘Use your head’

Lexicalised Metonymy

Meronymic (involving part–whole relationship)

Figurative expression (or trope or figure (of speech))

‘I never expected such a sharp rebuke’

Lexicalised Metaphor

Simple (no explicit figurative marker)

Associative

‘That joke’s as old as the hills’

Lexicalised Simile

Complex (with explicit figurative marker)

Comparative/Analogical

Immediately relevant text = immediately relevant co-text, plus figurative expression

Type of trope Feature of trope  

Table 25.2 Educational background

Reference of figurative expression

Grounds = ascription of figurative expression to sub-sense

The ‘entity’ referred to by ‘That joke’ (and also ‘as old as the hills’; i.e. the joke etc., however categorised)

Category (class, set) of exceedingly old entities

Implicit grounds Not properly (not mentioned in operative, but ‘reconstructable’ co-text) as: Comparison/ Analogy Category (class, set) of entities that are as old as the hills in that/on the grounds that they are exceedingly old

Explicit grounds (mentioned in co-text)

Referent of figurative expression

Sense of figurative expression

Not properly operative, but ‘reconstructable’ as: Category (class, set) of activities associated with the head, in that they take place in the head

Not properly operative, but ‘reconstructable’ as: Meronymy (part– whole relationship) Category (class, set) of entities having (as part of them) wheels

The ‘entity’ referred to by ‘wheels’, i.e. a wheeled vehicle

The ‘entity’ referred to by ‘head’, i.e. intelligence

The ‘entity’ referred to by ‘sharp’ (and also by ‘rebuke’), however categorised

Not properly operative, but ‘reconstructable’ as: Comparison/Analogy Category (class, set) of entities that are sharp, in that/on the grounds they cause significant hurt

Category (class, set) of wheeled vehicles

Category (class, set) of entities classifiable as ‘intelligence, etc.’

Category (set, class) of non-blunt entities

James Dickins

Non-lexicalised simile I will turn now to the analysis of ‘The past is like another country; they do things differently there’ in Table 25.1. Non-lexicalised simile has roughly the same meanings as non-lexicalised metaphor. The comparison/ analogy element, ‘like’, is not only part of the figurative expression, but is the entirety of the figurative expression in a simile. ‘Another country’ is used in a non-figurative sense. ‘Like’ is used in its standard sense, but in a non-basic sub-sense, namely, the grounds that ‘they do things differently there’. The fact that literal comparisons operate in the same way as similes and that there is no difference in the sense in these examples shows that there is no categorical distinction between literal comparisons and similes. In expressions involving ‘like’, ‘literalness (and its complement metaphoricity [non-literalness]) is a matter of degree’ (Ortony, 1979: 164).

Non-lexicalised metonymy and synecdoche: preliminary analysis While non-lexicalised simile is like non-lexicalised metaphor semantically, non-lexicalised metonymy and synecdoche correspond more directly to non- lexicalised metaphor analytically. The analysis of non- lexicalised metonymy and synecdoche in Table 25.1 should be largely self-explanatory. The crucial point about Table 25.1 is that whereas in non-lexicalised simile and metaphor the sense involves likeness (in some non-basic respect), in metonymy it involves ‘association’ and in synecdoche it involves a part–whole relationship. Otherwise all of non-lexicalised simile, metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche operate identically.

Lexicalised tropes Table 25.2 presents an analysis of lexicalised tropes. As Table 25.2 shows, the sense of a lexicalised figurative expression is the relevant non- basic lexicalised sense. The grounds of lexicalised tropes do not ‘construct’ the semantic interpretation of the figure: they are not denotative. They only allow us to ‘reconstruct’ a plausible ‘account’ of the nature of the relationship between the sense of the expression and its more basic sense. In lexicalised tropes, therefore, the grounds are connotative.

Lexicalisation and idioms Metaphors consisting of more than one word, whether non- lexicalised or lexicalised, can be termed phrasal metaphors. Some – and perhaps most – phrasal metaphors are idioms. An idiom can be defined in general terms as a fixed expression whose meaning cannot be deduced from the denotative meanings (in other contexts) of the words that constitute it (for details and difficulties with this, see Cruse, 1986: 37– 45). In principle, all lexicalised phrasal metaphors are idioms, though not all idioms are metaphors. Burger (2007: 93) gives the example of ‘spill the beans’, which he argues is ‘non- literal and non- metaphorical’. Given the lexicalised nature of idioms, idioms also illustrate various strengths of metaphoricity, i.e. ‘idiomatic utterances range along a scale from more to less metaphorical’, as determined by Sandford (2014: 506) in a series of psychological experiments with informants. The relationship between lexicalised and nonlexicalised metaphors and single-word and phrasal metaphors can be presented as in Table 25.3.

Non-lexicalised tropes: refined analysis The analysis of non-lexicalised tropes presented above supposes (1) that non-lexicalised tropes are categorically distinct from literal language, and (2) that the three non- lexicalised 424

Translating tropes Table 25.3 Time spent on the job per week per professional category

Single word Phrasal

CORE

PERIPHERY

Non-lexicalised

Lexicalised

e.g. ‘bruised’ (in ‘big questions bruised my mind’) e.g. ‘another country’ (in ‘the past is another country’)

‘sharp’ (in ‘sharp rebuke’) e.g. ‘go up the wall’ (= get very angry)

APPROXIMATION

TRANSFER

Metaphor-like

Metaphor

Metonymy-like

Metonymy

Synecdoche-like

Synecdoche

Figure 25.1 Distribution of translation jobs by subject areas

tropes, i.e. metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche, are categorically different from one another. There is reason to believe that neither of these suppositions are true. Goatly (1997: 17– 22) argues for four categories of meaning for a word/ phrase in a particular sense of relevance to tropes: Core- Periphery- Approximation- Transfer. Take the word ‘chair’ in the sense ‘seat with a back on which one person sits, typically having four legs and often having arms’ (Collins English Dictionary). A core (prototypical; cf. Rosch, 1975) chair has four legs and arms, while a peripheral chair lacks one or both of these features. For approximation, Goatly (1997: 17) gives the example of a person climbing a mountain who is tired. His friend points to a boulder and says, ‘Why don’t you sit on that chair?’, using ‘chair’ in a sub-sense extending its standard (core + peripheral) sub-sense. An example of transfer is ‘chair’ as used in an utterance ‘Tom is a chair’ (see also below), where the meaning of ‘chair’ is figurative (metaphorical). There is no categorical distinction between core and periphery meanings (sub- senses) or between periphery and approximation: chairs may become progressively less and less like ‘core/peripheral chairs’ and more and more like approximations to chairs. In Dickins (2018), I have argued, however, that there is also no categorical distinction between approximation chairs and transfer (non- lexicalised metaphorical, metonymical or synecdochal) chairs; examples of ‘chairs’ can be found on a continuum between approximations and transfers. See also Croft (2002), Barcelona (2003: 84– 85) and Paradis (2004) in support of the view that there is no categorical distinction between approximation and metonymy. I have further argued (Dickins, 2018: section 8) that there is also no categorical distinction between non-lexicalised metonymy and non-lexicalised synecdoche, a view consistent with a long tradition which regards synecdoche as a sub-type of metonymy (cf. Lakoff and Johnson, 1980: 36), or between non-lexicalised metonymy/synecdoche and non-lexicalised metaphor. Using double- headed arrows to indicate continua (as opposed to categorical differences), Figure 25.1 represents this lack of categorical difference on both the horizontal (core-peripheryapproximation-transfer) axis, and the vertical (metaphor-metonymy-synecdoche) axis. Table 25.4 provides a refined analysis of non- lexicalised tropes taking into account the continuum arguments presented in this section. 425

‘the bald head’ the unhappy customer (i.e. what the phrase ‘unhappy customer’ refers to – its referent (a particular individual); and the category to which the phrase ‘the unhappy customer’ ascribes this referent –its ascription, i.e. the category of baldheaded people/entities) ‘the bald head’ in operative core sub-sense ‘upper part of human body above the neck lacking hair on top’

‘table three’ the unhappy customer (i.e. what the phrase ‘the unhappy customer’ refers to – its referent (a particular individual); and the category to which the phrase ‘the unhappy customer’ ascribes this referent – its ascription, i.e. the category of unhappy customers) ‘table three’ in operative core sub-sense ‘piece of furniture with a flat top and one or more legs, providing a level surface for eating, writing, or working at, numbered as three’

‘another country’ the past (i.e. what the phrase ‘the past’ refers to – its referent (past time, etc.); and the category to which the phrase ‘the past’ ascribes this referent – its ascription, i.e. past time)

‘another country’ in operative core sub-sense ‘foreign state, etc.’

Figurative expression (or trope or figure (of speech))

Topic = co-referent of figurative expression, plus ascription of this co-referent (plus sense)

Vehicle = operative core subs-sense of figurative expression

‘The unhappy customer is the bald head.’

‘The past is another country; they do things differently there.’

‘The unhappy customer is table three.’

Transfer – on core-periphery-approximation-transfer continuum

Immediately relevant text = immediately relevant co-text, plus figurative expression

Type of trope Feature of trope

Table 25.4 Professional categories with working mode

Reference of figurative expression

Grounds = ascription of figurative expression to core sub-sense Implicit grounds (not mentioned in co-text)

Explicit grounds (mentioned in co-text)

Referent of figurative expression

Sense of figurative expression

Category (class, set) of entities in ‘transfer relationship’ with another country in that/on the grounds that they do things differently there (etc.)

The ‘entity’ referred to by ‘The past’ (and also ‘another country’; i.e. past time, the past, etc., however categorised)

Category (class, set) of entities in ‘transfer relationship’ with another country

Category (class, set) of entities in ‘transfer relationship’ with a bald head [The ascription is to the sense, rather than the sub-sense]

The person (entity) referred to by ‘the unhappy customer’ and also ‘the bald head’

The person (entity) referred to by ‘the unhappy customer’ and also ‘table three’

Category (class, set) of entities in ‘transfer relationship’ with table three, in that they are sitting at table three

Category (class, set) of entities in ‘transfer relationship’ with a bald head

Category (class, set) of entities in ‘transfer relationship’ with table three

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The Arab tradition The account of tropes presented above in fact develops the traditional Western account, which is based around the notions of ‘topic’, ‘vehicle’ and ‘grounds’. These notions correspond directly to core notions of the traditional Arabic account of metaphor and simile: al- mušabbah, al-mušabbah bi-h and wajh aš-šabah, respectively. This is probably because the Arab account, like the traditional Western account, goes back to Aristotle (see Levin, 1982). The two works of Aristotle which include discussion of figurative language were both translated into Arabic in the early Islamic era: Rhetoric originally in the eighth century, with subsequent ‘editing’ by Ibn al-Samḥ (d. 1027) (cf. Aouad, 1989; Vagelpohl, 2008) and Poetics from a Syriac version by Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus (d. 940) (cf. Schrier, 1997; Watt, 2007). There are also Arabic commentaries on these works (cf. Black, 1990; Baffioni, 2011; Geoffroy, 2011). Good articles on the major aspects of the Arab approach to figurative language can be found in the Encyclopedia of Arabic Linguistics, e.g. isti‘āra (Simon, 2007), kināya (Dichy, 2007), majāz (Simon, 2008). Al-Sharafi (2004: 21) provides a diagram summarising the traditional Arabic typology of figurative language. Two major differences between the Arab tradition and the Western tradition can be mentioned here. First, in the Arab tradition, the boundary between ‘metaphor’ (isti‘āra) and ‘simile’ (tašbīh) is drawn rather differently than in the Western one: examples containing a topic are regarded as a form of ‘simile’ (tašbīh) even if there is no explicit particle of comparison (Simon, 2007: 442). Second, kināya, though sometimes translated as ‘metonymy’ or ‘synecdoche’ is rather different from anything in the Western tradition and cannot be easily reconciled with Western notions (Al- Sharafi, 2004; Dichy, 2007). These differences do not reflect linguistic differences between European (Western) languages and Arabic; they are merely the outcomes of different intellectual trajectories.

Metaphorical force Having looked at a basic model for tropes and compared this briefly with the Arab tradition, I will in the remainder of this chapter consider further aspects of tropes, mainly focusing on metaphor, since this is generally agreed to be the most difficult trope to translate. I will start with the notion of metaphorical ‘force’. Metaphorical ‘force’ is a matter of the salience of metaphor perception. Numerous writers have proposed models (e.g. Newmark, 1985; Dickins, 2005; Semino, 2008; Knowles and Moon, 2006). A particularly detailed one is that of Goatly (1997: 31– 35), who distinguishes the following:

Dead metaphor ‘Either the former non- metaphorical sense is rarely used, or the connection between the two senses has become so distant with time that it is no longer recognized by most speakers’ (Deignan, 2005: 38), e.g. ‘pupil’ in the senses ‘young student’ and ‘circular opening in the iris’.

Sleeping metaphor ‘The metaphorical meaning is conventional. The literal meaning is still in use and may be evoked by the metaphorical sense on occasion’ (Deignan, 2005: 38), e.g. ‘crane’ in the senses ‘species of marsh bird’ and ‘machine for moving heavy weights’, which ‘is capable of metaphorical reawakening’ as the ‘the grounds of comparison are relatively salient’ (Goatly, 1997: 33). 428

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Tired metaphor ‘The metaphorical sense is more likely to evoke the literal sense here than in the previous category [sleeping metaphor]’ (Deignan, 2005: 38). An example is ‘fox’ in the sense ‘cunning person’ (Goatly, 1997: 33).

Active metaphor ‘The metaphorical sense is evoked entirely through the literal sense. There is no established lexical relationship between the two senses’ (Deignan, 2005: 38), e.g. ‘icicles’ to refer to ‘fingers’ in Larkin’s ‘He had five icicles on each hand’ (Goatly, 1997: 33).

Conceptual metaphor theory Conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) proposes that many metaphors fit into coherent metaphorical patterns, or ‘schemata’ (my term), ultimately grounded in human physical and social experience. Being grounded in human reality, metaphorical schemata tend towards language- universality (Kövecses, 2010: 195– 214). Thus, the ANGER IS A PRESSURISED CONTAINER schema is found in English, Hungarian, Japanese, Chinese, Zulu, Polish, Wolof and Tahitian (Kövecses, 2010: 197–206). Time expressions in apparently all languages can involve the schema TIME IS MOTION: e.g. English ‘The time will come’ (Kövecses, 2010: 38). There are, however, significant differences between languages, demonstrating that conventionality is also at play. While in most of the world’s languages, the future is conceptualised as being in front of oneself and the past behind, in Aymara, the past is ahead and the future behind (Núñez and Sweetser, 2006). Conventionality is also evidenced by the fact that metaphorical schemata may be more or less prominent in particular languages. Both Arabic and English employ the CONVEYING OF INFORMATION IS MOVEMENT OF MEANING OBJECTS schema (cf. Kövecses, 2010: 275). However, while Arabic has a relatively large number of verbs of motion which also have a lexicalised (tired) metaphorical information-conveyance sense, English has only a few (‘Information has reached us that’), making more use of ‘giving and receiving’ metaphors (‘We have received information that’), or non- metaphorical forms (‘We have been informed that’) (for examples, see Dickins, 2005: 243).

Purposes of metaphor, simile, metonymy and synecdoche The purposes of metaphor and simile are of two types: denotative- oriented and connotativeoriented (Dickins 2005: 234–235). The denotative-oriented purposes are: i. ‘[T]o describe a mental process or state, a concept, a person, an object, a quality or action more comprehensively and concisely than is possible in literal or physical language’ (Newmark, 1988: 104).  ‘Obama slams Putin’ is a concise way of saying Obama severely criticises Putin. With non- lexicalised metaphors and similes, this purpose is paramount where it is felt impossible to express the intended meaning in non- figurative language, a common usage in everyday speech being when people talk about strong emotions.

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ii. To express an open-ended denotation or potential range of denotations.  Non- lexicalised metaphors and similes often express an open- ended denotation. This open-endedness results when the grounds are not defined precisely enough by the context to enable a reader to say exactly what the metaphor means. Thus, ‘a man is (like) a tree’ may have any number of interpretations and in many contexts it will be impossible to identify which grounds is most appropriate. The connotative-oriented purpose of metaphors and similes is ‘to appeal to the senses, to interest, to clarify “graphically”, to please, to delight, to surprise’ (Newmark, 1988: 104). Metaphors and similes are frequently used for humorous aesthetic purposes, e.g. from a football summary on British radio: ‘Tottenham were a marshmallow of a team: sweet, expensive – and downright soft in the middle’, where the effect is achieved by metaphorical ‘manipulation’ within the grounds. A further purpose of metaphors and similes, common in popular science (e.g. Pramling and Säljö, 2007), is to explain specialist notions in terms accessible to non-specialists. However, ‘certain metaphorizations can cause severe theoretical problems’ (Goschler, 2007: 17), obfuscating features of the theory. One purpose of metonymy and synecdoche is efficiency (brevity) of communication. ‘Table three’ is shorter than ‘the person sitting at table three’. Another purpose is vocabulary variation for stylistic purposes; e.g. ‘The Whitehouse has refused to respond’ for ‘The American President has refused to respond’.

Metaphor translation between Arabic and English Works on the translation of tropes between Arabic and English include the following: Abu Ain (2014), Al-Harrasi (2001), Al-Hasnawi, (2007), Al-Zoubi et al. (2006), Almisned (2001), Alshunnag (2016), Dickins (2005), Al-Salem (2014), Elmallah (2008), Maalej (n.d.), Maysoon (1990), Merakchi and Rogers (2013), Menacere (1992), Nader (2013), Najjar (2012), Obiedat (1997), Omar (2012), Zahid (2009). Dickins (2018) provides a list of more general works on the translation of tropes (section 14), and a discussion of general approaches to the translation of metaphor (section 15). In the remainder of this chapter, I will focus on practical problems involved in the translation of metaphor between Arabic and English. In most cases metaphors are not particularly difficult to translate between Arabic and English. This is typically the case where (i) they are lexicalised (and particularly where they are dead or sleeping, in Goatly’s terms, and to a lesser extent tired), (ii) where they are also schematic. In these cases, their metaphorical force will, all other things being equal, be weak, and the metaphors themselves will go almost unnoticed. An example from Arabic>English translation is provided by the following extract from ‫‘ ﻋﺮﺱ ﺍﻟﺰﻳﻦ‬urs az-zayn (The Wedding of Zein) by the Sudanese author Tayeb Salih (‫ﺍﻟﻄﻴﺐ ﺻﺎﻟﺢ‬ aṭ-ṭayyib ṣāliḥ) (Salih, 1966: 11) with a fairly literal translation and a translation by Denys Johnson-Davies (1969). Metaphors and a single simile in both the ST and the TTs have been noted by curly brackets and a following superscript number: ST ‫ ﻭﺍﻟﻌﻬﺪﺓ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺃﻣﻪ‬،‫ ﻫﺬﺍ ﻫﻮ ﺍﻟﻤﻌﺮﻭﻑ ﻭﻟﻜﻦ ﻳﺮﻭﻯ ﺃﻥ ﺍﻟﺰﻳﻦ‬،‫{ ﺍﻟﺤﻴﺎﺓ ﺑﺎﻟﺼﺮﻳﺦ‬1‫ﻳﻮﻟﺪ ﺍﻷﻁﻔﺎﻝ ﻓـ}ـﻴﺴﺘﻘﺒﻠﻮﻥ‬ ‫ ﻛﺒﺮ ﻭﻟﻴﺲ‬.‫ ﻭﻅﻞ ﻫﻜﺬﺍ ﻁﻮﻝ ﺣﻴﺎﺗﻪ‬.ً ‫{ ﺿﺎﺣﻜﺎ‬3‫ }ﺍﻧﻔﺠﺮ‬،{2‫ ﺃﻭﻝ ﻣﺎ }ﻣﺲ ﺍﻻﺭﺽ‬،‫ﻭﺍﻟﻨﺴﺎء ﺍﻟﻼﺋﻲ ﺣﻀﺮﻥ ﻭﻻﺩﺗﻬﺎ‬ ‫ ﻭﺃﻣﻪ ﺗﻘﻮﻝ ﺃﻥ ﻓﻤﻪ ﻛﺎﻥ ﻣﻠﻴﺌﺎ ً ﺑﺄﺳﻨﺎﻥ ﺑﻴﻀﺎء‬.‫ ﻭﺍﺣﺪﺓ ﻓﻲ ﻓﻜﻪ ﺍﻷﻋﻠﻰ ﻭﺍﻷﺧﺮﻯ ﻓﻲ ﻓﻜﻪ ﺍﻷﺳﻔﻞ‬،‫ﻓﻲ ﻓﻤﻪ ﻏﻴﺮ ﺳﻨّﻴﻦ‬ 430

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‫ ﻓﻤﺮﺍ ﻋﻨﺪ ﻣﻐﻴﺐ ﺍﻟﺸﻤﺲ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺧﺮﺍﺑﺔ ﻳﺸﺎﻉ‬،‫ ﻭﻟﻤﺎ ﻛﺎﻥ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻟﺴﺎﺩﺳﺔ ﺫﻫﺒﺖ ﺑﻪ ﻳﻮﻣﺎ ً ﻟﺰﻳﺎﺭﺓ ﻗﺮﻳﺒﺎﺕ ﻟﻬﺎ‬.{4‫}ﻛﺎﻟﻠﺆﻟﺆ‬ ‫{ ﺍﻟﻔﺮﺍﺵ‬7‫ ﻭﺑﻌﺪﻫﺎ }ﻟﺰﻡ‬.‫ ﺛﻢ ﺻﺮﺥ‬،‫{ ﺍﻟﺰﻳﻦ ﻣﻜﺎﻧﻪ ﻭﺃﺧﺬ ﻳﺮﺗﺠﻒ ﻛﻤﻦ ﺑﻪ ﺣﻤﻰ‬6‫ ﻭﻓﺠﺄﺓ }ﺗﺴﻤﺮ‬.{5‫ﺃﻧﻬﺎ }ﻣﺴﻜﻮﻧﺔ‬ .‫ ﻭﺃﺧﺮﻯ ﻓﻲ ﻓﻜﻪ ﺍﻷﺳﻔﻞ‬،‫ ﺍﺇﺍ ﻭﺍﺣﺪﺓ ﻓﻲ ﻓﻜﻪ ﺍﻷﻋﻠﻰ‬،‫{ ﻣﻦ ﻣﺮﺿﻪ ﻛﺎﻧﺖ ﺃﺳﻨﺎﻧﻪ ﺟﻤﻴﻌﺎ ً ﻗﺪ ﺳﻘﻄﺖ‬8‫ ﻭﻟﻤﺎ }ﻗﺎﻡ‬.ً ‫ﺃﻳﺎﻣﺎ‬ Fairly literal TT Children are born and they {greet1} life with screaming. This is known. But it is recounted that Zein – and the authority for this is with his mother and the women who attended his birth – when he first {touched the ground2}, he {exploded3} laughing. And he remained thus throughout his life. He grew up and there were only in his mouth two teeth, one in his upper jaw, and the other in his lower. And his mother says that his mouth was full of teeth white {as pearls4}. And when he was in his sixth year, she went with him one day to visit relatives of hers, and they passed at sunset by a ruin rumoured to be {inhabited5}. And suddenly Zein {became nailed6} in his place, and began to tremble like one who has a fever. Then he shouted. And after it he {stuck to7} the bed for days. When he {got up8} from his illness his teeth had all fallen out, except one in his upper jaw and another in his lower jaw. TT (Johnson-Davies, 1969: 33) At first, as is well known, children {meet1} life with screams. With Zein, however, it is recounted – and the authorities for this are his mother and the women who attended his birth – that no sooner did he {come into this world2} than he {burst out3} laughing. And this was how he remained his whole life. He had grown up with only two teeth in his mouth, one in his upper jaw and one in the lower. His mother, though, says that his mouth was once filled with {pearly4} white teeth, but that, when he was six, she took him to visit some relatives of hers; at sunset, passing by a deserted ruin rumoured to be {haunted5}, Zein had suddenly become {nailed6} to the ground, and had begun shivering as if with a fever. Then he let out a scream. After that he {took to7} his bed for several days, and on {recovering8} from his illness it was found that all his teeth had fallen out – except for one in his upper jaw and one in the lower. While metaphor translation is not normally difficult where metaphorical force is weak (cf. Dickins, 2005: 229– 230, for an extended Arabic– English example), there are cases where it can prove problematic, as discussed in the following sections.

Metaphorical congruence and incongruence ‘Metaphorical congruence’, meaning the belonging of a series of metaphors in a text to the same schema (or compatible schemata), is illustrated by the following from the Independent newspaper (5 December 2007) – relevant metaphors in italics: The storm clouds are gathering over the jobs market; the climate on the high street is growing distinctly chilly; a typhoon of bad debt is buffeting the banks. Could a ‘perfect storm’ be about to hit the British economy? All these metaphors belong to the schema ADVERSITY IS ADVERSITY DUE TO BAD WEATHER (Lakoff et al., 1991: 74), and are deployed in a way that their reflected meanings 431

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do not clash. Where metaphors in a text do not belong to the same or compatible schemata, there is metaphorical incongruence – ‘mixed’ metaphors. Incongruent (mixed) metaphors can happily co- occur when they are not particularly forceful (see Kimmel, 2010; also Dickins, 2005: 229– 230). When metaphors are more forceful, however, the co- occurrence of incongruent metaphors (and similes) is jarring – sometimes humorously so; e.g. ‘If we can hit that bull’s-eye then the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards’ (Zapp Brannigan, character in the animated sitcom Futurama). Metaphorical congruence can be a translation issue, particularly where there is a high density of non-lexicalised metaphors. Consider the following from ‫ ﻣﺪﻳﻨﺔ ﺍﻟﺒﻐﻲ‬madīnat al-baġy ‘The City of Oppression’ by the Palestinian writer ‫‘ ﻋﻴﺴﻰ ﺑﺸﺎﺭﺓ‬īsā bishāra (Brown, 1996: 50; discussed in Dickins et al., 2002: 157; Dickins, 2005: 253–255): […] ‫ﺗﻤﻨﻰ ﺻﺎﺑﺮ ﻟﻮ ﺃﻧﻪ ﻳﺴﺘﻄﻴﻊ ﺍﻥ }ﻳﻔﺠﺮ{ ﻫﺬﺍ ﺍﻟﺼﻮﺕ ﻭ}ﻳﻔﺠﺮ{ ﻣﻌﻪ }ﺑﺮﻛﺎﻥ{ ﺍﻟﺤﺮﻳﺔ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ }ﻻ ﻳﺼﺤﻮ‬ .{‫ﻟﻪ ﺟﻔﻦ{ ﻭ}ﻻ ﺗﺜﻮﺭ ﻟﻪ ﺛﺎﺋﺮﺓ‬ This can be translated fairly literally as: Saber wished that he could {explode} his voice and {explode} with it the {volcano} of freedom at which {an eyelid does not wake up} nor {does a tumult arise}. The overall metaphorical image of the outpouring of unrestrained emotion as volcanic violence is fairly schematic in both Arabic and English, and this image is maintained congruently throughout the extract except in the phrase ‫‘ ﻻ ﻳﺼﺤﻮ ﻟﻪ ﺟﻔﻦ‬an eyelid does not wake up’. This does not seem to matter in Arabic, which, in some text- types at least, seems to accept mixing of even fairly forceful metaphors (cf. Dickins, 2005: 256–264). In English, however, ‘an eyelid does not wake up’ jars, and the metaphorical incongruence is not significantly improved by a more idiomatic alternative preserving the same general metaphorical image such as ‘noone bats an eyelid’. The situation is remedied by using a non-metaphorical alternative, such as ‘attracted’, to give a TT (with various other changes) along the lines: Saber wished that he could make this voice {burst forth} and that in turn the {volcano} of freedom would {erupt}, which had never once {flared up in rage} nor even {attracted} people’s attention.

Metaphorical exuberance and density Some languages accept a greater degree of metaphorical density than others, at least in some texttypes. Newmark (1988: 112–113) claims that English editorials typically use more metaphors than do those in other European languages. Arabic would appear to allow even greater ‘metaphorical exuberance’ than English, particularly where the author is being emotive. Accordingly, Arabic ST metaphors not infrequently appear too strong or too dense for equivalent forms of English writing and there is some need to tone down the metaphors of the Arabic ST in the English TT. The following is the opening sentence of a short story ‫ ﺣﻘﻞ ﺍﻟﺒﻨﻔﺴﺞ‬ḥaql al- banafsaj ‘The violet field’ by the Syrian writer ‫ ﺯﻛﺮﻳﺎ ﺗﺎﻣﺮ‬zakariyā tāmir (Zakariya Tamer). ST metaphors and their TT equivalents are noted by curly brackets and a following superscript number: ‫{ ﺍﻟﺴﺤﺐ‬5‫{ ﺟﺒﻞ ﺷﺎﻫﻖ }ﺗﺮﺗﻄﻢ‬4‫{ ﻋﻨﺪ }ﺃﻗﺪﺍﻡ‬3‫{ }ﺑﺬﻝ‬2‫{ ﻓﻲ ﻣﺪﻳﻨﺔ ﺻﻐﻴﺮﺓ }ﺗﻘﺒﻊ‬1‫ﻋﺎﺵ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﺃﻋﻮﺍﻣﺎ ً }ﻣﺪﻳﺪﺓ‬ .‫ﺑﺼﺨﻮﺭﻩ ﺍﻟﺼﻔﺮﺍء‬ 432

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This can be translated fairly literally as follows: Mohammed lived for {extended1} years in a small town which {squatted2} {with ignominy3} at the {foot4} of a lofty mountain against whose yellow rocks the clouds {crashed5}. A more idiomatic translation of this (St John, 1999: 4) reads: Mohammed had lived for {many1} years in a small town. It {squatted2} {insignificantly3} at the {foot4} of a towering mountain whose pale rocks {touched5} the sky. Here, the number of ST metaphors has been reduced (e.g. non- metaphorical TT ‘many’ vs. metaphorical ST ‫‘ ﻣﺪﻳﺪﺓ‬extended’), and retained metaphors are sometimes made weaker (e.g. TT ‘touched’ instead of ST ‫‘ ﺗﺮﺗﻄﻢ‬crashed’). The operative factor in this ‘downtoning’ seems to be that despite the rhetorical and textual purposes of the ST metaphors, the relatively neutral emotive context of the start of a story does not easily support such metaphorical exuberance in English (for a fuller discussion, see Dickins, 2005: 256–258).

Conclusion In this chapter, I have developed an integrated model covering four ‘master tropes’: metaphor, simile, metonymy and synecdoche, making a fundamental distinction between lexicalised and non-lexicalised cases. With respect to non-lexicalised cases, I have argued that while most examples fit fairly clearly under one heading, there is not a categorical meaning distinction between ‘core’, ‘periphery’, ‘approximation’ and ‘transfer’, nor between metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche. The latter part of the chapter has focused on practical issues in the translation between Arabic and English of metaphor, which I believe to be the most challenging trope in respect of translation.

Note 1 This chapter is based on my chapter ‘Tropes and Translation’ (Dickins, 2018: 208– 222) in the Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies and Linguistics. In this chapter, I have removed some of the technical discussion found in ‘Tropes and Translation’ and included further discussion of Arabic>English translation examples.

Further reading Dickins, J. (2005) Two Models for Metaphor Translation. Target 17(2): 227–273. Goatly, A. (1997) The Language of Metaphors. London: Routledge. Kövecses, Z. (2010) Metaphor (2nd edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ritchie, L.D. (2013) Metaphor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

References Abu Ain, Sana A. Abdul-Aziz (2014) Equivalence in Translating Metaphors and Idioms in King Hussein’s Political Speeches. PhD Thesis: University of Leeds. Al- Harrasi, Abdulla (2001) Metaphor in (Arabic- into- English) Translation with Specific Reference to Metaphorical Concepts and Expressions in Political Discourse. PhD Thesis: University of Aston.

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James Dickins Al- Hasnawi, Ali (2007) A Cognitive Approach to Translating Metaphors. Translation Journal 11(3). Retrieved from: www.translationdirectory.com/article10.htm. Al-Salem, M.- Nour (2014) The Translation of Metaphor from Arabic to English in Selected Poems of Mahmoud Darwish with a Focus on Linguistic Issues. PhD Thesis: University of Leeds. Al-Sharafi, Abdul Gabbar M. (2004) Textual Metonymy: A Semiotic Approach. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Al-Zoubi, Mohammad, Al-Ali, Q. and Al-Hasnawi, Ali R. (2006) Cogno-Cultural Issues in Translating Metaphors. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 14(2): 230–239. Almisned, Othman A. (2001) Metaphor in the Qur’an: An Assessment of Three English Translations of Suurat Al-Hajj. PhD Thesis: University of Durham. Alshunnag, M. (2016) Translating Conceptual Metaphor in Popular Biomedical Texts from English to Arabic. PhD Thesis: University of Salford. Aouad, M. (1989) La Rhétorique. Tradition Syriaque et Arabe. In: Goulet, R. (ed.) Dictionnaire des Philosophes Antiques I, 455–472. Baffioni, Carmela (2011) Aristotle, Arabic: Poetics. In: Lagerlund, H. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy: Philosophy between 500 and 1500, Vol. 1. Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London and New York: Springer, 118–119. Barcelona, Antonio (2003) The Case for a Metonymic Basis of Pragmatic Inferencing. In: Panther, K.-U. and Thornburg, L. (eds) Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 81–102. Black, Deborah L. (1990) Logic and Aristotle’s ‘Rhetoric’ and ‘Poetics’ in Medieval Arabic Philosophy. Leiden: Brill. Brown, Catherine (1996) Translation of Extracts from ‫‘( ﻣﺪﻳﻨﺔ ﺍﻟﺒﻐﻲ‬The City of Oppression’), ‫ﻋﻴﺴﻰ ﺑﺸﺎﺭﺓ‬. (Eissa Bishara). BA Translation Project: University of Durham. Burger, Harald (2007) Semantic Aspects of Phrasemes. In: Burger, H., Dobrovol’skij, D., Kühn, P. and Norrick, N.R. (eds) Phraseologie / Phraseology: An International Handbook of Contemporary Research: Volume 1. Berlin: De Gruyter, 90–109. Corbett, E.P.J. and Connors, R.J. (1999) Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (4th edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Croft, William (2002) Domains in Metaphors and Metonymies. In: Dirven, R. and Pörings, R. (eds) Metaphor and Metonymy in Comparison and Contrast. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 161–203. Cruse, D. Alan (1986) Lexical Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Deignan, Alice (2005) Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Dichy, Joseph (2007) Kināya. In: Versteegh, K., Eid, M., Elgibali, A., Woidich, M. and Zaborski, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics (Volume 2). Leiden: Brill, 578–583. Dickins, James (1998) Extended Axiomatic Linguistics. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Dickins, James (2005) Two Models for Metaphor Translation. Target 17(2), 227–273. Dickins, James (2016) Construction of a Linguistic Theory from First Principles and Confrontation with Crucial Data. Linguistica Online. Retrieved from: www.phil.muni.cz/linguistica/art/dickins/dic-004. pdf. Dickins, James (2018) Tropes and Translating. In: Malmkjaer, Kirsten (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies and Linguistics. London and New York: Routledge, 208–222. Dickins, J., Hervey, S.G.J. and Higgins, I. (2002) Thinking Arabic Translation. London and New York: Routledge. Elmallah, Fuzi H.M. (2008) Arabic-English Translational Crossover Viewed from a Linguistic/Cultural Perspective with Special Reference to the Major Principles Involved in Translating the Metaphorical Language. PhD Thesis: University of Edinburgh. Geoffroy, Marc (2011) Aristotle, Arabic. In: Lagerlund, H. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy: Philosophy between 500 and 1500, Vol. 1. Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London and New York: Springer, 105–116. Goatly, Andrew (1997) The Language of Metaphors. London: Routledge. Goschler, Julia (2007) Metaphors in Cognitive and Neurosciences: Which Impact Have Metaphors on Scientific Theories and Models? In: Metaphorik.de (Online Journal on Metaphor and Metonymy). Retrieved from: www.metaphorik.de/12/goschler.pdf. Hartley, L.P. (2004) [1953] The Go-Between. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

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Translating tropes Kimmel, M. (2010) Why We Mix Metaphors (and Mix Them Well): Discourse Coherence, Conceptual Metaphor, and Beyond. Journal of Pragmatics 42(1): 97–115. Knowles, Murray and Moon, Rosamund (2006) Introducing Metaphor. London and New York: Routledge. Kövecses, Zoltan (2010) Metaphor: A Practical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Lakoff, G., Espenson, J. and Schwartz, A. (1991) Master Metaphor List (2nd edition). California: University of Berkeley. Retrieved from: araw.mede.uic.edu/~alansz/metaphor/METAPHORLIST.pdf. Levin, Samuel R. (1982) Aristotle’s Theory of Metaphor. Philosophy & Rhetoric 15(1): 24–46. Maalej, Zouhair (n.d.) Translating Metaphor between Unrelated Cultures: A Cognitive Perspective. Retrieved from: simsim.rug.ac.be/Zmaalej/transmeta.html. Menacere, Mohammed (1992) Arabic Metaphor and Idiom in Translation. META 37(3): 567–572. Merakchi, K. and Rogers, M. (2013) The Translation of Culturally Bound Metaphors in the Genre of Popular Science Articles: A Corpus- based Case Study from Scientific American Translated into Arabic. Intercultural Pragmatics 10(2): 205–374. Nader, Maria (2013) Translating Metaphor in Economic Newspaper Articles: A Case Study of the Translation of Conceptual and Linguistic Metaphors from English into Arabic. PhD Thesis: University of Salford. Najjar, Sumaya A. (2012) Metaphors in Translation: An Investigation of a Sample of Quran Metaphors with Reference to Three English Versions of the Quran. PhD Thesis: Liverpool John Moores University. Newmark, Peter (1985) The Translation of Metaphor. In: Paprotte, W. and Dirven, R. (eds) The Ubiquity of Metaphor. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 295–326. Newmark, Peter (1988) A Textbook of Translation. London and New York: Prentice Hall. Núñez, R.E. and Sweetser, E. (2006) With the Future Behind Them: Convergent Evidence from Aymara Language and Gesture in the Crosslinguistic Comparison of Spatial Construals of Time. Cognitive Science 30(3): 401–450. Obiedat, Hisham (1997) Aspects of the Problems of Translating Metaphor with Special Reference to Modern Arabic Poetry. PhD Thesis: University of St Andrews. Omar, Lamis I. (2012) A Cognitive Approach to the Translation of Creative Metaphor in Othello and Macbeth from English into Arabic. PhD Thesis: University of Durham. Ortony, Andrew (1979) Beyond Literal Similarity. Psychological Review 8(3): 161–180. Paradis, Carita (2004) Where Does Metonymy Stop? Senses, Facets and Active Zones. Metaphor and Symbol 19(4): 245–264. Pramling, N. and Säljö, R. (2007) Scientific Knowledge, Popularisation, and the Use of Metaphors: Modern Genetics in Popular Science Magazines. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 51(3): 275–295. Rosch, Eleanor (1975) Cognitive Representations of Semantic Categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 104(3): 192–233. Salih, T. (‫ ﺍﻟﻄﻴﺐ ﺻﺎﻟﺢ‬aṭ-ṭayyib ṣāliḥ) (1966) ‫῾ ﻋﺮﺱ ﺍﻟﺰﻳﻦ ﻭﺳﺒﻊ ﻗﺼﺺ‬urs az-zyin wa-sab῾ qiṣaṣ (The Wedding of Zein, and Seven Short Stories). Beirut: ‫ ﺩﺍﺭ ﺍﻟﻌﻮﺩﺓ‬dār al-῾awda. Salih, Tayeb (1969) The Wedding of Zein (translated by Johnson-Davies, D.). London: Heinemann. Sandford, Daniel (2014) Idiom as the Intersection of Conceptual and Syntactic Schemas. Language and Cognition 6(4): 492–509. Schrier, Omert J. (1997) The Syriac and Arabic Versions of Aristotle’s Poetics. In: Endress, G. and Kruk, R. (eds) The Ancient Tradition in Christian and Islamic Hellenism. Leiden: Research School CNWS, School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies, 259–278. Semino, Elena (2008) Metaphor in Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Simon, Udo (2007) Isti’āra. In: Versteegh, K., Eid, M., Elgibali, A., Woidich, M. and Zaborski, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics (Volume 2). Leiden: Brill, 441–447. Simon, Udo (2008) Majāz. In: Versteegh, K., Eid, M., Elgibali, A., Woidich, M. and Zaborski, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics (Volume 3). Leiden: Brill, 116–123. St John, J. (1999) Translation of ‫ ﺣﻘﻞ ﺍﻟﺒﻨﻔﺴﺞ‬and ‫ ﺍﻟﻨﺎﺭ ﻭﺍﻟﻤﺎء‬by ‫( ﺯﻛﺮﻳﺎ ﺗﺎﻣﺮ‬In 1973 .‫ﺩﻣﺸﻖ ﺍﻟﺤﺮﺍﺋﻖ‬. Damascus: ‫ﺩﺍﺭ‬ ‫)ﺍﻻﻧﻮﺍﺭ‬. BA Translation Project: University of Durham. Vagelpohl, Uwe (2008) Aristotle’s Rhetoric in the East: The Syriac and Arabic Translation and Commentary Tradition. Leiden: Brill.

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James Dickins Watt, John W. (2007) Christianity and the Renaissance of Islam. Abū Bishr Mattā, al-Fārābī, and Yaḥyā ibn ‘Adī’. In: Tamcke, M. (ed.) Christians and Muslims in Dialogue in the Islamic Orient of the Middle Ages. Beirut and Wurzburg: Ergon Verlag, 99–112. Zahid, Abdelhamid (2009) A Model for Metaphor Translation: Evidence from the Holy Quran. The First International Conference on the Sacred Text: Translation Faculty of Letters and Humanities. Marrakech. Zahri, Maysoon (1990) Metaphor and Translation. PhD Thesis: University of Salford.

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26 TRANSLATION OF SELF-HELP LITERATURE INTO ARABIC A preliminary inquiry Hazar Alkheder

Introduction The last 25 years have seen Self- Help (henceforth S-H) literature transform from a niche market into a flourishing pop-culture industry throughout the globe. Not only does American S- H traverse linguistic, cultural, and geographical boundaries through translation, but also become a reference point for many local authors, catalyzing the emergence of original S-H works in different locales. Despite the abundance of translations, however, this genre remains strikingly neglected in the field of translations studies. This chapter takes the translation of S- H in the Arab world as an illustrative case. Viewing S-H as a cross-cultural genre will provide an overview through the prism of translation studies in general and translation into Arabic in particular. It is not a micro- investigation of data on translated works into Arabic, which is a task I am currently examining elsewhere. Therefore, this chapter will not provide an exhaustive analysis, but a blueprint whose broad lines can serve as points of departure upon which to undertake fully fledged research on the translation of S-H into Arabic and other languages. The chapter will address three issues: (1) the nature of the S-H literature, its position and significance to the field of translation studies; (2) the position and status of the S-H genre within the literary polysystem; and (3) its emergence in the Arab world as an attempt to sketch a historical background to fill the lacuna of knowledge that marks this genre. It will also outline suggestions that can guide future research. Visit any bookstore in the Arab region and you will find shelves saturated with S-H materials, both translations and originals. Yet this bountiful production belies a scarcity of knowledge about S-H itself in Arabic contexts. Fundamental grounds on which to base empirical research are lacking, or virtually non- existent. Such grounds include, for example, statistics on the Arab market for S-H books, and bibliographies of works translated into Arabic. One important aspect of this meeting of European and Arab S-H literatures is that the much-maligned genre has a long and prestigious history in Arab culture as a literary tradition of ethical teaching and character advice stretching back to the early centuries of Islamic culture in Asia. Historical, cultural, and economic background knowledge is essential for examining the patterns that can reveal whether selection practices are random, or expressions of broader systematic policies. More broadly, there has, thus far, been little to no research on the socio-political underpinnings of the production and translation of S-H literature, including the ideological and 437

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religious affiliations of translators and publishers. There has also been little research on the interactional network of S-H writers, translators, commissioning institutions, and publishers. Future research must examine these fundamentals before exploring more advanced questions.

S-H: its nature, position, and significance to translation studies There is some scholarship on the nature and function of S-H books, although even the precise definition of S-H is not yet a settled matter. Santrock et al. (1994: 4) define S-H as ‘books that are written for the lay public to help individuals cope with problems and live more effective lives’. Sandra K. Dolby (2005: 38) proposes that ‘self- help books are books of popular nonfiction written with the aim of enlightening readers about some of the negative effects of our culture and worldview and suggesting new attitudes and practices that might lead them to more satisfying and more effective lives’. These two definitions converge, however, with the notion that the aim of S-H is to better one’s own life. These two definitions include two crucial points that illustrate their significance regarding translation. First is the reference to ‘problems’: the problems individuals encounter are embedded in their own cultures and lives. Therefore, one can assume that the solutions these books suggest should be viable and feasible for their readers; this would include readers of these books in translation, who are also seeking help. Second is the reference to ‘our culture and worldview’, which alludes to the cultural specificity of these books. Dolby (2005: 10) analyzes cultural specificity best when she ties the S- H phenomenon with folklore studies, her reason being that the main function of folklore is ‘maintaining the stability of culture’. S-H books, as she puts it, are ‘works of analysis and interpretation and offer a cultural critique’ (2005: 11). Dolby (2005) describes the writing style of S-H books as highly contextual and performative, in which shared knowledge between the writer and the reader is necessary. The cultural specificity of S-H books therefore poses unique challenges for translatability. The role of the S-H book translator is that of an entirely new writer, who prioritizes ‘shared knowledge’ with the target reader. Dolby (2005: 158) argues that ‘the larger cultural frame of reference is the source of many ideas and materials that writers and readers use in creating or reading a self-help book, and yet it is the individual reader who uses such books in the private task of building a personal philosophy’. Translating an S-H book requires translating more than words and sentences, i.e., all its original collective cultural values, to the unique society and region of the book’s new target readers. Understanding this fact raises questions whose exploration would significantly widen and enrich translation studies. How would translation export or transfer that ‘frame of reference’ into another culture? How would the target readers build their ‘personal philosophy’ when it is offering them different values? What forms would the translation take? What strategies would the translator adopt to deal with this dilemma of cultural framing? The problems and concerns of translating S-H books constitute a paradox in the simultaneous universality and specificity of the issues they address. Love, fear, confidence, insecurities, health, and wealth are basic needs for all people in all cultures. But as universal and global as these concerns are, an individual engages them only through her unique position in a specific culture. A preliminary analysis of some translated S-H texts reveals how their universal and singular aspects are interwoven, translation being a process of literary production that I describe as ‘sifting’. Elements of a text that will pass smoothly through the translational net are the genuinely universal concepts, translatable because of their commonality despite a different cultural expression. More culture-specific elements, however, rarely make it through to the translated texts. Such resistant content is seemingly immune to translation. 438

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These challenging cultural- specific elements of S-H texts require manipulative strategies for translation. The translator may then reproduce or replace them with the cultural and ideological equivalents for his/her target audience. Translation has taken S-H literature as a genre beyond its linguistic, geographical, and cultural borders. The classic S-H books such as Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), Samuel Smiles’ Self-Help (1859/1996), and John Gray’s Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus (1992) have been translated into numerous languages. But if the receiving cultures and languages are to welcome the various forms and contents of the S-H products from different source cultures, a translator must apply the target audience’s cultural constraints, whether religious, socio- political, ideological, etc. It is in these constraints that translation strategies are most visible, and examining them will indicate the essential systemic relations of a receiving culture as a network of concepts and practices. Despite the promise that this initial analysis of S-H literature’s intercultural tensions hold, there has, thus far, been very little translation research addressing the genre.1 Anna Mauranen (2002) compares corpora of mainly Finnish S-H books, both original and translations, in search of differences.2 Mauranen’s study is primarily linguistic in focus and does not delve deeply into the translations’ cultural or ideological aspects. However, the study as a whole offers a useful model of general research while providing important remarks on the genre. Volga Yılmaz Gümüş (2012) offers a case study of the translation into Turkish of Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller Outliers. The paper is very informative and rich as it examines the specific strategies the translator adopted, and the results in rendering culturally specific elements of Gladwell’s thinking. Abdullah Mohammed Alkhamis (2013) touches upon the production of S-H books by identifying the translation activities of private publishers in Saudi Arabia with a special focus on Jarir as a leading publisher of this field. It offers important insights on translation selections, motivations, and strategies using Bourdieu’s sociological framework.

The status and position of S-H within the literary polysystem One possible explanation for why there remains so little research on the translation of the S-H genre arises from examining the genre’s status and position in academia in general and within the literary polysystem in particular. The S-H genre severely lacks prestige in relation to other so-called ‘proper literatures’. Apart from the few far-flung articles I have discovered, analyses of S- H appears completely absent from the translation studies landscape. This is despite the considerable commercial success S-H has, thanks to international translation. This inferiority and marginality are conspicuous, and they manifest in institutional and individual contexts. Regarding its institutional marginality, S-H is still not viewed as a legitimate area of literary studies, a fact easily demonstrated by its complete absence from most, if not all, Western and Arab university departments. The genre is hardly regarded as worthy to be assigned as readings and barely figures on the shelves of most university libraries. On the rare occasions when S-H is discussed in classes or seminars, it is quickly downgraded as a ‘lowbrow’ genre, as several newspapers and blogs rank them. It, therefore, comes as no surprise that S-H has not garnered attention in academic translation studies either, despite a growing interest in pop-culture translation such as films, video games, and comics. Media outlets, online communication channels such as blogs, chatrooms, and websites have all portrayed a negative image of the S-H genre, contributing to its inferior cultural prestige. An amusing example is that an entry in Urban Dictionary—a user-curated online dictionary specializing in slang and cultural 439

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words, concentrating on terms and ideas not found in conventional dictionaries—calls S-H books ‘self-hell books’ because they make one feel worse after reading them. In individual contexts, one can see a demonstration of S-H’s inferior prestige in refusal of many writers that their work be classified as S-H, even when they are received by the audience as such. As Micki McGee (2005: 195) highlights: Indeed, among academics whose books find their way to the New York Times bestseller list, it has become customary to deny that the book in question is a self- help book. For examples, see Juliet B. Schor’s disclaimer in the paperback edition of The Overworked American or Deborah Cameron’s discussion of Deborah Tannen’s denial of the self-help role of her books. A number of scholars have also expressed a strong opposition to the S-H style of writing, underestimating and questioning its ‘helpfulness’. Steve Salerno (2005), for instance, argues that the genre has a harmful and even dangerous effect on its readers. The most intense denunciations of S-H literature consider it a form of writing that victimizes the reader, or else radically neuter its social power by writing off the genre’s popular success as merely a phenomenon of canny marketing. It is worthy to note, however, that the disciplines of sociology, psychology, gender studies, and feminist studies did place a relatively significant focus on S-H and produced seminal works analyzing the genre (cf. McGee, 2005; Starker, 1989; Simonds, 1992; Anker, 1999; Mur Effing, 2009). Yet these studies limit their focus to the same set of elementary questions: What is the S-H phenomenon? How and why did it start and continue to flourish? What are the negative and positive effects of S- H books on readers? How are men and women represented in these books? Addressing S- H through the discipline of translation studies will generate new and different questions about the genre, generating different perspectives that will inform and enrich its own practice and theory. This requires looking at S-H as a legitimate literary system, therefore adopting an approach that is neither conventional, nor evaluative. So one must keep at bay any personal prejudice that could influence the course of research and its results, such as being explicitly ‘anti’ or ‘pro’ S-H as literature. A straightforwardly descriptive approach appears particularly promising, which would look at S-H literature not, as academia’s dominant attitudes suggest, as a problem itself, but rather as an expression of a society’s wider social problems, the books’ content making relatively explicit the symptoms or underlying essence of more fundamental ideological conflicts and stresses. A socio- psychological phenomenon merits attention on its own right. Cultural critic Micki McGee has taken up this line of thought, with her analysis that understands S-H as a sign of ‘social dissatisfaction’ and even ‘prepolitical protest’ (McGee, 2005: 97). The concerns of a culture’s S-H literature makes the genre ‘a symptom of social unrest that has not found a political context’ (McGee, 2005: 180).3 The S-H genre remains relatively young and it is now starting to establish a more serious profile and greater legitimacy as a subject of academic scholarship. One can see the first lurching movements toward respectability in the launching of the International Journal of Self-Help and Self-Care, and several serious-minded self-improvement magazines. However, this is not the case for Arabic S-H, which is forsaken in almost all academic fields. In spite of the marginal or peripheral position of S- H literature itself in both Western and Arab worlds, the translated S- H literature seems to occupy a central one. Expressed in the terms of polysystem theory, as introduced and developed by Itamar Even- Zohar in the 1970s, within a literary polysystem, different literary genres and texts, including translated works, compete and are in constant struggle for domination (primary/ central positions). In his 1990 seminal 440

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paper, ‘The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Polysystem’, Even- Zohar views translated literature not only as an integral part of the literary polysystem, but also as the most active one within it. If translated literature assumes a central position, it means that it actively participates in shaping the center of the polysystem and becomes an essential part of the innovative forces that generate new models, poetics, and techniques to the target culture. This holds true for translated Arabic S-H in two ways: it has introduced a new literary model and new features to Arabic-language writing. As Even-Zohar (1990: 47) describes, ‘[t]hrough the foreign works, features (both principles and elements) are introduced into the home literature which did not exist there before. These include possibly not only new models of reality to replace the old and established ones that are no longer effective, but a whole range of other features as well, such as a new (poetic) language, or compositional patterns and techniques’. This centrality of cultural position encourages the assumption that the translation will be adequate to the original and will reproduce its dominant original textual features and relations. Even- Zohar (1990) further describes three conditions that could explain why a translated literature might assume a central position: (1) if the literature of a given culture is ‘young’ and strives to grow and become established; (2) when it is ‘peripheral’ or ‘weak’ and needs to strengthen itself, as in the case of literature of small nations within bigger cultures; and finally (3) when it is influenced by the occurrence of ‘turning points’ and ‘historical moments’, resulting in a literary vacuum as traditional literary models are rejected on grounds of obsolescence. In the case of Arabic literature, the third condition holds most true, as indicated by the cultural impact of two historical turning points in Arab culture. The first came in the wake of colonialism’s collapse, in which the Arab world witnessed an awakening that called attention to a knowledge vacuum in all fields, especially scientific, literary, and political. Translation was the primary solution to fill the urgent need of keeping up with the modern world. As Selim (2009: 9) explains: The Arab Nahdah (modern Renaissance movement) celebrated translation as the mechanism through which Arab societies would achieve enlightenment and modernity. Translation then became a jealously guarded zone, relying on new romantic concepts of originality, transparency and accuracy to establish the purity of its foundation. The purified modern languages and identities constructed through romanticism and nationalism were understood to be fundamentally incompatible with popular and pre-modern literary practice: the forgery, the adaptation, the authorless, or multilingual text for example. Moreover, anything less than strict equivalence in the translation process was considered by Nahdawi critics and historians to be a form of textual mutilation. The second historic moment to consider is the Arab world’s resistance to Westernization, accepting modernity and the prevalence of Western technological and cultural imports, while attempting to distinguish itself from the foreign. Westernization posed a challenge for Arab identity and heritage, which feared loss of its cultural uniqueness and the risk of melting into a stronger and more advanced other. Translation into Arabic became one form of resistance. In this sense, translation continued to assume a central position, but instead of bringing innovative foreign forces, it took a twist and brought more conservative cultural concepts to become the ‘guardian’ of the traditional identity and heritage, and, in Even-Zohar’s (1990: 49) words, to ‘preserve traditional taste’. The accompanying rise of Islamic discourse supported these conservative cultural forces and served as the foundation for Arab resistance to cultural assimilation.4 441

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This cursory examination of both translated and original Arabic S-H literature, however, reveals a hybridization of features and norms at work, which could be attributed to the peculiar cultural and historical conditions that led to the genre’s remarkable centrality in the Arab world. Verifying the validity of this initial observation and the reasons behind it requires examining a corpus of works which is a very fruitful future project.

S-H in the Arab world: a prologue In the Arab world, it is not yet possible to map the growth of S-H literature through existing scholarly research. Although the S-H movement has become mainstream, very little is known with certainty about the size of this industry, its consumers, its evolution, its underlying ideology, and its social, economic, cultural, or political catalysts. A quick search on the Internet or a visit to any Arab bookstore will reveal that, despite the emergence of original Arabic S-H writings, the Arabic S-H repertoire mostly consists of translations. There, unfortunately, remain no comprehensive statistical surveys of the precise ratio of translated S-H to locally produced Arabic works. But informal surveys of bookstores’ and publishing houses’ websites reveal that almost every website includes a section entitled S-H or selfdevelopment, which carries a number of these books. There have been, thus far, no studies explaining the reasons behind the burgeoning translation of this genre specifically, given the popular truism on the relatively stagnant state of translation into Arabic more generally. There are only sporadic non- scientific or academic materials such as magazine and newspapers articles, and blogs, that address S-H. These materials, however, do not go beyond pointing to the existence of this phenomenon, its flourishing sales, and the fact that most of these books are translations. By the same token, it is just as difficult to trace the roots of the Arabic S-H genre and its emergence, thanks to insufficient empirical data, and lack of information regarding when, where, and by whom the first local Arabic S-H books were commissioned or produced. The only significant historical evidence of the earliest examples of the S-H genre in the Arabic language comes from Timothy Mitchell’s Colonising Egypt (1991 [1988]), where he describes the cultural impact on Egyptian society of two S- H books translated into Arabic during Britain’s 1882–1922 colonization. Samuel Smiles’ most popular work, Self- Help: With Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance, had a widespread impact on Egyptian politics and culture, a shocking rebuke to the popular modern Western conception of the S- H genre as pablum. Smiles’ book was translated in 1880 by Yaʿqub Sarruf, a Beirut- based teacher and later editor of the Cairene journal Al- Muqtaṭaf (Mitchell, 1991). Sarruf’s translation became a reader at the Syrian Protestant School and had a deep impact on students and intellectuals. Smiles’ book later found its way to Egypt when Sarruf and a number of his students moved to Cairo and became highly influential in that country. As Mitchell (1991: 109) explains: Several events indicate the impact of Smiles’ book in Egypt. In 1886 a Self- Help Society was founded in Alexandria. In 1898 Mustafa Kamil, the young leader of the nationalist opposition to the British occupation, founded a private school — an act which he declared to be his own practical application of the doctrine of self- help. The phrase ‘self-help’ was inscribed on the wall of the school, together with several other mottoes from Smiles’ book. Mustafa Kamil’s patron, the Khedive, is said to have gone even further and had the words of Samuel Smiles written up on the walls of his own palace. 442

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The opening chapter of Smiles’ book describes the relations between the nation and the individual as intertwined. It starts with a quote attributed to John Stuart Mill: ‘[t]he worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it’ (Smiles, 1996: 15). His book’s ideas fit very well with the circumstances and needs in Egypt at the turn of the last century. On one hand, the translation of Smiles’ work arrived in Egypt at a time when studying and understanding the Egyptian character was a dominant occupation for British administrators as an ideological method of surveillance and consolidating power. On the other hand, Egyptian anti-colonial activists and intellectuals strove to understand the cultural conditions and causes of Egypt’s conquest, and sought to change these conditions as a precursor to regaining national independence. Mitchell (1991: 109) states that: With the translation of works like Self-Help, then, the Egyptian character or mentality could be treated as a distinct and problematic object, the object upon which society and its strength were said to depend. The very occupation of the country by the British could be blamed upon defects in the Egyptian character, defects whose remedy was Egypt’s political task. An 1881 Al-Muqtaṭaf article recommended the translation of another work by Smiles, Character, which was published in 1872. The essay itself contrasted the political and military success of Japan in its recent wars with China and Russia, with the failure of Egypt and the Arab world to resist European colonial occupation. It attributed this difference in the powers of two similarly small and disadvantaged countries to distinctions of culture and personal character. Character was among a list of English works that had been translated into Japanese, suggesting that their culture had recently become influenced by the nation that had Egypt in its grip. By examining what English books Japanese people were translating and reading, Egyptians could learn what the Japanese were learning as a nation. Samuel Smiles offered the secret to English political and military success, as Mitchell (1991) argues. The second such book to significantly impact the Arab region as a whole was Edmond Demolins’ A quoi tient la supériorité des Anglo-Saxons (1898). Although it is explicitly a work more of political theory than S-H, it ‘understood the political process again in terms of the problem of individual character’ (Mitchell, 1991: 110). Demolins argued that Britain defeated all previous colonial powers, particularly the French, and became the greatest power because of the Anglo-Saxons’ personal character and the distinctive modern education of nineteenthcentury Britain. Demolins’ Arabic translator, Ahmad Fathi Zaghlul, clearly expressed in his introduction his politically and culturally self- reflective goals in translating this book. His aim, as Mitchell (1991: 111) summarizes it, was to translate the book as a guide for personal self-help in order to: make people consider the causes of this inferiority, by comparing the Egyptian ‘character’ to the character of the English who had occupied their country. He enumerated what he considered the areas of weakness in the Egyptian character … The foreigners could not be blamed for this, because they had benefitted by their own efforts, and by their social-scientific knowledge. The impact of Arabic translation of Demolins’ book transcended the Egyptian elites, making its way to the masses, providing, as Mitchell (1991) puts it, ‘a scientific basis for development, so that people could apply its principles to their situation’. 443

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The cases of the Arabic reception of Smiles’ and Demolins’ books offer two facts, which, I argue, must provide foundations for future studies on the history of Arabic S-H literature: (1) Arabic S- H literature emerged in a colonial context in the late nineteenth century; and (2) it was used by the colonizers as a method of control and by the colonized as a form of resistance. Mitchell’s account is perhaps the only one that yet exists, published in the discipline of historical postcolonial studies. But one should never consider Smiles’ and Demolins’ books the debut of the self-help genre in the Arab world. Literary history throughout the Arab world and wider Islamic cultures includes a long- entrenched S-H tradition known as ‘adab al-naṣīḥa’, literally advice literature, received by its readers essentially as a pre- modern S-H. This literary genre consists of books of guidance written with tones of edification or caution, encompassing diverse genres including naṣīḥa (straightforward advice), ḥikma (wisdom), mawʿiẓa and iʿtibār (religious and moral exhortation), akhlāq (character, nature, and disposition), and waṣiyya (exhortation). The most popular example of adab al-naṣīḥa in Arab popular culture would be Kalila wa Dimna by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, a collection of animal fables providing practical wisdom on a king’s conduct.5 Other diverse genres in this tradition are the mirrors of princes, as well as the epistles and testaments written in early Islamic centuries addressing the roles and qualities of rulers. The textual addressee of the earliest pre- modern S- H works were almost exclusively kings, rulers, ministers, and the elite in power, a stark difference from the layperson intended receiver of modern S- H literature. For Arab and wider Islamic history, S-H is a continuous tradition with these distinct pre- modern and modern styles. Smiles and Demolins, therefore, represent, at least provisionally, the origin of Western influence on an Arab literary tradition already centuries old. A future research program investigating the nature and historical causes of this distinction would be considerably fruitful.

Conclusion The genre of S-H literature does not hold high prestige in the academic world, and consequently has been overlooked in translation studies. Contemporary academic disciplines have likewise devoted very few resources to studying Arabic S-H literature. My aim has been to provide signposts to guide future research, focusing on general issues rather than particular textual problems. Even this cursory historical account of the wider Arab and Islamic S-H tradition provides insights as to its true nature and status within the literary polysystem and its significance in the context of translation studies. Translation served a vital role in (1) introducing the contemporary conception of S-H to Arab host culture; and (2) influencing the modern re-emergence of indigenous Arab S-H writing. The strategies in translating and rendering the most historically influential European S-H texts adopted translation norms regarding the genre’s function loaded with ideological and culturally specific components. This is a fascinating new territory for literary studies to explore, not only regarding the urgent need to build a profile for S-H literature in translation studies in general, but also Arabic S-H in particular, as the parameters for either field have not yet been truly set. To this end, the following are some possible projects: • • •

Conducting case studies of translated S-H texts to identify and examine the dominant translation norms and characteristics. Conducting corpus-based studies in search of common norms, characteristics, practices, predilections, and tendencies. Dedicating studies to the accounts of translators of S-H books, as well as commentaries on these translations, to trace challenges, constraints, and intersections of traditions and characteristics. 444

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Examining the norms of translated S-H literature in relation to the norms of the original S-H literature of the host culture and language, in order to understand how they mutually influence each other.

Comparing and examining the findings of these projects, regarding S-H translation among a variety of different cultures and languages, would allow for more robust comparative studies of S-H literature and a comprehensive body of research about the translation of this literary tradition. In conclusion, I hope this chapter would encourage readers to study the genre of S-H literature and reflect on it from their own cultural and language paradigms. S-H literature is a product of culture and a product of translation in target cultures. It is a mass genre, produced and disseminated on a wide scale in both original and translated productions. This automatically categorizes it as a non- elitist genre or a low literature. However, its appeal to millions of source and target readers—proved by its phenomenal market success—is the very reason why S-H is worthy to be the object of more serious work in translation studies. Translation research must challenge the dominant perception of the genre’s prestige in the literary hierarchy, not to change this view or position, but to tackle this vibrant and expanding form of cultural communication, which feeds on translation activity and produces it at the same time. In fact, S-H culture has grown to such an extent that companies specialized in S-H translation alone are being established. Their goals, policies, recruitment criteria, and practical strategies are all topics that merit exploration. Therefore, the field of translation studies is missing enormous translational insights and perspectives because of the marginalization of this genre. This chapter is just one attempt to begin filling this gap.

Notes 1 I shall note that studies on S-H literature in translation might exist and be abundant in language and culture pairs other than the ones I am working on; namely, Arabic and English. 2 The study is published by inTRAlinea, an online translation journal affiliated to the Department of Interpretation and Translation of the University of Bologna, Italy. 3 These are only some of the views McGee discusses. She argues, however, that one’s position or approval of the validity of a certain position regarding the S-H phenomenon depends largely ‘on how one understands both the self and the constitution of ideology’ (McGee, 2005: 23). For further details, see her chapter ‘From Self-Made to Belabored’. 4 Conservative forces, in this case, operated despite the central position of Arab translation, which is contrary to Even-Zohar’s explanation that they function when translations are in a peripheral position. This challenges Even- Zohar’s principle and shows that the type of forces operating could be uncorrelated with the position a translation assumes. 5 Ibn al- Muqaffaʿ’s book itself has a long and complicated history of translation. A Persian convert to Islam, Ibn al- Muqaffaʿ reworked an earlier Pahlavi version of the fables by Burzoe, and the Pahlavi version itself is adapted from an Indian work of allegorical and illustrative stories named Panchatantra. Taking such a long historical view shows how intensely intertextual the tradition of adapted advice works is over millennia of Asian history. The question of originality itself becomes a problem, and points to a state of origin amnesia.

Further reading Gauntlett, D. (2002) ‘Self-help books and the pursuit of a happy identity’, extended version of material from Media, Gender and Identity: An Introduction. Routledge. Nord, C. (2006). Translating for communicative purposes across culture boundaries. Journal of Translation Studies, 9(1), 43–60. Simms, K. (1997). Translating sensitive texts: Linguistic aspects. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

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References Alkhamis, A. (2013). Sociocultural perspectives on translation activities in Saudi Arabia: A Bourdieusean account. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, The University of Manchester, UK. Available at: www.escholar. manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:184617&datastreamId=FULLTEXT.PDF. Anker, R.M. (1999). Self- help and popular religion in early American culture: An interpretive guide. Westport: Greenwood Press. Atıl, E. (1981). Kalila wa Dimna: Fables from a fourteenth- century Arabic manuscript. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Carnegie, D. (1936). How to win friends and influence people. New York: Simon & Schuster. Covey, S.R. (1989). The seven habits of highly effective people. London: Simon & Schuster. Demolins, E. (1898). A quoi tient la supériorité des Anglo-Saxons. Paris: Firmin Didot. Dolby, S.K. (2005). Self- help books: Why Americans keep reading them. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Even- Zohar, I. (1990). The position of translated literature within literary polysystem. Poetics Today, 11(1), 45–51. Farag, N. (1969). al-Muqtataf 1876–1900: A study of the influence of Victorian thought on modern Arabic thought. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, The University of Oxford, UK. Available at: https:// ethos.bl.uk/ OrderDetails.do;jsessionid=917C266E954A612876CB9FEF154ADF01?uin=uk.bl.ethos.602605. Gladwell, Malcolm. (2008) Outliers: The story of success. New York: Little, Brown and Co. Gray, J. (1992). Men are from Mars, women are from Venus: A practical guide for improving communication and getting what you want in your relationships. New York: HarperCollins. Gümüş, V. Y. (2012). Translation of culture- specific items in self- help literature: A study on domestication and foreignization strategies. English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries, 9(2), 117–129. Mauranen, A. (2002). Where’s cultural adaptation? A corpus-based study on translation strategies. inTRAlinea Online Translation Journal. Available at: www.intralinea.org/specials/article/1677. McGee, M. (2005). Self- help, Inc.: Makeover culture in American life. New York: Oxford University Press. Mitchell, T. (1991). Colonising Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mur Effing, M. (2009). The origin and development of self-help literature in the United States: The concept of success and happiness, an overview. Atlantis, 31(2), 125–141. Salerno, S. (2005). Sham: How the self-help movement made America helpless. New York: Crown Publishers. Santrock, J.W., Minnett, A.M., and Campbell, B.D. (1994). The authoritative guide to self- help books. New York: Guilford Press. Sarruf, Y. (1886). ‫[ ﺳﺮ ﺍﻟﻨﺠﺎﺡ‬The secret to success]. Beirut: Al-Muqtataf. Selim, S. (2009). Nation and translation in the Middle East: Histories, canons, hegemonies. The Translator, 15(1), 1–13. Simonds, W. (1992). Women and self- help culture: Reading between the lines. Piscataway: Rutgers University Press. Smiles, S. (1859/1996). Self- help: With illustrations of conduct and perseverance: unabridged. London: IEA Health and Welfare Unit. Smiles, S. (1872). Character. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street. Starker, S. (1989). Oracle at the supermarket: The American preoccupation with self- help books. Piscataway: Transaction. Urban Dictionary. (2008). Self Hell. Available at: www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=self+hell. Zaghlul, A.F. (1899). Translator’s introduction. In: Demolins, E. Sirr taqaddum al-inkliz al-saksuniyyin [A translation of A quoi tient la supériorité des Anglo-Saxons]. Cairo: Matba’at al-Ma`arif, 2–33.

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27 ḤANĀN AL- SHAYKH’S INNAHĀ LUNDUN YĀ ‘AZĪZĪ When voice-granting canonicity subverts the writer’s voice Sanaa Benmessaoud

Introduction Authored by an immigrant woman writer and telling the story of mainly female characters who immigrated from different Arab countries to London, Innahā Lundun Yā ‘Azīzī is a migrant narrative that situates Ḥanān al-Shaykh (henceforth al-Shaykh) within an Arabic literary tradition that goes as far back as the nineteenth century, with writers such as Lebanese Aḥmad Fāris al- Shidyāq, and his autobiographical fiction, Al- Sāq ‘alā al- Sāq fīmā Huwa al- Faryāq (1855). This tradition gained even more momentum after the 1930s with iconic writers such as Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm, Yaḥya Ḥaqqi, al-Ṭayyib Ṣāliḥ, and Ḥannā Mina. The discourses about West/East articulated in these writings reflect a high coefficient of ambivalence, depending on the geopolitical climate. While Sellman’s study (2013) has shown that the discourse in Arabic migrant narratives articulated by Arab refugees and forced migrants as of the 1990s markedly shifted away from a center/margin dyad, Hassan (2012: 4) argues that Arab immigrant writers, at least in the US and the UK, are still generally burdened by how their ‘relationship to their readers is mediated by the dominant discourse of Orientalism that defines them’. As a consequence, Orientalism remains ‘the reigning episteme within which that literature is produced’ and to which it responds (2012: 7). Al-Shaykh, however, has to grapple with the implications of a second burden, that of canonicity. Indeed, admission into the canon functions as a double-edged sword that leaves third world canonized writers in a double bind. While it allows for the marginalized writers’ voice to be heard, it paradoxically muffles this voice and subdues its subversive force. As Derek Attridge (1992: 231) aptly points out, when marginalized texts are canonized, ‘it will become increasingly difficult to read them against the canon, since their uniqueness will be dissolved by the ideologically determined voice that the canon grants’ (emphasis in original). Because of these two burdens, Innahā Lundun is a compelling case study, not just of migrant narratives penned at the interstices of the national and the transnational but also of the translation of such narratives. The novel, thus, invites two important questions: How does alShaykh, who has become mainstreamed in the West, negotiate her position as a British-Arab 447

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author who writes in Arabic about immigrants from Arab countries? How does she navigate her way as a female subject at the intersection of local and transnational dominant discourses on women, in a context overdetermined by a range of deep-impacting factors ranging from readers’ expectations, to publishers’ strictures, and marketing strategies? The translation invites two other equally important questions: How does this novel get further refracted during the process of (re)translation? What images does it portray of women from Arab countries and, therefore, of the cultures these women come from? To answer these questions, the present research draws on critical discourse analysis (CDA), mainly Fairclough’s (2003) analytical/ reading model.

CDA as a reading model Fairclough (1995: 132) maintains that CDA’s aim is to investigate the way discursive events ‘arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of power and struggles over power’. He thus proposes an analytical model whereby a discursive event can be read from three distinctive but interdependent perspectives: (1) as a text; (2) as a social practice occurring within a specific context; and (3) as a discourse practice involving processes of production, reception, and interpretation of the text. Analysis at this last level includes an exploration of the discursive practices drawn upon in the production of the text, including interdiscursivity. It is interdiscursivity that will be the focus of analysis in this chapter. Drawing on both Bakhtin and Kristeva, Fairclough (2003: 95) defines interdiscursivity as ‘the normal heterogeneity of texts in being constituted by combinations of diverse genres and discourses’. In line with his view of the order of discourse as ‘the social order in its discoursal facet— or, the historical impress of sociocultural practice on discourse’ (Fairclough, 1995: 10), Fairclough defines genres as ‘the specifically discoursal aspect of ways of acting and interacting in the course of social events’ (Fairclough, 2003: 65). Since social change entails changes at the level of social practices, which, in turn, can occur only if forms of social action and interaction (including in their discoursal aspect) change, then change in genres, in the way they are configured, mixed, blended in, and hybridized, contributes to and reflects social change. Discourses, on the other hand, are ‘ways of representing aspects of the world—the processes, relations and structures of the material world, the “mental world” of thought, feelings, beliefs and so forth, and the social world’ (Fairclough, 2003: 124). In other words, discourses are different perspectives on different aspects of the world, perspectives that are shaped by the positions that people hold in the world, by the relations they have vis-à- vis each other, as well as by their social and individual identities. As such, discourses are part of the discursive resources that people use not only to represent the world as they see it or as they project it and imagine it should be, but also to relate to one another, be it in relations of solidarity and co- operation, in relations of competition or domination, or in relations of difference. Used thus, discourses are potentially constitutive of reality insofar as, in Foucault’s (1972: 49) words, they are ‘practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak’. Both genres and discourses are, therefore, socially organized and controlled. However, through different selections, inclusions, and exclusions they, in turn, contribute to the remaking of history by acting on social relations and events, by representing the world in different ways, and by negotiating (gendered) identities within specific contexts of situation. Analyzing a text as discourse practice, therefore, allows the researcher to explore the socially organized language resources that the author has drawn upon while shedding light on the type of relationships that obtain between a discursive event and its social and cultural context as well as the kind of (gendered) identification and representation at play in it. 448

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Al-Shaykh and the pressure of canonization Al- Shaykh’s Innahā Lundun (2001) is a discursive event that took place in a very overdetermined and circumscribed context, not only because of the still- hegemonic discourse of Orientalism but also because of the author’s status. After Ḥikāyat Zahra (1980; Story of Zahra) and, more specifically, Misk al-Ghazāl (1988; Women of Sand and Myrrh), al-Shaykh was canonized in the West as ‘one of the leading contemporary novelists of the Arab world; as a standard-bearer for Arab women writers’ (Ball, 2011: 62). Major UK- and US-based publishers, such as Anchor Books, Doubleday, and Bloomsbury Publishing, started picking up her works for translation and publication. Likewise, major media outlets and literary magazines, including the Washington Post and the Times Literary Supplement, started reviewing her novels. Her works have also made it to university curricula in the Anglo- American world and are the subject of discussions within academia, most specifically feminist academia. Cooke (1996: 5), for instance, praised al-Shaykh’s apolitical writing even as she included her in the group of women writers that she called the ‘Beirut Decentrists’,1 a group including Ghādah al- Sammān and Imilī Naṣr Allāh and other iconic and regionally acclaimed writers. Larson (1991: 14), for his part, described Ḥikāyat Zahra as ‘certainly a major work of Middle Eastern fiction’, and branded al-Shaykh a feminist, albeit a ‘reluctant’ one, since her female protagonists are ‘more acted upon than active’. Al-Shaykh’s reception in the Anglo-American context, thus, occurs in terms so familiar— Western feminism and marketability as well as Arab world misogyny—that she became institutionalized and, indeed, mainstreamed. Her persona, as reluctantly feminist as some might have found her to be, was appropriated to ‘speak’ in feminist terms for the subaltern Arab woman. As al-Shaykh reveals to Ball (2011: 63), ‘they want me to be a spokesperson for Arab women and I have refused in various circumstances; I didn’t want that at all … From the beginning, I tried to differentiate myself—I said I’m a novelist’. This canonization has given Innahā Lundun great visibility. The novel was picked up for translation and publication in the very same year it was published in Arabic, by commercial, mass-market publishers Bloomsbury, Knopf Doubleday, within its Pantheon Books imprint, and Random House, within its Anchor Books imprint. The English translation, entitled Only in London, received very positive editorial reviews including from The Observer and the Times Literary Supplement. It was also the subject of an interview with Canadian writer and broadcaster Eleanor Wachtel on her literary show, Writers & Company, on Canadian CBC Radio One. Playwright Shelley Silas adapted it for BBC Radio 4. It has, likewise, been examined in several scholarly works, including Hout (2003), Fischer (2004), and Al- Sammān (2015), and was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in the UK. However, this very canonization in the West means that al-Shaykh’s works are being treated as commodities that are increasingly submitted to ‘the law of profitability’ and going through ‘the process of manufacturing standardized worldwide bestsellers’ (Heilbron and Sapiro, 2007: 98). It also means that her works are filtered through the socio- cultural values and political agendas of ‘non- mercantile’ institutions (Heilbron and Sapiro, 2008: 33). More importantly, it means that al- Shaykh has to speak in terms that are familiar to Western audiences and produce a text that ‘echoes the structures of the West— hybridity instead of fixed national identity’, and reproduces ‘“Western” values … instead of traditional cultures’ (Nandi, 2013: 82– 83). Such pressure was bound to leave traces in the genres and discourses upon which al-Shaykh draws in Innahā Lundun.

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The resistance of storytelling Al-Shaykh’s novels are feminist in that they consciously strive to undermine a culture of subordination and challenge patriarchal attitudes. For many feminist writers, and feminist translators for that matter, postmodernist aesthetics offer disruptive strategies capable of achieving these objectives (Michael, 1996). They reject literary realism on grounds that it helps maintain the status quo by masking the historicity and contingency of values and by constructing reality as neutral and unmediated. In Innahā Lundun, however, al-Shaykh seems to ground her feminist politics in the ordinary physical world, thereby giving us a realist novel. Watt (2001) describes literary realism as a form characterized by the portrayal of an individual experience that is unique and novel. As a result, it eschews imitation of previous works, pre-existing plots or formal conventions. A second characteristic of the realist novel, according to Watt (2001), is one that derives directly from emphasis on individual experience, i.e., individuation, or particularization of the characters. This is achieved mainly through the use of proper names and background information. Unlike in earlier forms of fiction, where proper names given to characters were symbolic, typical, or characteristic, proper names chosen for the characters in a realist work ‘suggest that they were to be regarded as particular individuals in the contemporary social environment’ (2001: 19). This principle of individuation is further achieved by setting the characters against ‘a background of particularised time and place’ (2001: 21), and by closely following their development in time and space. Innahā Lundun displays these characteristics in a generally transparent language that seldom draws attention to the act of writing. Al-Shaykh thus gives her characters random, individuating names and provides extensive spatial details about London to the point where the description reads like a tentative map. An example of this is her description of Amira’s2 walk along Edgware Road with its eateries, from Moonlight Café to Ranoush (al- Shaykh, 2001a).3 While such narrative procedures, or what is described by Watt (2001: 32) as ‘formal realism’, entail a forfeiting of literary values and a formal impoverishment, they help render the texture of daily experience as closely as possible, something that came to be understood as an obligation on the novelist’s part toward his/her readers. Watt (2001) affirms that literary realism is premised on the assumption that the novel is ‘a full and authentic report of human experience’. It is an assumption according to which readers of the novel expect the author to give them all the details of the story and its characters. Drawing an analogy with what happens in a court of law, Watt (2001: 31) contends that readers’ expectations are, in many ways, aligned with the jury’s, particularly in that ‘they both want to know “all the particulars” of a given case … and they also expect the witness to tell the story “in his own words”’. The jury for whom al-Shaykh is knowingly giving testimony in Innahā Lundun is a much more heterogeneous readership than the usual target audience. Indeed, al- Shaykh wrote the novel in Arabic and published it in Lebanon through Dar al- Adab publishing house, which marketed it in the Arab world. However, Hassan (2010: para. 8)4 recounts that when she asked al-Shaykh ‘How did Innahā Lundun Yā ‘Azīzī come about?’, the latter answered that: before this novel, it had never crossed her mind to write about London where she lived. She had been mostly interested in the Arab world: ‘I think in Arabic, I dream in Arabic, I write in Arabic’. However, [one day,] a British publishing house contacted her and asked her to write a short story about London … It was only then that [al- Shaykh] started paying attention to the Arab diaspora in the West, or more specifically in London. 450

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In other words, although al-Shaykh wrote Innahā Lundun in Arabic, she was not addressing only the Arabic reading public, but the Anglo-American one as well. It is a readership that al-Shaykh has grown to understand given her long experience with Western publishers. In an interview with Al-Madhoun (2013: para. 8), al-Shaykh asserts that ‘English speakers are not interested in Arab issues in general; however, they are interested in novels that tell interesting stories’. Likewise, al- Shaykh is very aware of how these readers’ expectations impinge on publishers’ decisions. When asked by al-ʾAbṭaḥ (2004: para. 35) whether she caters to the taste of Western audiences, al-Shaykh responded that ‘sometimes we forget that the West does not translate what does not sell. They are tradesmen after all and want to make money’. With these assumptions in mind, al-Shaykh wrote a novel that tells an interesting story in an accessible language and with a realist, character-based plot resting on quasi-ethnographic research: There is a street in London called Oxford Street. There, I met someone who is much like Samir. Through him, I came to know about an Algerian young woman who resembles Amira. I looked for her every day. I wanted to meet her. But whenever I arrived [at Oxford Street], people would tell me that she was there but had just left, or that she would arrive in a few minutes … I spent six months trying to meet her. Then I thought that this was for the best. This way, my imagination would flesh out Amira freely. And that is how Amira came to be. As to Lamis, the Iraqi young woman in the novel, she is like a girl that edits my writings. Her father is a musician who lives in Iraq. Once, he sent her a music tape and when I listened to it, I felt like I knew this man … and that’s how Lamis came to be … The authorities once caught a man who contacted Prince Charles, pretending to be a prince himself. In the interrogation, he told them about a Moroccan young woman who conned people by claiming she was a princess, so he did like her … This is the Amira character that appears in the novel. (Hassan, 2010: paras 9–10) This life-inspired testimony to the jury is reinforced by all the spatial and temporal details, and the “particulars” that al-Shaykh provides in her individuation of these characters. The community that she translated in her novel thus appeared to be so authentic that ‘people started going to Oxford Street to look for the characters of this novel’ (Hassan, 2010: para. 12). For her Arab readers, al-Shaykh flags up her objective in the very title. Innahā Lundun Yā ‘Azīzī literally means ‘It is London, my dear!’. She is promising her Arab audience, from her first- hand experience as a London- based writer, an authentic depiction of London as lived by Arab immigrants and tourists. This promise is compounded by a book cover featuring a plump woman with long, black hair and outrageous make-up, dressed in a tight, red camisole that reveals a mole on her right breast. The woman is holding a Gulf sword in her right hand while her left hand is tucked behind her back, her head slightly tilted to one side as if dancing a famous, folkloric Gulf dance. Not only is the image a stereotypical representation of a prostitute, one that talks back to and intertexts with other Arabic literary texts and Egyptian movies, it is also a stereotypical representation, albeit inferred, of the clients of this prostitute: oil-rich Gulf men who supposedly go to London only for (sexual) freedoms forbidden in their countries. With the image, the promise in the title becomes also a titillation of readers’ voyeuristic sense insofar as it enhances their expectation of a realistic depiction of the extravagances carried out by rich Gulf men and the kind of life that certain women from poor Arab countries lead in London. Al-Shaykh’s omniscient narrator meets these expectations to a great extent by 451

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providing detailed descriptions of Amira’s life, her sexual encounters with rich Emirati and Saudi men, and her meetings with prostitutes from other Arab countries. However, al-Shaykh seems to be lulling her Arab readers into a sense of familiarity, only to contest several of their misconceptions about London and its people. When, for instance, one of Nicholas’ neighbors tells him that he warded off three youngsters who were trying to break into his car, the narrator reports that ‘Nicholas thanked him while thinking that there was a sense of neighborhood in London, after all, and that the city was not as immense and uncaring as he believed’ (alShaykh, 2001a: 70). The realist aesthetics serve a similar purpose for al-Shaykh’s English-reading public. She plays to their expectations of familiarity, only to bring them to interrogate their own prejudices. In a very poignant passage describing Lamis’ first encounter with Nicholas’ friends during a party, Lamis quickly realizes that nobody is interested in her as an ‘ordinary’ woman who came to London under ordinary circumstances (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 226). She realizes that Nicholas’ friends will be interested in her only if she supplies them with gruesome details about her country. She, therefore, turns into books of ‘history’ and ‘geography’ (al- Shaykh, 2001a). By drawing on the realist novel genre, al-Shaykh is, therefore, creating different social hierarchies with her different audiences. With the Arab audience, she is assuming the role of the knowledgeable guide who takes visitors from different Arab countries on a tour of London, to show them what this city means and what it offers to its Arab visitors. To her Anglo-American audience, however, al-Shaykh is not so much the guide as the writer coming from a minority community, that of the Arab diaspora in London, telling her audience how this minority community lives and integrates into, or otherwise stays at the margin of, London. She is the instrumental witness who gives facts and “particulars” to the jury. Paradoxically, and precisely because she positions herself as seemingly inferior to her English readers, she is able to create another social hierarchy, one where she is the interpreter, i.e., ‘an agent of a dominant social code’, as Deleuze and Guattari (1983: 13) define it. As such, she codifies and reproduces both the Other/minority community and the Self/the majoritarian community in such a way as to consciously unsettle the dominant narratives to which she assumes her English readers subscribe. Thus, although realism does imbue a work with a pronounced ethnographic aura that confers a value of truth to it and can, as a consequence, mask the contingency of the act of writing, al-Shaykh seems to be deploying realist aesthetics to make her postcolonial and feminist politics of unsettling the Anglo-American audience stereotyped narrative of the “Arabs” and the “Arab woman” more recognizable and, therefore, more effective to a mainstream-reading public schooled in realist fiction.

Subversion or subservience? This potentially subversive effect of realism is undermined, however, by the effect of the other main genre on which al-Shaykh draws in Innahā Lundun, namely, the immigrant novel genre. Classification of narratives of migration as a genre is particularly problematic, given the increasingly porous borders, the great migration waves, and the blurring of the line between the global and the local. Merolla and Ponzanesi (2005: 4), for instance, ask: ‘what are the implications of globalization for literature? … To which audience is migrant literature directed? Does the migrant label enhance the visibility of writers shifting between languages and cultures, or does it simply relegate them to a luxury ghetto?’ Aware that the label ‘“migrant” is [often] imposed upon exoticism and ethnic difference in order to mark “otherness”’, they also 452

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enquire whether the ‘“migrant writer” … is not just a traveler, a wanderer, but implicitly the person who reproduces the colonial divide in new global terms’. Faced with such classification difficulty, Merolla and Ponzanesi (2005) agree that migrant literature is generally one that explores questions of home, abroad, language, and identity. By adopting such a definition, the two scholars seem to echo Boelhower’s (1981) generic model of the “immigrant novel”. Boelhower’s model distinguishes between two main characteristics of the immigrant novel. The first relates to the characters/actants. They are foreigners and uprooted immigrants who are naïve but hopeful (1981). Their actions are initially shaped by the ‘Old World’s’ values which they either bring to bear on their actions in the ‘New World’, or keep contrasting to the ‘New World’ (1981: 6). The second characteristic is that the plot always involves, to varying degrees, a constellation of ‘immigrant frames’ (1981: 7), including religion, language, and a bildungsroman type of journey that takes the characters through a series of trials to assimilation and acculturation. While Boelhower elaborated his model on the basis of early English-language immigrant novels in the US, the model can still, according to Madelaine Hron (2009), account for many contemporary immigrant novels that all invariably explore issues of integration and acculturation. In Innahā Lundun, the narrative starts with a flight from Dubai to London, gathering all the main characters: Lamis, Amira, and Samir. The flight, connecting two international airports, symbolizes departure from the Old World, mobility, and uprootedness. The lead characters are all immigrants with language obstacles, albeit to varying degrees, and they have all gone through their own bildungsroman journey, each, however, towards different objectives. Lamis’ journey was one of integration and assimilation. London was a process of rebirth for her: ‘this country will become my country’ she says (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 31). Before reaching her goal, however, she shuttles between her past and her present, between hatred and love for her culture and mother tongue. It is through the Other, Nicholas, that she rediscovers herself and her heritage, learns to appreciate both, and achieves integration. Samir’s journey is one of self-realization as a homosexual subject. Repressed for much of his life in his home country, Lebanon, his only goal in London is to enact his identity, freely, through his embodied actions, without any social stigma. While his poor English impedes his communication with his English partners, he keeps on flagging up his marginality as both immigrant and homosexual, and constructs, in this marginal space, a ‘home’ for himself in London with people he comes to love as family and the job he has always wanted (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 218). Likewise, Amira’s journey is not particularly one of integration in London. Beyond the freedom it gives her, London seems to be immaterial to her as she evolves almost exclusively within a community of immigrant prostitutes and rich tourists coming from Arab countries. Amira’s journey is, first and foremost, one of class struggle to redress economic injustice. It is also one of gender struggle against entrenched prejudices toward poor women and sex workers. By depicting these variegated experiences of immigrant subjects, al- Shaykh successfully captures some of the complexities of the migration situation and shows her English readers the ‘pluricultural reality [of] minority cultures with specific languages, world views, customs, and memories’ (Boelhower, 1981: 12). Indeed, Boelhower (1981) maintains that the immigrant novel serves to depict ‘unique historical subjects’ in their reaction to the dominant culture. In so doing, it leads the reader ‘primarily to familiarize himself with new ethnic values and traditions and to naturalize these differences as an integral part of the [host society’s] experience’ (al-Shaykh, 1981). In fact, the immigrant narrative in Innahā Lundun also brings the Englishreading public to familiarize itself with the foreignness within it and to accept the differences inherent in it. It does so through the character of Nicholas, who was on the same flight as 453

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the lead characters. English in origin, working between London and Oman, and roaming the world as an expert in antiques, Nicholas is himself a modern nomad, living in-between multiple geographies and cultures and constantly negotiating his identity between the Other/Arab East and the Self/English West. In this immigrant narrative, London emerges as a heterogeneous terrain constantly imagined and re-imagined by its immigrants and cosmopolitan subjects. For Amira, the immigrant from a poor Moroccan town, ‘authentic London’ is being able to live in luxury (al- Shaykh, 2001a: 53). For Samir, the oppressed homosexual immigrant, London is not ‘Oxford Street, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace’. It is being able to do what he wants to do (2001a: 218). For Lamis, the character looking for anchor, London is, initially, a carefree stroll in unfamiliar streets, a pure, accent-free English language, and anything not Arab (2001a: 31). Eventually, it becomes the possibility of being her Arab self with her Arab accent; liberated from her traumatic past, the suffocating weight of traditions and censorship from fellow members of the Arab community. Through her immigrant narrative, al-Shaykh seems, therefore, to be trying to decenter London, to defamiliarize it to the English-reading public by highlighting its heterogeneous identity, precisely to familiarize it with the heterogeneities of its diasporic minority, and ‘naturalize [this minority’s] differences as an integral part of [English society’s] experience’, as Boelhower (1981: 12) would put it. However, by writing London/ the center as a heterogeneous space that allows for the differences of its Arab immigrants precisely because of its heterogeneity, al-Shaykh is, paradoxically, investing it with a unifying value, that of freedom, since “only in London” could all her lead characters, all marginalized back home, realize themselves. In so doing, al- Shaykh is also, dialectically, writing the different Arab countries from which her immigrant characters come as homogeneous and homogeneously unaccepting of such heterogeneities. Here, one harks back to Merolla and Ponzanesi’s (2005: 4) question as to whether the migrant writer implicitly ‘reproduces the colonial divides in new global terms’. Al-Shaykh is, in fact, decentering the center, following the traditional center/margin dyad that serves to maintain the center and contain the margin (cf. Lionnet and Shih, 2005). Within this dyad, too, the margin always appears to be ‘mediated by [the center] in both its social and its psychic means of identification’ (Lionnet and Shih, 2005: 2). Indeed, al-Shaykh’s immigrant narrative opens and ends with a clear, and quite literal, articulation of such mediation. Thus, when the narrator sets out to introduce Lamis to the readers at the beginning of the novel, she tells us that the English gynecologist who delivered Lamis was ‘the mediator between her and her progeny, between her and her husband’ (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 28). Likewise, the novel, which opens with Englishman Nicholas handing a distraught Lamis her English passport lost during severe air turbulence, comes full circle, as it closes with a self- contented Lamis on a flight from London back to Oman in the Middle East, to join Nicholas: ‘She prepares her passport which the English passenger, Nicholas, had found. The same Nicholas who brought her back to Arab lands’ (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 408). The same ambiguity and, indeed, contradiction resulting from the deployment of the genres above are also present at the level of discourses on which the novel draws. Sunderland (2004: 28– 29) distinguishes between two main categories of discourses: ‘specific context’ discourses, i.e., discourses that are specific to particular texts, such as narrative, descriptive, or argumentative discourses; and ‘interpretive discourses’, i.e., discourses detected through empirical exploration and processes of analysis and interpretation. Within this second category, Sunderland (2004) further identifies two sub-categories: general discourses and gendered discourses. These discourses can be configured in various relationships, including ‘dominance/ marginality, mutual support, opposition, foreground/ background, and hierarchy, 454

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where one discourse “overarches” several others’ (2004: 31). The main general discourse in Innahā Lundun is Orientalist discourse whereby London is a refuge and the English are saviors, while an ‘Arab’ East is a homogeneous entity that is non- tolerant and, sometimes, violent. Such reification is textually realized through lexical choices signifying the “groupness” and “togetherness” of this reified “Arab”. Accordingly, the immigrant characters are not primarily Moroccan, Iraqi, or Egyptian. They are primarily “Arab” to the point where Lamis’ gynecologist does not help her give birth to her son. Rather, he ‘pulled an Arab boy from inside her’ (al- Shaykh, 2001a: 28). Her ‘Arab friend’ finds refuge in the same gynecologist (2001a), and when she is on a flight bound for Oman, she thinks of Nicholas as the man pulling her back to ‘the Arab lands’ (2001a: 408). The non- tolerance and violence of this homogeneous entity, as opposed to the tolerance of England and the English, are textually realized through “structural oppositions”. Machin and Mayr (2012: 39) maintain that words do not signify only on their own but as ‘part of a network of meanings’. This allows for the creation of structural oppositions in texts, such as between values of good/ bad, often by association and without necessarily overtly stating the opposition. Thus, in Lebanon, the persecution by family and society of Samir pushes him to the verge of suicide. ‘The only person’ to show him any kindness was the ‘extremely sweet and kind’ Mrs. Cunningham, the English Lady from the British Embassy (al- Shaykh, 2001a: 255). Ultimately, it is Mrs. Cunningham’s country that allows Samir to form his homosexual subjectivity (2001a: 218). Also, in Nahid’s5 Egypt, domestic animals are so cruelly treated that Stanley, Nahid’s English husband, starts heaping insults on Egyptians: ‘You are beasts’ (2001a: 327). In contrast, pets are so well taken care of in London that ‘even dogs here have identity documents and health files’ (2001a: 368). Likewise, in Amira’s Morocco, society’s misogyny causes her to contemplate suicide. It is an English female tourist who saves her by merely asking her for directions and then thanking her (2001a: 249). Lamis’ Iraq does not fare any better. It is Lady Drower—probably the real-life British anthropologist—who shows any kindness to Lamis’ father as a child (2001a: 344). It is a teacher sent by the United Nations to the Marshes who convinces Lamis’ grandfather to send her father to Najaf for education (2001a: 341); and so extremist a city is Najaf that all types of music are forbidden and little birds are chased away for their chirping (2001a: 341). In contrast, the English people appreciate arts so much that they are deeply moved by a play in the theatre while Lamis remains completely unmoved (2001a: 265). The last conspicuous general discourse in the novel is a religious one, that of the existence of ‘Islams of their own’, to borrow Hafez’s (2011) concept. Hafez (2011: 77–100) applies this concept to ‘Islamic women activists’ to highlight how these women go through ongoing and complex processes of becoming that are formed through the imbrication of secular values in the subject’s understanding of religion and piety. Through this concept, she brings out the heterogeneities within Islam as performed and lived. In Innahā Lundun, al- Shaykh seems to be doing the same, mainly through the characters of Amira and Samir. These characters, one a prostitute and the other a homosexual man, lead a life that monotheist religions and believers would deem unreligious. They also represent the individuals thought by many Westerners to be persecuted and killed in Arab- Muslim countries. Al-Shaykh, however, challenges such worldviews through a discourse of Islam as a religion that lends itself to multiple, heterogeneous interpretations. She, thus, portrays the prostitute and the homosexual as going through constant processes of becoming, wherein Islam, as they understand it, is embedded in their daily practices. Textually, this is realized through the ubiquitous use by various Muslim characters, including these two, of religious formulas, such as Allah yustur (May God help us!) and bismillāh al-raḥmān al-raḥīm (In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful). It 455

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is also realized through dialogues between these two characters and God, in which they sometimes express fear of punishment, but mostly love for God and trust in His love for them even as they are about to sin. The other main discourses are gendered and are directly related to the overarching general discourse above. The first one is an Orientalist/colonialist discourse where the relationship between Arab East and English West is conceived through ‘sexist blinders’ (Said, 1978: 207). It is a discourse that constructs the Orient as both passive and feminine, waiting to be taken by the masculine West, and as full with ‘sexual promise (and threat), untiring sensuality, [and] unlimited desire’ (1978: 188). Indeed, Innahā Lundun feminizes the Arab East and sexualizes the Arab/ West encounter. The Arab characters are either female, homosexual, or, if they define themselves as men, symbolically castrated (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 186). These feminine/ feminized characters all seek and, sometimes, even beg for sexual satisfaction from Western males. When Lamis, for instance, goes to Nicholas’ apartment for the first time, she is hoping to have sex with him. When he fails to reciprocate her desire, she engages him until he responds (2001a: 152). When he finally penetrates her, she thanks God even though she feels no pleasure (2001a: 153). Amira, who only ever sells sex to rich Arabs, sexually assaults Nicholas on his very first visit to her (2001a: 74). She explains her assault by invoking cultural repression: ‘no matter how much they try to cage me, they will never imprison what I have in my body … I let myself act freely and assault you. For I know that even if I throw myself at you, you will not blame me; you will even justify my action’ (2001a: 74). With yet another structural opposition whereby an unnamed but inferred collective and homogeneous ‘them’ is repressive of its women and their bodies whereas the English are understanding and tolerant of their (sexual) agency, al-Shaykh seems to be subscribing to a sexual politics of colonialist discourse where women from Arab/ Eastern countries are cast as ‘sexually hungry subalterns’ (Shohat, 2006: 42), literally assaulting the (desired) white man. This politics is further enhanced through lexical choices, qualifiers, and evaluative adjectives. Nicholas, for instance, is so horrified when he finds Lamis masturbating just minutes after he refused to have sex with her that he yells: ‘Jesus … you’re a sex beast. Stop it!’ (alShaykh, 2001a: 301). In direct opposition to these two discourses is a third, gendered one, that of Arab women as active agents and self-empowered subjects who do not need to be rescued. Al-Shaykh realizes this agency through transitivity, which, in CDA, ‘refers, broadly, to who does what to whom, and how’ (Machin and Mayr, 2012: 104). Amira and Lamis are, thus, generally, the grammatical subjects of material process verbs and, by extension, the semantic doers of concrete actions resulting in material consequences, even in situations where men are conventionally perceived as the active doers, i.e., in sexual encounters. This discourse is also realized through the very choice of female characters to be the protagonists of an immigrant novel and, consequently, at the heart of a bildungsroman journey on which both Lamis and Amira undertake a series of actions to improve their lives and enhance their immigration experience. Thus, Lamis is the one to leave both marriage and son despite the stigma associated with a mother abandoning her child. She also refuses to cave to Nicholas’ insistence on getting married while she feels she is still hostage to her past. Similarly, Amira is able to con Gulf men and the Interpol thanks to her wit and resourcefulness, which invokes familiar scenes from the One Thousand and One Nights. The last main gendered discourse in the novel is that of Arab men as chivalrous and appreciative of women, rather than violent. This is realized through inclusions in and exclusions from the acts of violence depicted in the novel. It is thus the aunt who beats Samir while in 456

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Lamis’ case, it is the mother who both forces her to marry an older man and lashes out at her for divorcing whereas her father shows sympathy and understanding. It is also Amira’s mother who brutalizes her during her childhood. More important, Amira is never once battered by any of her Arab customers with whom she feels entirely safe, and is thus surprised when an Arab prince wants to teach her a lesson for impersonating a princess from his family. These men always ‘left their authority at the door … that is why she never understood why foreign prostitutes were victim to violence or why they relied on an English pimp instead of dealing with Arab customers directly’ (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 380). In sum, al-Shaykh draws on extremely conflicting, sometimes mutually exclusive, discourses just as her deployment of the realist and immigrant novel genres achieves contradictory discursive effects. This discursive heterogeneity suggests unresolved tension in the novel, a tension between the imperative of catering to her English audience’s expectations and the representational burden she bears. Consequently, while the general discourse of the West as refuge versus the Arab East as non-tolerance and violence seems to frame the whole narrative, the other subversive discourses still compete for control throughout the novel. In CDA, such contradictions and tension would indicate a healthy instability in meaning and an ongoing struggle over control of the order of discourse and, by extension, the social order. They have an emancipatory potential and ‘provide leverage for change’ (Fairclough, 2001: 253), since they open the dominant discourses, in both the local and transnational contexts, to interrogation thus allowing for social change. This tension, however, will be largely resolved in the translation process.

An immigrant woman’s grammar of resistance in translation Innahā Lundun ‘had a slightly strange publishing history’, reveals Catherine Cobham (e-mail communication, June 28, 2012), the well-known literary translator commissioned to translate the novel into English. Indeed, Cobham ‘worked from the Arabic of an unpublished typescript’. She explains that after reading the English translation draft, the English publishers ‘suggested some changes— e.g. the introduction of the prologue was entirely their idea, and they also suggested several other small changes to explain things to the English readership which they thought would be confusing to them’ (e- mail communication, June 28, 2012). In addition, they requested the deletion of ‘several sections’ which they considered ‘extraneous to the main action of the novel’ (e-mail communication, June 28, 2012). Since the prologue is present in the published Arabic original, and since Cobham was called on to translate ‘new small additions to the Arabic’ (e-mail communication, June 28, 2012), it is safe to conclude that al-Shaykh agreed to substantially change her unpublished original to accommodate the English publishers and align the Arabic version with the English one. As to Cobham, who admits that she has ‘never actually read the published Arabic of Innahā Lundun … to see how different it is from the English, if at all’, she asserts that she ‘reversed quite a few of the editor’s decisions, but not all’ (e-mail communication, June 28, 2012). Accordingly, the translation, normally chronologically secondary, has significantly changed the “original”. In other words, to satisfy market imperatives and accommodate assumed readers’ values and expectations, the British publisher significantly refracted the novel not only for its AngloAmerican readers but also for readers of the Arabic and other language versions. Analysis of the translation reveals further symbolic violence in the form of significant shifts.6 These are both so consistent and numerous that they form a general trend within the translation. Calzada- Perez (2007: 192) argues that even if recurring shifts are not the result of a conscious ideological agenda, ‘this [still] does not prevent them from having ideological 457

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implications’. The most astounding and most recurring of these shifts in the translation of Innahā Lundun belong to a category of changes that van Dijk (1988: 117) calls ‘local transformations’, namely, additions and deletions. Addition, on the one hand, is the act of inserting ‘relevant details from other source texts or from previous models and general knowledge of the reporter. Often, additions are used to provide further information about previous events, context, or historical background’ (1988: 117). Deletions, on the other hand, are a ‘first and strategically efficient move’ that may be motivated either by external physical factors, such as space or legal limitations, or by internal conditions (1988: 117). These involve ‘decisions about the relative irrelevance of details or details that are not consistent with the models, scripts, or attitudes’ of text producers or of the readers as assumed by text producers (1988: 117). These are, therefore, shifts that change the meaning of a source text. In this translation, additions generally have the effect of enhancing the novel’s formal realism. In the example below, for instance, more details are added to the description of the character of Amira: Source text (ST): ،‫ ﻭﺃﺣﻤﺮ ﺷﻔﺎﻫﻬﺎ ﺍﻟﻔﺎﻗﻊ‬،‫ ﻭﺍﻟﻨﻈﺎﺭﺍﺕ ﺍﻟﻄﺒﻴﺔ ﺍﻟﻜﺒﻴﺮﺓ ﺫﺍﺕ ﺍﻹﻁﺎﺭ ﺍﻟﺬﻫﺒﻲ ﺗﺤﻴﻂ ﺑﻌﻴﻨﻴﻬﺎ‬،‫ﺍﺗﺴﺎﻉ ﻭﺟﻬﻬﺎ ﻭﺗﺒﺮﺟﻪ‬ .‫ﻛﻞ ﻫﺬﺍ ﺟﻌﻠﻬﺎ ﺗﺒﺪﻭ ﻭﻛﺄﻧﻬﺎ ﺭﻓﺮﺍﻑ ﺳﻴﺎﺭﺓ ﺃﻭﻟﺪﺯﻣﻮﺑﻴﻞ ﻗﺪﻳﻤﺔ‬ (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 5) Gloss translation (GT): The broadness of her face, the make-up, the gold-rimmed big spectacles and the bright red lipstick all made her look like the bumper of an old Oldsmobile. Target text (TT): And her broad face resembled the bumper of an antique Oldsmobile, with its heavy make- up and big gold- rimmed spectacles, and her light brown, shoulder-length hair, teased to make it look fuller. (al-Shaykh, 2001b: 1) The local transformation in this example has the effect of enhancing the particularization of a main character for the TT reader. Addition in the example below, however, has different effects: ST: ‫ ﻳﺴﺄﻟﻪ ﺇﺫﺍ ﻛﺎﻥ ﺍﻟﻌﻤﺎﻧﻴﻮﻥ ﻣﻬﺘﻤﻴﻦ ﺑﺎﻟﻐﺰﺍﻝ ﻭﻣﺎ ﺇﺫﺍ ﻛﺎﻥ ﻗﺪ ﺟﺎء ﻣﻦ‬،‫ ﺯﻣﻴﻠﻪ ﺍﻟﺴﺎﺑﻖ ﻟﺪﻯ ﺳﻮﺩﻭﺑﻴﺰ‬،‫… ﻛﺎﻥ ﺩﻳﻔﻴﺪ‬ ‫ ﻏﺰﺍﻝ ﺍﻟﻘﺮﻥ‬:‫ ﻭﻣﺎ ﺇﺫﺍ ﻛﺎﻥ ﻳﻌﺘﻘﺪ ﺃﻧﻪ ﺳﻴﺤﻘﻖ ﺃﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻷﺳﻌﺎﺭ ﻓﻲ ﻋﺎﻟﻢ ﺍﻟﻤﺰﺍﺩﺍﺕ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻴﺔ؟ ﻭﻳﻘﺼﺪ ﺑﺬﻟﻚ‬،‫ﺃﺟﻠﻪ‬ ‫ﺍﻟﻌﺎﺷﺮ ﺍﻟﻨﺎﺩﺭ ﺍﻟﺬﻱ ﺍﺳﺘﺮﺍﺡ ﻓﻲ ﺑﺮﻛﺔ ﺍﻟﻨﺎﻓﻮﺭﺓ ﻓﻲ ﺣﺪﺍﺋﻖ ﻣﺪﻳﻨﺔ ﺍﻟﺰﻫﺮﺍء ﺍﻷﻣﻮﻳﺔ ﻗﺮﺏ ﻗﺮﻁﺒﺔ ﻗﺒﻞ ﺃﻥ ﻳﺤﻞ ﺃﺧﻴﺮﺍ‬ .‫ﻣﻨﺬ ﺍﻟﻘﺮﻥ ﺍﻟﻤﺎﺿﻲ ﻓﻲ ﺃﺣﺪ ﺍﻟﻘﺼﻮﺭ ﺍﻟﻨﻤﺴﺎﻭﻳﺔ‬ (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 69) GT: … It was David, an ex-colleague at Sotheby’s, asking him whether the Omanis were interested in the gazelle and whether he believed it would bring in the highest price in the history of Islamic auctions. He was talking about a tenth- century gazelle that rested in a pool in one of the gardens of the Umayyad city al- Zahra near Cordoba, before it ended up in an Austrian castle in the past century. TT: It was David, an ex-colleague from Sotheby’s, asking whether the Omanis were interested in the gazelle. A tenth- century gazelle that had stood in a pool for hundreds of years in the gardens of the Umayyad Madinat al- Zahra near Cordoba—a 458

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palace with about five hundred rooms for men, two hundred for women, and fifty servants who fed leftovers to the peacocks, scattered seed for the birds and tore up twelve hundred loaves of bread a day to feed the fish in the palace ponds— before ending up in an Austrian castle. (al-Shaykh, 2001b: 47) The details added in this instance may or may not be factual—research, including Ali’s (1999) book- length study The Arab Contribution to Islamic Art: From the Seventh to the Fifteenth Centuries, which contains detailed description of Madinat al-Zahra, did not verify the veracity of the information provided in the translation. However, whether the added details are true or not, this local transformation invokes imageries from the One Thousand and One Nights with its harems and palaces teeming with women and servants and exotic birds. The decision to make such an intervention when the author has already provided enough background information about the Gazelle exoticizes the novel and enhances the Orientalist discourse on which it draws. In the example below, what is added is not so much a detail about a character as an implied value judgment of Muslims and Islam: TT: Nicholas nearly added that, all the same, it wouldn’t be advisable for his father to wear his dog collar when he visited Oman. (al-Shaykh, 2001b: 79) This whole sentence has been added to a passage where Nicholas’ father expresses a desire to gift a bible to his son’s Omani boss. In this passage, Nicholas’ mother worries about the idea, only for her son and husband to dismiss her worries as unfounded (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 113–114). By having both Nicholas, who lives in Oman, and his father giving short shrift to the mother’s worries, the author is actually dispelling a misconception about Arab Muslims and their religion, i.e., that they are dangerously intolerant. The addition, in this case, obliterates the author’s agency. Through a marker of modality that expresses a rather high level of ‘commitment to truth’ (Fairclough, 2003: 170), namely, ‘wouldn’t’, and a marker of a rather explicit evaluation, namely, ‘advisable’, the addition implies that a Muslim country is a hostile environment for Christian priests. It is an implication that conjures up and, therefore, consolidates images of the Muslim world as religiously intolerant and dangerous. It also undermines the already minor discourse on Islam as not monolithically violent and as lending itself to multiple interpretations. The same effect is obtained from the deletion in the example below, one in a series of similar deletions: ST: ‘.‫’ﻋﻠﻰ ﻛﻞ ﻳﺎ ﺭﺑﻲ ﺃﺣﺐ ﺍﻟﺸﻘﺮ ﻭﺍﻟﻌﻴﻮﻥ ﺍﻟﺰﺭﻕ‬ (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 126) GT: ‘In any case, Lord, I like blond hair and blue eyes’. TT: ‘In any case, I prefer blond hair and blue eyes’. (al-Shaykh, 2001b: 86) Samir is opening up to God about his preferences in men. God is deleted from the conversation and, with it, Samir’s assumption that his religion, Islam, as he understands it and lives it, is tolerant of homosexuals. 459

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The translation also significantly undermines the discourse on women as self- empowered agents rather than powerless victims, and the discourse on Arab men as non-violent. In the example below, for instance, the additions reinforce the perception that Arab societies are misogynistic: ST: ‫ ﺃﻣﻬﺎ ﻛﺎﻧﺖ ﺗﻮﺩ ﻟﻮ ﺗﻌﻴﺪﻫﺎ ﺇﻟﻰ‬.‫ﺑﻴﻨﻤﺎ ﺻﻴﺤﺔ ﺃﻣﻴﺮﺓ ﺍﻷﻭﻟﻰ ﺗﻌﺎﻟﺖ ﺑﻴﻦ ﺍﻟﺘﺤﺴﺮﺍﺕ ﻭﺧﻴﺒﺎﺕ ﺍﻷﻣﻞ‬ .‫ ﻓﻠﺮﺑﻤﺎ ﺳﻤﻊ ﷲ ﺍﺑﺘﻬﺎﻻﺗﻬﺎ ﻭﺣﻮﻟﻬﺎ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺫﻛﺮ‬،‫ﺍﻟﺮﺣﻢ‬ (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 100) GT: Whereas Amira made her first cry amidst regrets and disappointment. Her mother wished she could return her back into her womb. Maybe then, God would hear her prayers and change the newborn into a boy. TT: When Amira uttered her first cry, it was echoed by the disappointment and regrets of the women who attended her mother during her birth, who wished that this baby girl could return to the womb, and stay there while they prayed to God to change her sex. (al-Shaykh, 2001b: 68) While in the original only one woman, Amira’s mother, felt disappointed at having a baby girl, the translation attributes the disappointment to the plural “women”, thereby transforming what is portrayed as the action of one individual into that of a collectivity. Likewise, while in the original it is the singular “mother” who is praying that God would transform baby Amira into a boy, it is a plural “they”, referring to ‘the women who attended her mother during her birth’, that makes the prayers. This turns what is depicted in the original as individual prayers into a collective ritual, suggesting that it is a habit and a rite in Morocco to pray collectively for God to give baby boys instead of girls. This suggestion keeps alive the perception that Arab societies are deeply misogynistic. The same happens, rather explicitly, in the following example: ST: ‫ﻣﺶ ﺃﺧﺘﻲ ﺧﺴﺮﺕ ﺍﻟﺪﻋﻮﻯ ﺍﻟﺘﻲ ﺭﻓﻌﺘﻬﺎ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺯﻭﺟﻬﺎ ﻋﺸﺎﻥ ﻳﺪﻓﻊ ﺗﻌﻮﻳﺾ ﺑﻌﺪﻣﺎ ﻁﻠﻘﻬﺎ ﺯﻭﺟﻬﺎ‬ .‫ﺑﺎﻟﺜﻼﺛﺔ ﺑﺤﺠﺔ ﺃﻧﻬﺎ ﺃﻫﻤﻠﺖ ﻧﻔﺴﻬﺎ ﻭﺯﺍﺩ ﻭﺯﻧﻬﺎ‬ (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 56) GT: My sister lost the compensation lawsuit she filed against her husband after he divorced her irrevocably under the pretext that she had neglected her body and had become overweight. TT: My sister’s husband wanted a divorce after she put on too much weight. And then he married his secretary, and my sister couldn’t get any money out of him— even the judge blamed her for being overweight in the first place. (al-Shaykh, 2001b: 37) While the ST mentions that the sister lost her lawsuit, it leaves the reason open to interpretation and does not pinpoint anyone’s agency in it other than, maybe, the husband’s. In contrast, the translation closes the door on any interpretation by adding a clause whereby the judge openly re- victimizes the woman by berating her for being overweight. Misogyny is thus depicted as institutional. The translation adds another piece of information, namely, that the husband married his secretary after he divorced his wife. While this addition is irrelevant 460

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to the lawsuit or the weight, it is consistent with the model of the Arab woman victimized by misogynistic Arab men. In fact, Arab men in the English translation are also generally less chivalrous and less rational. The following example is a case in point: ST: .‫ﻭﺃﺗﺎﺭﻳﻪ ﻋﺎﻣﻞ ﺣﺎﻟﻮ ﻛﺎﺯﺍﻧﻮﻓﺎ ﻭﺻﺎﺭ ﻳﺒﺴﻄﻬﻦ ﺑﺪﻝ ﻣﺎ ﻫﻦ ﻳﺒﺴﻄﻮﻩ‬ (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 59) GT: He is acting like a Casanova, satisfying them instead of them satisfying him. TT: But that wasn’t because he likes the blondes, Amira. He was just looking after all the money he’d spent getting them there in the first place. He was making sure of his investment. And remember, he’s desperate to prove his virility, that he can still perform. (al-Shaykh, 2001b: 38–39) This is a comment that Nahid makes to Amira after the latter complains about an Emirati client who used to find her extremely attractive, but who is now preferring English and Russian prostitutes to her, treating them like ‘daughters of good families’ (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 58). The exchange clearly implies that the Emirati man not only likes European women but also treats them gallantly. Both the literal and implied meanings of Nahid’s comment are explicitly brushed away in the translation, and the comment is replaced with what is assumed to the be more relevant to the English readers’ mental representations of Arab men. The Emirati client’s positive behavior towards European prostitutes is explicitly chalked up to him being a shrewd businessman looking after his investment, with the implication that European prostitutes are nothing more to him than mere objects. The translation also explicitly casts doubt on the Emirati man’s virility. The example below is another illustration of the shifts undermining the gendered discourses in the original: ST: .‫ ﻳﺸﺎﺭﻛﻪ ﺍﻟﺜﻼﺛﺔ‬. ‫ ﻳﻀﺤﻚ ﺍﻟﺴﻜﺮﺗﻴﺮ‬.“‫ ”ﻳﺎ ﻟﻴﺘﻨﻲ ﻁﻠﺒﺖ ﺍﻟﺸﻤﺒﺎﻧﻴﺎ ﻭ ﺍﻟﻜﺎﻓﻴﺎﺭ‬‫ ﻧﻌﺘﺒﺮ ﺍﻟﻘﻀﻴﺔ ﻣﻨﺘﻬﻴﺔ؟‬،‫ ﺇﺫﻥ‬.(‫ ﺃﺗﻤﻨﻰ ﻟﻮ ﺗﺘﻮﻗﻒ ﺍﻟﺴﻴﺪﺓ ﻋﻦ ﺍﻟﻠﻌﺐ ﺑﺎﻟﻨﺎﺭ )ﻳﻘﻮﻝ ﺍﻟﺴﻜﺮﺗﻴﺮ‬،‫ﻧﻌﻢ‬ (al-Shaykh, 2001a: 245) GT: ‘If only I ordered champagne and caviar!’ The secretary laughed and the other three joined him in. ‘So we consider the case closed?’ ‘Yes, I hope the lady stops playing with fire’ the secretary answered. TT: ‘If only I’d asked for champagne and caviar!’ The secretary laughed, and the others joined in. ‘So can we consider the case closed?’ the Scotland Yard officer said, astonished, convinced that the Arab mentality was a puzzle. The Prince had made a complaint, then forgiven the woman. It was as if she’d broken into a shop and the owner not only dropped the charges but invited her to take what she wanted. ‘Yes, I hope the lady stops playing with fire’. (al-Shaykh, 2001b: 166) This example is taken from a passage where Amira is caught impersonating a princess, and the prince she was trying to swindle calls Scotland Yard. Eventually, however, the prince’s secretary convinces him to drop the charges. While the author leaves it to her readers to decide how 461

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to evaluate the prince’s decision, whether as a sign of clemency and kindness—an image that conforms to the discourse on Arab men as chivalrous— or as a sign of stupidity, a different worldview is brought to bear on the translation and an extensive commentary is added regarding the prince’s behavior. As a result, all possible interpretations are collapsed into one: the Arab prince has an irrational “Arab mentality” that an English person, represented by the Scotland Yard officer, cannot begin to understand.

Conclusion By deploying the realist and immigrant literary genres, and bringing a generally Orientalist/ colonialist discourse into dialogue with a discourse of Islam as clement, a feminist discourse of agency/non-victimhood, and a discourse of Arab men as chivalrous, and not violent, towards women, Innahā Lundun creates a space of tension and conflict. It is a space of potential dissidence where the author seems to be trying to contest the hegemonic order of discourse even as she reproduces it. The process of translation through which the novel went in its journey to the Anglo-American context dissolved the potential dissidence of the novel. Through substantial interventions, the British publisher heavily mediated the original to both the Anglo-American and Arab readers. Through additions, the translator’s choices enhanced the realist aspect of the novel, thereby imbuing it with a pronounced ethnographic dimension and inviting a reading that overlooks the novel’s situatedness and perceives it as an even more transparent representation of the ‘reality’ of Arab diaspora in London than it set out to be. Moreover, while the general and gendered discourses on which al-Shaykh draws to contest several misconceptions about Arabs in the Anglo- American context are already undermined in the original because of the overarching Orientalist discourse that frames the whole novel, they are further undermined in the translation. Consequently, the latter substantially reduces the discursive heterogeneity present in the original. It also resolves the tension between the author’s will to challenge stereotypes and misconceptions, on the one hand, and her need to hold the attention of her Anglo-American readers by addressing them in terms that are intelligible and familiar, on the other. This resolution, however, comes at the expense of the author’s agency and gives precedence to the Anglo- American readers’ agency, thus setting in motion what Spivak (1993: 181) calls a ‘species of neo- colonialist construction of the non-Western scene’. In other words, al-Shaykh, whose voice has been mainstreamed in the West, including through translation, appears to lose much of this voice in the process of translation.

Notes 1 According to Cooke (1996: 3), ‘Beirut Decentrists … are a group of women writers who have shared Beirut as their home and the war as their experience. They have been decentered in a double sense: physically, they were scattered all over a self- destructing city; intellectually, they moved in separate spheres. They wrote alone and for themselves. They would not conceive of their writings as related to those of others, yet their marginal perspective, which gave insight into the holistic aspect of the war, united them and allowed them, discursively, to undermine and restructure society around the image of a new center’. 2 Amira, a Moroccan prostitute, is one of the four protagonists of al- Shaykh’s novel. The three other protagonists are Lamis (an Iraqi divorcee who lives in London), Samir (a homosexual Lebanese man who comes to London in pursuit of sexual gratification), and Nicholas (an Englishman, and an expert at Sotheby’s in Islamic artefacts). 3 As omissions exist in the published English translation of al-Shaykh’s novel, I have resorted to translating the excerpts used in this chapter from the Arabic original myself (on this point, see the section “An immigrant woman’s grammar of resistance in translation”).

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Ḥanān al-Shaykh’s Innahā Lundun Yā ‘Azīzī 4 All translations are mine, unless otherwise stated. 5 Nahid is Amira’s closest friend and confidante. Of Egyptian origin, she starts as a belly dancer in London and spirals down into prostitution. Eventually, however, Nahid repents and dons the hijab after she discovers she has cancer. She dies of her illness, leaving Amira bereft. 6 Cobham is technically and officially the sole translator of the novel. However, given her testimony, above, about the extent of the publisher’s interventions, her attempt to reverse some of the changes dictated by the publisher, and al- Shaykh’s compliance, the agency behind the discursive decisions made during the translation is far from simple. It is, necessary, therefore, to point out that any discussion of the shifts that occurred during the process of translation should not refer the reader back to Cobham but, rather, to the multiple agencies at work in this specific case.

Further reading Ayad, N. (2017). Between Huda Sha’rawi’s memoirs and Harem Years. In: Albakry, M. (ed.), Translation and the Intersection of Texts, Contexts and Politics: Historical and Socio-Cultural Perspectives. Cham: Springer, 112–132. Benmessaoud, S. (2013). The challenges of translating third world women in a transnational context: The case of Mernissi’s Dreams of Trespass. The Translator, 19(2): 183–205. doi: 10.1080/ 13556509.2013.10799541. Clark, P. (2000). Arabic literature unveiled: Challenges of translation. Working Paper. Durham: University of Durham, Center for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. Kahf, M. (2010). Packaging ‘Huda’: Sha’rawi’s memoirs in the United States exception environment. In: Baker, M. (ed.), Critical Readings in Translation Studies. London: Routledge, 53–76.

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464

INDEX

Note: References to figures and tables are in italics Aabakken, Anne 71–2 Abbasi, A. 32 Abbasi, S.H. 70 Abbasid era 5, 297–308 Abdelaal, N. 29 Abdel-Fattah, M.M. 345 Abdel Haleem, M.A.S. 13, 28, 43, 77 Abdellah, A. 214 Abdul-Raof, H. 27–8, 41, 43 Abdullah, King 164, 166 abnormal prolongation 55, 59 Abraham of Toledo 14 abstractions 101, 104 Abulghar, M. 359 Abū Qurra 91–2, 94 Abyssinian language 10 accents on stage 273 acculturation of source text 109 acronyms 343–4, 383, 393 activism 4, 103, 169, 240 affective translation 155–8 Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam 71 Ahmad, Mirza Tahir 68, 71 Ahmadiyya movement 70–1 Ahmed, M.F. 28 Ahmed, Sara 155 Ahmed, S.V. 15–16 Ain Shams University, Cairo 209 Ainsworth, J. 224, 229 Al-Alam 166–73, 172 Al Arabiya 166–73, 172, 212 Alawi, Y. 14 Al-Azhar University 15–16 Alhayat Aljadeeda (newspaper) 105–6 Ali, A. Yusuf 13

Ali, A. 29 Ali, Muhammad 70 Ali, W. 459 Alizadeh, A. 38 Al Jazeera 108, 214 Alkhamis, Abdullah Mohammed 439 Allah: attributes of 27, 32, 40; hands and face of 32–42; words of 27 Allen, M.E. 385 Allen, Roger 177 allophonic variations 47 Alotaiby, F. 386 al-Qaeda 107 Alrosan, H. 211 Alsiary, H.A. 314 Althusser, L. 165 Altoma, S. 272 Alwazna, R.Y. 229 American University, Cairo (AUC) 207–8, 214 American University, Sharjah 209–10, 214–15 amplification 193–203 Anari, S. 28, 32 Ansari, K. 243 anthology construction, issues in 284–91 anticipating other people’s view of events 102–3 Antoon, Sinan 177 Anṭūn, Faraḥ 287 Appiah, K. 192, 200, 274 appraisal framework 3, 116–18, 132 Apter, Emily 176 Arab-centrism 21 Arab Human Development report (UN, 2003) 286 Arab literary tradition 444 Arab nationalism 199

465

Index Arab Spring 163–4, 178, 184, 189, 206–7, 217, 273, 286 Arabic language 16–18, 21–2, 81, 145, 290–1; ellipticism of 17, 28; failure to translate into 322–4, 328; lack of scholarly attention to 333, 383; limitations of 301; mismatch between MSA and spoken dialects 334; modernization of 359; peculiarities of 360, 384, 428–9; praise for 16; scholarship in 21–2; status of 17–18; style guide and standardized transliteration for 18 Arabic named entities (ANEs) 381–9, 393, 389; recognition of 384–5 Arabic people, distinctive traits of 17 Arabic–Spanish (AR-SP) combination 350, 353–61 Arabic translation: present state of 1–2; tradition of 176–7, 285 Arabization, Arabicization and Arabicness 19, 81, 300 Arberry, A.J. 12, 38, 42 “archaeology” of discourse 312–14 archaic terms, use of 229–31 argumentation styles 344–5 Aristotle 263, 287, 302, 428 Armstrong, Karen 243 Arrouart, C. 409 Asad, Muhammad 13, 17, 72 al-Assad, Bashar 194, 196, 200, 201 asymmetry of language 393 Atterer, M. 52 attitudes 129–38 attitudinal inscriptions 137–8 attitudinal provocation 136–8 attitudinal tokens 132–3, 133–4, 137–8 attribution 121, 124–8 Attridge, Derek 447 audio recording of police interviews 228 audiobooks 75–6 audiovisual translation (AVT) 4, 205–9; pedagogy 207–10; review of literature 210–12; theoretical frameworks 212 authorial voice 137–9 authors, status of 20 Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee (ALPAC) 397 Bachiri, Isam 75 Bacigalupe, L.A. 335, 337 back translation 200, 326 Badawi, Raif 163–73, 169 Baigorri, Jalón 350 Baker, M. 99, 153, 366, 392–3 Bakhtin, M. 165, 312, 448 Bakri, Mohamed 109 Ball, A. 449 Ban Ki-moon 201, 202

al-Banna, Hassan 4–5, 239–50 al-Barūdī, Fakhrī 198 Bartłomiejczyk, M. 336, 373 Bassnett, S. 271–2, 278 Beenstock, M. 358 Belal, A. 224 Bellos, D. 279 Ben Ali, Zine El Abidine 179 Bennett, W. 250 Berg, Einar 71–2 Berman, A. 260–1 Berman, S. 240 Bernström, Muhammad Knut 68, 72–4 Berque, Jacque 14 Bessafi, R. 351 Bible, translation of 3, 32, 81, 290, 304, 306 bilingualism 150, 159, 339–40 Bin Laden, Osama 107–8 Blachère, Régis 14 Blommaert, J. 246, 250 Bluitgen, Kåte 68, 74, 76 Boelhower, W.Q. 453–4 books of guidance 444 Bostom, Andrew 243, 249 Boston University Radio News Corpus 49 Bosworth, C.E. 255 Boubaneur, Hamza 14 Boundary-Annotated Qur’ān (BAQ) corpus 46–55, 64 Bourdieu, Pierre 4, 239, 242, 439 Boysen, F.E. 11–12 Bramsen, Dorte 74 Brecht, Bertolt 271, 276 Brennan, Teresa 156 Brentjes, Sonja 292 Brett, Michael 290 Brierley, C. 46, 48 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 3, 115–28, 135–8, 142 Browning, B. 103 Buccianti, A. 213 Bucholtz, M. 227–8 Buckingham, J. 215 Buckwater system 50, 384 Burger, Harald 424 Burhān, the 303 Burman, Thomas E. 11 Burton, Richard F. 191 Bush, George W. 108, 243 al-Bustānī 291 Butler, Jean 74 caliphates 15 calque 201–3 Calvert, J. 239 Calzada-Perez, M. 457 Campbell, W.J. 205

466

Index canonicity 447–8 Carnegie, Dale 439 carry-over of words 192–3, 196–7 Carston, R. 30–1 cartoons 4, 212, 314 CAT see Committee Against Torture; computer-assisted translation causal emplotment in narratives 102 causal models 314 Chesterman, Andrew 67, 153, 314 Cheung, Martha 286–90 Chiadmi, M. 14 children’s books 5, 312–28; biographical references and anthologies of 313–14; economic impacts on 328; gay and lesbian 324–5; ideology found in 322; imperialism in 323–4; in Libya 319–21; rate of translations for 317; realism in 324; values in 320–1 China and Chinese publications 103, 317, 320–1 “Chinese”, meaning of 289–90 Chiswick, B.R. 358 Cho, S. 211 Choueri, Youssef 291 Chouraqui, André 11, 14 Christian stories, translation of 322 Christoffels, I. 366 Christology 89 chunking algorithms 52 Cicero 298–9 Clark, B. 30 Classical Age of Arabo-Islamic Science see Golden Age of Islam Classical Arabic (CA) 232 Cleary, Thomas 12 clitics 386 Cobham, Catherine 457 code-switching 359 cognitive load model (Seeber) 369 Colla, Elliott 177, 182, 184, 272 Committee Against Torture (CAT) 386–92, 388, 390–2 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) 386–92, 388, 390–2 Communism and Communist literature 320–1, 327 computer-assisted translation, tools used in Oman for 397–410 concept adjustment (narrower or broader) 29–30, 39–41 conference interpreting 339–40, 343, 350, 360 consistency in translation 382–7, 393–4 contratextuality 4, 189–204 convenience sampling 399 Cooke, M. 449 Cooperative Principle 199 Copeland, R. 299 Corpus Coranicum (CC) project 47, 53–4

Coulthard, M. 227 counter-expectation 136–8 covert translation 150–2 Covey, Stephen 439 critical discourse analysis (CDA) 4, 163–8, 448, 456–7 crowd-sourcing 179–80 Crusenstolpe, Fredrik 68–72 Cunningham, D. 103 Damrosch, D. 254 Darfur 110 Darwish, Mahmoud 279, 351, 366 Daryabadi, Abdul Majid 13 Dawood, Niseem J. 12 death penalty 123–4, 131, 138 definite article, the 345 Defoe, Daniel 323 De Groot, A, 366 Delabastita, Dirk 286 Deleuze, Gilles 452 Delisle, Jean 286–7, 301 Delitzsch, Franz 82 Demolins, Edmond 443–4 Denissenko, J. 373 Denmark 65, 68–70, 73–6 Derrida, Jacques 18, 176, 279 deverbalization 336–7 D’hulst, Lieven 286–9 diaglossic languages 231–3, 272, 334, 338, 340, 345–6, 358–9 dialects 214, 339, 345–6, 368 Dickens, Charles 318 Dickins, James 338, 425 Diggs-Brown, B. 248 digital technology 205–7 Dillon, C. Douglas 243 Dimitriu, R. 261 directionality of translation 367–70, 374–5, 383–4 discourse 312–13, 454–5 discourse markers 345–6 Disney comics and picture books 318–19, 327 Dolby, Sandra K. 438 “domestication” 190–1, 200–4, 270–1, 274–5, 279 Donato, V. 334–6 Donovan, John 324 drama 5, 270–80, 455; Arabic 272–4 Dropbox 180 dubbing 212–14 Du Pasquire, R. 240 al-Durūbī, Samīr 291 Du Ryer, André 11 DVD industry 212 Eades, D, 227, 345 Edelman, L. 250 educational materials 355–6, 360–2

467

Index “edutainment” concept 215 Egypt 327, 443; military intervention in (2013) 145, 153–8; uprising in (2011) 145, 154, 180, 370; see also interrogation records Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA) 232, 372, 374 El-Aamid 35 electronic publication 67 El-Farahaty, H. 229–30, 234 Elfassy-Bitoun, R. 317 Elliott, M. 243 Ellis, Alec 316 emotions 155, 157 English language 55, 206, 211; language pair with Arabic 338–42, 343 epitexts 67 Eurocentric translation 307 evaluation 134–9 Evans, Yuri 323 Even-Zohar, Itamar 440–1 Eviatar, Z. 339 evocations 129, 132–6 executions 128, 139 exegesis 17, 28–9, 35–6, 41–2, 90

Fuller, G. 241 fully automatic high quality machine translation (FAHQMT) systems 397

“fabula” 154 FACE concept 31, 36–42, 38 Faiq, S. 275 Fairclough, Norman 4, 165–6, 171, 448, 457 Fakhry, Majid 15–16 Falkum, I.L. 31, 38 Fall, P.L. 385 al-Fārābī 302–3 Fatani, A.H. 398 Faulkner, W. 318 feminism 449–50, 462, 465 Ferguson, Charles 231, 338–9 Feria, García M. 357, 385 fictitious translations 257 “field” concept (Bourdieu) 239 figurative language 30, 39, 428 Fisher, Walter 99 Fitch, Brian 149 Florian, R. 384 folklore 438 footnotes 107 foreign culture 273–5 “foreignization” 99–101, 183, 190–1, 195, 200–4, 270–1, 274–6, 279 Foucault, Michel 165, 312–13, 448 Fowler, Roger 121, 168 Foz, Clara 287, 300 “framing” concept 3, 99, 103–10, 246, 250 Franco, Francisco 249 Frankfurt School 165 French, Jackie 322–3 French language 319, 335 French translations 14

Gabriel, archangel 12 Gaddis Rose, Marilyn 286 Gamal, M. 212 Gambier, Y. 211, 261 Garre, Marianne 163, 382 Gaza Strip 120–3, 127–32, 135–41 geminate coronals 54 Genette, Gérard 67 German Jordanian University 209 Germany 335 Gerver, D. 335 Ghali, Muhammad M. 15 ghirbāl 192–3 Gibb, Hamilton 242–3 Gibbs, Anna 157 Gibson, G.D. 101–2 Giddens, A. 270 Gilbert, Jeremy 155 Gile, D. 6, 335–6, 367–70; gravitational model of language availability 334, 338–42, 341 Gladwell, Malcolm 439 Glass, Charles 107 Goatly, Andrew 425, 428–30 God, word of 17 Goffman, Erving 101–3 Golden Age of Islam 285–90 Gouguenheim, Sylvain 293 Gould, Deborah 155–6 Gray, John 439 Gregg, M. 155–6 Griffith, Sidney H. 81 Grutman, Rainer 149 Guattari, F. 452 Guillou, L. 383 Gumul, E. 337 Gümüş, Volga Yılmas 439 Gunning, J. 242 Gutas, Dimitri 289–92 Gutt, E.-A. 30 Habeeb, K. 216 Habermas J. 20–1 Hadidi, J. 14 Hadith, the 27 Hafez, S. 455 Ḥafṣ bin Āṣim recitation style 48 al-Hajji, Faissal Abdullah 313–27 Halasa, M. 189 Hall, J.R. 100 Halliday, F. 241 Halliday, M.A.K. 156, 165 Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) 208–09 Hamas 106, 115–44, 123

468

Index Hamidullah, Muhammad 14 Hammad, Ahmad Z. 15 Hanafi, H. 241 Hanafite jurists 19 HAND concept 31–5, 41–2 Haniyeh, Ismail 105 haram 277 hard news reporting 115–20, 133, 136–9 Harding, Sue-Ann 153 Hassan, F. 351, 362 Hassan, M. 450–1 Hassan, W.S. 447 Hatim, B. 189–90, 199, 334, 338, 344–5 Haydar, Adnan 177 Heilbron, J. 449 Hellenist knowledge 303 Hemingway, Ernest 318 Henry, George Alfred 323 Hergé 323–4 Hermans, Theo 146, 152–3 High Independent Authority for Audiovisual Communication (HAICA) 213 Hirschkind, C. 239 historiography 290–1 Holocaust denial 323 homosexuality 124, 453 Hong Kong 103 Horace 299 House, Juliane 151 Howarth, James 107–8 Hron, Madelaine 453 Hu, Cameron 178 human rights instruments 381–2, 393 human rights issues 4, 163–72, 199 humanism 274 Ḥunayn ibn Isḥaq 292, 302–5 Hunt, P. 321 Huntington, Samuel 100, 106–7 Husa, J. 229 Husseini, D.E. 398 hybridness and hybridization 190–1 Ibn Hanbal 21 Ibn al-Muqaffa’ (IAM) 254–9, 264, 444 Ibn Rushd 287 Ibn Taymiyya 290 Ibrahim, R. 339–40 Icelandic language 55 ideational selections 132–4 identity politics 100, 241 ideology, definitions of 165 idioms 424 Ilhami, N. 357 immigrant novels 453–4, 457 imperialism 323–4 individuation of fictional characters 450–1 inference 29–30

Inghilleri, M. 250 Innahā Lundun Yā ‘Azīzī 447–62 inquisitorial legal system 224 Institute of Translation, Algeria 210 inter-annotator agreement 55–7 interdiscursivity, definition of 448 International Association of Conference Interpreters 367 International Journal of Self-Help and Self-Care 440 international organizations 394 International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) 46–53, 58, 61–2 interpretation 29–30, 36, 41; activity at deep and surface levels 337; from English into MSA 342–6; see also simultaneous interpretation Interpreting (journal) 333 interrogation records, Egyptian 4, 223–36; data studied 225–7; features of 224, 229–35 intertextuality 132, 166, 171, 228; definition of 189 Iran 172–3, 179 Isaacson, W. 243 ISIS 202–3 Islam 13, 22, 81, 172, 455, 459; as a religion and as a political system 239, 241; spread of 10–11; see also political Islam Islamic fundamentalism 111 Islamism 240–1 Israel, State of 110, 323 Israeli intelligence services 134 Itagaki, M. 382–3 Ivars, A.J. 336 Jabra, Jabra Ibrahim 177 Jackson, R. 239 Jacquemond, Richard 286 al-Jāhiẓ 301, 306 Jahanjouyan, T. 28 Jakobson, Roman 156 Jaro, M.A. (and Jaro distance) 387 Jazzar, M. 301 Jefferson, Thomas 245 Jenin Jenin (documentary) 109–12 Jerome, St 299, 306 Jesus Christ 89–90, 195 Jewish children’s literature 322–3 Jewishness 101 Jodelet, D. 250 John the Baptist 195 Johnson, B. 182 Johnson-Davies, Denys 430 Jones, Alan 180 Jowett, G.S. 248 Kalīla wa Dimna (KD) 5, 253–64, 444 Kalina, S. 334

469

Index Kamil, Mustafa 442 Kanaan, A. 320 Kappa statistic 56–7 Kashmir 110 Kashoush, Hikmat 83 Kelly, D. 350–1 Kepel, Gilles 242–3 Kerzel, D. 335 Ketton, Robert of 11, 14 al-Khanji, R. 340, 351, 367–8, 373 Khalaf, I. 40 Khalifa, Rashad 12 Khan, M. 35, 38, 42 Khatib, L. 189 Khattab, Mustafa 15–16 Khogali, H. 351 Kinani, M.N. 323 kināya 428 al-Kindī 302 King Abdul-Aziz University, Jeddah 216 Klein, E. 52 Komter, M.L. 232 Koosha, M. 32 Koskinen, Kaisa 159 Kothari, Rita 288 Kramer, M. 240 Kristeva, Julia 166, 448 Lafeber, A.P. 385 Lambert, José 286 language-pair-specific translation 333–4 language-pair-specific “triggers” 342–6 language-specificity thesis: arguments against 336–7; arguments in favour of 334–6; reconciliation of different approaches 337–8 Lawrence, Bruce 107–8 Leaman, Oliver 17 learning materials see educational materials Lederer, M. 336–7 Lefevere, A. 278 legal language: complexity of 223, 229; definition of 223 Leipzig glossing method 226 Lesson, L. 368–9 Lewis, Bernard 242–4, 250 lexical adjustment 32, 38–42 lexicalisation 166, 418, 424–5, 429–30 Library of Arabic Literature (LAL) 177, 182 Libya 327–8 Lindsey, U. 274 linguistic distance 358 linguistic indeterminacy 30 “linguistic” translation 146–53, 159 Lippi-Green, R. 273 literacy levels 215 literary studies in the West 20 Litvin, M. 273, 275

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 47 Lonsdale, A. 367 Lumbard, J. 28 Lynx Qualey, M. 272, 276 McGee, Micki 440 Machine Readable Spoken English Corpus (MARSEC) 47 machine translation 382–3, 397 madd 54–5 Madsen, Abdus Salam 68–71, 76 al-Mahadin 314 Majid, Amér 68, 75–6 Malone, J. 193, 197, 200–4 Manaa, Aziza 321 Manfredi, Marina 190–3, 200, 204 Mansur, Salim 245 Manuscript S157 82–3 Manuscript S310 82–92; contextual extensions to the text 90–2; Qur’anic language in 84–90 mapping schemes 64 al-Maraghi 18–19 Marc of Toledo 11 Marco, J. 275 Marracci, Ludovico 69 Marryat, Frederick 323 Martin, J.R. 116 martyrs 111–12 Mason, I. 189–90, 334, 338 Massad, J. 240 Masson, Denise 14 Massumi, Brian 155 “matching” strategy 197–8 Mauranen, Anna 439 Mdallel, S. 314 Mecca 212 Melville, Herman 318 MEMRI 104–6 mental saturation 369 Merten, K. 343 metaphor and metaphorical force 35, 417, 424, 428–30 metaphor translation 430–1 metaphorical congruence 431–2 metaphorical exuberance and density 432–3 metonymy 40, 42, 418, 424–5, 430 Mexican telenovelas 213 Middle East conflict 102–3, 111, 323 migrant literature 452–3 Mill, John Stuart 443 Miller, P.W. 358 miracles 92 missionaries 12, 15 mistranslations 28–9 Mitchell, Timothy 442–3 modal expressions 345

470

Index Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) 49, 49–50, 58, 180, 212–14, 229–32, 333, 337–46, 351, 359, 368, 372, 374 Mohammedanism 242 Mohit, B. 384 Montgomery, S.L. 297, 300 Morocco 213–14 morphemes, inflected and uninflected 57 Morsi, Muhammed 145, 147, 153, 156, 159 Moser, B. 335 Moten, A. 241 Moya, V. 383 Mubarak, Hosni 183, 226, 231–2 Muḥammad the Prophet 10, 16, 27, 69–70, 74 multilingualism 394 multimedia 206 multimodality 167 Munday, Jeremy 139, 165, 304 Munif, Abdelrahman 177 Munshī, Nasrullāh (NM) 254, 258–64 al-Muqaffa’ 262 Muslim Brotherhood 244–5, 247–51, 247–8 Muslim conquests 300 Muslims: non-Arabic-speaking 21; use of term 240

optical character recognition (OCR) for Arabic text 184 Orientalism 12, 273, 447, 455–6, 459, 462 Osman, T. 244 overt translation 150–2

Naaman, Mara 177 Nabokov, Vladimir 182, 185 Nadeau, D. 384 Nafham initiative 216 Nahḑah period 285–93 named entity recognition (NER), definition of 384 narrative theory 99–104, 146 narrative translation 153–5, 159 narratives, features of 102 Nasr, Seyyed Hossein 13, 34, 37 “native language” concept 340 Near Eastern Christian communities 81, 92 Newmark, Peter 190, 367, 373, 430, 432 news coverage 3–4, 163, 166, 168, 171; see also hard news reporting Nida, E. 32, 190 Nielsen, Jørgen S. 74 “9/11” 107, 109 nominalization 121 Nord, Christiane 66 Nordling, Johan Theodor 69–70 norm theory 99–100, 146 Norman, Lesléa 324 norm-governed translation 152–3 Norton, D.E. 322 Norway 65, 68–73, 76 Obama, Barack 335, 370, 429 O’Donnell, V. 248 Oman 397–410 Onay, Ahmet 68, 74–6

Palestine Solidarity Movement 102 paratexts 67 passive voice 344 Paul, St 91 Pavlović, N. 373 Pedersen, Abdul Wahid 74 Pelletreau, Robert Jr 240 Penot, A. 14 Pérez González, L. 153 performability 272 periodization 287 peritexts 67 Pickthall, M. 13, 35, 38, 42 Pöchhacker, F. 369 poetry 16, 271 Polish language 55 political Islam 239–44, 250; definitions of 239–41 polysemy 383 polyvocality 177, 183–4 Poupart, J.-M. 328 “professional” suspects 231 prolongation see madd pronunciation 9, 46–7 propaganda, definition of 248 prosecutors in Egypt, role of 224–5, 228 prosimetric structure 263–5 Prosody and Part-of-Speech Spoken English Corpus (ProPOSEC) 47–9, 48, 52 Provençal, Philippe 76 provocations and provocative tokens 129, 132, 135–8 punctuation 234–5 Putin, Vladimir 429 Qaddafi, Muammar 319, 327–8 Qadir, Aqil 73 qalqalah consonants 59–60 Qatar 286 qiṣāṣ 130–1 Qunswah, Salah 107 Qur’an, the 2–3, 180, 195; inimitability of 18; recognition in Scandinavia 65 Qur’an translation 9–22, 27–9, 32, 40–1, 301; functionality of translations of 66–8; history of 9–16; issues in 14–22, 28–9; of meanings 18; by Muslims 12–14; at times of prayer 19 Qur’anic Arabic Corpus (QAC) 47–8, 53–4 Qur’anic language (QL) 61, 81–2, 232; in Christian translations 82–3; in Manuscript S310 84–90 Qustā ibn Lūqā 303

471

Index Rashed, Roshdi 21 Rashid, S. 29 Ray, S. 321 realism, literary 450, 452, 457 Rebollar, B.E. 40 recitation 9–10, 16, 48 recrescence strategy 203 reduction strategy for translation 202–3 registers, mixing of 232–4 Regular Expressions (REs) 59–61 Reid, Mayne 323 relationality 102, 159 relay translation 259, 392–3 relevance theory 2, 28–32, 39–41 religious fiction 322–3 retrospection 346 Reynolds, Dwight F. 292 rhyme 88–90 Riccardi, A. 335, 346 Richards, J. 323 Rida, Muhammad Rashid 15 Robinson, Chase F. 290 Rock, F. 228 Rockefeller Foundation 243, 250 Rodari, Gianni 320 Rosenthal, F. 297 Ross, Alexander 11 al-Rubai’i 344 Rūdakī 259–61 Rundle, Christopher 288–9 Russell, D. 369 Russian publications 317–21, 327 Ryding, K.C. 53, 55 Sabry, Bassem 145–7, 149, 154–9 sacredness 20, 41 Sadiqa, Qanita 68–71 al-Ṣafadī 289 Saint Joseph University, Beirut 210 St-Pierre, P. 313 Sajjadi, M. 28, 32 Salama-Carr, M. 300, 302 Sale, George 11–12, 69 Salem, Mahmoud 145–6, 149, 151, 154–5, 158–9 Salerno, Steve 440 Salih, Tayeb 430 al-Salman, S. 340, 351, 367–8, 373 same-language subtitling (SLS) 214 Samir, S.K. 88 Samoudi, Iyad 112 Samy, D. 383–4, 393 Sandford, Daniel 424 Santrock, J.W. 438 Sapiro, G. 449 Sarruf, Ya‘qub 442 Sarwar, M. 13, 35, 38–42 Saudi Arabia 164–5, 172–3, 215

Savary, Claude 11, 69 Scandinavian translations of the Qur’ān 65, 72–6; historical review of 68–9 Schencke, Wilhelm 71 Scheuer, Michael 108 Schleiermacher, Friedrich 20, 183 Schlesinger, M. 369 Schneider, M. 333 Schulte, R. 271 secularization 20–1 Seeber, K. 335, 367, 369 Seigworth, G. 155–6 Sekine, S. 384 selective appropriation in narratives 102 Seleskovitch, D. 336, 367, 373 self-help (S-H) literature 437–45; in the Arab world 442–4; definitions of 438; status and prestige of 439–45 self-translation 146–9 Selim, A. 214 Selim, S. 441 Sellman, J.B. 447 Semitic languages 384 Sense, Theory of 350–1, 361 Setton, R. 336–7 Sewell, Anna 326 sexuality 456 Shaalan, K. 384, 387 shaheed 111, 112, 277–8 Shakespeare, William 318 Shakir, M. 27, 36–42 al-Shamari, Saud 171 Shamma, Tarek 191–2, 287 Sharia 123, 130, 240, 245 Sharon, Ariel 108 al-Shaykh, Ḥanān 6, 447–62 Shouse, Eric 156–7 Sikora, I. 408–9 Silas, Shelley 449 Silvan, Emmanuel 242–4, 250 simile 417, 424, 428–30 Simsek, Abdullah 68, 74–6 simultaneous interpretation (SI) 5, 336–46, 351–3, 358–61; cognitive effects of 366–75; and the directionality controversy 367–70; language specificity in 334–8 skopos theory and skopos rule 19, 253–4 Sky News Arabia 150 Smiles, Samuel 439, 442–4 social media 145, 179, 181 social movements 103 socialization of children 320–2 sociology 99, 185, 440; of cultural production 4; of translation 313, 394 Soliman, S. 227 Somers, M.R. 101–2 Spain 5

472

Index Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (SAMPA) 48 Spivak, G.S. 190 Spoken English Corpus (SEC) 48–9 Stafsudd, A. 242 stage plays 276; see also drama Standard Arabic Language Morphological Analysis (SALMA) 50–1, 58 Steiner, George 287, 299 Stenji, E. 82 Stephens, J. 325 stereotyping 273–4 Stetting, K. 163 Stoll, Clifford 205 Strasbourg conference (1995) 205, 210, 217 stress assignment 53–8 subjectivity 101 substitution strategy 200 subtitling 205–8, 211–14; training in 207–8 Suez Canal crisis (1956) 103 Sunderland, J. 454 Susam-Saraeva 153 Swanson, Mark N. 83, 92, 304 swearing 324 Sweden 65, 68–73, 76 Sykes-Picot treaty (1916) 202–3, 203 syndetic linkage 345 synecdoche 418, 424–5, 430 Syria 321, 327; Revolution in (2011) 189, 192, 198–202 systemic functional linguistics 116 al-Tabariy 35, 40 Taber, C. 32, 190 Taboada, M. 345 tafsīr books 38–41 Tageldin, Shaden 177, 293 Tahir-ul-Qadri, Muhammad 68, 73 Tahrir Documents project 4, 177–85; Denver panel meeting (2012) 183–4; history and practice 178–82; shortcomings of 184–5; translation theory at 182–4 Tahrir Tales: Plays from the Egyptian Revolution 270, 273–7 al-Ṭahṭāwī 291 Tajwīd 46–7, 54–5, 59 Takeda, K. 369 Tangier Translation School 210 Tannen, D. 102–3 tarjamah 288 al-Tawhīdī 303 technical aspects of translation 6 temporality in narratives 102 theatre productions 275; see also drama thematic approach to translation 288–9 “thick translation” 192–4, 197, 200, 203 Thomson, E.A. 120

Tiersma, P. 223 Toll, Christopher 70 Toorawa, Shawkat 177, 183 Tornberg, Carl Johannes 68–70 Toury, Gideon 99, 146, 152, 257 tracts 245 transcription technology 46–53, 59–61, 61 transcripts and transcriber effects 227–8 trans-diplomacy 286 trans-editing 3–4, 115, 118–25, 137, 163 transitivity analysis 120–3, 121–2 translatability 299–301, 306–8, 438 translation: conceptualizations of 19–20; definitions of 29–32, 41, 190; history of 286–93; literature on 99; and politics 242–4; as a pretext for manipulating source text 313; for the stage 272 translation memory (TM) process 405 translation policy 325 translation studies 145, 149, 159, 163, 165, 184, 254, 264, 271, 298, 302, 312, 437–40, 444–5; Arabic 176–7; aspects of quality in 304–6; international turn in 286; of material produced by others 149–3; progress model of 289; research models in 314 translation theory 274–5, 297–300, 306–8; post-colonial 319 translators, role of 4–5 transliteration 276, 384 tropes 417–33; translation of 6; definition of 417; lexicalised 424; non-lexicalised 424–7 Tunisia 179, 325 Turkish drama 213–14 Twain, Mark 318 Twitter 3, 145–8, 151–4, 158; character limit on tweets 147–8 Tymoczko, Maria 288 Tyndale, William 299 Tzou, Y.-Z. 336 “understandings” 102 Unicode symbols 61 United Arab Emirates (UAR) 318 United Nations (UN) 381; Editorial Manual Online 385; translation at 385; see also Committee Against Torture; Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights United States 110 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 164; see also human rights issues Urban Dictionary 439–40 van Dijk, Teun 165–6, 458 van Leeuwen, T. 117 Venuti, Lawrence 67, 75, 99–100, 190–1, 196, 204, 270, 274–6, 279, 312, 317 verbatim records 227–8, 232, 235

473

Index Verfremdungseffekt 271 Vietnam War 109–12 Vollandt, Ronny 83 Volpi, F. 241 Voltaire 240 von Flotow, L. 205 Wachtel, Eleanor 449 Wakabayashi, Judy 288 Wallat, C. 102–3 Wansbrough, John 290 “war on terror” 3, 105–9 Warner, B. 239 Warren, David 243 Watching America 104–5 Watson, J.C.E. 53–7 Watson, L. 215 Watson, V. 322 Watt, I.P. 450 Wedeen, L. 196 Wells, H.G. 326–7 Wendell, C. 245–9 Western model of language teaching 357 Westernization 441 White, P.R. 116–20, 136 Whitebrook, M. 101 Whyatt, B. 369

Wilmsen, D. 351 Wilson, D. 29 Wodak, Ruth 165 women playwrights and women’s issues 273 Woodsworth, J. 301 word-for-word translation 307–8 word order 344 Wulff, Ellen 68, 73–6 Yacoub, M.A. 232 yadd 34–5, 41 Yahmadi, Badr 325 Yemen 386 Yolen, Jane 322 Youssef, Abdel-Tawwab 316, 321–2 Yousuf, Kamal 70 Yusoff, M.Y. 40 Zabadānī 4, 192–4, 195, 198 Zaghlul, Ahmad Fathi 443 Zappavigna, Michele 157 Zeinobin 145–6 Zetterstéen, Wilhelm 68–72 Zhang, Y. 385 Zhonggang, S. 30 al-Zindani, Abd Al-Majid 106 Zitawi, J. 314, 318–19

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