Papers by D Mohammad Mehawesh
Background: News websites purport to be objective and unbiased in their reporting, but in truth, ... more Background: News websites purport to be objective and unbiased in their reporting, but in truth, they selectively manipulate or modify certain aspects of the information to deliver differing perspectives from other sources with different ideologies. They exploit language and make use of translation to accomplish their ideological objectives. Purpose: The present study aims to examine the techniques used in the translation of political news headlines from Arabic to English to manipulate the texts, as well as, to examine the linguistic tools of manipulation employed in political English news headlines during the translation process. In analyzing the translation, the researcher resorts to Molina and Albir's (2002) proposal to classify the translation techniques. Methodology: This study adopts Van Dijk (2003) as a model of CDA. By adopting this model, this study shows how ideology and power are achieved during the translation process. Findings: The results of the study suggest some techniques in the translation of news headlines are attributed to the use of various linguistic choices to manipulate the source texts such as addition, omission, lexcalisation, passivation, and nominalization. The findings' implications suggest that there should be raising awareness about the translation techniques and strategies along with the linguistic choices employed to manipulate the texts. Originality: As the conflict between Palestine and Israel rages on October 7, 2023, the West and its supporters use media to preserve and spread their ideologies. This thesis provides an evaluation of the significant influence of conflict on the world by demonstrating how the ideologies conveyed in news headlines effect the process of translation and language. It aims to present the effect of ideology on the process of translation.
Background: Translating religious content from one language to another is not an easy task, attri... more Background: Translating religious content from one language to another is not an easy task, attributed to linguistic and cultural differences, and the necessity to express the intended meaning accurately and concisely. Purpose: The study explores the challenges in the process of subtitling religious expressions in the Arabic version of the film "The Message" into English. Methodology: Data were analyzed qualitatively, based on Gottlib's (1992) strategies. Findings: The findings of this research shed light on the pressing need to develop strategies that help overcome the linguistic and cultural barriers faced by English-speaking audiences, who may not have sufficient knowledge of Islamic concepts. The study emphasizes that translating religious expressions requires proficient language skills and deep cultural awareness, with the aim of preserving the religious and cultural dimensions rooted in the Arabic text within the framework of the English translation.
International Journal of English Language and Literature Studies
The researchers investigated students’ perceptions of various autonomous and nonautonomous activi... more The researchers investigated students’ perceptions of various autonomous and nonautonomous activities in the writing class through the semester to examine the relationship between two concepts: autonomy and intrinsic motivation. The sample of this study included twenty university students, who were taught by researchers for the whole semester. This article investigated if and to what degree students' intrinsic motivation and satisfaction with these activities were affected by the independent variables of autonomy and non-autonomy. This study aimed to reveal any potential links between learner autonomy (LA) and academic performance in students’ EFL writing classes. A paired sample t-test was used to evaluate whether the differences between the resultant pairs of student perceptions are statistically significant. This study found that students’ perceptions of autonomous activities are positive. Besides, autonomous activities helped their performance in such EFL writing contexts. B...
Theory and Practice in Language Studies
The research aims to define conceptual metaphor and its types in general, as well as exploring th... more The research aims to define conceptual metaphor and its types in general, as well as exploring the conceptualization of the metaphorical expressions used in the political speeches of King Abdullah II in English and the translations of the metaphors in Arabic. The study illustrates the techniques and strategies used by the Hashemite Royal Court in translating ST metaphorical expression to the TT. The researcher relies on the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP), proposed by the Group (2007) and the Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA), proposed by Charteris-Black (2004), in identifying the conceptual metaphors that King Abdullah II used in his political speeches. As for categorizing the metaphorical expressions, we rely on the Longman and Oxford Dictionaries to determine the semantic field that the metaphorical expression relates to. The study depends on the method proposed by Al-Zoubi, Al-Ali, and Al-Hasnawi (2007) to examine the conceptual metaphors of the two texts and find out whe...
Resistance and Complicity: Gender Politics in Angela Carter’s “The Erl-King”
The International Journal of Humanities Education
US-China Foreign Language, 2014
printing with movable type had revolutionized the rate at which copies of a book could be produce... more printing with movable type had revolutionized the rate at which copies of a book could be produced (Armstrong, 1990, p. 1). Copyright deals with the ownership and use of works of literature, music, and art. Its main objective is to enrich our society's wealth of culture and information by instituting a mechanism to protect the mental creation which is called "intellectual property". Indeed, copyright is one of the three types of intellectual property law, along with patents and trademarks. It is a mechanism to keep in check the illegitimate use of authors' expression. Copyright protects only expression, not the idea or fact that is being expressed. Thus, copyright involves a set of laws made to promote both the creation and access to artistic, literary, musical, dramatic, and other creative works. It aims at a balance between promoting the public interest in the encouragement of the creation and dissemination of works of the arts and intellect, and having a just reward for the copyright holder. Indeed, copyright is a form of intellectual property that grants its holder the legal right to restrict the copying and the use of the original, creative work, for a defined period of time. Therefore, the main goal of copyright is to provide an economic incentive to create new works for the benefit of the public. Moreover, copyright, as said, gives the author the ability to restrict access to the work in
The notion of equivalence and lexical cohesion in the translation of political speeches
This dissertation investigates the notion of equivalence with particular reference to lexical coh... more This dissertation investigates the notion of equivalence with particular reference to lexical cohesion in the translation of political speeches. Lexical cohesion poses a particular challenge to the translators of political speeches and thus preserving lexical cohesion elements as one of the major elements of cohesion is undoubtedly crucial to their translation equivalence. We rely on Halliday's (1994) classification of lexical cohesion which comprises: repetition, synonymy, antonymy, meronymy and hyponymy. Other traditional models of lexical cohesion are examined. We include Grammatical Parallelism for its role in creating textual semantic unity which is what cohesion is all about. The study shed light on the function of lexical cohesion elements as rhetorical device. The study also deals with lexical problems resulting from the transfer of lexical cohesion elements from the SL into the TL, which is often beset by many problems that most often result from the differences between...
Asian Social Science, 2015
The expression inshallah is one of the most common expressions in daily interactions among Jordan... more The expression inshallah is one of the most common expressions in daily interactions among Jordanians. The paper assumes that the expression has various non-literal meanings besides the literal one which is an invocation to Allah to enable the speaker to achieve a positive or a negative action. The non-literal meanings, on the other hand, are all cases of flouting Grice's maxim of quality, whereby the speaker does not mean what the words literally mean; however, the addressee or the hearer can figure out the message intended by the speaker. The paper has found out that the various non-literal meanings inshallah serves are: irony, which a typical means for flouting the maxim of quality, threatening, wonder, yes/ok, prohibition, and wishing. Moreover, the study has found out that the utterances containing the expression inshallah will not give the same meaning after the removal of inshallah. And this can be considered another major contribution for the paper since it coined a diagnostic for deriving the non-literal meanings of inshallah. (p. 162
US-China Foreign Language, 2014
Translation is quite vital for cross-cultural communication. It helps create a better understandi... more Translation is quite vital for cross-cultural communication. It helps create a better understanding between different communities through the transmission of ideas and beliefs. It has played a key role in the development of world culture. Translation has been always the bridge between civilizations; indeed, throughout history, written and spoken translations have played a crucial role in interhuman communication. This paper aims at providing a brief account of how the concept of Translation Projects has developed, with particular insight into the Arab world. The study also aims at investigating the history of translation in the Arab world and in the Islamic era and describing the stages that the translation went through from the beginning of the Islamic Empire, Umayyad Period, Abbasid Period, school of Toledo, Ottoman period, and the 20th century. The paper also explains how translators played a key role in translating knowledge through the different Islamic periods. The study will look at KALIMA as an example for a translation project in the Arab World. KALIMA is an Arabic word with an English equivalent that is "word". The paper ends with reflections on the current and future situation of the translation in the Arab world.
Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2021
Subtitling is a challenging task making subtitlers use precise strategies to improve the quality ... more Subtitling is a challenging task making subtitlers use precise strategies to improve the quality of the subtitles. This paper aims at identifying the subtitling strategies employed in subtitling the culture-bound terms in the Jordanian movie entitled “Theeb” and assessing the translation of such culture-bound terms. The dialect used in this movie is the Bedouin Jordanian Arabic. So, the translator faced two dilemmas: (1) Understanding the Bedouin Jordanian-Arabic dialect and understanding the dimensions and features of this distinguished culture. (2) Translating this work, which is loaded with cultural expressions, into English. Furthermore, the study deals with the issue of overcoming the difficulties faced by translation of Arabic-language audiovisual dialogues into English. To achieve the purpose of this study, the data was collected from the movie "Theeb" and then analyzed. The results show that not all the subtitling strategies were used. Those left unused were disloc...
Some translators do not pay sufficient attention to the figures of speech, particularly metaphor ... more Some translators do not pay sufficient attention to the figures of speech, particularly metaphor and simile while translating political speeches. Failing to achieve equivalence while translating political speeches, the reader will surely lose control over the universe of discourse, i.e., s/he will lose the key meaning of not just sentences but also discourse. This study would shed light on figures of speech (simile and metaphor) in King Abdullah II political speeches. This study also addresses the nature figures of speeches in the translation of King Abduallah II political speeches which can be considered a special kind of discourse that produce and reproduce beliefs, opinions, and ideologies. Keywords : figures, speech, translation, king, Abdullah.
Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 2015
The purpose of this paper is to provide grammatical and lexical evidence in support of primary co... more The purpose of this paper is to provide grammatical and lexical evidence in support of primary color terms in Jordanian Arabic, henceforth, JA. The general framework is to investigate the behavior of basic color terms in some lexical or grammatical processes and to prove that their behavior supports the division proposed by Kay and McDanial (1978) between primary and derived color terms. The evidence is distilled from various sources including: the templates used for the two groups of color terms, the feminine templates utilized in each group; the plural templates used in each group; reduplication; the parts of speech derived from each color; the variety of color terms; and the frequency of each color in daily usage.
International Journal of Humanities and Social Science
The difference between Italian and English language and the variation in their cultures make the ... more The difference between Italian and English language and the variation in their cultures make the process of translating a real challenge. Because of the inherent differences between Italian language and English language, a perfect translation is impossible. It is the nature of languages. So many words in Italian have nuances, connotations, even literary echoes which their closest equivalent words in English do not have. Thus, this paper aims at probing-by encountering the problems that a translator may encounter while translating political texts from Italian into English. For this purpose, we have chosen to translate into English the following chapter from Roman Prodi's book entitled La Mia Visione Dei Fatti Cinque anni di governo in Europa. Throughout our paper, we have tried to demonstrate some translation problems that we have encountered while translating from Italian into English language. Our translation will enable us to explore the potential strategies to overcome the lexico-grammatical differences between Italian and English language and to illustrate the linguistic reasoning behind translation. On a second level, we will discuss the various ways translator dealt with structural and lexical differences between the two languages English and Italian.
Religion is a source from which people gain their behaviors. It usually provides guidelines and a... more Religion is a source from which people gain their behaviors. It usually provides guidelines and advice about good and evil. It also teaches us about acceptable and unacceptable forms of behavior. Religious language is never meaningless, so long as the interlocutors understand the information and concepts behind what they are communicating on. The value of any religious concept is based on its pragmatic value of the proponent. This paper intends to investigate the challenges involved in translating Islamic religious expressions expressions in the translation of Naguib Mahfouz novel "The Beginning and the End" ﻭﺍﻟﻨﻬﺎﻳﺔ( .)ﺍﻟﺒﺪﺍﻳﺔ Furthermore, this paper aims at investigating the strategies (paraphrasing, transliteration, annotation, etc) the translator opted for in translating and handling problems involved in conveying religious associations from Arabic into English. Finally, gains and losses made in the translation will be pointed out.
The Role of Superordinates, General Words and collocates in the Translation of Political Speeches
The study seeks to give an overview of lexical cohesion elements (superordinate, general word and... more The study seeks to give an overview of lexical cohesion elements (superordinate, general word and collocation) in the translation of political speeches. It deals with some lexical problems resulting from the transfer of the message from the source language text into the target language text, which is often beset by many problems that most frequently result from the differences between the languages. Among the problems touched upon in this study are some of the lexical problems that any translator of political speeches may encounter. The researcher relies on Halliday and Hassan's (1976) classification of lexical cohesion which comprises: repetition, synonymy, superordiante, general word and collocation. Of special interest to the present study are the superordinate, general word and collocation categories in the translation of political speeches and the lexical relations between those elements. To be constantly kept in mind is the importance of understanding the relationship between lexical items, since such awareness enables the translators to produce meaningful, effective and cohesive target texts. For the purpose of this study, six examples were drawn from Obama's Inaugural Speech 2009 and compared to their translations in Arabic, French and Italian. The study arrives at the conclusion that the superordinate helps disambiguate meaning and elucidate relations and consequences which might otherwise remain unclear. With reference to collocation, the study has shown that it is a key factor in the avoidance of translationese.
English Language and Literature Studies, 2014
The main objective of this study is to trace the language development of the child Anwar from a J... more The main objective of this study is to trace the language development of the child Anwar from a Jordanian Arabic-speaking home, from her first vocal sounds to the first sentences. The present study which is based on "naturalistic observations" covers the acquisition of Arabic during her pre-school age. The study was carried out by maintaining the proper records of the child utterances in the form of a 'diary' and the traditional method of phonetic transcription was used to record utterances. It was found that she had acquired Arabic by the time she was five. The same year she was admitted to kindergarten. The whole study will be confined to different stages of language acquisition.
The paper intends to explore and discuss the necessity for a sociosemiotic approach in the transl... more The paper intends to explore and discuss the necessity for a sociosemiotic approach in the translation. The theoretical basis for this approach is Halliday's sociosemiotic theory of language in which he stresses the unity of the text (language), context (linguistic or non-linguistic), social structure, and in which he sees language as a unique system of signs with a social function, capable of expressing the meanings which all other sign systems can make (Halliday, 1978). We will, in short, be attempting to cast some light on the relationship between translation and semiotics. The relevance of the sociosemiotic approach to the translation is that it helps the translator to better understand the meanings (associative and designative 1 ) of words, sentences, and the fact that
Translation is quite vital for cross-cultural communication. It helps create a better understandi... more Translation is quite vital for cross-cultural communication. It helps create a better understanding between different communities through the transmission of ideas and beliefs. It has played a key role in the development of world culture. Translation has been always the bridge between civilizations; indeed, throughout history, written and spoken translations have played a crucial role in interhuman communication. This paper aims at providing a brief account of how the concept of Translation Projects has developed, with particular insight into the Arab world. The study also aims at investigating the history of translation in the Arab world and in the Islamic era and describing the stages that the translation went through from the beginning of the Islamic Empire, Umayyad Period, Abbasid Period, school of Toledo, Ottoman period, and the 20th century. The paper also explains how translators played a key role in translating knowledge through the different Islamic periods. The study will look at KALIMA as an example for a translation project in the Arab World. KALIMA is an Arabic word with an English equivalent that is "word". The paper ends with reflections on the current and future situation of the translation in the Arab world.
The notion of equivalence and lexical cohesion in the translation of political speeches
Asian Social Science, 2013
Advertising is a specific genre which uses many techniques to persuade no matter the circumstance... more Advertising is a specific genre which uses many techniques to persuade no matter the circumstances. One of the techniques used in advertising is grammatical parallelism. This study is generally intended to investigate and describe grammatical parallelism in the translation of advertising texts with particular reference to English and Arabic. The study should also provide an insight into the techniques of advertising in two different cultures in order to demonstrate that the cultural background is evident in advertising. Furthermore, the study will point up some of the main problems posed by the translation of advertising texts, taking into consideration that advertising translation, both production and products, is a part of a socio-cultural system. We will also focus mainly on the textual part, particularly, grammatical parallelism in the translation of English and Arabic advertisements. We will draw in defining and describing grammatical parallelism on Jakobson model (1960).
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Papers by D Mohammad Mehawesh