The Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations is delighted to announce the fifth paper in the popular Abdou Filali-Ansary Occasional Paper Series; Legal Translation in a Political Context: The Trick of Choosing between Alternatives in Translating Electoral Terms by Zakia Deeb.
Legal electoral terminology is a specialist subject within the broader legal language discourse. When translating into Arabic, even basic electoral terms can be translated differently in different Arab countries for various reasons due to different sources of inspiration. Most legal electoral terms have a variety of alternative equivalents within the relevant linguistic field or semi-legal domain. This paper discusses such alternatives while presenting problems related to the existing resources in the field.
Data collected from the 2012 election of members of the Libyan General National Congress are analysed to test the consistency in selecting from these alternatives. Furthermore, material presented in various recently compiled dictionaries, glossaries and manuals of electoral terms are used as examples. The hypothesis drawn from working on a large body of material translated from English into Arabic is that the consistency in selecting equivalents for electoral legal terms is only partial. Consistency is more apparent when terms are law proper but not otherwise. Also, material from different sources indicates problems concerning standardisation, abbreviations and acronyms as well as cultural and linguistic problems.
The Series was created in honour of the Founding Director of AKU-ISMC, Abdou Filali-Ansary, a well-known scholar and public figure whose work closely aligns to the vision and mission of AKU-ISMC. We publish progressive, innovative research to generate discussion and contribute to the advancement of knowledge.
About the Author
Zakia Deeb is Dean of the School of Languages and Head of the Translation Department at the Libyan Academy of Graduate Studies. She is also Founder and Head of the Translation Department at Tripoli University. She holds a PhD from the University of Newcastle and an MA from Salford University in the UK. Her research interests include translation studies, translating between English and Arabic, audiovisual translation, legal and electoral translation, journalism and political translation, teaching translation, and policies, norms and audience perception relating to translation in the Arab world. Dr Deeb has also worked with the UNDP, UNIC and the Institute of Diplomatic Studies in Tripoli. Her publications include “The Manipulation of Power Game and Handling of Culturally-bound Elements in the Dubbing and Subtitling of the Film ‘Omar Mukhtar: Lion of the Desert’” (2018), International Journal of Science and Research 7(12): 1348-1356; and “First Reading = Lasting Meaning: Students’ Mis-readings of ST Vocabulary in Translation Exams” (2010), in Valerie Pellatt, Kate Griffiths & Shao-Chuan Wu (eds) Teaching and Testing Interpreting and Translating. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Verlag.
All papers in this wide-ranging series can be downloaded
here .
The Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations is delighted to announce the fifth paper in the popular Abdou Filali-Ansary Occasional Paper Series; Legal Translation in a Political Context: The Trick of Choosing between Alternatives in Translating Electoral Terms by Zakia Deeb.
Legal electoral terminology is a specialist subject within the broader legal language discourse. When translating into Arabic, even basic electoral terms can be translated differently in different Arab countries for various reasons due to different sources of inspiration. Most legal electoral terms have a variety of alternative equivalents within the relevant linguistic field or semi-legal domain. This paper discusses such alternatives while presenting problems related to the existing resources in the field.
Data collected from the 2012 election of members of the Libyan General National Congress are analysed to test the consistency in selecting from these alternatives. Furthermore, material presented in various recently compiled dictionaries, glossaries and manuals of electoral terms are used as examples. The hypothesis drawn from working on a large body of material translated from English into Arabic is that the consistency in selecting equivalents for electoral legal terms is only partial. Consistency is more apparent when terms are law proper but not otherwise. Also, material from different sources indicates problems concerning standardisation, abbreviations and acronyms as well as cultural and linguistic problems.
The Series was created in honour of the Founding Director of AKU-ISMC, Abdou Filali-Ansary, a well-known scholar and public figure whose work closely aligns to the vision and mission of AKU-ISMC. We publish progressive, innovative research to generate discussion and contribute to the advancement of knowledge.
About the Author
Zakia Deeb is Dean of the School of Languages and Head of the Translation Department at the Libyan Academy of Graduate Studies. She is also Founder and Head of the Translation Department at Tripoli University. She holds a PhD from the University of Newcastle and an MA from Salford University in the UK. Her research interests include translation studies, translating between English and Arabic, audiovisual translation, legal and electoral translation, journalism and political translation, teaching translation, and policies, norms and audience perception relating to translation in the Arab world. Dr Deeb has also worked with the UNDP, UNIC and the Institute of Diplomatic Studies in Tripoli. Her publications include “The Manipulation of Power Game and Handling of Culturally-bound Elements in the Dubbing and Subtitling of the Film ‘Omar Mukhtar: Lion of the Desert’” (2018), International Journal of Science and Research 7(12): 1348-1356; and “First Reading = Lasting Meaning: Students’ Mis-readings of ST Vocabulary in Translation Exams” (2010), in Valerie Pellatt, Kate Griffiths & Shao-Chuan Wu (eds) Teaching and Testing Interpreting and Translating. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Verlag.
All papers in this wide-ranging series can be downloaded
here .