Babel - Volume 50, Issue 3, 2004

The paper is based on a corpus investigation of Danish theatre repertoire for the second half of the twentieth century. The discussion opens with a detailed presentation of those genre-specific challenges and even obstacles to a statistically oriented approach that arise the moment an investigation turns from ‘plays as published texts’ to ‘plays as performances and productions’. The main part of the analysis is a discussion of British and Russian theatrical import to Denmark, and the ways in which its development can shed light on the mechanisms of power working through translation politics. Danish repertoire choices reveal egotistic, self-centred motivation behind their treatment of British and Russian sources, respectively, when the English culture emerges as a source of, first of all, light entertainment, while the Russian one, on the contrary, seems to be called on to satisfy the demand for the artistic exploration of the more melancholic, dark side of human character. The analysis is focussed on the uses of Chekhov and Shakespeare in the construction of Danish cultural Self, and framed in a more theoretical discussion of the challenges and signifi cance of the theatre for Translation Studies in the new, culture conscious phase of its development.ResuméL’article est basé sur l’examen du corpus du répertoire théâtral danois pendant la seconde moitié du vingtième siècle. La discussion débute par une présentation détaillée des défi s spécifi ques au genre, voire des obstacles à une approche statistiquement orientée. Ces défi s surgissent au moment où la recherche passe des « pièces sous forme de textes publiés » à des « pièces devant être représentées et produites ». La partie principale de l’analyse est une discussion sur l’importation théâtrale britannique et russe au Danemark et sur la manière dont son développement peut éclairer les mécanismes de force qui agissent dans la politique de la traduction. Les choix du répertoire danois révèlent l’existence d’une motivation égotiste et égocentrique derrière leur traitement des sources britanniques et russes; la culture anglaise apparaît surtout comme une source de divertissement léger, tandis qu’au contraire, il semble qu’on fasse appel à la culture russe pour satisfaire la demande d’une explora tion artistique du côté sombre et plus mélancolique du caractère humain. L’analyse se concentre sur l’utilisation de Tchekhov et de Shakespeare dans la construction du Moi culturel danois, et s’inscrit dans une discussion plus théorique sur les défi s et la signification du théâtre pour la traductologie, dans la nouvelle phase de son développement, consciente de la culture.

This paper investigates the accuracy of the translation of the Arabic copula kaana (be-past-he) in the holy Quran. The first one hundred usages of kaana are selected for investigation. The examples are exclusively derived from Surat al-baqarah (1) and surat ali?umran (2). The translation under discussion is taken from ‘Holy Quran, CD, 6th ed. Saxir for Computer Programs’ The translation has been checked via back translation, which was compared with the original temporal and aspectual meaning expressed by the usage of kaana. It turns out that the translation of kaana caused confusion rather than understanding. It also seems that most of the inadequacies result from insufficient understanding of the mechanism of tense and aspect in both the Arabic and English languages. Moreover, in most cases, the modal usage of kaana which plays a significant role, is ignored by the translator(s). In addition to back translation carried out by some scholars, the translation has also been checked via ‘Machine Translation’ which shows a real abuse of the original text.

Punctuation marks are used in English systematically, and in an organised way, to perform certain stylistic, semantic and grammatical functions and achieve effects that can contribute to and affect meaning in some way and in variable degrees. So they are not used haphazardly nor regarded as a mere decoration that has nothing to do with the message of the text, be it a sentence, a paragraph or a long passage. They are meaningful and functional in different types of texts. Hence their importance in translation. In Arabic, however, the situation is completely different. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, punctuation marks almost without exception are ignored, random or misused in all types of texts and contexts, especially in classical books — let alone translated works into Arabic — for no good reasons. This means that there is a big gap to bridge in translation from English into Arabic. This article is a modest attempt to do so. It stresses the importance of punctuation to the message in Arabic, and how to compensate for the loss of meaning incurred by neglecting it, for it entails stylistic, semantic and grammatical functions that are too significant to drop in translation. The argument in favour of the functionality of punctuation in writing and, hence, translation, is confirmed by a discussion of the most important and recurrent punctuation marks, with illustrative examples in both English and Arabic.

Word order differences between English and Arabic represent one of the problems faced by English-into-Arabic simultaneous interpreters. This paper investigates this problem by testing the effect of six problematic English linear arrangements on the accuracy of performance of interpreters in three text types: the expressive, informative and vocative. These constructions are considered problematic because they contain key words which force the interpreter to lag too far behind the speaker before they are rendered into Arabic. This lagging behind entails a risk of short-term memory overload and consequently affects performance. The assumption has been verified and departures in the form of omissions and errors have been identified in the interpreters’ performance. But the interpreters resorted to a tactic that helped them to stay as close as possible to the speaker, viz., tracking, particularly in the rendition of the vocative passage. However, this tactic was not always manipulated successfully due to inappropriate handling or to the fact that the construction itself did not lend itself to tracking.It has also been found that departures are higher in the rendition of the expressive and informative passages than the vocative passage.