1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Pragmatics
  4. Volume 25, Issue 2
  5. Article
Volume 25, Issue 2
  • ISSN 1018-2101
  • E-ISSN: 2406-4238
PDF

Abstract

The thesis abstract, as a genre has a set of communicative functions mutually-understood by established members of the academic community. A vast majority of translation studies of source language (SL) and target language (TL) equivalence seems to have overlooked the inherent relationship between form and function when translating. The purpose of this study was to find out whether the Arab students would translate the English passive structures into their corresponding Arabic passive in order to maintain the pragma-generic functions associated with these constructions or would employ other translation replacements when translating English passives into Arabic. A further purpose was to find out what grammatical factors constrain the choice of these translation options. To fulfill these purposes, we investigated the voice choice in 90 MA thesis abstracts and their 90 Arabic translated versions written in English by the same MA students, drawn from the field of Linguistics. The data analysis revealed that when the Arab student-translators come across the English passive sentence, they resort to either of the following options: Transposing English passives into verbal nouns (), or into pseudo-active verbs or active sentence structures, or into vowel melody passives, or omitting these passive structures.

© 2015 International Pragmatics Association
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/prag.25.2.01ala
2015-06-01
2024-12-01

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/prag.25.2.01ala
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Agameya, A
    (2008) Passive (Syntax). In V. Versteegh , et al , Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, 3. Leiden-Boston: Brill.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Al-Ali, Mohammed
    (2006) Genre-pragmatic strategies in English letter-of-application writing of Jordanian Arabic-English bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism9.1: 119-39. doi: 10.1080/13670050608668633
     https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050608668633 [Google Scholar]
  3. (2010) Generic patterns and socio-cultural resources in acknowledgements accompanying Ph.D. dissertations. Pragmatics20.1: 1-26. doi: 10.1075/prag.20.1.01ali
     https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.20.1.01ali [Google Scholar]
  4. Al-Ali , Mohammed , and Y. Sahawneh
    (2011) Rhetorical and textual organization of English and Arabic Ph.D. dissertation abstracts in linguistics. SKY: Journal of Linguistics24: 7-39.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Anderson, K. , and J. Maclean
    (1997) A genre analysis study of 80 abstracts. Edinburgh Working Papers in Applied Linguistics8: 1-23.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Baker, Mona
    (1992) In Other Words. London: Routledge doi: 10.4324/9780203327579
     https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203327579 [Google Scholar]
  7. Baratta, Alexander M
    (2009) Revealing stance through passive voice. Journal of Pragmatics41: 1406-1421. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2008.09.010
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.09.010 [Google Scholar]
  8. Beekman J. , and J. Callow
    (1974) Translating the Word of God. Michigan: Zondervan.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Bhatia, V
    (1993) Analyzing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings. London: Longman.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Bloor, T. , and M. Bloor
    (1995) The Functional Analysis of English: A Hallidayan Approach. London: Arnold.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Bonn, S. , and J. Swales
    (2007) English and French journal abstracts in the language sciences: Three exploratory studies. Journal of English for Academic Purposes6: 93-108. doi: 10.1016/j.jeap.2006.11.001
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2006.11.001 [Google Scholar]
  12. Busch-Lauer, I
    (1995A) Abstracts in German medical journals: A linguistic analysis. Information Processing and Management31.5: 769-76. doi: 10.1016/0306‑4573(95)00024‑B
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0306-4573(95)00024-B [Google Scholar]
  13. Chomsky, N
    (1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge: MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Dahl, T
    (2004) Some characteristics of argumentative abstracts. Akademisk Prosa2: 49-67.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. El-yasin, Mohammed K
    (1996) The passive voice: A problem for the English-Arabic Translator. Babel42.1: 18- 26. doi: 10.1075/babel.42.1.03ely
     https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.42.1.03ely [Google Scholar]
  16. Farghal, Mohammed , and Mohammed Q. Al-Shorafat
    (1996) The translation of English passives into Arabic: An empirical perspective. Target8.1: 97-118. doi: 10.1075/target.8.1.06far
     https://doi.org/10.1075/target.8.1.06far [Google Scholar]
  17. Ghalaayiini, M
    (1986) Jaami9u dduruusi l9arabiyyaa (Comprehensive Arabic Lessons). Beirut: Modern Printing Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Givón, T
    (1994) The pragmatics of de-transitive voice: Functional and typological aspects of inversion. In T. Givón (ed.), Voice and Inversion. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 3-44. doi: 10.1075/tsl.28.03giv
     https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.28.03giv [Google Scholar]
  19. Graetz, N
    (1985) Teaching EFL students to extract structural information from abstracts. In J.M. Ulijn , and A.K. Pugh (eds.), Reading for Professional Purposes: Methods and Materials in Teaching Languages. Leuven, Belgium: Acco, pp. 123-135.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Hanania, Edith A. , and K. Akhtar
    (1985) Verb form and rhetorical function in science writing: A study of MS theses in biology, chemistry, and physics. ESP Journal4: 49-58. doi: 10.1016/0272‑2380(85)90006‑X
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0272-2380(85)90006-X [Google Scholar]
  21. Hyland, K
    (2000) Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing. Harlow: Pearson
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Education
    .
  23. Jordan, R
    (1997) English for Academic Purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511733062
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511733062 [Google Scholar]
  24. Karoly, Adrienn
    (2012) Translation competence and translation performance: Lexical, syntactic and textual patterns in student translations of specialized EU genre. English for Specific Purposes31: 36-46. doi: 10.1016/j.esp.2011.05.005
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2011.05.005 [Google Scholar]
  25. Keenan, E.L
    (1985) Passive in the world’s languages. In  T. Shopen (ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, pp. 325-361.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Khfaji, Rasoul
    (1996) Arabic translation alternatives for the passive in English. Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics31: 19-36.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Khalill, Aziz
    (1993) Arabic translations of English passive sentences: Problems and acceptability judgments. Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics27: 169-181.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. (1999) A Contrastive Grammar of English and Arabic. Amman: Jordan Book Center.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Kress, Gunther
    (1989) History and language: Towards a social account in linguistic change. Journal of Pragmatics13.3: 445- 466. doi: 10.1016/0378‑2166(89)90065‑9
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(89)90065-9 [Google Scholar]
  30. Lackstrom, J. , L. Selinker , and L. Trimble
    (1973) Technical rhetorical principles and language choice. TESOL Quarterly7.2: 127-136. doi: 10.2307/3585556
     https://doi.org/10.2307/3585556 [Google Scholar]
  31. Lin, J. , D. Karakos , D. Demner-Fushman , and S. Khudanpur
    (2006) Generative content models for structural analysis of medical abstracts. Proceedings of the BioNLP Workshop on Linking Natural Language Processing and Biology at HLT-NAACL 06. New York City, June 2006: Association for Computational Linguistics, pp. 65-72.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Lores, Rosa
    (2004) On RA abstracts: From rhetorical structure to thematic organization. English for Academic Purposes23: 280-302. doi: 10.1016/j.esp.2003.06.001
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2003.06.001 [Google Scholar]
  33. Martin-Martin, P
    (2003) A genre analysis of English and Spanish research paper abstracts in experimental social sciences. English for Specific Purposes22: 25- 43. doi: 10.1016/S0889‑4906(01)00033‑3
     https://doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(01)00033-3 [Google Scholar]
  34. Martin-Martin, P. , and S. Burgess
    (2004) The rhetorical management of academic criticism in research article abstracts. Text24: 171-195.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Matthews, R. , J. Bowen , and R. Matthews
    (2000) Successful Scientific Writing: A Step-by-step Guide for Biomedical Scientists. New York: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Melander, B. , J. Swales , and K. Fredrickson
    (1997) Journal abstracts from three academic fields in the United States and Sweden: National or disciplinary proclivities?In A. Duszak (ed.), Cultures and Styles of Academic Discourse. New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 251-272. doi: 10.1515/9783110821048.251
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110821048.251 [Google Scholar]
  37. Mihailovic, L
    (1967) Passive and pseudopassive verbal groups in English. English Studies48: 316-326. doi: 10.1080/00138386708597279
     https://doi.org/10.1080/00138386708597279 [Google Scholar]
  38. Mouakket, Ahmed
    (1986) Linguistics and Translation: Some Semantic Problems in Arabic-English Translation. Washington D.C: Georgetown University. Ph.D. dissertation.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Najjar, H
    (1990) Arabic as a research language: The case of the agricultural sciences. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
  40. Paltridge, B
    (2002) Thesis and dissertation writing: An examination of published advice and actual practice. English for Specific Purposes21: 125-143. doi: 10.1016/S0889‑4906(00)00025‑9
     https://doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(00)00025-9 [Google Scholar]
  41. Perales-Escudero, Moisés , and John Swales
    (2011) Tracing convergence and divergence in pairs of Spanish and English research article abstracts: The case of Ibérica . Ibérica21: 49- 70.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Pho, P
    (2008) Research article abstracts in Applied Linguistics and Educational Technology: A study of linguistic realizations of rhetorical structure and authorial stance. Discourse Studies10: 231-250. doi: 10.1177/1461445607087010
     https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445607087010 [Google Scholar]
  43. Radford, A
    (1981) Transformational Syntax: A Stdent’s Guide to Chomsky’s Extended Standard Theory. New York: Cambridge University press.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Rosenhouse, J
    (1988) Occurrence of the passive in different types of text in English, Hebrew and Arabic. Babel34.2: 90- 103. doi: 10.1075/babel.34.2.04ros
     https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.34.2.04ros [Google Scholar]
  45. Salager-Meyer, F
    (1990) Discoursal flaws in medical English abstracts: A genre analysis per research-and text-type. Text10.4: 365-384.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. (1992) A text-type and move Analysis study of verb tense and modality distribution in medical English abstracts. English for Specific Purposes11: 93-113. doi: 10.1016/S0889‑4906(05)80002‑X
     https://doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(05)80002-X [Google Scholar]
  47. Santos, M.B
    (1996) The textual organization of research paper abstracts in Applied Linguistics. Text16.4: 481-499.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Schramm, Andreas
    (1996) Using aspect to express viewpoint in EST texts. English for Specific Purposes15.2: 141-164). doi: 10.1016/0889‑4906(95)00017‑8
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0889-4906(95)00017-8 [Google Scholar]
  49. Swales, J
    (1990) Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Tarone, Elaine , Sharon Dwyer , Susan Gillette , and Vincent Icke
    (1981) On the use passive in two astrophysics journal papers. The ESP Journal1.2: 123- 40. doi: 10.1016/0272‑2380(81)90004‑4
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0272-2380(81)90004-4 [Google Scholar]
  51. Theses & Dissertation Depository Center, University of Jordan Library
    . library.ju.edu.jo/e/Organizational_Structure.aspx
  52. Van Dijk, T
    (1980) Macrostructures. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
     [Google Scholar]
  53. Weissberg, R. , and S. Buker
    (1990) Writing up Research. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/prag.25.2.01ala
Loading
  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): Arabic; English; Genre; Passive voice; Pragmatic functions; Translation

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error