1. The Routledge Course in Translation Annotation
Arabic-English-Arabic
Ali Almanna (2016)

2. Annotating local strategies
In this chapter,
- we will learn how to annotate our translations and comment on other’s.
- Further, we will be familiar with a number of classifications of local strategies and shifts proposed by different scholars, namely:
J. P. Vinay & J. Darbelnet )1958/1995(
J. C. Catford (1965)
J. L. Malone )1988(
M. Baker )1992/2011(

3. How to annotate or comment?
In fact, annotating your own translation or commenting on others’ translation is “a subjective exercise, depending on the person and his/her competences. However, translation students who have no experience can follow this, but they do not have to” (Almanna 2016: 55)
1) State their local strategy, as in:
Annotation
Comment
I (have) opted for …
I (have) resorted to …
I (have) translated … into …
I (have) used …
I (have) added …
I (have) deleted …
The translator (has) opted for …
The translator (has) resorted to …
The translator (has) translated … into …
The translator (has) used …
The translator (has) added …
The translator (has) deleted …

4. Annotation (certainty)
2) State the reason, as in:
Annotation (certainty)
This is because . . .
The main reason behind this is . . .
Comment (likelihood)
Having paid extra attention to …, the translator …
Having given full consideration to …, the translator …
The translator might be motivated by …
It is possible that the translator ….
It is likely that the translator …
The main reason behind this could be ….

5. 3) State the type of the local strategy or shift, as in:
This is an example of ‘translation by addition’, ‘translation by omission’, ‘translation by paraphrase’, etc.
This is an example of ‘class shift’, ‘unit shift’, ‘intra-system shift’, ‘level shift’, etc.
4) Elaborate if they can ….
5) Referring to another researcher’s opinion in order to make their own annotation externally coherent, as in:
In this regard, Dickins et al (2002: 59) state that ….
In this respect, Baker (1992/2011) holds that …
In this connection, Nida (1964) comments that …

6. 6. suggest their own translation when commenting on aspects of weakness of other translators’ translations …
Comment
Had the translator given full consideration to …., he/she could have suggested something like this:
Had the translator paid extra attention to …, he/she could have come up with a translation like this:
Had the translator taken into account …, he/she could have produced a translation, such as:

7. By way of explanation, let us consider the following example (Ghazala 2012: 10):
ST:
No one is sure whether, from Israel’s current perceived position of strength, he genuinely wants a lasting peace that would give the Palestinians a proper state. He leaves room for maneuver. He is flexible to a point of opportunism.
TT:
وفي ظل سطوة الموقف الإسرائيلي في الوقت الراهن، فلا أحد يعرف بشكل قاطع ما إذا كان حقًاً يريد سلامًاً دائمًاً يمنح بموجبه الفلسطينين دولةً حقيقيةً أم لا. إذ إنه عادة ما يترك باب المناورة مفتوحًا فهو مرن إلى حدّ الانتهازية.

8. Annotation:
I have opted for the addition of the phrase عادة ما 'usually’ This is to make the text read smoothly on the one hand, and lay emphasis on the regularity and frequency of the action as a matter of routine on the other It is worth noting that unlike English that has to express the regularity and frequency of an action grammatically, Arabic can express them lexically when they are relevant (cf. Baker 1992/2011). Languages differ widely in the way they map various aspects of world experiences. In this regard, Baker (1992: 84) rightly comments:
Local strategy
Why
Elaboration
External coherence
Languages which have morphological resources for expressing a certain category such as number, tense, or gender, have to express these categories regularly; those which do not have morphological resources for expressing the same categories do not have to express them except when they are felt to be relevant.

9. Following is another example extracted from Haroun (2013: 12–13):
ST:
هناك كتابات كثيرة عالجت هذا الموضوع لكنها لم تشبعه بحثاً، ...
TT:
There has been a great deal of research addressing this topic but it has not done it justice ….

10. Suggested translation
Comment
As can be observed, the translator has translated كتابات ‘lit. writings’ into ‘research’, which is a non-countable noun in English Semantically speaking, the denotative meaning of the word ‘writing’ is wider and less specific than that of ‘research’ as the latter is part of the former, which covers, in addition to research, essays, books, monographs and so on. From the context and co-text, it is clear that the original writer means a particular type of writing based on research as sharply indicated by لم يشبعه بحثا Had the translator given full consideration to the issue of countability, he could have suggested a rendering like: ‘pieces of research’.
Local strategy
Elaboration
Suggested translation

11. NOTE: You may start your comment as follows:
As can be observed, the translator …
As can be seen, the translator …
As can be noticed, the translator …
Here, the translator …
In this example, the translator ….
In the above example, the translator …
It seems that the translator…
It is quite clear that the translator …

12. Local strategies
Local strategies are problem-motivated strategies adopted by translators to solve the problem they face in dealing with segments of the text.

13. Different classifications
- J. P. Vinay & J. Darbelnet )1958/1995(
- J. C. Catford (1965)
- J. L. Malone )1988)
- M. Baker )1992/2011(
In this course, we will focus on only two classifications, namely J. P. Vinay & J. Darbelnet )1958/1995( and J. C. Catford (1965).

14. J. P. Vinay & J. Darbelnet )1958/1995
Strategies, or procedures as Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/1995: pp ) label them, are divided into seven types, namely: ‘borrowing’, ‘calque’, ‘literal translation’, ‘transposition’, ‘modulation’, ‘equivalence’ and ‘adaptation’.
The first three types of strategies are labelled as ‘direct translation’, whilst the other four strategies named ‘oblique translation’

15. 1- Borrowing means transferring the SL lexical item into the TL directly due to, for instance, a gap in the TL lexicon or to introduce “an element of local colour” (p. 85). 2- Calque refers to that type of borrowing in which the SL expression is first transferred into the TL, then its components are translated literally, resulting in either “lexical claque” or “structural claque” (p. 85). They hold that like borrowing, many claques with time become “an integral part of the language” and with some “semantic change” could turn into false friends (p.85). Claque is classified by them into two types: a. ‘lexical calque’, which “respects the syntactic structure of the TL while introducing a new mode of expression”, such as pluralizing, for instance the borrowed word موبايل in Arabic after being transliterated first from English. b. ‘structural calque’, which “introduces a new construction”, such as using the forced passive voice ‘by-structure’, i.e. من قبل in Arabic.

16. 3) Literal translation refers to the capability of transferring the ST expression, phrase, sentence and so on into the TT literally without any change apart from those required by the TL grammar. They add that when the translators, after having tried all three procedures of direct translation, feel the outcome is unacceptable, they could recourse to one of the four procedures of oblique translation.
They further comment that direct translation should be avoided if
- it changes the meaning;
- it is meaningless;
- it is structurally impossible;
- it does not correspond to anything in the target-language metalinguistic experience;
- it does have a correspondence in the TL, but within a different register (p. 87).

17. It is similar to Catford’s (1965) ‘class shift’.
4) Transposition refers to a change of one part of speech for another without changing the meaning. Vinay and Darbelnet comment that from a stylistic perspective the transposed materials might have different impact; thus they advise translators to opt for a transposition only if “the translation […] obtained fits better into the utterance, or allows a particular nuance of style to be retained” (p. 89).
It is similar to Catford’s (1965) ‘class shift’.

18. ليس من الصعب أن تبيّن ... من السهل أن تبيّن ...
5. Modulation refers to “a variation of the form of the message, obtained by changing point of view” (p. 89). For stylistic reasons, to avoid repetition, or for other reasons, translators, at times, opt to use an antonym plus a negation element, change the passive form into active form or vice versa, change a concrete noun to an abstract one, or reorder the cause-effect sequence, etc. Like transposition, modulation, according to Vinay and Darbelnet, could be ‘optional’ or ‘obligatory’. By way of illustration, let us consider the following example quoted from them that can be translated into Arabic in two different ways:
It is not difficult to show … (p. 89)
ليس من الصعب أن تبيّن ...
من السهل أن تبيّن ...

19. 6. Equivalence, in the sense Vinay and Darbelnet use the term, refers to the possibility of rendering an idiom, proverb, cliché, nominal or adjectival phrase, etc. by “using completely different stylistic and structural methods” as long as it is used in the same situation in the interfacing languages, as in the Arabic idiomatic expression على أحرّ من الجمر which may well be translated into English as ‘to be on pins and needles’.
Provide me with more examples.

20. 7. Adaptation is special kind of equivalence, i. e
7. Adaptation is special kind of equivalence, i.e. “a situational equivalence”; it is used when the TL culture does not have a similar situation in its experience that could accommodate the situation of the original culture. They suggest “the translators have to create a new situation that can be considered as being equivalent” (p. 91). A good example of adaptation in the sense that Vinay and Darbelnet use the term is when the translator, for instance, change the proper name used as a vehicle in a simile like ‘he is as rich as Croesus’ into another proper name such as ‘Qaroun’ in Arabic, as in يملك مال قارون ‘lit. he has has Qaroun’s wealth’ (for more details, see Almanna 2010: ).

21. By way of explanation, let us consider the following example (quoted along with its published translation from AEX: DEOORANT BODYSPRAY):
ST:
Shake well before use. Hold can upright and spray away from face and body. Note that the spray is released upwards from the top of the cap.
TT:
رجّ العبوة جيداً قبل الاستعمال. امسك العبوة بشكل عمودي وقم برش البخاخ بعيداً عن الوجه والجسم. يجب ملاحظة أن البخاخ ينطلق نحو الأعلى من قمة الغطاء.

22. Comment:
As can be seen, while translating the above extract, the translator has opted for a number of local strategies, including ‘obligatory transposition’ and ‘optional transposition’ in the sense that Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/1995: 89) use the terms. The translator, in addition to obligatorily changing the adverb ‘upright’ to a prepositional phrase, i.e. بشكل عمودي ‘lit. in a vertical form’, has optionally resorted to changing the verb ‘spray’ to a weak verb قم ‘lit. stand’ plus a prepositional phrase برش ‘lit. by spraying’ although s/he could use the verb رش ‘lit. spray’.

23. Another example
TT:
A girl gestured with her hand at the window overlooking the garden, like a dumb person, unable to speak. She was followed by another girl, then by the others …. (Starkey 2008: 1)
ST:
أشارت فتاة، كالخرساء، بيدها للنافذة المطلة على الحديقة لا تستطيع النطق. تبعتها الأخرى، ثم الباقيات ....
(Samīra al-Māni‘ 1997: 7)

24. Comment:
Here, a structure shift, which involves a grammatical change between the structure of the ST and that of the TT, occurs. The translator has replaced the active voice expressed by تبعتها الآخرى، ثم الباقيات with a passive voice in the TT expressed by ‘she was followed by another, then the others’. In this regard, Catford (1965: 73) argues that there are two main types of translation shifts, namely: 1) ‘level shifts’ where the SL item at one linguistic level (e.g. grammar) has a TL equivalent at a different level (e.g. lexis) and 2) ‘category shifts’ which are divided into four types: ‘structure-shifts’, ‘class shifts’, ‘unit shifts’ and ‘intra-system shifts’ (for more details, see Catford 1965: 73-80; Munday 2008: ; Almanna 2014: 34-35).

25. By way of illustration, let us consider the following example (quoted from Alqunayir 2014: 21-22):
ST:
Contrary to what many think, this does not prove that the West has become a godless civilization. Rather, it confirms, as Cox argues, the changing nature of being religious in a post traditional world.
TT:
وعلى عكس ما يظنه الكثيرون، لا تثبت هذه الحقيقة أن الحضارة في الغرب قد أصبحت ملحدة. بل تُؤكد كما يقول كوكس، على الطبيعة المتغيرة للتدين في عالم تجاوز التقليدية.
Comment:
As can be observed, the translator has opted for changing the point of view when she has translated ‘the West has become a godless civilization’ in which ‘the West’ is the doer of the action into أن الحضارة في الغرب قد أصبحت ملحدة where the doer of the action becomes الحضارة and ‘the West’ becomes part of the adverb of place في الغرب ‘in the West’. This is an example of modulation to use Vinay and Darbelnet’s (1958/1995: 89) terminology.

26. J. C. Catford (1965)
Following Firthian and Hallidayan linguistic model, Catford (1965) in his oft-cited book ‘A Linguistic Theory of Translation’ introduces two types of translation, namely: ‘formal correspondent’ and ‘textual equivalent’.
Formal correspondent is “any TL category (unit, class, element of structure, etc.) which can be said to occupy, as nearly as possible, the ‘same’ place in the ‘economy’ of the TL as the given SL category occupies in the SL” (Catford 1965: 27).
Textual equivalent, however, is defined by Catford as “any TL text or portion of text which is observed on a particular occasion [...] to be the equivalent of a given SL text or portion of text” (p. 27).

27. In a direct link to local strategies resorted to by translators while dealing with the text at hand, one can touch on shifts that may well occur as a result of adopting a particular local strategy, or a combination of many. Catford defines shifts as “departures from formal correspondence in the process of going from the SL to the TL” (p. 73). He argues that there are two main types of translation shifts, namely:
a) Level shifts
b) Category shifts
According to Catford (Ibid), category shifts are divided into four types:
Structure-shifts
Class-shifts
Unit-shifts or rank-shifts
Intra-system shifts

28. Level shifts Structure shifts Class shifts
They occur when the SL item at one linguistic level (e.g. lexis) has a TL equivalent at a different level (e.g. grammar).
For instance, in English to emphasize the frequency of the action as a matter of routine, one can express it grammatically by opting for a simple present tense, such as: 'She goes to school with her dad'. However, to emphasize the frequency of the action in Arabic, the only solution is to resort to lexical items/expressions, such as عادة ما ‘usually’, غالبا ما ‘often’ and so.
Structure shifts
They involve a grammatical change between the structure of the ST and that of the TT.
Class shifts
They occur when a SL item is translated into a TL item which belongs to a different grammatical class. For examples, there are a great number of adverbs in English that are best substituted with a prepositional phrase plus an adjective in Arabic as in:

29. Unit shifts involve changes in rank, such as translating a sentence in one language into a phrase, expression, etc. in another.
Intra-system shifts occur when SL and TL possess systems which approximately correspond formally as to their constitution, but when translators opt for selecting a non- corresponding term in the TL system.

30. By way of explanation, let us consider the following example (quoted along with its published translation from Air Wick: Oud العود product label):
ST:
Do not spray or place on painted or polished surfaces. Keep out of reach of children. Pressurised containers: Protect from sunlight; do not expose to temperatures exceeding 50 C.
TT:
لا يرش أو يوضع على الأسطح المطلية أو الملمعة. يحفظ بعيدا عن متناول الأطفال. تحفظ العبوة المضغوطة بعيدا عن أشعة الشمس ولا يجب أن تتعرض لدرجات حراة تزيد عن (50) درجة مئوية.
Comment:
Here, the translator has changed the grammatical structures of the ST from active, expressed by ‘do not spray’, ‘place’, ‘keep out’ and ‘protect’ into passive, expressed by لا يرش,يوضع , يحفظ and تحفظ. These are examples of structure shifts. Structure shifts, according to Catford (1965: 77), occur when translators resort to arranging lower-rank units (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.) that form a larger unit (clause or sentence) differently. Structure shifts are the most frequent among the category shifts between Arabic and English. In discussing the translation of an English clause into a Gaelic clause, Catford (p. 77) shows how those lower-rank units (subject, predicate, and complement) are arranged differently in the TT, thus resulting in a structure shift.

31. J. L. Malone (1988)
Malone (1988: 15) provides a number of local strategies the translator may have recourse to when dealing with the text at hand. These are:
1 Matching: (equation versus substitution)
2 Zigzagging: (divergence versus convergence)
3 Recrescence: (amplification versus reduction)
4 Repackaging: (diffusion versus condensation)
5 Reordering

32. Equation versus substitution
Equation is the most common strategy in dealing with culturally specific words and neologies. Generally speaking, culture-specific words like فلافل, إمام, جهاد, and so on are loaned in English as ‘falafel’, ‘Imam’, ‘jihad’. In reverse, scientific terms, such as ‘computer’, ‘Bluetooth, ‘Internet’, and so on are loaned in Arabic as كومبيوتر, بلوتوث, انترنت, موبايل.
This strategy is labeled by Baker (1992: 34) ‘translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation’ (see next section for more details).
Another form of equation, which is labeled by Farghal and Shunnaq (1999: 29) ‘lexical creation’, occurs when the translator coins “new lexical items in the TL to stand for SL culture-specific elements”, such as ‘co-wife’ for الضرة and عيد الحب for ‘Valentine’s Day’ and so forth.

33. Substitution, on the other hand, refers to a type of rendering that “may bear little or no morpho-syntactic or semantic relations to the source text” (Taylor 1998: 52).
For example, the idafa-construction in Arabic is substituted by the of- structure, Saxon genitive or adjective-noun expression in English. Consider the following
examples:
the man’s house = بيت الرجل
the process of translation = عملية الترجمة
How would translate these two sentences?
تعبتُ تعبًا شديدًا البارحة ولكنني لم أذهب إلى الطبيب.
حزنتُ كثيرًا أمس لخبر وفاة أخيه.

34. Divergence versus convergence
These two strategies appear as pairs, that is to say, one is the opposite of the other. For instance, when translating the Arabic noun صوت into English, it is a type of divergence since we have to carefully select the most appropriate equivalent from a potential range of alternatives, such as: ‘sound’, ‘voice’, ‘vote’, ‘volume’ and so on. Conversely, translating one of the English nouns into Arabic undergoes converging.
How would you translate ‘stag party’ and ‘hen party’ into Arabic?
Try to translate the verb ‘to wear’ in these expressions:
- to wear a dress
- to wear your beard
- to wear a smile
- to wear shoes
- to wear perfume
- to wear your glasses
- to wear your hair up

35. Amplification versus reduction
Amplification, here, implies the process of expanding the ST expression by the addition of some elements to it. Reduction, on the other hand, involves the omission of some elements in the TT. Such omission frequently occurs in rendering a text from Arabic into English and vice versa. By
way of illustration, let us consider the following example quoted from ‘Izz al-Dīn al-Madanī’s story حكاية القنديل ‘The Tale of the Lamp’ compiled and translated by Husni and Newman (2008: 26–27):
ST:
فقال الرجل: ) نعم يا مولاي السلطان إنه والله قنديل من النحاس).
TT:
‘Yes, my lord – a lamp made out of copper’.

36. Comment
There, the translators, in an attempt to maintain a desired level of naturalness that requires them to coordinate “obligatory and optional information through the choices of explicit or implicit expressions” (Trotter 2000: 199), have opted for deleting the lexical items السلطان ‘sultan’ and والله ‘by God/Allah’. It is of greater importance for the translator to be aware of the common TL conventions and language-specific rules that determine the text naturalness.
Borrowing terms from norm theory, one can discuss the translation from a different perspective. Guided by ‘the initial acceptability norm’ (Toury 1995) and ‘the expectancy norm’ (Chesterman 1997/2000), the translators have yielded to the pressure of eliminating the religious tinge of the text, which they dismiss as alien to TT readers. However, making such a decision has underestimated ‘the initial adequacy norm’ (Toury 1995) and ‘the relation norm’ and ‘communication norm’ (Chesterman 1997/2000; see also Farghal and Almanna 2015).

37. Diffusion versus condensation
Unlike amplification and reduction, which deal with the addition or omission of some elements for the sake of naturalness, better style, avoidance of repetition and the like as shown, diffusion and condensation are “concerned with phenomenon of linguistically slackening and tightening source text expressions for the target text version, that is, providing more or less elaboration” (Taylor 1998: 56).
How would you translate the following English verbs?
- to bottle
- to google
- to unfriend
Similarly, how would you translate the following Arabic verbs?
بسمل، كبّر، هلّل

38. By way of explanation, let us consider the following authentic example quoted from Mahfouz’s novel ثرثرة فوق النيل ‘Adrift on the Nile’ (1966: 165) translated by Frances E. Liardet (1993: 61):
ST:
وترامى إليه من الحديقة صوت عم عبده لدى رجوعه وهو يبسمل.
TT:
He heard ‘Amm Abduh’s voice now, from the garden, as he was returning from the prayer. “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,” he was murmuring.

39. Comment
In the original text, the religious verb يبسمل verbally means saying بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم needs to be unpacked into full English sentence, as it has no equivalent in the TL. Here, the translator has decided to translate it into ‘In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, he was murmuring’. This is an example of diffusion in the sense that Malone (1988) uses the term.
It is also an example of ‘unit shift’ or ‘rank shift’, to borrow terms from Catford (1965).
You may define it, in particular when it is mentioned for the first time.
You may define them, in particular when they are mentioned for the first time.

40. Reordering
Reordering, as the name suggests, is a strategy that involves the inversion of ST sequences, such as adjective-noun, verb-adverb, collocation sequences, subject-object sequences, and so forth to fit in the TL and read more cogently.
How would you translate these expressions into Arabic?
- black and white
- day and night
- giving and taking
- sooner or later

41. Thank you