INT1 Izwaini2014TranslationLingusiticRecycling
INT1 Izwaini2014TranslationLingusiticRecycling
INT1 Izwaini2014TranslationLingusiticRecycling
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1. Introduction
Linguistic expressions in every language have established patterns with meanings that
can be inferred by linguistic conventions. They do not necessarily carry the same range
of meanings in other languages (Baker 1992: 230). Languages have their own norms
and expressing systems that make transferred linguistic formulas seem odd. Any
deviation from these norms and established patterns can be referred to as interference.
Interference in translation is the transfer of some linguistic aspect of the source
text (ST) into the target text (TT). The term includes any kind of influence that is
exerted by the linguistic properties of the ST on the linguistic properties of the TT. It
can include one or more levels of the language: lexical items (e.g., false friends),
semantic usage, and/or word order. Lexical items and syntactic structures of the source
language (SL) are copied into the TT, resulting in the phenomenon called
‘translationese’.
Toury provides a general definition as a preliminary foundation for the law of
interference: “phenomena pertaining to the make-up of the source text tend to be
transferred to the target text.” (1995: 275). Teich describes the interference phenomenon
by hypothesizing that translations replicate the distinctive features of lexico-
grammatical use of the SL in such a way that the SL “shines through” the TT (2003: 61,
207, 222).
Within the process of translation, the SL system and its manifestations in the ST
can have an effect on the TT and ultimately the target language (TL). By using different
strategies, methods and techniques, or simply by mistranslating the ST, translators
introduce new words, expressions, and structures into the TL, and thus allow SL
interference in the TL. Neubert (1990: 96) describes this as ‘permanent influence
exerted by many translators and translation on the system of the TL.’ This phenomenon
has been observed by researchers, especially with English as the influencing language,
for example Chilean Spanish (Gerding et al. 2011), Chinese (Li and Thompson 1981:
496-497), Danish (Gottlieb 1999). Other examples such as Finish (Sajavaara 1986),
French (Picone 1996) and Spanish (Lorenzo 1996), are all
--------------------------------------------------
* This is the final pre-publication version of the paper published in Babel, 60: 4 (2014), 478-513. © All
rights reserved.
478
quoted by Gottlieb (1999: 150-151).1 Even English has been influenced by other
languages (see for example Markinen about the Sovietization of the English Language,
quoted in Neubert 1990: 98).
This article discusses the impact of translation on Arabic at the lexical and
syntactic levels. To demonstrate the workings and impact of linguistic recycling on
Arabic, a contrastive approach is used. Corpora of Arabic were used to detect and verify
the use of expressions and structures. These include Arabicorpus (146 million words)
and Oxford Arabic corpus (800 million words). To verify the occurrence of expressions
and structures presumably cloned from English, the premodern subcorpus of
Arabicorpus with a total of about 9 million words was used.
Examples from those corpora are cited here to demonstrate occurrences.
Examples in English are taken from the British National corpus. The Webcorp was also
used for both languages. Examples from other sources are identified as they occur.
Arabic examples are transliterated using ISO transliteration system.2
1
For the influence of English on other European languages, see also Anderman and Rogers 2005.
2
Case markers are not added throughout the paper unless to differentiate meanings. Also, the final tāʾ
تاء مربوطةis represented only in words that are the first element in a noun construct (additive compound
)مضاف ومضاف إليه. Examples are cited as is with the spelling of some words, especially the hamza, is not
corrected.
479
into Arabic in their respective fields, where users of the language pick them up and pass
them to others.
Many translation-introduced expressions do not sound opaque or ill-formed, or
do not flout the norms of Arabic in general. However, many expressions do (see also
Al-yāzijy 1984; Al-sāmarrāʾy 1988, 2000; Stetkevych 2006). They could have been
translated into native counterparts, but instead they were rendered in ill-formed
expressions. These awkward formulations are then recycled in the intra-linguistic
operation of Arabic, i.e., non-translation contexts. Speakers of Arabic, who are not
necessarily proficient in the standard form of the language, re-use the output of
translation without being aware that these formulations do not conform to the canonical
patterns of Arabic. These expressions and structures are now recycled in the everyday
linguistic activity, though they violate the linguistic system of Arabic.
The impact of the transference from the SL into the TL as a result of interference
from translation process is what I would call Linguistic Cloning. Language use can be
influenced by bilingualism, learning new languages, and of course the process of
translation. Arabic is no exception. However, in the case of Arabic, the impact of the SL
goes beyond translated texts. It has stamped Arabic with a ‘translationese-like style’. As
is the case with other languages cited above, Arabic has witnessed a sort of recycling
process. Transferred expressions and syntactic structures are written and read by
speakers of Arabic in books and newspapers as a standard style (Al-sāmarrāʾy 1988).3
SL interference has been adopted and become naturalized in the modern Arabic style, a
phenomenon that I would call Linguistic Recycling. It refers to the utilization of
translation-introduced lexical items, expressions, and formulations by speakers of a
language in intra-linguistic use, as opposed to cross-linguistic event of translation.
Figure 1 illustrates the phenomenon.
Linguistic recycling has two stages. The first is linguistic cloning which is the
direct import of the SL into the TL via translation due to interference. The second stage
is linguistic recycling proper, where TL users adopt the awkward expressions in non-
translation contexts. Translation-introduced expressions are thus re-used by community
members when they speak or write Arabic. According to Neubert (1990: 97)
“translational discourse [is] integrated in the ‘normal’ (non-translated) discursive
practice of TL native users.” (emphasis in original).
3
Interference can be from languages other than English such as French (Stetkevych 2006: 99, 107).
480
SL
Translation process
Translations
(inter-linguistic operation)
(linguistic cloning due to interference)
Linguistic recycling
TL
Language use
(intra-linguistic operation)
2. Lexical Recycling
Lexical recycling is the re-use translation output on the lexical level. New lexical items
introduced into Arabic by means of borrowing, literal translation, and calquing, are used
as genuine Arabic words and expressions.
In many cases a literal translation results in collocational mismatch where there
is no lexical harmony; the constituent elements do not normally associate with each
other. These collocationally ill-formed expressions are then recycled by speakers of
Arabic. Recycled translations in some cases produce newly derived words. For example,
yajsir يجسرfor the verb to bridge in bridge the gap, produces yajsir al-hūwa يجسر الهوة
and yajsir al-fajwa يجسر الفجوة. The verb in Arabic is a novel derivation from the noun
jisr ( جسرbridge). Within the cloning stage, this is originally a result of the translator’s
adherence to the SL verb. Moreover, the noun
481
al-hūwa ( الهوةthe-gap) normally collocates with the verb yardim يردم. Another Arabic
collocation for this particular meaning is yasudd al-ṯaġra يسد الثغرة. Noun-noun
collocations that are based on translations from English are also recycled.
Another recycled translation can be seen in translating the verb pass as in pass a law/the
constitution as يمررyumarrir. Its normal sense refers to the act of going by or passing
(something to somebody), rather than the sense of ‘approve’ and ‘adopt’. Besides, the
verb yumarrir has a negative connotation in Arabic, e.g., yumarrir al-muʾ āmara
( يمرر المؤامرةformulate the plot), and is thus, a mistranslation when used in association
with laws and the like. However, this verb and its corresponding noun tamrīr تمريرare
used by native speakers without regard to its originally negative connotation. Below are
two examples, the first with the negative sense, and the second with the recycled
version:
482
These kinds of Arabic translations are characterized by novel collocations where
the figurative meaning is absent, resulting in awkward style. Instead of translating the
verb launch into verbs normally associate with their specific object collocates, it is
translated depending on one specific sense of the word; that is used in collocation with a
specific object. For example, the use of the verb in yuṭliq sārūẖan ( يطلق صاروخاlaunch a
missile) is extended when collocating with other objects, which does not make sense in
Arabic. The Arabic verb that is used for launch has a specific collocational range that is
based on the core meaning of releasing and setting free, and therefore it is found in
collocations that have this core meaning:
Using the verb yuṭliq يطلقwith object collocates like mašrūc ( مشروعproject), mubādara
( مبادرةinitiative), or ḥamla ( حملةcampaign) does not comply with its collocational
profile. These have their own verb collocates:
Speakers of Arabic are not inhibited by the collocational clash. The collocational range
of يطلقyuṭliq (launch) is unnaturally expanded, which has introduced a shift in its core
meaning. Due to linguistic recycling, the verb has engaged new collocates such as
barnāmaj ( برنامجprogram), ḥiwār ( حوارdialogue), ẖiṭa ( خطةplan), camaliya عملية
(operation), musābaqa ( مسابقةcompetition), munawarāt ( مناوراتmaneuvers), muntajāt
( منتجاتproducts), muntadā ( منتدىforum), mihrajān ( مهرجانfestival), and waṯīqa وثيقة
(document). These have their native verb collocates with the same meaning, but because
of the literal approach taken by translators, they were not used in translations, and this
has ultimately spread in language use in general. Other examples are similarly an
extensive adoption of the verb in other contexts and with atypical collocates:
483
(6) اسلوبا جديدا من الفن التراثي الشرقي2002 يطلق مهرجان دبي للتسوق
yuṭliq mihrajān dubai lil-tasawuq 2002 ʾuslūban jadīdan min al-fann al-turāṯy
al-šarqy
“Dubai shopping festival 2002 launches a new style of traditional oriental art”
The same applies to collocates incorporating the noun form iṭlāq ( اطالقlaunching) with
similar patterns of the verb collocates above and irregular associations. Other collocates
of the noun form include brutucul ( بروتوكولprotocol), qanāt ( قناةTV channel), caqd عقد
(contract), jāʾiza ( جائزةaward), where they associate with this noun outside their natural
collocational environments to express the concept of initiating and starting:
Another case of collocation is that of key in its non-tool sense. The dictionary definition
of this sense is “important, fundamental <key issues>.” (Merriam Webster Dictionary),
and “of crucial importance; significant: key decisions; the key element of the thesis.”
(The Free Dictionary) The Longman Dictionary entry for this sense is “key
role/player/figure etc. (=one with a lot of influence on a result)” with the example The
show has been hit by the departure of key personnel.
The translation of this sense by using instead the actual tool sense involves
ignoring the standard adjective collocations and creating alien collocations by
introducing the novel adjective miftāḥy مفتاحيto describe words like kalima ( كلمةword),
c
ibāra ( عبارةphrase), tasāʾul ( تساؤلquestion), šaẖṣiya ( شخصيةfigure/character), dawr
( دورrole), dawla ( دولةstate), and mawdūc ( موضوعtopic). As in the case of launch, the
collocational range of the word has been forced to expand to incorporate different words
by having collocates other than the standard ones to describe the same notion:
484
Recycling is not restricted to individual words, but includes expressions such as those
incorporating ṣadīq ( صديقfriend) for friendly as well as waqaca fī al-ḥub/al-ġaram/al-
c
išq العشق/الغرام/وقع في الحب, a literal rendition of to fall in love (with the same verb and
three synonyms for love).4 The trouble with the latter expression is that the verb used to
render ‘fall’ has a negative connotation because its collocates come from the semantic
field of problems in a similar construction: muškila ( مشكلةproblem), maʾziq مأزق
(predicament), ẖaṭaʾ ( خطأwrong), faẖ ( فخtrap), kamīn ( كمينambush), ʾazma أزمة
(crisis), ẖadīca ( خديعةfraud), ḥayra ( حيرةperplexity), muġālaṭa ( مغالطةparadox), iṯm إثم
(sin), ḥabāʾil ( حبائلartifice), ʾasr ( أسرcaptivity), maḥẓūr ( محظورprohibited), and barāṯin
( براثنclaws):
The recycled expression is tarnished with the negative connotation the verb has acquired
from associating with words from this semantic field. Unless one intends to indicate the
problematic aspect of love, the Arabic cloned expression is semantically ill-formed.
However, the negative meaning of the calqued expression has not prevented language
speakers from using it, thus giving the alien structure priority over the original
associations.
As for friendly, though it is very close to, and based on, friend, it has a different
meaning. Friendly has to do with being nice and not harmful, not being a friend as such.
The -ly suffix can produce a different meaning from that of its stem, as in like vs. likely
and hard vs. hardly.
In word combinations, friendly means that something is easy and accessible as in
user-friendly, or does not affect the first element negatively, as in environmentally–
friendly. The latter is translated into ṣadīq lil-bīʾa ( صديق للبيئةfriend of the environment)
to describe a substance or a car. However, the word ṣadīq ( صديقfriend) is based on
social interaction and relation as well as psychology, and therefore does not fit the
‘environment’ meaning and usage, even if one tries to justify it on a metaphorical basis.
4
The noun can be either indefinite or definite (with the article al).
485
(13) ادخال نوع جديد من سالالت االسماك صديق للبيئة باستطاعته الحد من نمو االعشاب غير المرغوب فيها
idẖāl nawc jadīd min sulālāt al-ʾasmāk ṣadīq lil-bīʾa bistiṭācatihi al-ḥadd mina
numū al-ʾacšāb ġayr al-marġūb fīhā
“introducing new kind of fish species friend of-the-environment [that] can stop
unwanted weeds”
Arabic does have its own expression which incorporates the word rafīq ( رفيقgentle) for
such a meaning. Although wadūd ودودor widdy وديcan be used to translate friendly, as
in liqāʾ widdiy لقاء وديand mubarā widdiya ( مبارة وديةboth meaning friendly sport
match) these words do not work with collocates such as ‘environment’, ‘car’, ‘fish’ and
the like, where no social relationship is implied. In these cases, rafīq رفيقis much more
suitable for expressing the intended meaning and agreeing with the associated words.
(14) حماية الحياة البحرية والبرية والبشر من التسرب النفطي بأسلوب رفيق بالبيئة
ḥimāyaẗ al-ḥayāt al-bahriya wa al-barriya wa al-bašar mina al-tasarub al-nifṭy
biʾslūb rafīq bilbīʾa
“protecting the sea, wild life and humans from oil spills in an environment-
caring way”
One very widely used recycled expression that is yalcab dawran يلعب دوراwhich is a
calque of play a role (see also Stetkevych 2006: 103). The history of the expression is
based on the theatre. The verb play does not necessarily refer to ‘playing’ as such when
collocating with role. However, it is rendered in the recycled version as yalcab ( يلعبto
play) according to one dictionary meaning, the one that the verb has when collocating
with ‘games’ and the like. The translation of play, when associating with role, the part
carried out in a process and within a setting ‘off the stage’, is based on the same sense
of the verb in Arabic as in play a game, resulting in a collocational clash and incoherent
text. This is because it is awkward in Arabic to refer to any kind of serious matter using
a verb for ‘playing’. Even when talking about an actor playing a role, Arabic would not
normally use the verb for ‘to play’, but rather the one for ‘carry out’, yuʾaddy.
The verb for play in Arabic is normally associated with games and sports, e.g., yalcab
al-waraq ( يلعب الورقplay cards) and yalcab kuraẗ al-qadam يلعب كرة القدم
486
(play football). All derivatives of the root of yalcab suggest non-serious and even
deceitful business:
a. لعبةlucba “game”
b. لـعوبlacūb “playful”
c. تالعُبtalācub “manipulation”
d. لعبة مكشوفةlucba makšūfa “exposed trick”
e. يلعب على الحبلينylcab cala al-ḥablayn “play a double game”
Beside the collocational oddity of this expression, it has an awkward profile due to the
associations of the verb, especially when describing serious and even negative issues,
for example
When used outside acting context, the recycled expression yalcab dawran
( يلعب دوراplay a role), sounds particularly foreign. While it started out as a translation
problem in the first place, linguistic recycling has made it a language-use problem.
Translators/writers who are aware of this clash use a different verb, ʾaddā أدى, or the
prepositional phrase structure lahu dawr ( له دورhas a role).
As can be seen in Table 1, the recycled use of the calque translation is far more
frequent than the total of all Arabic native expressions that are used for the same
meaning.
Table 1: Statistics of the recycled calque translation of play a role compared to other
native versions
Lemmas of يلعب يؤدي ، لهم، لهما، لها،له ، ذوي، ذوو، ذواتا، ذوا، ذات،ذو
دورdawr (play) (perform) لهن ذوات
(role) to have (masc., of (masc., fem., dual masc.
collocates fem., dual, pl. dual fem., nominative,
masc., pl. accusative and genitive of pl.
fem.) masc. and pl. fem.)
Arabicorpus 7,545 2,610 1,062 6
Oxford 45,449 32,031 0 259
Arabic
corpus
Total 52,994 34,641 1,062 265
487
Related expressions are those that involve lācibūn ( العبونplayers) to refer to parties
involved in some affairs, politics in particular, with adjective collocates such as
siyāsiyūn ( سياسيونpolitical), kibār ( كبارhigh-ranking), duwaliyūn ( دوليونinternational),
and iqlīmiyūn ( اقليميونregional). The last three overlap with those used to describe
football players. Such expressions are recycled form English ones, and they suffer
conceptual problem because the notion of playing does not fit the situations to which
they refer.
The recycling phenomenon can also be morphological. Parts of English words are
introduced into the Arabic and used there, although they do not belong to the Arabic
system. One such pattern is where the plural morpheme is transferred with names of
places such as Bahamas, Maldives, and Seychelles to become al-bahāmās الباهاماس, al-
māldīfz المالديفز, and sīšilz سيشلزrespectively. The translator seems not to have realized
the function of the s as a plural marker that refers to the group of islands. Established
Arabic translations do not, of course, import the plural marker as can be seen in the case
with al-filibīn ( الفلبينthe Philippines). In other cases, the notion of a group of islands is
translated by adding juzur ( جزرislands), as in juzur al-maldīf ( جزر المالديفislands the
Maldives). As such translations are countered in mass media and other venues of
language use, language speakers have picked them up and re-used them. Corpus
evidence shows that the word juzur and the plural s are also used simultaneously.
A blatant form of linguistic recycling consists of adjectival forms with part of the SL
morpheme being reused in the TL. One example is the adjectival morpheme in Peruvian
(from Peru) where the v letter is copied into Arabic, resulting in the adjective bīrūfy
بيروفي. In English, the v is inserted for phonological reasons when the adjective is
derived from the country name. The translator lacks the knowledge that that the v is not
an original element, and that in order to derive an adjective,
488
the SL adjective should not be copied, but instead the Arabic morpheme of nationality
should be added to the name of the country ( بيروbīrū). Note that the name of the country
in the example 21 is stated next to the cloned adjective:
(21) ووزير سابق في بيرو بناء على مذكرة توقيف أصدرها بحقه قاض بيروفي...
…wa wazīr sābiq fī bīrū bināʾan cala muḏakiraẗ tawqīf ʾaṣdarahā biḥaqihi qāḍin
bīrūfy
“... and an ex-minister in Peru according to an arrest warrant issued by a Peruvian
judge..”
Similar examples are the adjectives konġoli كونغوليfor Congolese, and toġoly توغوليfor
Togolese, keeping the l of the English adjective forms and copying it into Arabic.5
3. Syntactic Recycling
This kind of recycling refers to the reuse of structures that are introduced into Arabic
via translation as a direct rendition of the SL structures. These include cataphora,
agentive passive, additive compound, existential there, prepositions, and binominals.
3.1 Cataphora
Cataphora is a forward reference to a lexical item that occurs later in the text, for
example she in After she got up, Lisa had a shower. Anaphora, on the other hand, is the
backward reference to an antecedent already mentioned in the text: Lisa had a shower
after she got up. Arabic conventions do not allow the use of cataphora as it does not
establish cohesion and coherence. Grammarians, stylisticians and rhetoricians of Arabic
are against its usage (Hatim 1997: 94-95). In Arabic, there has to be a clearly stated
reference to a preceding element.
5
There are other spelling forms in Arabic which are كونجوليand توجولي.
489
Generally speaking, in line with the standard rules of Arabic, an antecedent
always comes first, and the reference is always anaphoric. However, cataphora, a
standard feature of English, has been copied by Arabic translations (see Ali 2007: 23-
24), and it has become widely used. In Arabic, the link between lexical items needs to
be specified, and the distance between them should be short in order to have a coherent
text. Many news items now include sentences that start with min jānibihi (meaning
roughly ‘on his part’) where the pronoun refers to an agent stated later on:
(24) ... من جانبه قال مسؤول في وزارة قطاع االعمال العام
min jānibihi qāla masʾūl fī wazārt qiṭṭāc al-acmāl al-cām…
“on his part an official in the ministry of public works said…”
Although this is a case of cataphora, novel in Arabic, the distance is not that long
between the pronoun and the noun to which it refers. Journalistic style has developed
this usage to introduce a relevant topic in news reporting. However, Arabic texts abound
with cataphora structures where the distance is very long and goes against the basic
rules of the Arabic system (cataphora references and referents are in bold type):
(25) سيعلن كابيتال بنك،تعبيرا عن اعتزازه بالمرأة األردنية ودورها القيّم في بناء المجتمع المحلي
tacbīran can ictizāzihi bilmarʾa al-ʾurduniya wa dawrihā al-qayyim fī bināʾ al-
mujtamac al-maḥaly sayuclin kābital bank
“out of its appreciation of the Jordanian women and her valuable role in building
the local society, Capital Bank will announce”
(26) وتأكيدا على دعمها ومساندتها الدائمة للمشاريع،ايمانا منها باهمية العمل المجتمعي والتنمية االجتماعية
... فقد قامت شركة دار االستثمار...الخيرية واالعمال االنسانية
iymanan minhā biʾahamiyaẗ al- amal al-mujatamacy wa al-tanmiya al-ijtimāciya,
c
The distance between the pronoun and its reference ranges here between 9 and 16
orthographical words.
Passive voice is a structure in which the agent or doer of an action either is not stated, or
is not the grammatical subject of the sentence. The former construction
490
is called agentless passive as in He was arrested. In the agentive passive, the agent is
postponed and included in a prepositional phrase using by as in The Protocol has been
signed by over 40 countries.
Unlike English, Arabic has only an agentless passive. The passive lacks the
agent; it has no doer. That is why it is termed in Arabic mabny lil-majhūl which roughly
means ‘the unknown agent structure’. If a doer is to be mentioned, it is stated in a
following sentence in the active voice:
(27) )16:331 (األغاني. قتله رجل من أهل اليمن.حتى إذا كان آخر النهار قـُـتل النعمان
ḥatā ʾiḏā kāna ʾāẖiru al-nahār qutila al-nucmān. qatalhu rajulun min ʾahl al-
yaman. (al-ʾaġāny, 16:331)
“when it was late afternoon Al-Noman was killed. A Yemeni man killed him.”
Instead of using the TL syntax with two sentences —one in agentless passive and the
other is active with the agent stated— or using one sentence by converting the passive
into active, translators have rendered the English agentive passive by introducing a new
structure in Arabic (see also Holes 2004: 320). The new structure uses the phrase min
qibal من قبلto state the doer (thus adhering to the SL structure) as a response to the
agentive passive, for which no corresponding structure is available.
The Arabic phrase min qibal is normally used to talk about directions (east,
west, and the like), or to refer to an action done by proxy. Its use as a substitute for an
imported formulation is unnecessary, since there are at least three structures in Arabic
that can be used for the same purpose with the agent stated (see also Hatim 1997: 115).
Below is an example from a United Nations report with the official translation as well
as a translation by Al-Jazeera web site. The official UN translation changes the passive
into active, whereas the Al-Jazeera’s translation copies the English structure:
491
Outside the translation context, this structure has been widely used as a standard
formulation without any hesitation:
In Arabic, an additive compound is a construct noun phrase that engages two nouns, one
is a head and the other is a modifier. English compounds with one modifier have this
structure as their direct counterpart. A variety of English constructions tend to be
translated into another version of Arabic additive structure.
Table 2: patterns in English that are translated into Arabic additive compound
Pattern Example
noun1 + noun2 and noun3 research topic and title
X’s + noun1 and noun2 sender's name and address
noun1 and noun2 of n3 terms and conditions of contract
gerund1 and gerund2 + n coordinating and organising publicity
to-infinitive and to-infinitive + n to coordinate and organize activities
While English allows one modifier for more than one head noun as in research topic
and title, or any of the other patterns in Table 2, Arabic has to have one noun before the
modifier, and one after with an anaphoric pronoun as illustrated in 31A (see also
Buckley 2004: 167; Ḥamida 1997: 168-169; Cumar 1993: 172). Note that Arabic
compounds are head-initial:
(31) research topic and title [n1 (modifier) + n2 (head) and n3 (head)]
A- موضوع البحث وعنوانه
[n2 (head) + n1 (modifier) and n3 (head) (n2 anaphoric pronoun)]6
mawdūc al-baḥṯ wa cinwānuh
6
The numbering of nouns follows the order of English compound to illustrate correspondence of
elements. The plus sign indicates the compounding relation.
492
“topic the-research and its-title”
Interference in Arabic translation produced a cloned structure of multi-head
expressions, with the modifier postponed to an unnatural position, echoing the SL
structure as in 31B:
The first element has to have a noun next to it functioning as its modifier (or the object
of the action in other constructions). This is to avoid having what seems to be a zero slot
next to the first element, which leads to incoherence. However, modern style displays
recycled structures:
Linguistic recycling is more evident in the usage of prepositions and coordinators. The
same reason for translating verbs by adopting one sense of the verb and neglecting the
collocational meaning can be the one for translating certain grammatical elements into
Arabic. A scenario similar to that of noun-noun compounds can be seen in the use of
prepositions. English allows multi preposition phrases with one noun:
Arabic, on the other hand, does not allow such structures. To maintain clear reference
and coherence of a text, adjacency of words is a condition in Arabic syntax. A
preposition has to occur next to its object; no words may occur in between, as is
permitted in English. The noun needs to be directly after the preposition or
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the adverb.7 When the multi-preposition structure is imported in the translation process,
an ill-formed structure results, which is then recycled in the intra-linguistic use of
Arabic as in the examples below (see also Holes, 2004: 204-205):
As no noun is provided right after the preposition or adverb, this structure unavoidable
raises the question ‘from where?’ or ‘before what?’ because a direct reference to the
element from which, or before which, the action takes place is required. There is an
empty slot after the preposition that needs to be filled by a noun. One example used two
adverbs first, which is similar to English usage, but postpones the third with an
anaphora reference complying with the Arabic system in a fashion similar to the multi-
modifier noun compounds discussed above, producing a hybrid structure:
Another example of linguistic recycling is about. It has two meanings that cause
interference and ultimately persist in the modern style of Arabic, namely, ‘in a circle
around’ (Merriam Webster Dictionary) and ‘concerning or relating to a particular
subject’ (Longman Dictionary). The following examples are given by Longman
Dictionary:
7
The Arabic counterparts of some prepositions in English, such as before and during are categorized as
adverbs in Arabic grammar.
494
Arabic ḥawla حولsignifies the locational meaning, ‘around’, rather than ‘concerning a
subject’. For example:
However, about in all its senses is translated into ḥawla حولwhich is an adverb of place
that refers to ‘the space around’. The adverb ḥawla does not function in the same way as
about does in English. It does not denote the notion of ‘on’ or ‘of’, and therefore
another preposition should be used to fulfill the function of about in the same meaning.
What happens in the translation is that the second meaning is used to translate the first
meaning. This usage has been recycled, in that other Arabic prepositions for the first
meaning have been replaced by ḥawla:
According to their frequency, the nouns in Table 3 appear with ḥawla instead of their
established prepositions.
The adverb ḥawla is also used in association with the verbal forms of the nouns
above, such as yasʾal ( يسألask), yujādil ( يجادلargue), and yunāqiš ( يناقشdiscuss), as
well as other verbs that do not originally associate with it.
The same pattern of transference and recycling can be seen in the case of ḍid ضد
(against) (see also Stetkevych 2006: 101). While against means ḍid in one context and
structure, it means something else in other contexts:
a. Are you for or against the proposal? (to disagree/disapprove, ال يوافقlā yuāfiq)
b. He’s swimming against the current. (opposite direction, عكسcaks)
c. He was leaning against the door when it opened and he fell over. (on, علىcalā)
d. The red curtain looks nice against the white wall. (in contrast with, إزاءizāʾa)
Only one meaning of against is applied globally to all occurrences without taking into
account its different possible meanings and its collocational pattern in Arabic. For
example, whereas ḥarb ( حربwar) collocates with the preposition calā علىinto which
against should be translated, the particle ḍid ضدas one meaning of against
495
Table 3: Original prepositions associated with nouns that appear in corpora of Arabic
collocating with ḥawla instead.
Oxford corpus Established Arabicorpus Established
preposition preposition
سؤال عن, * في سؤال عن, في
suʾāl (question) c
an, fī suʾāl c
an, fī
جدل في جدل في
jadal (argument) fī jadal fī
نقاش في نقاش في
niqāš (discussion) fī niqāš fī
ندوة عن ندوة عن
c c
nadwa (symposium) an nadwa an
حوار في اتفاق على
ḥiwār (dialogue) fī itifāq (agreement) c
alā
مناقشة في معلومات عن
munāqaša fī maclūmāt c
an
(discussion) (information)
مالحظة عن مفاوضات على, في
mulāḥaẓa (note) c
an mufāwaḍāt c
alā, fī
(negotiations)
محاضرة عن, في خالف على
muḥāḍara (lecture) c
an, fī ẖilāf (disagreement) c
alā
حلقة عن وجهات النظر في
ḥalaqa (espisode) c
an wijhāt naẓar fī
(points of view)
حديث عن, في
ḥadīṯ (conversation) c
an, fī
* can عنis used for a specific issue, and fī فيis used for a broader area.
is chosen and then recycled, producing an un-Arabic expression. Similarly, the use of
ḍid ضدhas also been recycled instead of the native preposition clā which originally
associates with these words:
When the verb associates with a preposition, it is the same preposition that associates
with the noun of the same root and its plural form as well. The recycled versions have
the same pattern. For example, the verb yaṯūr ( يثورrevolt), the noun
ṯawra ( ثورةrevolution), and its plural ṯawrāt ثوراتall collocate with علىcalā. All of
them acquired ḍid ضدin the recycled versions.
496
A slightly different case is when the Arabic verb acquires a preposition even
though it originally does not associate with any preposition at all. Due to translating
suffer from into its corresponding Arabic verb yucāny ( يعانيsuffer), including the
preposition, the verb began to be used with the preposition min ( منfrom). The
preposition was simply copied and ultimately became established as the one that
collocates with the verb, although the verb does not ‘need’ a preposition.
Table 4: Statistics of two versions of the verb yucāny (suffer), with one version imitating
the English verb by having a preposition
يعاني من يعاني
(suffer from) (suffer)
Oxford Arabic corpus 70,790 65,318
Arabicorpus 2,404 343
Total 73,194 65,661
Speakers of Arabic have also recycled the translations of for by inserting it into time
expressions where the adverb of time does no need a preposition. In English, for has a
different number of meanings such as purpose, recipient, and time duration (Quirk et al.
1985: 526, 691-697). The time usage of for is the one that is of interest here, since it is
the one that demonstrates interference and recycling, e.g., …unconscious for a day, and
in hospital for a week.
When used for time duration, for is translated into Arabic by using the
preposition li (allām ) لـthe actual use of which is for belonging or purpose, among
others, but not time duration (see Al-zajjājy 1984: 40-47). To denote time, Arabic uses
an adverb of time in the accusative (manṣūb )منصوبsuch as sācaẗan ( ساعةone hour),
yawman ( يوماa day), šahran ( شهراa month), etc. For example:
The translation of for into the preposition li has been re-used in Arabic as a time
particle. It is particularly interesting to see this usage next to the non-recycled use of an
adverb of time as demonstrated in example 45 (in bold):
497
(45) ...كم سيمكث الفرح؟ يوما أم يومين؟ ماذا لو بقي الثلج متراكما لشهر كامل
kam sayamkuṯ al-faraḥ? yawman ʾam yawmayn? māḏa law baqya al-ṯalj
mutrākiman lišahrin kāmil…
“how long happiness will last? Day or two? What if the snow remains piled-up
for whole month...”
A similar case of extending the usage of one meaning is as. In English, one of the
meaning of as is ‘in the role, capacity, or function of’ (Quirk et al. 1985: 66, 699, 734):
As can mean ‘like’ in other contexts and usages, e.g., All rose as one man (Merriam
Webster). An interesting recycled usage is that of the preposition ka كwhich denotes
similarity, as like does in English. Usages where as means ‘in the role, capacity, and
function of’ were translated into Arabic as the preposition of similarity ka ك. Two
reputable Arabic references on prepositions and particles (Al-zajjājy 1984: 39-40; Al-
ṯacāliby 1996: 322-323) give no such usage for this preposition. Stetkevych (2006: 102)
includes it in a category that is “unquestionably non-Arabic.” However, it is now widely
used for the meaning of ‘in the role, capacity, and function of’ exactly like the English
preposition. One example is the UN report cited earlier (No. 28), with both its official
Arabic translation and the Al-Jazeera web site translation. In both translations, the
meaning of ‘like’ was applied to another usage, as described above, and forced on the
Arabic style.
While Arabic has structures that have been and could be used for this meaning
such as adverb of manner (ḥāl )حال, adverb of differentiation (tamyīz )تمييز, and
apposition (badal )بدل, this cloned usage has been re-used in Arabic and is now very
common in the language. Below are two examples describing the same event, the first
uses the native adverb, and the second is a recycled structure:
(46) ( كان جابر عبيد قد انضم إلى اإلمارات لإلعالم مذيعا في قناة أبوظبيAl-Bayān Newspaper site)
kāna jābir cubayd qad inḍamma ʾilā al-ʾimārāt lil-iclām muḏīcan fī qanāt abu
ẓabi
“Jaabir Ubeid had joined Emirates Media presenter at Abu Dhabi channel”
498
(47) ( انضم جابر عبيد إلى اإلمارات لإلعالم كمحرر ومذيع في تلفزيون أبوظبيEmirates Media Site)
inḍamma jābir cubayd ʾilā al-ʾimārāt lil-iclām kamuḥarrir wa muḏīc fī tilifizyūn
abu ẓabi
“Jaabir Ubeid joined Emirates Media as-editor and presenter at Abu Dhabi TV”
There has two meanings, location and existence of a subject. Existential there lacks “the
locative meaning of place-adjunct there” (Quirk et al. 1985: 1405). In contrast, the
Arabic hunāka هناكhas the locative meaning only. Aziz points out that the existential
use of hunāka has been introduced by translators (1995: 49). The meaning of location,
not intended in English utterance, was copied in translations with the meaning of
existence which is then recycled in Arabic in sentences where the structure does not
require an existential hunāka. Hence, an adverb of place is deployed to denote the
existence of a subject.
Existence is normally expressed by inversion of word order, in which the
prepositional phrase is fronted (known information) and the subject is postponed (new
information), since starting with an indefinite is not allowed in Arabic. However, the
cloned structure is recycled to the extent that two elements of location are used in one
sentence, one for the existential sense and one for location.
There is no need to use hunāka هناكhere. The Arabic default structure is to put the
prepositional phrase first and the subject second:
3.6 Binominals
Irreversible binomials are “pairs of coordinated words from the same word class”
(Mollin 2012: 81). As the name suggests, their arrangement cannot be reversed. For
example
499
This applies to Arabic as well, but the order is the reverse of the English order in some
cases, e.g., ʾabyaḍ wa ʾaswad ( أبيض وأسودwhite and black) and ʾanā wa ʾanta ( أنا وأنتI
and you). Translations have tended not to transpose the word order, and the English
pattern is forced into Arabic whose speakers nowadays use such expressions the English
way, i.e., with the Arabic structure reversed:
As translations have not taken into consideration the order of Arabic binominals,
English order has been cloned, and later recycled. This can be seen even in literary
works:
(52) مجرد تفتيش عن شيء تحت غبار الذاكرة، أنت وأنا،بالنسبة لنا
bil-nisbaẗi lanā, ʾanta wa ʾanā, mujarad taftīš can šayʾ taḥta ġubār alḏākira
“for us, you and I, just looking for something under the dust of memory”
4. Conclusion
Linguistic recycling is the re-use of lexical items and syntactic structures whether these
are generated intralingually or interlingually. This paper has described how the
recycling phenomenon takes place in Arabic with clear evidence of the role played by
translation. The impact of translation on Arabic style is quite visible. As the expressions
discussed here were not found in a relatively large pre-modern corpus, it can be safely
concluded that they have been cloned and recycled.
There are more kinds of syntactic recycling in Arabic than of lexical recycling,
which is an indication of how powerful the effect of linguistic contact can be. Ordinarily
it is more common for foreign lexical items to find their way into the vocabulary of a
language, via translation or otherwise, than syntactic structures. This shows how much
influence SL interference has had on Arabic.
Speakers of Arabic use imported expressions and structures in their writings,
interviews, and formal statements. Modern Arabic style has witnessed many stylistic
changes that deviate from its canonical patterns and norms due to the impact of English.
There are many examples that demonstrate more than one
500
type of recycling, as outlined above, making Arabic texts with many anomalies
(underlined):
(53) بعضهم لعب دورا مهما في هذه األحداث،كتبت من قبل معاصرين ألحداث الكتاب
kutibat min qibal mucāṣrīn li-ʾaḥdāṯ al-kitāb, bacḍuhum laciba dawran muhiman
fī haḏihi al-ʾaḥdāṯ
“was-written from the side of contemporary [people] for the events of the book,
some of them played important role in these events”
(54) ربما كان هناك خالف بين الطرفين حول الحل االكثر فاعلية
rubbamā kāna hunāka ẖilāf bayna al- ṭarafayn ḥawla al-ḥal al-ʾkṯar fāciliya
“maybe there was disagreement between the two-parties around the most
effective solution”
(55) لعبت شخصيات مفتاحية دورا مهما لدى مؤسسات صنع القرار
lacibat šaẖṣiyāt miftāḥiya dawran muhiman ladā muʾassasāt ṣunc al-qarār
“no doubt, key personalities played important role at decision-making
institutions”
(56) لعب دورا في تدمير واحتالل العراق
laciba dawran fī tadmīr wa iḥtilāl al-ciraq
“played role in destruction and occupation [of] Iraq”
(57) هناك حاجة لتطوير وتحديث وتجهيز البنية التحتية
hunāka ḥāja li-taṭwīr wa tahdīṯ wa tajhīz al-bunya altaḥtiyya
“there need to develop and modernize and equip the infrastructure”
The cloning of the English structure and its elements is an example that speakers of
Arabic recycling in their language use, which resulted eventually in an established
structure in Arabic.
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Abstract
Linguistic expressions in every language have established patterns with meanings that
can be inferred by linguistic conventions. Languages have their own norms and
expressing systems that make transferred linguistic formulas seem odd. Any deviation
from the established patterns can be referred to as interference. Interference in
translation is the transfer of some linguistic aspect of the source text (ST) into the target
text (TT). The term includes any kind of influence that is exerted by the linguistic
properties of the ST on the linguistic properties of the TT. Lexical items and syntactic
structures of the source language are copied into the TT, resulting in the phenomenon
called ‘translationese’. As a result of interference, translation has introduced a plethora
of words, expressions, and constructions into Arabic, resulting in a change in modern
Arabic style. One phenomenon that Arabic has witnessed in modern times is linguistic
recycling. This term refers to the re-utilization of translated expressions and syntactic
structures in Arabic in its intra-linguistic operation (opposed to the inter-linguistic event
of translation). The language community has been using these translation-introduced
formulations although they do not conform to the canonical patterns of Arabic. Being
unaware of this fact, speakers of Arabic use the translation-introduced expressions and
constructions instead of the native ones although they have at their disposal a variety of
formulations to express the same ideas. Linguistic recycling can be categorized into the
three areas of lexis, syntax, and culture. Using a contrastive approach, the paper
503
investigates the areas of lexis and syntax, demonstrating the pervasiveness of this
phenomenon and its impact on Arabic. Corpora of Arabic have been used to detect and
verify occurrences of expressions and structures.
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