Translation

  As part of the Bachelor of Arts in English program's Community Service Partnership Plan under the supervision of Dean Abdullah Al-Melhi and in cooperation with the university Media Center, a portion of the Arabian Highland Theme in the Aseer Region Strategic Plan, supervised by the Aseer Development Authority (ASDA), was translated into seven languages. The short videos were widely distributed on YouTube and Twitter and made viewers aware that His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs, launched the Arabian Highland development strategy in the Aseer region. In Afrikaans, Bengali, French, Hindi, Pashto, Romanian, and Urdu, the strategy's primary objective of turning the region into an all-year-round world destination through an investment of $50 billion SAR was explained. Dean Abdullah Melhi explained that this community service activity delivered in October 2021 is part of the Bachelor of Arts in English program at the Faculty of Languages and Translation's commitment to serving the community in the fields of languages and translation.   Of note, the Community Service Partnership Plan (CSPP) and Employer Advisory Board (EAB) were recently revised and approved in a Department Council meeting on November 2, 2021. The new CSPP calls for increased alignment with: the Mission Statement and the recently revised and approved EAB. It also references the Aseer Development Authority and Vision 2030 as the basis for broadening the scope of our community service partnership activities.   Particular thanks are due to our Bachelor of Arts in English program colleagues who provided accurate translations of information designed to instruct residents on the Aseer Strategic Plan. The translations were made available in the following languages: Afrikaans, Mr. Azaad Hayat; Bangla, Mr. Mohammad Fuad; French, Dr. Abdelhamid Bessaid; Hindi, Mr. Javed Ahmed; Pashto, Mr. Salahud Din Abdul Rab; Romanian, Dr. Justin Sfariac; Urdu, Mr. Mohsin Khan. Date: 11/6/2021 Source: Faculty of Languages and Translation

  Dr. Eyhab Bader Eddin has undertaken a fresh initiative for bringing "Annotated Translation" to light. Annotated Translation is a fascinating yet complex subject that has increasingly come to prominence and gained currency for being adopted as a major assessment method for Translation students in both undergraduate and graduate programs. Although a firm dividing line could be drawn between 'annotated translation' and 'translation commentary', they both have been used interchangeably in his session open to the public during the Spring 2021 semester. Dr. Bader Eddin delivered a 2-hour-long session — titled "Annotated Translation: Showing students the ropes — on the fundamentals of the subject", drawing attendees' attention to the seminal book, which was the first of its kind, fully devoted in a book-size work to this subject. Viz. Sewell's 2002 (Translation Commentary: The Art revisited). The session tackled such points as definition, How should an annotated translation look like? What should it include and exclude, desirable and undesirable features, marking criteria for translation commentary, steps to initiate a translation annotation project, and some illustrative practical examples. Some tangible examples have been offered to link theory to practice, as a rarely distinguished feature in translation. The session was followed by some assignments to ensure the attendees had grasped the content of the session.   To view all webinars, please click here. Date: 5/6/2021 Source: Faculty of Languages and Translation

  Supervised by Dr. Fahad Otaif, Assistant Professor of Critical Discourse Analysis and Translation, a team of postgraduate female students from the Faculty of Languages and Translation (FLT) participated in the "WikiDowen" project during the Spring 2021 semester. The WikiDowen Project, under the administration of the King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives (Darah), aims to enrich and increase the Arabic content on Wikipedia; although Arabic is the fourth most popular language in the world, the Arabic content on Wikipedia still ranks 25th in terms of volume.   Dr. Otaif praised the postgraduate students who worked hard, saying that: "the students were really motivated to take part in this initiative, they worked hard to translate more scientific content. The initiative resulted in 50 articles translated from English into Arabic. The translated topics ranged from medical topics, to psychology, Artificial Intelligence as well as engineering. The translated articles were compiled in a digital booklet to document the scientific outcomes of the initiative".   Dr. Otaif added, "the WikiDowen's Project manager, Dr. Zuhair Al-Shehri, and his deputy Ms. Reem Al-Mutairi also played a vital role in helping the new Wikipedians (translators) to post and edit their translations on the Arabic Wikipedia; this cooperation lasted for two months and was really fruitful for both parties."   Vice Dean for Postgraduate Studies, Dr. Munassir Alhamami, added, "we are excited to be a part of this national volunteer initiative for the second year in a row; it provides our FLT students the opportunity to participate in a field experience activity that is aligned with the learning outcomes we target in our language and translation programs."   Dr. Otaif added, "such initiatives and projects will grant our students valuable experience and help them in mastering the translation profession through which they will improve their professional background and job readiness; I do thank our Dean Dr. Abdullah Al-Melhi and the vice dean for postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Language and Translation for their endless support in this initiative and will continue to encourage similar initiatives at the FLT in the near future en shaa' Allah." Date: 5/4/2021 Source: Faculty of Languages and Translation

  First-year Translation MA student, Abeer Al Asmari, delivered a webinar titled: "Literary Translation: A Cynosure of Hopeful Translators, Yet Too Hard to Master" at a regular biweekly event organized by the Language Research Center (LRC) on September 30, 2020.   Abeer, while quoting John Keats, first defined Literary Translation. She said, "It is a genre of literary creativity in which a work written in one language is recreated in another." She emphasized literary creativity by labeling literary translation as a form of creative writing. Abeer moved on to talking about the significance of literary translation. Literary translation, she added, helps us have proper exposure to other cultures and a better understanding of other countries. She argued that a literary translator should be bi-cultural in addition to being bilingual.   She highlighted controversy over literary translation by specifying that there are boundaries between translating and re-writing literary texts that require demarcation in new standards. She thought that it is upsetting to find some translators exceeding the beauty hidden in the original texts. She, therefore, emphasized that the beauty of the original texts must be maintained by the translators so that it is not lost in the translated version. She added some more lucid points by quoting Pinker (1997), Newmark (1988), and Benjamin (1973). She also quoted Daniel Hahn, director of the British Centre for Literary Translation, by calling his statement even more convincing.   Abeer highlighted the challenges involved in this genre by explaining why translators stay away from this. The worst challenge, she added, lies in the phonological level, which includes rhyme, rhythm, meter, assonance, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and consonance. This level, she noted, makes translation an arduous task for the translators. Another challenge involved is in the stylistic level that includes metaphor, puns, and similes. Culture is also another challenge a translator may face, she added. She finally focused on potential solutions by explaining the ways to overcome those challenges.   Abeer concluded by quoting Umberto Eco and said, "Translation is the art of failure."   LRC Director, Dr. Ismail Alrefaai, and Dr. Eyhab Bader Eddin MCIL CL MITI, Abeer's instructor, sincerely thanked Abeer for her effective presentation, which allowed for a better understanding of literary translation through unique insights. They stressed the importance of throwing weight behind MA students who possess burning enthusiasm and pluck up the courage to follow suit. Abeer's fellow students provided her with unflagging support by their attendance. It is hoped that such webinars would create a window of opportunity for other students to stand on the stage and take up the torch lit by Abeer. It was undoubtedly a very informative webinar, garnering the active participation of both male and female faculty members and students alike.   The Master of Arts in Translation program at the Faculty of Languages and Translation is committed to providing student-centered professional development activities that are consistent with program learning outcomes and labor market developments. Date: 10/1/2020 Source: Mohammad Adil Siddique

  On October 9, 2019, the Faculty of Languages and Translation (FLT) recognized Mr. Sayed Mohammed Abdul Karim and Dr. Hassan Mahill for their service to the department's digital communication efforts. Dean Abdullah Al-Melhi presented them each with a certificate thanking them for their outstanding contributions to the FLT. "We are so grateful for your hard work and dedication to making sure that the FLT remains at the forefront of digital media," said Dean Al-Melhi. Department Chairman, Dr. Munassir Alhamami, echoed Dean Al-Melhi's sentiments saying, "We were fortunate to have both of you on our team for several years, and we wish you the best." Both Mr. Karim and Dr. Mahil are currently assigned to the English Language Center (ELC), and their efforts will never be forgotten.   Mr. Sayed Mohammed Abdul Karim held the role of Social Media Content Administrator for the Faculty of Languages & Translation from 11/1/2016 to 9/1/2019. As the Social Media Content Administrator, Mr. Abdul Karim was responsible for keeping the department's social media accounts updated. Social media is a critical component of the FLT's public relations strategy and an essential means of intra-departmental communications. Maintaining social media accounts with relevant, useful and timely information is a difficult task. Mr. Abdul Karim consistently managed social media accounts with great aplomb.   Dr. Hassan Mahill held the role of Website Translator from 4/1/2017 to 9/1/2019. The Faculty of Languages and Translation publishes numerous static pages in both the Arabic and English languages. Dr. Mahill served as the web translator for English to Arabic and vice versa. To translate successfully, one must be adept with the nuances of both languages in an educational environment. Dr. Mahill always did an admirable job in capturing the literal meaning and the spirit of the web content even though the information is often complex.   The website team strongly believes in thanking and recognizing everyone who contributed, including both past and present faculty members. Every member of our current team stands on the capable shoulders of past members. While space constraints prevent us from mentioning each by name, we are grateful for their efforts and their important role in our success. We also recognize those who are not FLT Web team members but who substantially contribute to our continuing success based on content submission.   Every great university has a substantial digital media presence. King Khalid University stands among those institutions, which have fully embraced the advantages of digital technology. The website and social media platforms are critical components of King Khalid University's global reach. Having a quality web presence for each department/function within the university is a critical determinative factor in international institutional rankings. In addition to providing current news and information, the website serves as a depository for historical information about the department and its activities. Date: 10/12/2019 Source: Faculty of Languages and Translation

  On October 1, 2019, the English Club and Engineering Club hosted Dr. Eyhab Bader Eddin, MITI, MCIL, CL, for a workshop entitled 'Translation: A Broad Overview Weaving Its Threads Together'. More than 140 students attended the event at 11 am in Auditorium 4, and another 100 watched it on Twitter as it was broadcast live. The purpose of the event was to discuss the history, uses, importance, the distinction between translation and interpreting, sub-divisions of interpreting, characteristics of them, and the development of translation as an interdisciplinary science. The workshop introduced students to real examples of simultaneous and consecutive interpreting, highlighting their difficulties. He also explained how 'ear-voice span', technically known as decalage is one of the most spectacular and mysterious aspects of the profession of simultaneous interpreting. He touched upon House's 2009 terms of 'forwards' and 'backwards' orientation of translation. The Deanship of Student Affairs sponsored the event in conjunction with the aforementioned student clubs.   Dr. Bader Eddin began with a brief history of translation. His overview described how translation has become increasingly important due to the development of modern transportation and communication systems, noting that a communicative event takes place once, but with translation it takes place twice as the communicative event is reduplicated. "Over the millennia, the world has become much smaller and this trend has only accelerated in present times,” he said. Today's businesses and commercial agreements would not be made without translation. He pointed out that the Translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek at the request of Ptolemy II is seen as the earliest extant traces of Translation. The fruit of that work yielded 'The Septuagint', a work of 70 translators who, according to the legend, were commissioned to translate the Hebrew Bible, each in solitary confinement in a cell, to come up with an identical translation. On the other hand, Dr. Bader Eddin showed that the need for specialized translation skills has greatly increased with technological advancements, showing a list of recommended dictionaries to be possessed by students. Specialized translators are in high demand in many fields, especially in engineering.   Increased globalization, coupled with technological advancements, has greatly affected the field of translation. As the speed of communications and commerce have increased, the need for highly skilled translators has increased as well. "Modern translators must be able to weave both technical jargon and language that is not directly translatable into ideas that the receiving party understands completely. Moreover, this must be done quickly, often in real-time if interpreted," he concluded. A few examples were translated with the attendees as practice, giving some techniques on how to translate headlines of newspapers.   The Faculty of Languages and Translation is dedicated to graduating elite translators and interpreters who can skillfully satisfy the increasing demands of multi-lingual economies. We congratulate both the English and Engineering Clubs for their initiative under the supervision of the Deanship of Student Affairs.   Please click here to browse the powerpoint used in the workshop. Date: 10/1/2019 Source: Faculty of Languages and Translation

  On February 19, 2019, the Faculty of Languages and Translation held a seminar titled 'Translator's Message'. The seminar was organized by the Language Research Center, and the presenters were Hanan Saeed Al-Shahrani and Maryam Faisal Al-Shamrani. The presenters are MA students and volunteers for a program also named 'Translator's Message'. The purpose of the seminar was to raise awareness of the group's goals and objectives within the FLT community.   Translator's Message is an initiative organized by Master degree students in Translation at the FLT female campus. It is an all-volunteer group, which is dedicated to providing in-demand translation services to the community. The participants' motivation is based on their deep passion for translation and commitment to civic improvement.  'Translator's Message is primarily a community service volunteer effort. We are an all-volunteer group of specialized translators who have a message to deliver to non-specialists. In short, we are messengers of translation. The objective is to educate communities about the importance of translation services in daily life. In addition, this translation initiative helps the volunteers improve and sharpen their translation skills. Our initiative supports national objectives as set forth in Vision 2030', said Maryam Faisal Al-Shamrani. In addition, the translation initiative serves as a conduit between various communities and King Khalid University. This is important as there are many other initiatives involving the university and the public stakeholders in the region.   'Our volunteers visit a variety of different people both within and among different communities. Volunteers often visit secondary schools and high schools. In these settings, the volunteers can encourage young people in their international language studies, and convey both the importance and potential career opportunities involving language', said Hanan Saeed Al-Shahrani.   The 'Translator's Message' seminar also focused on the program outcomes they have experienced to date. The presenters expressed that their group is passionate about the benefits of real-world translation. Also, they find that constructive experiences from their volunteer work have made them more confident in practicing their craft. They also expressed their satisfaction in serving members of the public. The presenters made a call to action for additional volunteers in the program. As part of this request, Hanan Saeed Al-Shahrani and Maryam Faisal Al-Shamrani shared the group's current work plan with the attendees.   Please note that this is a follow-up regarding the 'Translator's Message' initiative. For more information, please click here. Volunteers are very much needed, and any contribution would be greatly appreciated. Please contact 'Translator's Message' on their Twitter handle @translatorsKKU. Date: 2/25/2019 Source:  Amal Metwally & Tanzina Halim, Scientific Research Committee – Female Campus

Saja Al Ahmari and Jawaher Al Enzi, two MA students, delivered a presentation titled Translation and Culture at the seminar organized by the Language Research Center of King Khalid University held on November 28, 2018. The seminar was held on the King Abdullah Road campus. In their presentation, they focused on the cultural awareness required for proper translation. They introduced some such specialized terms relevant to the translation theory as ‘dynamic equivalence’, etc. They showed some strategies for the knotty problem of finding equivalence for culture-specific terms. Such strategies included, but were not limited to, naturalization, neutralization, and compensation. Naturalization, they said, is a method of translating target cultural concepts by encoding them in their original target language forms. Compensation, on the other hand, they added, is a standard lexical transfer in which the meaning of the source language text is somehow lost in the process of translation. Compensation often results in ‘over-translation’ as opposed to ‘under translation’. They tried to focus on the close relation between successful translation and understanding the culture of both the source language and the target language. They introduced some interesting examples from different cultures, and how ‘literalism’ does not work out the culture-related problems. One example was taken from German which uses a phrase meaning literally ‘to have tomatoes on one’s eyes’. This is rendered into Arabic as على عينيه غشاوة, obliterating any sense related to literal ‘tomatoes’. More interestingly, they drew the audience’s attention to the fact that some target texts excelled their source counterparts in quality. One example is Fitzgerald’s translation of Omar Al Khayyam’s Persian quadruplets into English in 1859. Despite the desperate attempt by other successors like Robert Graves and Omar Ali Shah in 1967, they failed to produce a translation that would replace Fitzgerald’s. The seminar was an overall success. Date: 11-29-18 Source: Mohammad Adil Siddique

Dr. Eyhab Bader Eddin delivered a presentation titled 'Multiplicity of Different English Functional Semantic Realizations of the Translation of the Arabic Preposition ب' at a seminar organized by the Language Research Center of King Khalid University held on October 10, 2018. His presentation was about his research on a particular Arabic preposition, namely ب and its diversity of meaning when translated into English. The seminar, originally a published paper in a refereed specialized journal, throws a spotlight at an uncharted territory in the field of translation and grammatical analysis, taking the fact that the semantic functions of the preposition ب in Arabic have been the cynosure of all linguists’ and translators’ eyes for decades as the point of departure. The different realizations in English of the same preposition in Arabic are meant to enrich translators’ and linguists’ appreciation and critical understanding of the different semantic functions of the preposition ب. Failure to correctly understand the semantic functions inherent in the preposition ب in different contexts definitely washes away meaning, and causes translators to bog down in unanswered questions pertaining to the exact meaning intended. Dr. Bader Eddin first compared Arabic parts of speech with English ones. The English word class of ‘nouns’ covers in Arabic the word classes of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and adverbs, he exemplified. Particles in Arabic, referred to as حروف, can be further divided into two types of particles, namely حروف مبنى (alphabetical letters) and حروف معنى (prepositions), he added. He went further to say that the tri-classification of Arabic parts of speech does not mean that English has more parts of speech than Arabic does. It is noticed that the semantic behavior, expressed by بـ in Arabic is richer than that in English, and thus cannot always be transferred through a one-to-one correspondence into English. The seemingly same ب in Arabic can be said to be an overloaded preposition in Arabic that no one particular preposition can be predicted in English. This linguistic phenomenon is context-bound in that the same preposition ب behaves semantically different, and thus cannot be dealt with according to watertight criteria predictably. In Arabic, particles are divided into ‘effective or operative’ and ‘passive’ عامل وعاطل. By the former, we mean that their occurrence before the noun it accompanies brings about what is grammatically known as ‘declension’ الإعراب. This means the last morpheme or inflection of the word carries a marker (diacritic mark) showing its grammatical case and category. Such particles, depending on what particles are used, may make the word they precede in the nominative, accusative, dative or apocope case, that is حالة الرفع أو النصب أو الجر أو الجزم respectively. Prepositions are considered one type of ‘effective or operative particles’ as they transform the noun following them into the dative case. Dr. Bader Eddin also explained in detail the various types of Arabic preposition ب their semantic functions and possible English realization. He particularly adduced evidence from the Holy Qur'an for this research out of the firm belief that the Holy Qur'an is the model of linguistic excellence whose style is described as ‘sui generis’. He highlighted the fact that one preposition in Arabic can be realized differently in English. His research, he believed, would enrich translators’ and linguists’ critical understanding of different semantic functions of the preposition. Some of the semantic functions carried by the preposition ب are ‘physical contact, instrument, transitivity, causal, substitution, oath administering, etc. A volley of questions were posed at the end, and answers were provided. You may have a look at the PowerPoint presentation by clicking here. It is worth mentioning that the King Abdullah Road campus attended the seminar online. The seminar was very informative and overall successful. Date: 10/10/2018 Source: Mohammad Adil Siddique Multimedia Source: Mohammed Jabir