Translation Shifts in Regard to Translation from English into Arabic and Vice Versa

Abstract

The present study aimed at investigating translation shifts with regard to translation from English into Arabic or vice versa. The researchers attempted to identify the translation shifts that occur in the translation from English into Arabic or vice versa. The current research study is strictly qualitative analytical as it focuses on some selected linguistic shifts, namely word order, parts of speech, word choice, tense, number, and voice which often result when translation is carried out from Arabic into English or vice versa. Besides, the data collected for this research are a number of Arabic and English sentences along with their suggested translations which all come from the researchers’ own observations and translations which they have carried out from English into Arabic and/or vice versa in the course of their relatively long career as both translation teachers and translators. The research data revealed that translation shifts are an important feature of any translation as they are unavoidable, especially if the source language and the target language belong to two different families such as English and Arabic. As the paper has shown, some selected linguistic shifts, namely word order, parts of speech, word choice, tense, number, and voice have been duly elaborated on in an attempt to make the concept of translation shifts more intelligible and more practical.

Keywords: translation shifts, English-Arabic translation, Arabic-English translation