Contrastive Analysis of Translation Shifts in Lexical Repetition in Arabic-English Legal Translations

Abstract

The study investigates some preliminary generalizations regarding the standards regulating the translation types and directions, the lexical repeatability of legal texts shifts. It also compares lexical repetition in Arabic legal texts and that of the corresponding English translation on the basis of lexical repetition type, frequency and distribution. It is a descriptive study that employed parallel corpora to compare lexical repetition in the source language (SL) text with its translation in the target language (TL) text. The research corpus consists of an Arabic legal text and its English translation. The researcher examined the different forms of shifts in the translated text, and the motivation of the translator for utilizing each translation shifts. The result proves that translation shift is an inevitable phenomenon. The various types of translation fell under three categories - avoidance of lexical repetition, retention with alteration, and addition of repetition. In the process of translation from Arabic to English, certain basic concepts cannot be replaced; and as such a translational shift (in lexical repetition) is required to appropriately convey ideas from Arabic to English. Arabic tends to use lexical repetition (LR) more than English, but for the legal texts, English uses LR as well as Arabic. The most common shift detected in this corpus is Partial shift. The results display that the roles of ‘repetition’ are not always preserved, sometimes they can be lost. Multiple translation methods were utilized by the translator. These include deletion, paraphrase, synonym and near-synonym, modulation and pronominalisation.