Parallels and Differences Between Intralingual and Interlingual Translations at Word Level with Reference to English and Arabic

Date

2022-1

Type

Article

Journal title

Author(s)

Khalifa Al-Aswad

Abstract

The terms intralingual translation and interligual translation are coined by Jakobson (1959), The former is used to mean the interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language and the latter means the interpretation of verbal signs by means of some signs of another language. Another common term in translation literature is ‘Intertemporal translation” which is used to refer to the translation of a text by an author writing in (or about) an earlier time (cf. Vladova 1993:15-16,cited in Shuttleworth and Cowie 1999). According to Steiner (1975:351), all translations, except simultaneous interpreting, involve an intertemporal element of translation regardless of the length of time involved. In this paper intralingual translation is represented by an original version of Charles Dickins’s novel ‘’Great Expectation’’ and a simplified version of the same novel abridged and simplified by Latif Doss, while interlingual translation is represented by a copy of Stephen Hawking’s (2001) ‘’The Universe in a nutshell’’ and the Arabic translation of this book by Ibrahim Mustafa, published by the national council of arts, culture and literature, Kuwait. Hawking’s book is written in simplified scientific English and so its translation is written in simplified Arabic register which is intended for non-specialist readers. This paper intends, by way of comparing the techniques utilized in both processes, to find out parallels and differences between a simplified version of a book and a translated popularized version of another regardless of the content because it is assumed that the techniques and strategies involved in simplification and translation are to a large extent similar. The investigation, contrary to the hypothesis has revealed that there are more differences than parallels between the techniques used in intralingual translation and interlingual translation at word level in English and Arabic.