This study deals with the translation into English of nine cryptic security Arabic terms Palestinian prisoners
have nomenclatured in response to the life conditions in Israeli prisons. These terms were collected from prison literature and
through interviews with five newly-freed Palestinian prisoners who served long terms in Israeli jails. The terms’ functions are
pragmatically explicated, and suitable translations, capturing their pragmatic imports, are offered. The study found that these
terms have drifted from their original semantic usages and acquired new functions prompted by Palestinian prisoners’ needs for
self- and mate-security concerns. In such cases of highly contextualized language usages, the translation options range from those
capturing the form and/or function to those capturing the communicative sense independently.
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