Unlike English, Standard Arabic has two forms of subject pronouns: Independent such as ?na (I), and a pronominal suffix that is an integral part of the verb such as katab-tu (I wrote). Independent subject pronouns are commonly used in nominal sentences, not verbal sentences. Use of independent subject pronouns in verbal statements depends on syntactic, pragmatic, discoursal and semantic factors available in a particular context. The present study investigates translation students' awareness of the syntactic, pragmatic and discoursal restrictions that determine the use of Arabic subject pronouns when translating connected discourse from English into Arabic. An error corpus of faulty uses of Arabic independent subject pronouns was collected from the translation projects of senior students majoring in translation. Syntactic, pragmatic and discoursal criteria were used to judge the deviations. It was found that students translate imitatively rather than discriminately. Since English sentences begin with a subject pronoun such as I, he, they, the students used an independent subject pronoun followed by a verb + pronominal suffix in declarative, affirmative statement, without realizing that the subject is contained in the verb, and use of ?na or huwa is redundant. Implications for increasing students' awareness of pragmatic, discoursal and syntactic constraints in translating English pronouns into Arabic are provided.
The present study investigates the effectiveness of integrating RCampus in EFL freshman classrooms in developing EFL students' reading and writing skills. Two groups of freshman students majoring in translation participated in the study. Before instruction, pretest results showed no significant difference between the experimental and control groups in their reading and writing skills in EFL (English as a foreign language). Both groups received traditional in-class instruction that depended on the textbook, completed the same chapters, did the same exercises and took the same quizzes. In addition, the experimental group received online instruction using RCampus (www.rcampus.com), an open source Online Course Management System. RCampus has as a discussion forum, ePortfolio for each student, i-Rubrics, course documents, a message center and other tools. The experimental group received online reading and writing extension activities. Each week discussion threads that required the students to search for information, read extra material and respond to questions in writing were posted. The students were free to post their own book summaries, discussion threads and comment on each other's posts. The instructor served as a facilitator. She provided feedback and individual help. At the end of the semester both groups were post-tested and their scores compared to find out the effect of using a combination of online reading and writing activities using RCampus on the students' reading and writing skills development. The students answered a post-treatment questionnaire to find out how they felt about RCampus and their online learning experience. Results will be reported in detail.
Son and daughter metaphorical expressions are common in general as well as technical languages. This study explores the similarities and differences between English and Arabic ibn (son) and bint (daughter) expressions, and the difficulties that student-translators have with them. A corpus of English and Arabic general ibn (son) and bint (daughter) expressions (daughters of Eve, daughter of invention, son of Adam, son of a biscuit, son of a gun) and another corpus of specialized expressions (son of Minos, daughter board, daughter activity) were collected, analyzed and compared. It was found that ibn (son) and bint (daughter) expressions fall into 4 categories: (i) those that are identical in form and meaning in both languages (daughters of Eve, son of Adam); (ii) those that are similar in meaning but differ in wording (step-daughter); (iii) those that exist in English, but have no equivalents in Arabic (daughter of Sappho); and (iv) those that exist in Arabic but have no equivalents in English (daughter of Yemen, i.e., coffee). Specialized expressions used in medicine, computers, business and others are exact translations in both languages (daughter company, daughter cyst, daughter isotope). Student-translators could translate fewer than 13% of the Arabic test items and 12% of the English test items correctly and left 75% blank. Son and daughter expressions similar in both languages were easy to translate (like mother like daughter), whereas opaque ones (بنت الشفة), culture-specific ones (بنت أبيها، بنت بنوت، ابن لبون) and those requiring a specialized background knowledge were difficult (daughter board). Extraneous translation, paraphrase, Literal translation, use of synonyms, transliteration of Arabic words, partial translation, and giving the same translation for different expressions were the most common strategies. Translation difficulties are due to semantic and syntactic problems that the students have. Results and recommendations are given in detail.
Negative yes-no (polar) questions in Colloquial Arabic (CA) are formed by intonation without adding yes-no question particles, in which case, a statement is uttered with a rising intonation, whether this polar question is negative or affirmative. This case is more common in CA than written MSA. Sometimes, the same negative polar question is uttered with different intonations, giving different meanings. This article investigates the multiple meanings of negative polar questions in Hijazi Arabic (HA), the kinds of ambiguities resulting from using different rising intonations, and how negative polar questions are answered. A sample of negative polar questions in HA was collected. Each was uttered with different rising intonations by a sample of students enrolled in a Semantics and Pragmatics course at the College of Languages and Translation and recordings of those were made. The student informants were asked about the meaning conveyed by each intonation of the same negative polar question. Results showed that ما شريت فستان الأسبوع الماضي؟ Didn't you buy a dress last week?” is a negative polar question formed with a change in intonations. It is ambiguous and may render the following meanings: (i) a neutral question about whether she bought the dress or not, replying with the truth-value of the situation, or is replying to the polarity used in the question. The answer would be either "Yes" or "no", or an echo answer: "Yes I bought it" or "No I didn't buy it"; (ii) a confirmation question to which the reply is "yes" only; (iii) a confirmation question to which the reply is "no" only; (iv) disapproval: "Didn't you buy a dress last week? Why do you want to by another dress? (v) an exclamation: Wow! You have bought a new dress, although you bought one last week! What a surprise! The context makes it clear which meaning each intonation implies. Detailed results of the interpretation of a sample of ambiguous spoken negative polar questions are reported.
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