Emerging Political Expressions in Arab Spring for Translation Media with Implications Pedagogy

Abstract

A sample of political expressions that have been common in Arab media since the Arab Spring in 2011 was collected from TV newscasts, online news websites and social media pages. Analysis of their structure, denotative and connotative meanings revealed the following features: (i) Use of lexical hybrids (اخوانجي- الدم قراطية – سني ستان - الحقيقة ليكس- عسكريتاريا; (ii) revival of ancient Islamic expressionsأمير المؤمنين - غزوة الموصل) ); (iii) use of blends (صهيوأمريكية); (iv) few borrowings (BRICS); (v) use of new acronyms (ISIS) with verbs, nouns and agents derived from them (دواعش استدعاش); and (vi) phonological and lexical substitutions in names of political and religious personalities that the users oppose (Kerdogan for Erdogan;حزب اللات for Hezbollah). Semantically, Arab Spring political terms refer to types of governments, places (towns), minority groups, religious sects, names of militia groups, weapons and military tactics, revolution squares that were not widely used before. They are also characterized by their non-literal use, i.e., use of loaded expressions, dysphemisms, and slurs that express disparagement, derogation, criticism, and disrespect towards those they oppose and towards the social and political situation as inالخرفان المتأسلمين - الفئة الضالة – شبيحة – الفلول - المخلوع. Translation and interpreting instructors need to integrate emerging political terms commonly used in the media in political and media translation courses. students majoring in translation and interpreting need to be familiar with new political terms and should be able to translate them from Arabic to English and vice versa. Students need to keep their own lists of new terms used in the media together with their equivalents in English or Arabic. They need to use Google Translate with caution as Google Translate usually gives incorrect word order in compounds. It also gives equivalents that do not match source terms in part of speech and in the type of derivative.

Word Formation with Foreign Lexemes: The Case of Hybrid Compounds in Arabic

“…Data analysis has revealed that some borrowed lexemes used in hybrid compounds in Arabic are more productive than others as in the following order: Net (140); com. (121); press (76); soft (44); sat (42); tube (36); leaks (33); mobile (29); meter (27); tech (26); times (23); pedia (21); gate (20); super (20); web (20); wiki (20); expo (13); petro (13); hyper (9); pharma (8); mania (8); media (8); book (7); mini (7); phone (7); tic (7); Arabia (6); co (6); pro (6). The following borrowed morphemes are not very productive: Café (5); mart (5); top (5); center (4); cast (3); link (3); show (3); extra (2); for (2); ultra (2); talk (2); pal (1).…”

Sectarian language and perception of the “Other” after the Arab Spring

“…They describe discord and tensions relating to internal divisions among the different social groups or sects in a society especially those that appeared after the Arab Spring that took place in 2011 such as Sunnis, Shiites, Takfirists, Salafists, ISIS, Qaeda, Al-Nusra, Hezbollah, Muslim Brothers, HAMAS, the Syrian Revolution, Iran, Houthis, the Popular Mobilization Crowd in Iraq and some religious and political personalities (Qaradhawi, Bashar Assad, Sisi, Morsi, Hassan Nasrullah), and others. These constituted the main categories of the sample of sectarian words and phrases collected (Alghashian and Menshawy 2022;Al-Jarf 2022;Al-Jarf 2015).…”

“…The effect of sectarian language on perception can be interpreted in the light of the social amplification and attenuation risk framework (Kasperson 1988;1996). Social media posts are emotionally framed by appeals to fears and uncertainty which lead to shallow information processing on the part of the recipient, who overestimates the dangers and threats imposed by the sect they oppose.…”

“…The above literature review shows lack of studies that investigated how sectarian language on Arabic social media impact common people's perceptions of different religious and political sects after the Arab Spring. Therefore, the present study aims to explore the following: (i) how sectarian language prevalent on Arabic social media, blogs, print media, and Arabic satellite TV shapes common Arab people's perceptions of sects such as Sunni, Shiites, Muslim Brothers, Salafists, Alawites, Jihadists, Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas and others; (ii) how Arab college students and faculty perceive different sects such as Sunni, Shiites, Muslim Brothers, Salafists, Alawites, Jihadists, Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas and their attitudes towards them; (iii) the characteristics of sectarian language used on social media by college students and faculty; (iv) the impact of sectarian language on students, faculty and common people's perception (the perceiver, target, and situation), and the factors that influence them; (v) how sectarian language affects perception in the light of the social amplification and attenuation risk framework (SARF) of Kasperson et al (1988 and1996), i.e., how the social amplification of risk framework applies to sectarian language.…”

Lexical Hybridization in Arabic: The Case of Word Formation with Borrowed Affixes

“…Likewise, Asian languages such as Japanese 3 have hybrid words that are common in Kango -words formed from Kanji characters -where some of the characters are pronounced using Chinese pronunciation (on'yomi), and others in the same word pronounced using Japanese pronunciations (kun'yomi, from Japanese morphemes). These are known as jūbako (重箱) or yutō (湯桶) words, which are examples of this kind of compounds which are autological words in which the first character of jūbako is read using on'yomi, and the second kun'yomi, while it is the other way around with yutō.…”