Translation and linguistic recycling in Arabic

Abstract

Linguistic expressions in every language have established patterns with meanings that can be inferred by linguistic conventions. Languages have their own norms and expressing systems that make transferred linguistic formulas seem odd. Any deviation from the established patterns can be referred to as interference. Interference in translation is the transfer of some linguistic aspect of the source text (ST) into the target text (TT). The term includes any kind of influence that is exerted by the linguistic properties of the ST on the linguistic properties of the TT. Lexical items and syntactic structures of the source language are copied into the TT, resulting in the phenomenon called ‘translationese’. As a result of interference, translation has introduced a plethora of words, expressions, and constructions into Arabic, resulting in a change in modern Arabic style. One phenomenon that Arabic has witnessed in modern times is linguistic recycle. This term refers to the re-utilization of translated expressions and syntactic structures in Arabic in its intra-linguistic operation (opposed to the inter-linguistic event of translation). The language community has been using these translation-introduced formulations although they do not conform to the canonical patterns of Arabic. Being unaware of this fact, speakers of Arabic use the translation-introduced expressions and constructions instead of the native ones although they have at their disposal a variety of formulations to express the same ideas. Linguistic recycle can be categorized into the three areas of lexis, syntax, and culture. Using a contrastive approach, the paper investigates the areas of lexis and syntax, demonstrating the pervasiveness of this phenomenon and its impact on Arabic. Corpora of Arabic have been used to detect and verify occurrences of expressions and structures.