Abstract :
This article examines the quality of the messages in the Arabic translation of English political news. Our data are pairs of English political news source texts (ST) and their corresponding Arabic target texts (TT). It aims to find the answers to the research question : In what ways do the stylistic changes affect the quality and the nature of the content of the Arabic messages? Towards that end, a comparative methodology of the ST and TT has been adopted by paying attention to examine the differences and the similarities of the content of the messages in the ST and their corresponding messages in the TT. In the evaluation of the messages of the texts (both ST and TT), some of Newmark’s approaches in translation have been been used, in particular the employment of his terminologies, overtranslation, undertranslation, and ambiguous translation, and we will be employing our own idea about incorrect translation and replacement translation. In addition, our observation of any difference between the messages of the ST and that of the TT (both the linguistic meaning and the extra linguistic meaning) shall be stated using the semantic notation of the componential analysis of Katz and Fodor (1963) and as extended in Jackson (1988) where necessary. In some places in addition to the notation, a simple supplemental narration shall be employed especially in dealing with cultural messages and other nuances in the realm of pragmatics. It is found that the messages have merely been diffused, or being put in a time frame (tenses) to suit the culture, the political make up, the Arabic grammar and appropriate with the sociolinguistic idiosyncrasies of the Arab target readers.
