A corpus-based study of translating idioms from English into Arabic using audio-visual translation
International Journal of Information and Learning Technology
ISSN: 2056-4880
Article publication date: 5 June 2024
Issue publication date: 11 June 2024
Abstract
Purpose
Audio-visual translation (AVT) is recognized as the most vibrant type of translation. While AVT plays a vital function in the field of translation, its significance within cultural studies hasn’t been thoroughly investigated. This research aims to uncover the predominant techniques employed in translating idiomatic expressions found in subtitled movies from English to Arabic.
Design/methodology/approach
The corpus utilized in the current study consisted of five movies. The dialog in the chosen English films was examined to identify idiomatic expressions. The occurrence and proportion of each approach employed in translating English idioms into Arabic were calculated.
Findings
The findings of this investigation unveiled that the most common technique employed by translators to render idioms was retaining both similar meaning and similar form. The second approach involved maintaining a similar meaning while altering the form. The third method involved paraphrasing for translation. The fourth strategy was compensation-based translation. When dealing with verb and object idioms as well as similes, the predominant techniques were retaining both similar meaning and similar form, followed by a similar meaning but different form approach. Compound idioms were translated using paraphrasing, similar meaning but different form and similar meaning but different form strategies.
Originality/value
The research was constrained to examining the utilization of subtitles for the translation of five films. The films and corresponding Arabic subtitles were obtained and saved in plain text formats. Solely idiomatic expressions were scrutinized to determine the translation approaches employed through the use of subtitles.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study was funded by Literature, Publishing and Translation Commission, Ministry of Culture, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under [75/2022] as part of the Arabic Observatory of Translation. The authors are thankful to the Deanship of Graduate Studies and Scientific Research at University of Bisha for supporting this work through the Fast-Track Research Support Program.
Citation
Mahdi, H.S. and Sahari, Y. (2024), "A corpus-based study of translating idioms from English into Arabic using audio-visual translation", International Journal of Information and Learning Technology, Vol. 41 No. 3, pp. 244-261. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJILT-07-2023-0128
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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