CHALLENGES OF TRANSLATING COVID-19 TERMINOLOGY INTO ARABIC: A STUDY OF MACHINE TRANSLATION AND LINGUISTIC MEANS

Rashad Faleh Alhasan, Khatra Amar, Hussein Abushaaban

Abstract


The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a plethora of new words and terminology in various languages, including Arabic. This linguistic phenomenon stems from the need to describe and discuss the unique circumstances and developments surrounding the pandemic. This study aims to find out the challenges faced by Arabic translators when incorporating these newly coined terms into the Arabic language and culture. The localization of COVID-19 terminology is a complex and challenging task, but it is essential to ensure that Arabic speakers have access to accurate and up-to-date information about the pandemic. The results indicate that there are linguistic and cultural challenges in the English-Arabic translation of COVID-19 prevention and control terminology. By using a variety of linguistic techniques, Arabic translators can help ensure that these new terms are accurately and effectively localized into Arabic.

 

Article visualizations:

Hit counter


Keywords


localization, neologies, COVID-19, linguistic means, machine translation and technical means

Full Text:

PDF

References


Al-Hamdan, K. (2022). The impact of COVID-19 on terminology and translation. International Journal of Translation and Interpreting Studies, 14(1), 1-14.

Boulakdar, Mariam (2020). Translation in the Time of Corona: Covid 19 (Collective work). Impact of Coronavirus Health Crisis on Translation Services in the Context of Globalization. Democratic Arab Center for Strategic, Political, and Economic Studies. Berlin. Germany.

Bowker, L. (2020). French-Language COVID-19 Terminology. The Journal of Internationalization and Localization, 7(1-2), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1075/jial.20014.bow

Chen, C. (2020). Public health messages about COVID-19 prevention in multilingual Taiwan. Multilingua, 39(5), 597-606. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2020-0092

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) – World Health Organization. (2019). Retrieved 15 November 2021, from https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019

Dictionary of Covid -19 Terms (2020). Organisation Arabe pour l'education, la culture, et les sciences, Rabat – Royaume du Maroc.

Giaber, J., & Sharkas, H. (2021). Rendering Translation Studies Terminology from English into Arabic: Identification of Methodology and Assessment of Adequacy. International Journal of Arabic-English Studies, 21(2). https://doi.org/10.33806/ijaes2000.21.2.7

Haddad Haddad, A., & Montero-Martinez, S. (2020). COVID-19: A Metaphor-Based Neologism and its Translation into Arabic. Journal Of Science Communication, 19(05), A01. https://doi.org/10.22323/2.19050201

Halimah, A. (2015). Teaching Translation of Poetry: A Collaborative Approach. English Language and Literature Studies, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.5539/ells.v5n1p26

Home - Public Health Authority. (2021). Retrieved 15 January 2022, from https://covid19.cdc.gov.sa/

Igorevna, M. (2020). Terminological Precision and Problems of Translating Basic Terminology of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Process Management and Scientific Developments, 80-85.

Jaber, F. (2020). COVID-19 Translated: WHO‟s and the City of Ottawa English and Arabic Narrative of the Pandemic. Technium Social Sciences Journal, 11, 559-574. https://doi.org/10.47577/tssj.v11i1.1624.

Li, X., Zhang, Y., & Wang, X. (2021). The impact of localization on patient understanding of cancer information: A randomized controlled trial. Patient Education and Counseling, 104(12), 3413-3419.

Perez, L., Garcia, M., & Hernandez, R. (2022). The impact of localization on patient understanding of COVID-19 information. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 24(5), e28119.

Ruba, Yahya (2020). Translation in the Time of Corona: Covid 19 (Collective work). The Role of Translation in Times of World Crises: Covid 19 as a Contemporary Challenge. Democratic Arab Center for Strategic, Political, and Economic Studies. Berlin. Germany.

The Unified Medical Dictionary: English-Arabic (2006). Muhammad Haitham al-Khayat. Librairie du Liban Publishers, Beirut. Lebanon.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejmts.v3i1.448

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The research works published in this journal are free to be accessed. They can be shared (copied and redistributed in any medium or format) and\or adapted (remixed, transformed, and built upon the material for any purpose, commercially and\or not commercially) under the following terms: attribution (appropriate credit must be given indicating original authors, research work name and publication name mentioning if changes were made) and without adding additional restrictions (without restricting others from doing anything the actual license permits). Authors retain the full copyright of their published research works and cannot revoke these freedoms as long as the license terms are followed.

Copyright © 2020-2023. European Journal of Multilingualism and Translation Studies (ISSN 2734 - 5475 / ISSN-L 2734 - 5475). All rights reserved.


This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library. All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms. All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and standards formulated by Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003) and  Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003) and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Copyrights of the published research works are retained by authors.