The Status of Arabic English Electronic Translation (ET ... · Keywords: Electronic Translation,...

European Journal of Scientific Research

ISSN 1450-216X / 1450-202X Vol. 155 No 4 March, 2020, pp.455 - 462

http://www. europeanjournalofscientificresearch.com

The Status of Arabic English Electronic

Translation (ET) in Jordan

Basmah Issa Ahmad AlSaleem

TEFL Associate Professor, Language Center

The World Islamic Sciences and Education University, Amman-Jordan

E-mail: [email protected]

Tel: 00962777357737

Abstract

There is a growing request for Arabic English Electronic Translation (ET) in the

Arab countries. This study aimed at investigating how electronic translation systems are

used in Jordan as a sample of Arabic countries. A survey was confined in Jordan to collect

the essential data to assess how many English to Arabic electronic translation schemes are

used by Jordanian organizations, and Jordanian translation centers. The results of this study

indicate that most Jordanian organizations and translation agencies do not trust and are not

fascinated in electronic translation. It is recommended that more attention be paid and more

research be leaded to get the greatest use out of this technology and that more useful Arabic

English electronic ET systems be established.

Keywords: Electronic Translation, Jordan, English, Arabic, and Language.

1. Introduction Since the demand for translation has extended, and because of the vast quantity of noteworthy need to

translation in all fields, electronic translation (ET) systems are presently used widely over the world.

To be significance for the revolt of information technology, more translations will request to be done.

There is a condition for the use of (ET), which can save time and power, when there is simply a need

for the point of a text rather than for a maximum and perfect translation or when translating websites

and online information. (ET) can be wrought to produce uneven translations, with translator’s

condition -editing the output, mainly when only a rapid post- deletion is required. In this way,

individual translators can save time that they would otherwise use translating simple or dull texts. The

purpose of this paper is to highlight the status of English Arabic Electronic Translation (ET) in Jordan

and to define to what extent (ET) has been recognized in Jordan, as an expert practice.

With the rising need for translation, the use of translation technology in all-purposes and

electronic translation (ET) in specific has become a requirement. Research has directed to the

improvement of many (ET) systems that have been practical in several countries. Some of these

systems contain the Arabic language like as Sakhr (Sakhr Systems), and Cimos (Cimos

Systems).Moreover, there are web- established (ET) systems such as Babylon (Babylon Systems), and

Google Translate that have Arabic as a target language.

1.1. Research Objective

This research aimed at discovering the benefits of (ET) among the Jordanian organizations and

translation agencies.

456

2. Literature Review2.1. Uses of (ET)

According to (Hutichins, 2011) translation is used for one of the four following purposes and so is

(ET):

travelers, mobiles, tablets etc.) as well, and over the Internet web sites as AltaVista’s Babelfish

Translations Online, Gisit

in e

(ET) is used for the following

456



(ET):

1. Distribution: texts to be translated for distribution essential to be of high quality. So, if (ET) is

used to translate like texts, subsequently human assistance is required, whether for pre

the input, post

subjects.

2. Integration: when the texts to be translated will

information, or if the receivers only need to get a specific idea about what the text suggests,

then the (ET) will do, and there is no necessity for a good excellence translation.

3. Interchange: when the translation i

another languages, by correspondence, e

as long as the communicators appreciate the message they receive and it conveys their

meanings.

4. Databa

Websites and for opening databases to get information in foreign languages.

(ET) systems have been progressed to be used in hand



in e-mails, chat rooms, and social networking sites




Distribution: texts to be translated for distribution essential to be of high quality. So, if (ET) is


the input, post-editing the output, using a measured language, or limiting the system to specific

subjects.

Integration: when the texts to be translated will



Interchange: when the translation i



meanings.

Database access: currently, several people use translations, for searching the Internet and





mails, chat rooms, and social networking sites


2. Literature Review




editing the output, using a measured language, or limiting the system to specific




Interchange: when the translation i



se access: currently, several people use translations, for searching the Internet and




Translations Online, Gisit-in-Time System, ProMT Translators, and various others, and for localization


(ET) is used for the following purposes;








Interchange: when the translation is essential for communication among individuals who speak

another languages, by correspondence, e-






Time System, ProMT Translators, and various others, and for localization


purposes; figure 1 shows the purposes of (ET):

Figure 1: Purposes of (ET)








s essential for communication among individuals who speak

-mail, or telephone, then again any translation will do







mails, chat rooms, and social networking sites (Hutichins, 2011)

figure 1 shows the purposes of (ET):

Purposes of (ET)






be essential for observing or filtering




mail, or telephone, then again any translation will do




(ET) systems have been progressed to be used in hand-held devices (pocket translators used by



(Hutichins, 2011). According to (Hutchins,


Purposes of (ET)














held devices (pocket translators used by



. According to (Hutchins,





used to translate like texts, subsequently human assistance is required, whether for pre-editing












. According to (Hutchins,




editing











. According to (Hutchins, 2011)


2.2 Benefits of (ET)

(ET) has many advantage

2.3 Disadvantages of (ET)

(Diliminac,

ET:


Benefits of (ET)

(ET) has many advantage

Disadvantages of (ET)

(Diliminac, 2013) stated that (ET)


(ET) has many advantages; Figure

Figure 2:

Disadvantages of (ET)

2013) stated that (ET)

Figure 3:

The Status of Arabic English Electronic Translation (ET) in Jordan

s; Figure 2 shows the advantages of (ET)

Figure 2: Advantages of (ET)

2013) stated that (ET) has the following drawbacks, fig

Figure 3: Disadvantages of (ET) (Dilimanc, 2013)


shows the advantages of (ET)

Advantages of (ET)

has the following drawbacks, fig

Disadvantages of (ET) (Dilimanc, 2013)


shows the advantages of (ET) (Dilimanc, 2013)

(Dilimanc, 2013)

has the following drawbacks, figure 3 shows the disadvantages of


(Dilimanc, 2013)

2013)

ure 3 shows the disadvantages of


(Dilimanc, 2013):


457


458 Basmah Issa Ahmad AlSaleem

2.4 Arabic (ET)

The necessity for translation in the Arab world grows with a huge volume of material necessity to be

translated. Arab translators try to benefit from the assistance of (ET). Zanotout & Gueesoum (2015)

stated that “it is clear, that (ET) will boost the technology transfer efforts to make more information

about new technologies available to Arabs in their natural language” Zanotout & Gueesoum (2015).

According to (Farghaly&Shalan, 2017), (Zughoul&Abu-AlShaar, 2015), (Rashed& Gueesoum,

2015),using (ET) in the Arab world can be effective in several tactics:

1.To handle with the growing request from multinational companies and governments for

translation.

2.To stay up with technological, scientific, economic, and financial improvements.

3.To transfer information and technology to the Arab world.

4.To revolutionize Arabic by inserting new conceptions and terms through arabicizations.

5.To compose information retrieval, extraction, and translation simpler for the Arab users to bridge

the gap among people in the Arab world and their friends in more technically advanced

countries.

2.5 Challenges for Arabic (ET)

Arabic is a rich language that belongs to the Semitic languages’ family. Translating among Arabic and

foreign languages thru (ET) created a number of problems that make it challenging for electronic to

produce good results. (Hebash, 2015) stated that “Arabic has a very rich morphology characterized by

a combination of pattern and affixation morphemes, complex morphological rules, and a rich feature

system” (Hebash, 2015). Farghaly&Shalan, 2017 summarized the structures of Arabic Language which

make it difficult and different:

1.It begins from right direction.

2.It has no capitalization letters, which makes it complicated to recognize names of objects.

3.It has no rules for punctuation. Essentially, there are instructions, but there is absence of teaching.

4.Arabic is a language, which has a flexible word order.

5.It has to change letter shapes matching to their situation in the word.

6.It has to share the same letters shape and is only differentiated by adding certain marks such as a

dot placed above or below the letter.

7.It allows topic pronouns to be released.

Arabic is a language that has a very profound and composite understanding system. More over,

Arabic is unique of the morphologically sophisticated languages, and certainty as such it would be

appraised that an electronic translation (ET) from Arabic is more direct than the other direction,

producing a higher quality. There can be many glitches in interpreting from Arabic into English. Types

of Arabic do not sort the Arabic into English production less stimulating. Recording on the Arabic into

English style in the appraisal of three schemes, (Izwiani,2011) notes that, while “various manuscripts

are reduced into accurate, full and comprehensible English translations, the production experiences

from many problems in dealing with formulae of person, gender, tense and aspect” (Izwiani,2011).

Even when an (ET) structure creates “a comprehensible, grammatically well-rounded”, it is still

“wrong analysis (and synthesis) and more complicated difficulties must be undertook. Consequently,

more sophisticated rules and possible solutions need to be recognized for (ET) than what presently

exists so that it can switch Arabic and create more precise translations.

(Izwiaini, 2011) advices that “a good (ET) system should attempt to go a additional step outside

the substance level. Rules are essential to be improved and developed so that the production can touch

the best result possible with minimum post-editing necessary. The less post editing is required, the

more successful the translation is, and the less time is spent and less work is done to produce the final

translation” (Izwiaini, 2011).

The Status of Arabic English Electronic Translation (ET) in Jordan 459

3. Methodology To study the status of (ET) in Jordan, a survey from (Al-Mutawa & Izwaini, 2015) was used to collect

data from actual users of (ET) such as organizations and translation agencies. This survey aims to

discover whether Jordanian governmental organizations (JGO) and non-governmental organizations

(NGO) and translation agencies are using (ET) or not. A questionnaire was submitted to them for their

observance (check Appendix (1) from (Al-Mutawa &Izwaini, 2015).

As translation agencies have a principal role in the translation industry, data were composed

from a number of agencies to ascertain their opinions of this technology and moreover whether they

score from it in their business.

Following is the technique adopted to collect data:

• To examine how generally (ET) is used in Jordanian organizations, data were collected

from the 80 responses, out of 100 governmental and non-governmental organizations (GO,

NGO) included in the survey, received to specifically planned questionnaire (check

Appendix 1). Governmental organizations include ministries, airlines, banks, media and

chambers of commerce, as well as agencies, boards and departments of health, industry,

metrology, monetary, transport, and tourism. Nongovernmental organizations.

• To investigate if translation agencies in Jordan use (ET) and to what degree, data were

collected from 20 translation agencies included in the survey.

4. Analysis

In this section, findings of the survey that are analyzed in two sections are discussed: (ET) in Jordanian

organizations, (ET) in Jordanian translation agencies.

4.1 (ET) in Jordanian Organizations

From the 80 responses received, (35.4 % ) organizations do not need translation. The other (64.6 %)

were analyzed. Only (40.0 %) organizations use (ET).(60.7 %) organizations use (ET) to translate

different types of texts, including official documents, the lasting (38.3 %) use (ET) to translate only

words. (65.3 %) organizations conduct post editing of the translation outcome, whereas the remaining

(36.7 %) stated that an idea of the content or no final models of translated documents are needed.

The results showed that (65.0%) organizations do not use (ET) for one of the following reasons:

• They do not trust (ET) (61 %).

• They cannot afford it (4.7 %).

• Their texts are in hard copy (5.7 %).

• They believe that (ET) results are inaccurate (16.1 %).

• They consider that, with post-editing, it creates for twice the work (3.4 %).

• They do not need it because they either do little translation or rely on their own translation

departments or translators (5.7 %).

(52.6 %) organizations decided to continue using (ET) or to start using it in the future. They provided

one of respecting comments:

• (ET) is good for the translation of words and letters.

• (ET) is simpler and faster than regular dictionaries.

• (ET) produces only draft translations. That means, it is only 65 % of the translation process.

The output needs much reviewing and editing, but it does save time.

(47.4 %) of organizations do not plan to continue using (ET) or to start using it in the future. They gave

one respecting reason:

• (ET) is not reliable; it requires a large financial investment.

• (ET) may translate simple sentences but not compound ones.

• (ET) is not accurate; so it cannot be used to translate certified documents.


• (ET) provides strange and inaccurate output.

• (ET) cannot deal with abbreviations or culture-specific aspects.

• (ET) can be used only to get a common idea about a text. Translation is not science.

• Arabic differs in terms of its morphology, grammar, and semantics from foreign languages,

which styles it difficult for (ET) from and into Arabic.

• (ET) needs post editing, which means twice -work.

4.2. Discussion

Grounded on the replies acknowledged from the 80 organizations that participated in the survey, it was

obvious that 60.2 % of them do not believe in (ET). Most of them decided that (ET) is not precise, or

not reliable, even those who have never attempted it. Moreover, some incorrect, for example, (ET)

cannot deal with acronyms and technical and lawful texts. As a matter of fact, acronym dictionaries are

comprised in (ET) software (and can even be added to), and technical texts are one text type that is

well matched to certainty translated by (ET). As for official texts – while this text type is difficult for

(ET), approving to (Mellby, 2014), due to its compound syntax and need for accuracy - they, in fact,

show language that is quite prescribed and subject to firm rules of text understanding; thus being

suitable for (ET). Some translators discover post editing a boring job, although they are aimed to

review several translations whether done by electronic sites or by themselves.

Only (13.4 %) of participated organizations need translation of official documents, meaning,

they require accurate translations, not only rough drafts. The another 86.6 % necessity translation of

several text sorts like as reports, specific paperwork, e-mail, and Website, for which a rough translation

is appropriate.

According to Arabic Language, (ET) can face problems when translating among Arabic and

English due to the uncertain morphology, syntax, and semantics of Arabic. Contrariwise, if more

amended rules for Arabic morphology and syntax are combined in (ET) systems, those problems can

be touched.

(ET) can be very helpful for organizations. It translates fast and retains translation reliable. It

covers all areas, is private and available any time. (ET) is not expectable to be used to translate novels,

poems, or advertisements. However, it can generate a wild translation that may be used to make a

common idea around a text, for integrations, interchanges, or database accesses. It can be used to

translate frequent simple sentences and text sorts that do not contain complicated structures or culture-

specific vocabularies.

4.3. (ET) in Jordanian Translation Agencies

Twenty translation agencies were contacted to participate in the current study. (35 %) agencies use

(ET) to translate words or simple sentences. They found that it is fast; so it saves time. They found it to

be 90 % inaccurate when translating complex text. Receiving a rough translation can be valuable;

though, depending on the text type, just experienced translators may get full results from using it.

(65 %) agency completely reject the idea of using (ET) because it is not advanced enough; it

makes a poor quality of translation, and it needs post-editing, which rates double the work.

( 84.6 % ) translation agencies have no plans to use or continue handling ET.(15.4 %) believe

using (ET) in the upcoming under one of the subsequent conditions:

• If their business rises and they need many translations accomplished.

• If (ET) systems improve more developed.

4.4. Discussion

Translation Agencies’ job is not to give customers a general idea about a manuscript or a bumpy

sketch. It is predictable that they construct accurate meaningful translated texts. Just a specialized

The Status of Arabic English Electronic Translation (ET) in Jordan 461

translator can produce such translation. However, translators can use the (ET) to get rid of all those

paper and electronic dictionaries to settle down with one inclusive dictionary and save time. Paper and

electronic dictionaries will repeatedly be there if desirable. Actually, (ET) have many disadvantages: it

is incapable to deal through culture-specific features and idiomatic terminologies, it cannot

comprehend situation, it cannot control uncertainty, and it cannot deal with concentrations or

understand idiomatic phrases. Contrariwise, translators as specialists can make benefits of (ET) and

deal with its drawbacks.

5. Conclusion (ET) is not premeditated to supplant translators or translation agencies. Translators will continually be

there and needed. But, simple texts or large capacities of texts of a certain technical nature can be

translated by electronic to enable translators to focus on texts that require their individual human

creativity and smartness. It is correct that person translators, contrary to electronic, can value language

culture, however they also ignore, and get tired and cause mistakes, even when they are highly

experienced, try to be careful, and follow very strict rules. (ET), on the another hand, can work all the

time; they never forget, never get bored or tired, can be fed with millions and millions of pieces of

information, and can give the output in record time.

This study tries to highlight the status of (ET) in Jordan. The point of this paper was to monitor

of what amount (ET) is used and how much attention in (ET) is shown by Jordanian organizations, and

translation agencies.

The study has presented a few facts about (ET) in Jordan. Most translators do not like the idea

of a draft translation even if it can be progressed by post-editing. Full post-editing can be more time-

consuming and costly than human translation. So, translator’s favors to translate from scratch rather

than post edit (ET) productions. Yet, if only rapid post-editing (or no post-editing at all) is desired,

(ET) can save time and money. It is also shown that Arabic postures some efforts for (ET) that need to

be dealt with.

Finally, the findings of this paper suggest that more research requirements to be lead by

universities and research centers. Interest will lead to more research, which, in turn, will aid to progress

the available Arabic (ET) systems and build more progressive ones.

Even though it is generally supposed that electronic cannot make translations as accurately as

humans do, (ET) techniques can produce satisfactory translations for certain text types, and if more

research is showed, then more advanced Arabic (ET) systems will be developed to produce more

acceptable translations or to translate additional forms of text.

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