The thematic and information structure of scientific and technical texts are arguably different among languages. This study examines the thematic structure of scientific texts in English and Arabic to see the differences in the hierarchical organization at different thematic levels. It adopts Halliday’s functional model of theme-rheme and applies it to English and Arabic scientific texts. The paper mainly investigates the three levels of theme: textual, interpersonal and experiential with the intention of discussing their translations into Arabic. It uses a corpus data of two scientific texts. The syntactic and textual elements of those texts were compared and contrasted and professional translations were provided to study the Arabic thematic structure. The data provides English and Arabic versions which allow for a comparable analysis of structure, convention and style. The study reveals that the most frequent type of themes and thematic progression is the experiential theme. It shows that those experiential themes are almost always occupying initial positions. The structure of themes has the tendency to be reproduced in the translation. However, the findings of this investigation indicate that position of themes may change as a result of translation, or changed from experiential into textual.
Hamza Ethelb(8-2019)

This paper aims to investigate the translation of address terms between Arabic and English. Those terms belong to different systems in both languages. Certain characteristics of an address term in one culture tend to be lost when translated into another. Therefore, politeness theory will be used in order to find out whether the politeness intended by using an address term is transferred into the target language or not. For this study, a number of address terms are selected from a novel, Madiq Alley. Those terms are delivered to a number of subjects in a questionnaire. The analysis points out the use of such systems and how each system applies different politeness strategies to show respect and deference. The findings indicate that some patterns of face-work are lost in the translation process and that the relational terms of address are more challenging to translate than the absolute ones.
Hamza Ethelb(7-2015)

Machine translation tools are widely used by companies. The tools are on an increasing demand. Translators need to equip themselves with the knowledge and the mastering of these tools. This study explores two machine translation tools involved in website localization. These tools are Alchemy Catalyst and Trados Tageditor. The study adopts an evaluative methodology to shed light on the intricacies and technicalities of these two localization tools. It discusses some of the cultural issues that localizers come across in the process of localization. In addition, it delves into the technical issues, mainly focusing on localizing into Arabic with a special focus on string, text, lexis, and orthography. The study concludes that the process of localization requires teamwork and involvement of computer engineers, and both localization tools are valuable in achieving a localization task.
Hamza Ethelb(8-2019)