The translation of Arabic legal documents : a case study of Palestine divorce documents

Abstract

This study is about the translatability of Arabic religious legal terms in Palestinian divorce documents. It is a qualitative descriptive study which aims at exploring the translator’s choices and decisions in dealing with divorce terminologies to determine the determinant norms that can affect or enhance divorce terminologies in Arabic-English translation. In doing so, Vinay and Darbelnet’s translation procedures are followed to assess the translations. The study has looked into the translations of divorce terminologies in Palestinian divorce documents. Translated texts of Palestinian divorce documents have been selected from Palestinian sworn translators and certified translation offices to be representative of this text type. A set of specified divorce terms have been analysed. As a result, it is discovered that the translators rely highly on the direct strategy to translate general terms such as ‘nafaqa, dukhul, ibra’ while the oblique technique is used to translate culture-specific terms such as: khalwa, raji, baen baynona sughra and kubra’. The research reveals also that the translations decisions depend not only on translation norms, but also on language norms related to culture- specific terms.