ISSN: 1579-9794

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ALTARABIN, MAHMOUD. THE ROUTLEDGE COURSE IN ARABIC

BUSINESS TRANSLATION. NEW YORK, ROUTLEDGE, 2022, 198 PP.,

ISBN 9780367773335.

In contemporary Arabic translation studies much attention has been

paid to legal, literary, and religious texts, with researchers detailing the best

ways to create natural-sounding translations that target different groups of

readers. In The Routledge Course in Arabic Business Translation, however,

Altarabin focuses on a less-studied typology of texts: business documents.

Following a very systematic structure throughout his book, he includes up to

21 different kinds of texts classified thematically. They come along with a good

number of exercises to help students grasp new terminology and start

translating authentic business texts in an effective way. This work is the

second book of a Routledge series on Arabic translation, the first one being

The Routledge Course on Media, Legal and Technical Translation, also

authored by Altarabin (2020).

The Routledge Course in Arabic Business Translation is a much-

needed manual following previous works such as Translating Business

English into Arabic (Khuddro, 2019), which remains more theoretical and less

comprehensive with no hands-on translation exercises. A chapter is also

devoted to Islamic finance texts in Thinking Arabic Translation. A Course in

Translation Method: Arabic to English (Dickins, Hervey and Higgins, 2016).

Similarly, Advanced English-Arabic Translation: A Practical Guide (Lahlali and

Hatab, 2022) includes a chapter on economic texts with explanations on

neologisms, metaphors and marketing, investment, banking, and accounting

terminology. The interest that this topic inspires among researchers is also

evident in the far from negligible number of scientific articles on Arabic

business translation. For example, in the last five years works have been

authored by Halimah and Aljaroudi (2019), Giaber et al. (2020) and Shehab

and Nazzal (2020, 2022).

The book is divided into six chapters. The first one is entitled “Business

Translation: Basic Concepts” and deals with the most recognisable

characteristics of business texts in terms of lexis and syntax. References are

made to translation tools and techniques. The rest of the chapters are devoted

to a single category of business text each and are subdivided into smaller

sections. Economic texts are covered in Chapter 2 (business cycle,

employment, corporate social responsibility, international trade); management

texts in Chapter 3 (management, company and organization structure);

production texts in Chapter 4 (economy sectors, production, logistics, quality);

finance texts in Chapter 5 (accounting and financial statements, banking,

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Hikma 23(1) (2024), 336 - 339

Islamic banking and finance, corporate financing and bonds, futures and

derivatives, market competition, microfinance); and marketing texts in Chapter

6 (products and brands, marketing, advertising, e-commerce). Each section

follows the same structure and is split into two parts to cover both translation

out of Arabic into English and vice versa. In both parts, there are always two

main texts with a glossary and six exercises each. The first exercise normally

consists of translating a short fragment of the presented text, and the second

one has sentences to translate. Then, there is an exercise to identify and

correct mistakes in ready-made translations. Finally, the reader is also asked

to match or translate vocabulary pairs and to translate a few last sentences

and whole paragraphs.

To offer a more detailed description of what this book looks like, I will

analyse the English-into-Arabic part of the first section of Chapter 5.3. (Islamic

banking and finance). To begin with, there is a text from 2011 that is 158 words

long. Its core terminology is displayed in a table with 18 terms. All the drills

that follow are related to the content of this first text and are thought to develop

vocabulary knowledge and translation strategies. The first exercise consists

of reading a long sentence in Arabic and choosing which passage of the first

text matches the translation. The second exercise prompts the reader to

translate five sentences into Arabic. In the third one, the student needs to

correct the mistakes found in three sentences in Arabic. The fourth exercise

consists of a terminology table that is to be completed with some more core

vocabulary. Exercise five consists of translating five sentences into Arabic,

whereas the last one requests a translation into Arabic of an 83-word text from

2007 where the reader can apply everything that they have learned from the

previous exercises.

All the references to the complete texts are provided in the References

section. The literature used by the author comprises works published in the

last twenty years or so. More specifically, 18% of the cited works dated from

up to five years before the publication date of his book, around 24% up to ten

years before, and 58% over ten years before, including 20 works published

before the turn of the century. Even though the literature could be more recent,

most of the works are from prestigious editorials and institutions, authored by

leading specialists. At the end of the book there is a bilingual index including

some of the most common terms encountered in the work. The book is

formatted flawlessly except for a couple of typos: on page 12, the letters in the

words

ءارﺷ and ﻊﯾﺑ are written from left to right and, on page 35, Arabi should

have been Arabic.

Both the variety of texts and the author’s overall objectivity constitute

the book’s unique selling points. There are no tautological explanations about

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Hikma 23(1) (2024), 336 - 339

grammar or translation techniques; instead, the focus is put on texts and

exercises. This is the reason why this book can be a great asset for Arabic

Translation teachers and students alike. I would posit that it needs to be

combined with solid knowledge of Arabic language, but also an understanding

of business texts and translation strategies. The weakest point of the book is

perhaps its first chapter, which seems incomplete for the learning of business

translation. When discussing the features of business texts, the chapter falls

short of examples to illustrate how each characteristic materialises both in

Arabic and English. For example, although passive structures are mentioned,

the discussion does not delve into their frequency in both languages, or in the

possible ways they could be rendered to avoid producing rough translations.

Likewise, in the section “Translation Tools and Technology”, the discussion

on CAT tools is limited to Google Translate and the Almaany dictionary.

Mention of specialist software and trustworthy sources of information, such as

terminology databases and glossaries, would have been welcomed here. For

instance, readers could be guided on consulting UNTERM (United Nations, n.

d.), the English-Arabic glossary by the International Monetary Fund (2016) or

ILOTERM, the International Labour Organization (n. d.) terminology database.

All in all, and despite the flaws of this first chapter, the quality of the

book is patently high. What students and teachers are provided in The

Routledge Course in Arabic Business Translation is a refreshing and up-to-

date selection of business documents that is beautifully blended with guided

translation exercises. All things considered, this is a comprehensive manual

that is very easy to navigate and that holds great potential to be used in

advanced-level Arabic translation courses.

EFERENCES

Altarabin, M. (2020). The Routledge Course on Media, Legal and Technical

Translation. Routledge.

Dickins, J.; Hervey, S. and Higgins, I. (2016). Thinking Arabic Translation. A

Course in Translation Method: Arabic to English. 2

edition. Routledge.

Giaber, J. M.; Hammo, N.; Hraiz, S.; Qadan, D.; Alnamer, R. and Almaamari,

S.. (2020). Translating headlines in print business advertisements from

English into Arabic in UAE. Across Languages and Cultures, 21(1),

107–124. https://doi.org/10.1556/084.2020.00006

Halimah, A. M. and Aljaroudi, Z. R. (2019). Translating English-Arabic

Business-to-Consumer Advertisements: a Domesticating Approach.

World Journal of English Language, 9(2), 42–54.

https://doi.org/10.5430/wjel.v9n2p42

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International Labour Organization (n. d.). ILOTERM [Online terminology

database]. https://www.ilo.org/MultiTransWeb/Web.mvc

International Monetary Fund (2016). IMF Glossary Web 2016: English-Arabic

[PDF file]. https://www.imf.org/external/np/term/ara/pdf/glossarya.pdf

Khuddro, A. (2019). Translating Business English into Arabic. 2

edition.

Australian International Academic Centre.

Lahlali, E. M. and Wafa, A. H. (2022). Advanced English-Arabic Translation:

A Practical Guide (2

ed.). Edinburgh University Press.

Shehab, E. M.; Daragmeh, A. T.; Qadan, A. R. S. and Nazzal, R. E. (2022). A

Cognitive Approach to Metaphor Translation in Business Texts. The

Case of English into Arabic translation. FORUM. Revue Internationale

d’Interprétation et de Traduction / International Journal of Interpretation

and Translation, 20(1), 116–133.

https://doi.org/10.1075/forum.21027.she

Shehab, E. M. and Nazzal, R. (2022). A Cognitive Analysis of War Metaphors

in English Business Texts and their Arabic Translations. Asia Pacific

Translation and Intercultural Studies, 9(1), 73–89.

https://doi.org/10.1080/23306343.2022.2054213

Shehab, E. M. and Nazzal, R. (2020). The Translation of Game/Sport

Metaphors in English Business Texts into Arabic: A Cognitive

Approach. Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Translation

Studies, 5(1), 21–40. https://doi.org/10.22034/EFL.2020.225222.1026

United Nations (n. d.). UNTERM [Online terminology database]. Accessed 4

April 2024. http://untermportal.un.org/UNTERM/portal/welcome

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