Stylistic Challenges of Translating Legal Texts from Arabic into English among Jadara University Graduates

Authors

  • Mo’tasim-Bellah Alshunnag

    Department of English Language and Translation, Faculty of Arts, Department of English Language and Translation, Jadara University, Irbid 21110, Jordan
  • Nusaibah Dakamsih

    Department of English Language and Translation, Faculty of Arts, Department of English Language and Translation, Jadara University, Irbid 21110, Jordan
  • Zein Bani Younes

    Department of English Language and Translation, Faculty of Arts, Department of English Language and Translation, Jadara University, Irbid 21110, Jordan
  • Lana Aldohon

    Department of English Language and Translation, Faculty of Arts, Department of English Language and Translation, Jadara University, Irbid 21110, Jordan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i1.8125
Received: 11 November 2024 | Revised: 27 December 2024 | Accepted: 30 December 2024 | Published Online: 13 January 2025

Abstract

This research examines the stylistic obstacles encountering Translation master’s students when rendering Arabic legal texts into English. It delineates the influence of attaining the legal stylistic conventions in delivering a desirable legal translation. The study investigates the 20 participants’ renditions of five Arabic legal documents into English from qualitative and quantitative perspectives. Al-Jarf’s model of the salient stylistic features of legal language and Newmark’s model of translation strategies are deployed to comparatively analyse the interpretations of the legal texts translated. The study has identified considerable stylistic challenges in the rendered Arabic legal texts clearly seen in the absence of complex sentences, appropriate tense, lines and use of dots, conditional sentences, passivation, capitalization, nominalization, unique determiners, appropriate negation and restrictive connectors in addition to a number of inconvenient translation methods. The absence of these stylistic features is shown to lead to a serious deterioration in the translation quality of the legal texts translated owing to the loss of the legal themes and meanings signaled by these stylistic devices and conventions. The research has revealed that these stylistic challenges are noticeably arisen from the participants’ deficiency in the knowledge and experience in the stylistic conventions of SL and TL legal systems along with their linguistic incompetence in the SL and TL. This tendency to produce improper legal translation has also noticed to be linked to heavy reliance on machine and through translations on the expense of the contextual rendition of the respective legal text.

Keywords:

Legal Translation; Stylistic Features; Arabic; English

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How to Cite

Alshunnag, M.-B., Dakamsih, N., Younes, Z. B., & Aldohon, L. (2025). Stylistic Challenges of Translating Legal Texts from Arabic into English among Jadara University Graduates. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(1), 927–946. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i1.8125

Issue

Vol. 7 , Iss. 1 (January 2025)

Article Type

Article

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Copyright © 2025 Mo’tasim-Bellah Alshunnag, Nusaibah Dakamsih, Zein Bani Younes, Lana Aldohon

Creative Commons License

This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.