Translation can generally be viewed as a great opportunity for building bridges and broadening horizons, as it effectively makes cultural exchange possible across time and space. Translation across Time and Space can, through its overall structure and content, serve as an introduction to translation as a product and a process. Thus, it features an interesting selection of studies that “cross various spaces, deal with several aspects of translation and cover a diversity of languages” (vii).
The book consists of ten chapters. The first two chapters focus on the study of literary translation. In this context, in Chapter 1, Moqattash mainly deals with domestication and foreignisation as well as the translator’s (in)visibility based on literary translation from Arabic to English. She concludes that “domestication and foreignisation can be employed without excluding each other” (14). In Chapter 2, Al-Badawi presents a discussion of two literary texts translated from Arabic to English. He analyses the translatability of literary and cultural utterances and concludes that the cultural differences between Arabic and English result in incomplete renderings which “cause the text to lose some of its cultural connotations” (32).
Chapters 3 and 4 are devoted to the analysis of political texts. In Chapter 3, Heliel emphasizes the role of political discourse analysis in translating political texts and discusses linguistic and pragmatic strategies for dealing with deceptive issues in political speeches. In Chapter 4, Kadhim focuses on ideological factors in translating political news and presents a general discussion of the translator’s ideological impact on the translation process based on data from BBC news texts.
Again focusing on Arabic and English, in Chapter 5, Goui draws our attention to gender differences and discusses gender correspondence ambiguity based on some parts of speech such as nouns, pronouns and adjectives. Particular emphasis is placed on gender ideology in order to achieve more faithful translations, “because failing to render gender with exactness is unfaithfulness, which is not acceptable in translation” (79).
Interpreting studies has become an indispensable part of Translation Studies, but the professionalisation process of interpreting attracts inadequate attention. Accordingly, in Chapter 6, Ioannidis and Resta investigate the professionalisation process of interpreting in Greece by offering two questionnaire-based surveys within the paradigm of theory of control.
In the 21st century, we have witnessed a rapid increase in the use of machine translation, which is “the most exciting technology to come along since translation memory first made an appearance in the translation industry” (Thicke 2013: 17). Against this background, in Chapter 7, Hadla and Alhasan offer an intriguing analysis of the impact of machine translation on students of the Translation Department at Zarqa University.
In Chapter 8, Al-Shukri and Fareh identify the similarities and differences between the English “eye” and its Arabic equivalent “ʕayn” and therefore pay attention to the morphological specification, inflections, compounding, denotative and metaphorical meaning and idiomatic usages.
In Chapter 9, Hatab surveys the issues of standard and colloquial Arabic in courtrooms in Jordan. In this context, she discusses and refers to diglossia, interpreting practice, written documentation of oral discourse at the Jordanian courtrooms as well as forensic translation.
In Chapter 10, GÂȚÂ and Al-Khatib discuss translation strategies in relation to lexical and semantic transfer from French to English in bilingual magazines, which includes analysis of magazine section titles, presentations of contributors (containing six elements in the traditional format of presentation) and text of the articles.
One of the most impressive features of this book is the fact that it addresses many important concerns in Translation Studies, such as literary, political and legal issues as well as machine translation and interpreting, which may provide readers with more insight into translation as a product and a process. Another impressive feature of this book lies in the fact that it is abundant with examples which are dealt with in great detail. Moreover, each chapter is concerned with one specific topic and is organised in a clear and logical way which guides readers to a better understanding of its content.
However, it should be noted that the book has its flaws. For example, it would have been useful if further reading, appendices, an index and a glossary were included in this book, since these may be valuable resources for further research. In addition, some formatting inconsistencies have been noted. For example, in Chapter 3, “1.1.” and “1.2.” should be changed to “1.1” and “1.2”, and in Chapter 4, “1.2.” should be changed to “1.2”. The standard style of reference should also be followed. For example, in the References of Chapter 7, the year of publication should be in parentheses.
In conclusion, this book is a delightful read and will be of use not only to students and teachers, but also to discourse analysts and researchers whose interests lie in Translation and Interpreting Studies.
This research is supported by the Humanities and Social Sciences Project, Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China under Grant No. 18YJC740045.
Linxin Liang
Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
E-mail:foreverllx@126.com