College of Arts

The Department of Translation at College of Arts held a viva for a Master of Arts thesis entitled “THE DISTORTION OF POLITICAL ARGUMENTATIVE TEXTS WITH REFERENCE TO ENGLISH –ARABIC TRANSLATION,” on September 12, 2021 in the Hall of College of Arts.The thesis submitted by the student (Marwa Ghassan Younis) in the Department of Translation, dealt with identifying the evaluative items at micro level in SL; analyzing these items to recognize their rhetorical functions in the ST depending on the analysis of argumentation strategy at macro level; , examining to what extent failure to grasp the rhetorical functions of these items may lead to distorting the focus of English argumentative texts when translated into Arabic; and finding out the most dominant evaluative item that blurs and depletes the text type of argumentative function.The study hypothesizes that inappropriate renditions of evaluative items at micro level lead to violate two standards of textuality: intentionality and acceptability, and distort the macro level structure of argumentative text. It is also hypothesized that student translators are not well aware of the rhetorical functions of micro level items used in argumentative text, and that pragmatic equivalence is the most appropriate equivalence of evaluative items.The study found out that capturing accuracy was the most challenging criterion for the subjects as it goes against the text producer’s intentionality; and the most dominant evaluative items that distorted the argumentation are collocation. Conclusions that have been arrived at through the analysis validated the hypotheses of this study. Finally, some recommendations have been put forward, and prospects for further research offered.The viva’s committee was chaired by Professor Dr. Abdul Rahman Ahmed Abdul Rahman, and the membership of Assistant Professor Dr. Shavan Shlimon Toma from the University of Dohuk and Assistant Professor Laith Nofal Muhammad, and under the supervision and membership of Professor Dr. Salem Yahya Fathi.