College of Arts

The Department of Translation at the College of Arts defended a doctoral dissertation titled “Cognitive Harmony in Translating the Arabic Novel into English: A Pragmatic Study” on Thursday, October 30, 2025. The defense was attended by the Dean of the College, Professor Dr. Hatem Fahad Al-Taie, the Head of the Department, Dr. Hala Khalid Nijim, and a number of the College’s faculty members.

The study, presented by the Ph.D. candidate, Qasim Mohammed Basil Qasim Al-Azzawi of the Department of Translation, addressed the concept of cognitive coherence as the conceptual congruence formed in the translator’s mind when rendering the source text into the target language. This coherence is established when the translator successfully evokes the conceptual structure, mental image, and intended meaning of the original text and reconstructs it harmoniously. This reconstruction must align with the cognitive frames, interpretative abilities, and contextual assumptions of the target text’s readers.

The research aims to investigate the emergence of cognitive coherence during the process of translating the novel from Arabic to English. Furthermore, it seeks to evaluate the role of cognitive coherence in bridging the cultural, social, pragmatic, and cognitive gaps existing between the source and target texts.

Examination Committee