Ideology in the Language of the Press from the Perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis in English/Arabic Translation

Abstract

Due to the excessive weight placed on language as a formal system, traditional linguistics has not proved to be of much help to translation practice or translation theory. Much more productive are models of language that focus on communicative functions. These models are informed by such disciplines as text linguistics, discourse analysis, pragmatics, and semiotics. The present thesis shows how Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in particular can be applied to translation and highlights the benefit of insights gained from knowledge of this kind of discourse analysis for professional translating. To assess this, a selection of texts has been gathered with their analyses by prominent CDA scholars. The texts were then given to a group of professional translators to translate, first without the benefit of an analysis, and then with the analyses provided. Appreciable qualitative differences between pre-analysis and post-analysis renderings into Arabic have emerged as a result of insights gained by the translator from the CDA explication.