The Academic Study Plan for the Master Program in Applied Linguistics and Translation
3) Comprehensive Examination (432598):
A graduate student must pass a qualifying examination (See Academic Rules and Regulations for Graduate Students).
Course Description
Advanced Reading in Language & Culture (432520):
This is a course in intensive reading comprehension which aims to familiarize students with the social and cultural contexts of the foreign language (in this case, English). In addition to enhancing students' reading strategies, the course sensitizes them to the basic cultural concepts and the specialized or technical terms used to convey such concepts. The reading passages are drawn from sources that represent the legal, educational, and political-economic systems and their institutions.
Research Seminar (432522):
Coming at the interface of linguistics and translation studies, this course is required for all new Masters students. The seminar is designed to provide through, extensive practice in research methods and in the mastery of recent criticism on a particular topic. Part of the course will be devoted to exposing students to requirements of scholarly writing. Another part will cover learning how to trace and then analyze the critical conversations circulating around the assigned topic, focusing on the most recent criticism. This part will require students to write numerous summaries and an annotated bibliography. The final part will involve writing a research paper that incorporates original ideas and demonstrates ability to do research. The course will also include a conference presentation component.
General linguistics (432525):
This course aims to survey all linguistic models and their main concerns respectively. (The models are those pertaining to phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics in addition to the schools of linguistics to which they belong, namely, the structural school, the generative transformation school and the Prague school. Contributions from the Ethnomethodologist and the ethnography of communication are also included.
Contrastive Textlinguistics (432526):
This course deals with comparisons and contrasts between the two language systems (in this case English and Arabic) at the text level. It is not meant to do the Traditional contrastive analysis at the word and sentence levels. Concepts such as cohesion and coherence as well as the distinctive nature of expository, legal and argumentative texts in both languages are carefully diagnosed with special emphasis on the linguistic devices (tools) used to serve specific rhetorical purposes. Evaluativeness, for instance, is contrasted with mere reporting, etc.
Sociolinguistics (432527):
This course aims to establish the place of sociolinguistics in linguistics (i.e. language use versus language structure). It deals with language variation according to the sociolinguistic variables such as socioeconomic class, geographical origin, ethnicity, gender, etc. The course, thus, deals with the varied types of Englishes including registers; it will also survey the various areas of sociolinguistic enquiry, such as language planning, language in education and language and identity.
Pragmatics (432528):
The course addresses the transition from formal generative semantics into pragmatics (i.e., the proper use of language according to context involving speaker/hearer and reader/writer intentions). In other words, the course has to do with how the context helps us work out what an utterance means. It is about finding explanations for how a hearer usually works out something like the meaning the speaker intends him/her to work out. Pragmatics, thus, is interested in those aspects of meaning that truth-conditional semantics seems not to adequately account for. It is interested in the functional properties of language (i.e. Language in use) rather than the formal properties. The course deals with speech acts and performative utterances as well as Grice's Maxims and conversational analysis.
Stylistics (432529):
This course aims to introduce students to the stylistic features of text design in both languages. Emphasis is placed on rhetorical devices such as reference, collocation, recursion, redundancy, coordination and subordination, nominalization and verbalization, emphasis, repetition, ellipsis, etc... Text forms representing exposition, argumentation and instruction are selected for analysis.
Discourse Analysis (432530):
This course deals with basic discourse concepts such structure and texture (Hatim and Mason's 1990) as well as thematization, staging, topicalization as well as the analysis of different types of discourses (e.g., the leftist discourse, the racist discourse, the sexist discourse). The analysis focuses on the linguistic markers of each type of discourse including those of spoken and written language.
Translation from English (432531):
The translation practicum course provides intensive practice in English/Arabic and Arabic/English translation. All practical translation courses are designed to provide translation practice over a wide range of genres (academic writing, newspaper and magazine articles, technical writing, literary prose), Subject areas (society, politics, economics, science, the law, religion, diplomacy) and text types (expository, argumentative and instructional texts). The English/Arabic and the Arabic/English practical translation courses complement the translation theory course. Through intensive practice in translation, translator trainees extract the theoretical insights pertaining to the process of translation. Issues such as critical analysis of source text and adaptation towards the target text reader(s), culture, collocation in translation, cohesion and coherence, and grammatical issues in translation are all brought up in the discussion as problematic areas for the translator.
Translation from Arabic (432532)
The translation practicum course provides intensive practice in English/Arabic and Arabic/English translation. All practical translation courses are designed to provide translation practice over a wide range of genres (academic writing, newspaper and magazine articles, technical writing, literary prose), Subject areas (society, politics, economics, science, the law, religion, diplomacy) and text types (expository, argumentative and instructional texts). The English/Arabic and the Arabic/English practical translation courses complement the translation theory course. Through intensive practice in translation, translator trainees extract the theoretical insights pertaining to the process of translation. Issues such as critical analysis of source text and
and coherence, and grammatical issues in translation are all brought up in the discussion as problematic areas for the translator.
Translation Theory (432533):
The course is meant to clarify some misconceptions held by the trainees about the translation process. It highlights the central theme that translating is an act of an interlingual-intercultural communication. Hence, the role of the target text reader(s), the purpose of each translating assignment on the basis of its specific social cultural context are addressed. Naturally, the age-long debate on literal versus free translation is addressed. Translator's mediation and the limits on translator's freedom and adaptation of source texts are addressed. The text typological bases of the translating act forms a frame of reference for all discussions of the various theorists' views on equivalence (e.g., Nida's, Newmark's).. etc.
Media and Management Translation (432535):
The course offers practical training in translating different types of texts in the fields of diplomacy, media, political science, international law, and the social sciences, in general.
Technical and Literary Translation (432536):
The course offers practical training in translating expository, argumentative and legal texts in the fields of the natural sciences and literary studies.
Translation in the Field of the Humanities (432538):
The course trains translator trainees in the translation of texts in Anthropology, Sociology, History, Cultural Studies, Political Science and Islamic Studies. The texts chosen will cut across the whole spectrum of the following text types: exposition, argumentation and instruction.
Translator trainees will make their own glossaries in the respective fields of the Humanities; thy will also become familiar with the specialized bilingual and monolingual dictionaries in these fields.
Bilateral & Consecutive Interpretation (432541):
This form of oral translation seems to be neglected in certain translation studies programs, despite the vital role of bilateral interpreting in international negotiations and understanding. The course provides practical training in interpreting between two individuals who don't know each other's languages. The course is run by simulating real- life situations such as interpreting for a diplomat and a journalist, or a lawyer and a defendant, or an Arab business-man and his American counterpart. The training and the feedback on trainees' performance is based on speech act analysis of the exchanges in the simulated interview, address terms, politeness formulas, culturally-specific expressions as well as utterances performing requests, comments, offers, declines, challenges, veiled threats, promising, thanking, announcing, etc, are the locus of this form of interpreter training. The course also provides practical training in conference interpreting. The course offers training in the basic strategies of simultaneous interpretation such as listening comprehension strategies, chunking and parsing of incoming input, rendition strategies into the target language. This includes on-sight translation as another type of simultaneous interpreting. The course material is based on speeches, lectures in an academic conference, briefings to the press etc. Also, training in consecutive interpreting is included.