Translating Military Slang Terms from English into Formal Arabic

Abstract

Translating military slang terminologies is a demanding and a challenging task for the translators who work in this field. In most cases translators find them hard to translate due to the implications of these. This paper endeavors to investigate the proper translation techniques and strategies used to translate military slang terms which have only partial or no equivalents in the target language into formal Arabic. Newmark's translation methods namely the Semantic, Communicative and his translation procedures model will be used as the theoretical framework of the study. The data of the study is taken from the glossary of US and UK Army Slang: Acronyms and Terms. The results show that military slang terms is specific a language therefore special techniques should be used in order to translate it properly. Translators should be culturally and linguistically competent in languages. A previous military experience with good knowledge of military terminology. The following Strategies were employed by the translators: borrowing, compensation, cultural equivalence and paraphrasing.