A Linguistic Analysis of the Translation of Display Shop Signs in Bahrain

Abstract

Translation is intricately connected to various aspects of life, serving as an essential factor for the promotion of human contact and exchanging of languages, civilizations, cultures, and other forms of knowledge. Achieving efficiency in translation is important for effectively conveying the same meaning among texts in different languages. To achieve this, different translation strategies have been developed. The aim of this study is to explore the translation strategies used in translating 252 shop signs from various regions in Bahrain, both from Arabic to English and from English to Arabic, based on Newmark's (1988) classification of translation strategies. After analyzing the 252 shop signs collected randomly from several random areas of Bahrain, namely Muharraq, Busaiteen, Manama, Riffa, Isa Town, and Adliya, the results of the study showed that there are 7 of Newmark’s strategies used in translating shop signs: transference, Literal translation, reduction and expansion, shifts or transposition, naturalization, modulation and word-for-word. In addition, The most common strategy employed was transference. However, the rest of Newmark's 18 strategies were not used in translating shop signs.