Back Translating Some Collective Nouns From English into Arabic

By Jawad Kadhim Jabir,
University of Basrah,
College of Arts, Department of Translation

jawadmaaridge at yahoo.com

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1. Introduction

This paper deals with backtranslating some of the collective nouns and analysis of the results of the test. It also explains what is meant by back translation as little research has been done about it in the literature of translation. It also sheds light on the grammatical and semantic treatment of collective nouns in English. Explaining what is meant by back translation and the treatment of collective nouns grammatically and semantically represent the theoretical part of this paper. The practical side is the second part in which the results and analysis of testing the group of college students are presented. Basically, this is done to see whether the terms or phrases in question will be rendered as they are in the source language. It is hypothesized that most of the testees are going to use the item 'group' as the equivalent for most of the collective nouns of English. In addition to that, English exhibits a wider range of collectives than Arabic. The number of the testees is (20). Back translation is considered one of the quality assessment types of translation. Quantity has nothing to do here.

This paper is also important as far as the field of pedagogy is concerned because it reveals some of the problems of translating collective nouns. It helps finding solutions for such problems facing our students at the university level. In addition, it is important in the field of contrastive linguistics since it deals with a phenomenon present in both languages. There are conclusions as far as the purpose of this paper is concerned, too. An appendix containing a list of the correct terms to describe groups of various types of nouns especially for animals is given at the end of this paper. It is of interest to the researcher as it is referred to in the discussion of collectives in the present paper. That is why the researcher feels it is important to attach such a list. One of the craziest oddities of English is that there are so many different collective nouns that all mean "group" but which are specific to particular things such as: a herd of elephants, a crowd of people, a box of crayons, a pad of paper, etc. There is great diversity of collective nouns associated with animals, from a sleuth of bears to a murder of crows (See the appendix).

2. What is back translation?

Scholars wrote about translation as a theory and practice, and each one gives a definition. Catford (1965:20), for example, considers it as a process which is always 'unidirectional', i.e. from a source language into a target language. In an article entitled The Theory and the Craft of Translation, Peter Newmark (1978:83) relates translation to other fields of knowledge. He points out that translation theory derives from comparative linguistics and within linguistics it is chiefly related to semantics; moreover, Newmark (ibid) defines translation as "a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message in one language by the same message in another language". Back translation is the translation of a translation from the target language back to the source language, presumably without prior or current access to the source text. The general purpose is to enable the text owner (writer, publisher, translation benefactor, or what we call in the business "the client") to see how the translation will read to the target audience, compared with the original text. Thus, back translation is a quality assurance method whose objective is to identify actual or potential trouble spots in the translation as well as in the original text in order to remedy them (Yahya, 2004:1). In addition, back translation is one of the techniques used to detect the item bias in cross cultural studies. In this regard, Geisinger (1994: 306) defines back translation as the following: "an original translation would render items from the original version of the instrument to a second language, and a second translator - one not familiar with the instrument - would translate the instrument back into the original language".

Back translation can improve the reliability and validity of research in different languages by requiring that the quality of a translation is verified by an independent translator translating back into the original language. Original and back translated documents can then be compared (Asia Market Research). Back translation is an attempt to recover the original text. It is of prime importance as Marilyn Gaddis Rose (1985:31) remarks that back translation has played an important role in cultural history, and as an example of the importance of back translation she mentions that the law books of some Crusader States were lost and had to be retranslated into French from an Armenian version. Rose (ibid: 3) classifies back translation into two main categories, namely the general back translation and that which assures the integrity of form. The first category is used in exemplification and verification (e.g., in the Bible), accuracy and completeness assessment and pedagogy. According to Rose, this type of back translation makes us "translate back to the source language to assure integrity of message" (ibid:6). In fact, this type is going to be followed here to assure the semantic correspondences between English and Arabic regarding some of the collective nouns, like for example "herd, flock, group, school, crowd, etc.". In other words, the semantic precision in translating these nouns is taken into account, and to that end a group of college students have been tested.

It is true that every translator faces the problem of meaning in both languages. In an article entitled The Degree of Semantic Precision in Translation, Paul Kussmaul (1985: 12) has emphasized that

Anyone who has been faced with the task of

translating a text will have experienced the problem
that a target language ( TL ) word has either a wider
or a narrower meaning than the source language (SL)
word with which it is supposed to correspond.

That is to say, a translator should care for the relevant features or components of the meaning of a word in a given context with regard to the function of the translation, not considering words as isolated units. As a maxim Kussmaul (ibid) declares that a translator has to assure the necessary degree of precision.

3. Collective Nouns Treated Grammatically and Semantically

Crystal (1997:69) defines a collective noun as a term which refers to "a noun [denoting] a group of entities, and which is formally differentiated from other nouns by a distinct pattern of number contrast (and in some languages, morphologically)" (emphasis his). He also adds that such a noun is seen as a single collective entity, or as a collection of individual entities. The researcher focuses mainly on Quirk et al (1975:189-190) regarding the grammatical treatment of the collective nouns in English. Collective nouns differ from other nouns in taking as pronoun substitutes either singular (it) or plural (they) without change of number in the noun ( e.g. the army: it / they ). Consequently, the verb may be in the plural after a singular noun:

The committee { was / were } discussing the proposal.
{ It / They} decided to reject the proposal by a vote of five to two.

There are nuances in meaning between the different substitution choices. The singular and the plural choices are by no means in complete free variation. The distinction made within collective nouns may appear to be one of number rather than gender. However, it also involves gender, since the difference in substitution reflects a difference in attitude: the singular stresses the non-personal collectivity of the group and the plural the personal individuality within the group. English gives the speaker many such choices to express his attitude to the content of his message.

Quirk et al (ibid) present a distinction of collective nouns. There are three subclasses of these nouns: (a) specific (b) generic and (c) unique. Examples which are not exhaustive include the following:

As far as concord is concerned, collectives take singular or plural verbs depending on their meaning. When you consider the group as one unit, you use a singular verb. An example is the following:

1. The jury agrees that the state prosecutors did not provide enough evidence, so its verdict is not guilty.

The noun 'jury' refers to more than one person. We do not have a jury of one; at least we need two people to compose the unit. One can recognize that the verb 'agrees' refers to a singular entity and the very use of the possessive pronoun 'its' as well.

Fowler (1930:602) trying to remove confusion gives the following classification for collective nouns:

1. nouns denoting a whole made up of similar parts, such as crew, flock, firm, cabinet
2.  nouns whose plural is in form not distinguishable from the singular, as sheep, deer, salmon, grouse.
3.  nouns whose singular is sometimes used instead of their plural, as duck, fish, shot, cannon.
4.  nouns denoting either a thing or a material consisting of many of them, as hair, straw.
5.  nouns denoting either a material or a collection of things made of it, as linen, silver, china.
6.  nouns denoting either a thing or some or all of them, as fruit, timber.
7.  abstract singulars used instead of concrete plurals, as accommodation  (= rooms), kindling (=pieces of wood), pottery (=pots).
8.  nouns denoting substances of indefinite quantity, as butter, water.

Nevertheless, he also causes a kind of confusion in this classification in the sense that the items (5, 6, 7, and 8) are considered as mass nouns and not collective nouns as nearly all grammar books state this fact (See for example Eckersley and Eckersley, 1960:20, 54, 89, 92, 130). Concerning concord, mass nouns take a singular verb; whereas, collectives vary between taking singular or plural verbs or both.

Semantically, John Lyons (1977:315-317) is followed in this regard. Collective nouns may be defined as lexemes which denote collections or groups, of persons or objects. In English, they fall into a number of different grammatical classes. 'Cattle' and 'clergy', for example, are treated as plural, but 'furniture' as singular (cf. 'These cattle are &.'; 'This furniture is &'). Others are singular with respect to concord within the noun phrase, but may be interpreted as either singular or plural for the purpose of concord with the verb or verb phrase in the sentence (cf. 'this family' : 'The family has decided&.' or 'The family have decided&.'). The grammatical ambivalence of many collectives with respect to the distinction of singular and plural is to be explained by the fact that a collection of objects may be regarded from one point of view as a single entity, but from another point of view as a plurality. It is worth mentioning that plural noun phrases like 'those men' functioning as general referring expressions are sometimes employed in order to ascribe a certain property to each of the members of a class, but that may also be used to assert something of the class as a whole. Noun phrases containing collectives are like plural noun phrases in this respect; and it is interesting to note that when such noun phrases refer to groups of human beings distributively, they necessarily select the relative pronoun 'who' (rather than 'which') and plural concord. Both of the following are possible, the former with distributive and the latter with collective reference to the Government: 'The Government, who have &, are&'; 'The Government, which has&, is&.'.But neither 'The Government, who has&., is&' nor 'The Government, which have&, are&.' is grammatically acceptable.

Concerning the place occupied by collectives in the structure of the vocabulary, many of them serve as superordinates in relation to a set of quasi-hyponymy of a different kind from that noted above in connection with such examples as 'round': 'shape' or 'blue': 'colour'. For example, 'cattle' is superordinate to { cow , bull , steer , etc.} as is shown by the regular use of such expressions as ' cows , bulls , and other cattle'; and 'clergy' is superordinate to { bishop , priest , etc. }. But, there are differences between these two examples. Although 'priest' and 'bishop' are quasi-hyponyms of 'clergy' , as 'cow' and 'bull ' are of 'cattle' (or 'man' and 'woman' of people ), 'priest' and 'bishop' also stand in a particular kind of part-whole relation with respect to 'clergy: cf. 'priests, bishops, and other members of the clergy'. 'Furniture' differs from 'clergy' grammatically, but it is semantically parallel with it: cf. 'tables, chairs, and other kinds / items of furniture'. There are many such collectives in the vocabulary of English and other languages which are superordinate to sets of lexemes in a hierarchical relationship that is ambivalent with respect to the distinction of hyponymy and the part-whole relation. Such collectives whether they are grammatically singular or plural, are very similar, semantically, to mass nouns.

Another kind of collectives is exemplified by 'flock', 'herd', 'library' (for example, a library of books, see the appendix) and 'forest (e.g. a forest of trees, see the appendix). The relationship between 'sheep' and 'flock', 'cow' and 'herd', etc., is clearly not one of hyponymy: such phrases as 'sheep and other kinds of flock' are nonsensical. Nor is it a part-whole relationship of the same type as that holding between 'arm' and 'body'. Collectives like 'flock' serve much the same individuating function as words like 'pool' or 'pound' in 'two pools of water' or 'three pounds of butter'. There is a difference of course: 'water' and 'butter' are mass nouns, whereas 'sheep' is a countable noun. Each sheep in the flock is an individual. What a collective like 'flock' does is to individuate a set of undifferentiated individuals in the way that 'pool' or 'pound' individuates a quantity of water or butter. A flock may be composed of sheep and lambs, as the clergy is composed of bishops, priests, etc., and a body is composed of arms, legs, etc. Flocks, the clergy and bodies may all be considered, from this point of view, as collection of entities. But 'the flock of sheep' or 'the legs of the body', is an acceptable phrase. 'Flock', 'herd', 'forest', 'library', etc. are like the more general words 'set', 'collection', 'group', etc., except that they are syntagmatically restricted. Being syntagmatically restricted, they may encapsulate the sense of the lexemes which denote members of the collections in question. The phrases 'a herd of cattle' and 'a suite of furniture' illustrate the differences between the two different types of collectives.

Saeed (2003:272) discussing the semantic classes of nominals points out that "a collective noun like the Government contains individual units - its members - and therefore is like a plural; however, if we do divide it, we cannot call each of the results a government&." (emphasis his). In other words, a collective noun consists of more than one member.

In Arabic, collective nouns are assigned the term /?ism al- d3am9 / ( nouns of plural). Al-Ghalaayini * (2004:217) refers to the collective noun as implying the meaning of plurality, but it has no oneness in its form just in its meaning as / d3ai ∫ / (army) , /∫a9b / (people), /qabi:la/ (tribe), / qawm / (folk), /xail / (horses), etc., having their singulars / d3undi /, /rad3ul /or /?imra?a / , / faras / respectively. He also adds that collectives can be treated as singular depending on their form, and they can be treated as plural depending on their meaning. Examples are the following:

1.  / al-qawm-u sa:ra / or / sa:ru: /.( The folk marched.)
2.  / ∫a9bun δakjjun / or / ? δkjja:?/ (Intelligent people)

In the first example the verb /sa:ra/ refers to a singular entity, while /sa:ru:/ refers to a plural one. Whereas in the second example, the adjective / δakjjun / refers to a singular noun, but /? δkjja:?/ refers to a plural one. Al-Ghalaayini (ibid) adds that as a collective noun is singular, it can be pluralized. For example, in Arabic the plural of /qawm/ is /?aqwa:m/.

There is also another class of collectives in Arabic. They are characterized as (–a- marked plural collectives in that they end with the sound / a / ) which are mostly classified separately as either plurals, as in /xajja:la/ (horse-men or riders), alternating with a parallel plural form /xajja:lu:n /, or genuine collective nouns, as in / xajja:la / (cavalry ) (Drozdik, 1998:24). There are lots of such collectives, but they are confusing and need to be learned so as to avoid such a problem (See Drozdik, ibid).

1. Someone has fed the herd.
2. I passed by a crowd of people.
3. Flocks of birds form beautiful combinations.
4. The elite of poets deliver their poems.
5. I met a group of friends yesterday.
6. Our football team played well last week.
7. A school of fish is swimming in the river.
8. The folk departed from their homes at night.
9. The crew is assembled ready for the first test flight
10. The police are hunting the gang.

a. He preferred to stick with the herd. 

Translating means comparing cultures. Translators interpret source-culture phenomena in the light of their own culture-specific knowledge of that culture, from either the inside or the outside, depending on whether the translation is from or into the translator's language-and-culture.

1.  Both languages have such a kind of nouns.

2.  In both languages these collectives can be used in the singular and the plural. Arabic collectives can be pluralized, but not all of the English ones can be so.

3.  English has a wider range of collectives than Arabic. Therefore, the testees faced difficulties in rendering most of these collectives.

4.  Their task becomes more difficult when they render from Arabic into English.

5.  At any time they face a difficulty in finding the suitable equivalent, the testees tend to use the item / mad3mu:9a / (group) as a kind of a counterpart for a collective noun in English.

6.  English is richer in the semantic components of the collectives than Arabic.

7.  The grammatical mistakes committed in rendering from Arabic into English are worse than the first type, i.e. from English into Arabic, a case which indicates that Arabic is richer in its grammatical system than English.

* Explanatory examples of Arabic words, phrases and clauses are phonemically transcribed. Names of Arabic books, authors and any other Arabic words are transliterated.

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