The National Archives First Translation Conference was concluded with important recommendations followed by the UAE national anthem
The National Archives First Translation Conference was concluded with important recommendations followed by the UAE national anthem
The National Archives concluded its first translation conference (Translation in the Digital Age between Modern Technologies and Challenges of Historical Text). His Excellency Abdullah Majid Al Ali, National Archives’ Executive Director stressed in his speech that the conference with its participating Speakers and specialized Researchers from distinguished and prestigious international universities, translation societies and research centers representing all continents became an academic forum and a Hub for cultural and civilizational diversity- which constitutes and reflects the Emirati culture’s friendly and fraternal spirit- rather than being a mere academic research event.
H.E. added: This conference achieved unparalleled success as an academic forum that clearly reflected the linguistic and cultural diversity which characterizes the twenty-first century’s cosmic civilization and the contemporary Emirati society. H.E. pointed out that the conference presented ten scientific sessions, where a group of the finest Researchers and university Professors specialized in various branches of translation presented their valuable and enlightening research papers that discussed the role of translation in promoting civilizational dialogue and spreading the culture of tolerance adopted by the UAE government.
His Excellency highly valued and appreciated the great efforts of the organizers of this leading international academic event, the participating conference Speakers, Abu Dhabi Media, the NA media partner, and all who contributed and paved the way for this conference to achieve this phenomenal success.
The closing session was moderated by Mr. Hamad Al-Hamiri, Director of the National Archives’ Research and Knowledge Services Department, and witnessed the presentation of the conference recommendations by Professor Saddik Gouhar, National Archives’ Translation Expert. The important conference recommendations included: the necessity of holding such conference annually, and expanding its topics scope and increase its themes to include more issues related to translation and its specializations and its role in promoting the values of tolerance along with cultural and civilizational dialogue, publishing the research-papers in a scientific or academic periodical and gathering them in a book, and of the National Archives participation with major specialized internationally renowned entities in organizing and holding various translation conferences in the future.
On its third day, the conference presented two sessions, the first, entitled: "Problems of Translation from Foreign Languages: Japanese, German, Hebrew and Portuguese" was moderated by Mrs. Ghada Al-Ashry, National Archives Senior Translator. In this session, Dr. Maher El-Sherbiny, Professor of Japanese Language Department of Cairo University, discussed the problems that face translators when translating from Arabic to Japanese. Then Dr. Samar Mounir Ali Khalil, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Al-Alsun of Ain Shams University in Egypt, addressed in her research-paper titled: “The Impediments of Literary Translation from German to Arabic: Clemens Meyer’s short story collection “Dark Satellites” as a Model” the problems faced in translating literary works from German to Arabic, especially translating culture, environment, and society related or associated terms.
Following which Dr. Elham Mahmoud Mohamed Badr, Associate Professor at the Hebrew Language Department at the Faculty of Al-Alsun of Ain Shams University in Egypt, presented her research-paper entitled: “The Drawbacks of translating Sholem Aleichem’s story “Lehnyu” from Yiddish into Hebrew” in which she emphasized the importance of conducting a Comparison between the original Yiddish literary text (the source language) and the translated Hebrew text (the target language), to identify translation difficulties.
The first session of the conference third day was concluded by the research paper presented by Ms. Hagar Azaz, Lecturer at the Portuguese Language Department at the Faculty of Al-Alsun of Ain Shams University in Egypt, entitled “Translating historical terms from Portuguese to Arabic between cultural sensitivity and textual reliability”, in which she addressed the problems and obstacles that translators face when translating historical documents from Portuguese to Arabic, namely: the scarcity of Arabic-Portuguese dictionaries, in addition to the fact that political and historical terms translation requires great accuracy.
The second session, entitled: “Translation between past and present: issues and challenges”, was moderated by Mrs. Fatima Al-Hudaidi Head of the National Archives Publishing Unit, began with a research paper entitled: “Simultaneous translation in the digital era in presence of the emerging corona virus pandemic” which was presented by Dr. Amal Hassan Al-Sabban Professor at the French Language Department of Ain Shams University in Egypt, in which she stressed that simultaneous interpretation is the most difficult form of translation or interpretation, and requires employing special tools and devices, and is generally used in official context as in official meetings, seminars and conferences at International level. Then Associate Professor Youmna Azmy Gamal Abdel Rahman, at the Spanish Language Department of Ain Shams University in Egypt, presented her research-paper entitled: “The dilemma of translating linguistic leaps between classical and colloquial / foreign words and intertextuality: Mai Khaled’s novel (Gymnasium) as a model” in which she indicated that the novel events took place in Cairo and Switzerland, which presents a challenge for the translator along with other faced important challenges.
In the research-paper entitled “The Paratextual Discourse and the Post-Colonial Translation: Reuben Snir’s translation of Mahmoud Darwish’s poems into Hebrew”, Assistant Professors Nahed Raheel and Nahla Raheel from the Hebrew Language Department of Ain Shams University in Egypt stressed that when discussing translation between the Arabic and Hebrew languages one cannot ignore the post-colonial context in which translation attempts between the two sides or parties arose, as well as the hegemonic discourse directed by the ruling establishment towards Arabs and Arab Jews, within the majority-minority relations framework and relating or resulting issues.
In the research paper entitled: “Arabic/Spanish/Arabic Machine translation: problems and solutions,” presented by Dr. Shaima Mohamed Abdel-Fattah Radwan, Associate Professor of Translation at the Faculty of Al-Alsun of Ain Shams University, in Egypt, she indicated that in the information revolution, computers systems, Internet, websites and programs control era - there is an urgent need for an educational environment that prepares students and develops their skills for an era where means and tools change, and knowledge concepts evolve, and where the need to ensure their awareness of key modern concepts and terms in digitization field and their education employment mechanisms becomes clear.
Thus the two sessions of the third and last day of the conference were concluded with some inquiries that enriched the discussion and indicated the followers’ interaction with and interest in the presented research-papers.
National Archives
The National Archives of the United Arab Emirates was established under the Ministry of Presidential Affairs in 1968, upon the directives of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, with the aim of collecting and documenting material relating to the history and heritage of the United Arab Emirates and the Gulf region. Forty years after its establishment, His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, issued Federal Law No. (7) of 2008 changing its name to be the National Center for Documentation and Research, entrusted with organizing the UAE government entities’ archives, and later issued another order to change its name to be the "National Archives" in accordance with Federal Law No. 1 of 2014.
