AWEJ Special Issue on Translation No. (2) 2013 pp.51-66
Translation Project Organizations: A perspective on KALIMA
Radia Kesseiri
Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies, Leeds University
Mariam Bani Hashem
Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies, Leeds University
Abstract
In recent years, Globalisation has entailed an increasingly expanding and prosperous development of translation projects with high volume translations in the Arab World. This brings up to surface the issue of quality in translation and in particular quality in translation project organizations, which is a crucial factor to their success and longevity. This paper aims at providing a brief account of how the concept of Translation Projects has developed, with particular insight into the Arab world, and attempt to decipher how quality in translation project organizations is achieved through an extensive process of editing and revising. The study will look at KALIMA as an example for a translation project in the Arab World. KALIMA is an Arabic word with an English equivalent that is ‘word’. The KALIMA Project is based in the United Arab Emirates, and is a very ambitious initiative funded by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage. This study will be accordingly divided into four main sections. Firstly, this paper will look at the development of translation projects in general and in the Arab world in particular. Secondly, it will explore theories behind translation and quality by looking into scholarly works in order to epitomise the various strategies and techniques used by translation project organizations to produce and ensure quality in translation. Thirdly, this study will provide an analysis of established mechanisms and structures. Finally an example of a translation project in the Arab world that is the KALIMA project will be given.
Keywords: Translation project organizations, quality, revising, editing, KALIMA
