This book is a practical guide for parents of children with special needs. The author, Dr Sajad Haidar, based the content of this guide on his own personal experience in dealing with his mentally challenged child and on his practice and doctoral research into the education of children with special needs in the USA. The book was translated into Arabic by Professor Dr Said Shiyab, Professor of Linguistics and Translation Studies at United Arab Emirates University, in a simple and interesting style of writing. This book comes at a time when the Arab world is increasingly going through political and military unrest leaving many children handicapped and physically, psychologically, mentally and socially disadvantaged. In the absence of supporting organizations and institutions, this book aims to fill a small gap in the Arabic library on treatment and education of children with special needs.

This book is a must for parents of children with special needs.

[excerpts from the book] The concept of applied translation is a confused one in Translation Studies. While researchers have alluded to the term in recent years no independent, single publication seems to address or explain the concept head on. One can easily argue that there is no such thing as applied translation; only applications of translation to various texts in various contexts and situations. All translation is applied translation. The act of translation itself is carried out with the intention to communicate in the target language text written in the source language for a set of readers in that language and for a specific purpose. […]

The focus of Applied Translation Studies has been on translation as a social action. This book takes a different approach to applied translation as a transaction between writer, translator and user. By looking at the translation act as a transaction, we can situate the discussion of applied translation in transactional translation analysis. After all, applied translation is translation applied to real-life situations. It is translation that is undertaken to enable an intended user to conclude a social transaction (Darwish, 2010). […]

This book is broadly but not equally divided into seven parts. Part One deals with issues relating to the translation profession. Part Two deals with issues relating to translation quality assurance and management. Part Three deals with professional training models. Part Four deals with networking in a globalized world, Part Five deals with issues of diversity in teaching translation in the classroom, Part Six explores occupational hazards and safety in the translation and interpreting profession, and Part Seven provides concluding observations about the topics covered in the book. Each part has its own introductory chapter.

About this book

PART ONE: The Translation Profession

Introduction      

Chapter 1 The Translation Profession: Viability or Survivability?

PART TWO: Translation Quality

Introduction      

Chapter 2 Translation Quality Assurance: Standards and Practices in Australia

Chapter 3 Translator Competence Assessment and Translation Quality Evaluation

PART THREE  Professional Training Models

Introduction

Chapter 4 Translator Capability Maturity Model for Sustained Professional Development

PART FOUR  Translation Globalization

Introduction

Chapter 5 Situationality and Affinities in Globally Distributed Knowledge Transfer Networks

Chapter 6 Translation Readiness and the Theory of Affordance

Chapter 7 Translation Needs Analysis

Chapter 8 Are You Talking to Me? Audiovisual Translation

PART FIVE  Teaching Translation

Introduction

Chapter 9  The Pedagogic Content of Knowledge

Chapter 10 Diversity in Teaching Translation in the Classroom and the Doctrine of Failure

Chapter 11 Designing Decision-based Translation Assessment Tests

Chapter 12 Towards a Signature Pedagogy of Translation

PART SIX Occupational Hazards

Introduction

Chapter 13 Issues of Health and Safety in Translation and Interpreting

PART SEVEN Concluding Observations

Introduction

Chapter 14 Transactional Translation

Most forensic attribution relies on analysis of original texts by scholars and analysts who have knowledge of both language and culture of the source text as well as the socio-political context of text. In situations where source language scholarship is not available, attribution of authorship is established through translations carried out to specifications by translators of varying skills and orientations. Such a route has its own set of problems, where in many instances vital clues in the original text are overlooked or mistranslated.

This book presents a framework for translation-mediated forensic analysis to deal with problems that require special techniques, procedures and methodologies not normally found in a recently developing branch of linguistics called Forensic Linguistics. Forensic translation, as referred to in this book is "the application of translation knowledge to mediated forensic contexts for the purposes of the law, such as establishing evidence."

This book examines the way the ideological stamp manipulates the translation of political discourse in news media and how it affects accuracy in the translation process. In the ideal world, news media, mainly news reports, are expected to present information objectively in order to allow readers to make up their own minds. However, this book argues that translation in the real world, particularly in the context of media discourse about Arab-Muslim political affairs with the western world, is not a mere linguistic tool in the field of political media but  rather a tool of ideological manipulation.

The analysis of juxtaposed media reports in both English and Arabic reveals the critical role of ideology in manipulating the production of news reports. The analysis also indicates that the inaccuracy and mistranslation of the extracted political samples of news reports are motivated by a broader perspective of political and ideological editorial stance. Consequently, intentional and inaccurate news media translation of this nature must be distinguished from mistranslation caused by translator incompetence. [from the author's Introduction]