Synonyms In Documentary Language

Thirdly, coupling and synonym collocation is another lexical feature of documentary English and Arabic that complicates the process of translation. Stanojević (2011) stress that the existence of a set of synonym words that refer to the same legal concept complicates the legal drafting, as in the following examples: ‘Lessee and Tenant’ and ‘Assign and Transfer’. Moreover, these enormous number of synonyms leads to the emergence of idioms such as’ Able and willing’ and ‘ Agree and covenant’(p.71-72).Farahaty(2015) adds that the Arabic documentary language also uses synonym collocations that are conjoined by و (and) or أو(or), for instance, ضغط أو اكراه (pressure or coercion) and أقرو التزم (recognize and commit)(p.69).

Sabra(1995) illustrates that the documentary writings avoid the use of anaphoric devices or referential pronouns. This is because it is not always clear to which word in the text this certain pronoun refers. This may increase ambiguity which is not acceptable in the documentary writings. This problem leads to the repetition of words, as nouns are repeated instead of pronouns, and therefore causes redundancy (p.29). Thus, in order to avoid ambiguity and confusion, translators have to keep this redundancy while translating into Arabic or

Tiersma shows that documentary language uses this modal in order to express an obligation or a duty (p.105). As well as, Sabra (1995) focuses on the influence of this modal verb while translating into Arabic. He claims that any legal verb preceded by ‘shall’ must be translated into Arabic in the present form (p.31). Formality in the Arabic documentary texts, on the other hand, is achieved differently. It is expressed through forms of address or honorary titles, and these titles are also preceded by the word ( حضرة –Excellency) that is redundant and is neglected in English(Farahaty,