By Fatihah Zaini
GOMBAK, 8 December 2017: A professorial lecture recently held at the Main Auditorium was designed to share knowledge and to benefit from each other’s expertise.
This event was organised by Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences together with the Council of Professors IIUM.
Chairman of IIUM Council of Professors, Prof. Emeritus Dato’ Wira Dr. Mohd Noor Salleh, said that the idea of holding a professorial lecture is viewed as sharing of knowledge and to benefit from each other’s expertise.
“It was generally meant to create, celebrate and share the expertise of new and established professors of IIUM and to showcase the breath in the quality of the research conducted at the university.”
With its holding title called ‘Translating Cultural Differences Among Arabic, Malay and English’, the lecture was aimed to study the differences between Arabic, Malay and English cultures from the perspective of translation studies. Noteworthy, it was intended to uncover the problems of translating the culture-specific items between these three languages.
Even though it is a difficult task to be giving a lecture in English but Prof. Dr. Majdi Bin Haji Ibrahim, a professor of Applied Language Linguistics and Translation Studies in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature, believed that someone from the Arabic stream has to come forward to shed light on the field of Arabic status.
“Selecting an appropriate topic for this one time opportunity, was a major concern. To select an Arabic topic and present it in Arabic is not a problem but to select and present a comprehensive study related to Arabic in English without the communication I have, is a big problem,” Dr. Majdi admitted.
He also said that one aspect of cultural differences between Arabic, Malay and English is ecology where it comes in different divisions in which one of them is plants and fruits.
Dr. Majdi added, “Translating fruits between languages is quite challenging because fruits normally come in different types. For example, in Malaysia, we have 20 different types of bananas while in Medina there are approximately 200 different types of dates.”
The event was attended by students, lecturers and guests. It has become an eye opener especially with regard to the differences of culture in the world. ***