The pervasiveness of coordination in Arabic, with reference to Arabic>English translation

What is it about?

This article analyses aspects of the greater use of coordination in Modern Standard Arabic as compared to English, illustrating this through Arabic>English translation. It argues that Arabic ‘favours’ coordination linguistically, textually and rhetorically, as follows: 1. The linguistic resources of Arabic favour coordination while those of English favour subordination – whether these are lexical (Arabic و wa- and ف fa- vs. English ‘and’), or semantic (the possibility of backgrounding coordinated clauses in Arabic compared to the marginality of backgrounded coordinated clauses in English); 2. Accompanying Arabic textual norms, e.g. (near-)synonym repetition and chained coordination, favour coordination while those of English favour subordination; 3. Further associated ‘rhetorical semantic’ uses of coordination are found in Arabic, e.g. hyperonym-hyponym repetition and associative repetition, which do not exist in English; 4. These extended usages further entrench coordination as a norm in Arabic as compared to English.

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Why is it important?

In considering the pervasiveness of coordination in Modern Standard Arabic, this article attempts to extend the domain of investigation beyond previous studies. These concentrated on the fact, as a general writing feature, of the greater use of coordination in Arabic than English, particularly to link clauses or sentences. This article argues that not only is coordination a general feature of Arabic writing, but that various linguistic, textual and ‘rhetorical semantic’ norms work individually – and sometimes in combination – to further entrench coordination as a feature of Modern Standard Arabic. Coordination is thus more ‘hard-wired’ in Modern Standard Arabic than a simple statistical analysis of its relative predominance would suggest. This perspective suggests a new approach to Arabic coordination. This would consider in greater detail (e.g. through larger and more coherent corpora) than in the current study the relationship between the general fact of the prominence of coordination in Arabic and the way this interacts with the linguistic, textual and ‘rhetorical semantic’ norms identified in this article and with other similar norms perhaps still awaiting identification and analysis.