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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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CONTENTS PAGE
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1. Abstract………………………………………………………………………………2
2. Introduction………………………………………………………….…………….....3
2.1. Research Questions………………………………………………………..3
2.2. Aims & Objective…………………………………………………………4
2.3. Statement of Problems……………………………………,……………....4
2.4. Significance of Research ………….………………………………….......4
2.5. Delimitation of Research ………….…………………………………..….4
3. Literature Review……………………………………………………………….……5
4. Methodology …………………………………………………………………………8
5. Data Analysis…………………………………………………………………...........10
6. Conclusion …………………………………………………………….………..……13
7. References……………………………………………………………………...…….14

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 .
“ISSUES OF EQUIVALENCE IN SCREEN TRANSLATION:
A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH TRANSLATION
OF ‘BASHAR MOMIN’ ”
Walees Fatima, Maria Azam & Rahat Mehmood
University of Gujrat, Gujrat, Pakistan

1. Abstract

The key issues for translators are to build a sound vocabulary and to give the basic knowledge of
language. In the grammatical construction of a sentence, they emphasize vocabulary which
consists on single word at the same time by making its translation without taking any notice of
the use of collocation chosen by the native speakers. The purpose of this study is to give a
description of English/Urdu collocations. To point out the equivalent and non-equivalent
collocations, a corpus based approach has been adopted to give the description of English/Urdu
collocations that is based on contrastive analysis. Some patterns are easily translated but some are
not such as adverb.

Keywords: English collocations, Urdu collocations, Corpus base study, BASHAR MOMIN,
Screen Translation, Screen Literature and Equivalence.

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2. Introduction

Translating a native language to non-natives language is a phenomenon faced by thousands of

translators around the world. This situation became indignant when the native language
translators have to deal with idioms and collocations. The researchers define this phenomenon in
different ways because this term collocation is ambiguous. Different researchers define it is re-
current usage: “…English consists for the most part in the existence of so many odd comings-
together-of-words” (Palmer, 1933)
Some define it as a lexical unit (Halliday, 1964) and for some others it is a psychological
phenomenon. It can also be said that it is a combination of words in a language that occurs very
often and frequently than the languages those happen by chance (OALD, 9th edition). Learning
collocations is essential for Translators. Collocations divided into two major groups: lexical
collocations and grammatical collocations (Benson, Ilson, 1986). Both have an equal importance
for Translators in translating. Focus of this study is on lexical collocations and their role in
translating.
The interference of L1 in translating collocations of L2, it can be a hindrance and a support
Translators; a hindrance is as it leads to errors and it supports because different rules and patterns
of different languages are common. The phenomenon that collocations are mostly language
specific and are difficult to translate, so, translators usually avoid them.
Most of the Translators have to face problems in selecting the right collocational combination due
to lack of collocational competence. Pakistani translators, for example, make similar kind of
errors because they depend heavily on Urdu to translate English. For example ‘strong tea’ is an
acceptable collocational combination for English language but the Urdu background Translators
will likely to use ‘fast tea’ due to L1 influence that cause the errors in collocation patterns. But, in
some cases the equivalents of Urdu in English collocations like ‘fast car’ and ‘scorching heat’ are
acceptable collocational combinations.
It is necessary to have knowledge of fixed and relatively fixed expression like idioms and
collocations for the understanding of the meaning of text. So, it is essential for the Translator to
know the collocation of L2, he should have the full competence in L1 collocations.
2.1.Research Questions

This study contain some Research Questions, some as

 Which types of syntactic structures are used in ST and TT?
 Which types of syntactic structures are different in TT than ST?

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  How collocations are translated in ‘BASHAR MOMIN’?
2.2.Aims & Objectives

The aims and Objectives of this study are

 To know which type of syntactic structures are used in ST and TT?
 To show that which type of syntactic structures are different in TT than ST?
 To illustrate that how collocations are translated in ‘BASHAR MOMIN’?
2.3.Statement of the Problem

Translating collocations is a neglected field of study for translator. So, it requires support of
indigenous to categorize equivalent and non-equivalent collocations. Although collocations are
largely language specific yet there are number of equivalent collocations available in indigenous
languages.
The Translator did not know how to translate collocations by using equivalents and non-
equivalents Urdu/English patterns. The Translators can use this technique in translating
collocations to enhance the value of their translation. L1 should be used to facilitate ‘BASHAR
MOMIN’ translation by categorizing the equivalents and non-equivalents patterns.

2.4.Significance of Research

Over the years, English collocations have got basic place in the field of translation. There is no
any good work available on contrastive analysis of English/Urdu collocations in screen literature.
So, the main objectives of undertaking this research are to present analysis and to point out the
importance of translation of English collocations in screen literature. Translating Urdu
collocations into English is a neglected field of study which cause in erroneous use of the English
collocations on the part of Pakistani translators. This study is very significant to fill this gap and
for description of equivalent and non-equivalent of Urdu collocations into English collocations.

2.5.Delimitation of Research

This study focuses is on English and Urdu contrastive lexical collocations and indigenous
equivalent and non-equivalent of only Urdu collocations in English collocations not other
languages such as Sindhi, Punjabi, Pushto, Saraiki, and Hindko etc. The time was very short, so,
there are some limitations for this study. Study can also be held upon the Pragmatic abuse those
are used in BASHAR MOMIN and also upon the Semantic meanings those are used in BASHAR
MOMIN. This study is limited only upon the patterns of collocations those are used in English as
well as in Urdu.

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3. Literature Review

Collocation is a new phenomenon which is started by Firth. When corpus based study had been
adopted to find collocates then its further development started by Sinclair. Firth was the first
figure who gave the idea that the meaning is not restricted to one lexical unit (Firth, 1935). He
said that as meaning has five dimensions (phonetics, lexical, morphological, syntactic and
semantic), so collocation or lexical meaning is one of them. When we comprehend the meanings
then collocation (lexical unit) is very important. In the process of production of text, the choices
of words are rare rather than phraseological tendency where meanings are created through the
word combination. (Sinclair, 2004). The phraseological nature of language has long been
recognized as ‘Language does not expect us to build everything starting with blueprints rather it
provides large number of prefabs’ (Bolinger, 1976). Research on word combinations has
accumulated evidence for this tendancy either in written or spoken language.
The understanding of collocation became easy along the company it keeps as well phonological
awareness, syntactic analysis, morphological analysis and semantic relation of words to create
meanings those are very important in translation as well as for the interpretation of text.
Collocations are contentious because “…the hindarance between them and other different
multiple words lexical items not always happen to be clear-cut” (Grimm). So, it is essential to
make a clear boundary among different words constructions as idioms, collocations and free
combinations. Collocations are frozen words and their meanings can be known by the parts
through which it constituted but sometimes their combinations occur more often than by chance
for example ‘crying shame’ is an English collocation.
Carter (1998: 70) classifies collocations on a different cline: (a) unrestricted collocations, which
are the basic such as ‘take a look’,; ‘run a business’, etc; (b) semi-restricted collocations include
the number of items, which fits into some syntactic slots such as harbor grudges; (c) familiar
collocations are of regular company, as in lukewarm reception; (d) restricted collocations include
words that are generally more closed and fixed, such as stark naked (Carter, 1987). “Restricted
collocations are basically believed to be the most difficult part of the lexicon” (Sandomirskaya, I.
& Oparina E, 1996). After the Carter classification of collocation ,Hill (2000: 63-64) classifies
collocations differently because Carter did not describe the fixed and predicted collocations, so ,
he describes different collocations unique collocations, which are fixed; strong collocations,
which have a few other possible collocates; weak collocations, which can be easily predicted; and
medium-strength collocations, which Hill suggests to be strongly emphasized in class
(Boonyasaquan, 2009).

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Collocational relations give the big problems for identification and that a difficulty remains one
of interpreting how the collocating items are went together (Carter, 1998). Explaining collocation,
Lin (1998) observes that "baggage and luggage" are synonyms, only "baggage" can be modified
by emotional, historical and psychological considerations. This lack of valid substitution of a
synonym is a characteristic of collocation (Manning & Schutz, 1999). Hoey (2005) defines
collocation that it is a psychological association between words to four words apart. This is
obvious in the fact that “the semantic approach defines collocations by the actual meanings they
have and by the usefulness of combinations of words throughout different contexts” (Elewa,
2004). Scholars and researchers (Firth J. R., 1968; Benson, M., 1985; Benson, M., Benson, E. and
Ilson, R., 1986; Ghazala, 2008; Carter, 1987; Baker 1992; Carter, 1998; Hill, 2000; among
others) have classified collocations in different ways and within the different types. However,
Hausmann (1984: 399; cited in Kimmes, A. and Koopman, H., 2011: 5) differentiates between
fixed and non-fixed word combinations: collocation as such belongs to the non-fixed kind of
word combinations.
However, Palmer, H. (1933; 1938) was the first linguist to give an attention to the significance of
collocation in verbal communication. Palmer sees that every word has its own grammar Instead
of referring to the importance of ‘grammar’ in Translating a language (Hasan, 2004). In fact, it is
true that “The polysemyous words are disambiguated by the representation of its collocation”
(Favretti, 2008: 92). It is true that translator “will be ‘caught’ every time and any way through his
collocations those are not acceptable rather than his Grammar, which is ‘better’ than translating
L1” (Newmark, 1981: 180; Farghal, M. & Obiedat, H., 1995; Fillmore, C.1985).
There is a gap in this study from the others that there is no work of Screen literature through
collocations. There are different studies held on collocations but not on the collocations in Screen
Literature and Translation. The model of Firth that is based on corpus based studies is applied on
various studies. This study also follows that model.
Theoretical Background
The theoretical background of this study is based on CA (the study of similarities and differences
across languages). Lado (1957) said in Gass & Selinker that “every one tend to transfer the forms
and meanings and the distribution of forms and meanings of his native language and culture to the
foreign language and culture both productively and when attempting to speak the language and to
act in the culture and receptively when attempting to understand the language and culture as
practiced by natives”. Similarly he (1957) said that “the elements those are similar to L1 will be
easy for him, and the elements those are different will be difficult”.
Fries said that “The efficient materials those are based on a scientific description of the language

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to be translated that I carefully compared with a parallel description of the L1”. As, Lado said
that the differences between languages is very important in contrastive analysis, the study of
equivalent and non-equivalent collocations of Urdu into English are based on contrastive analysis
by using the corpora of Urdu and English to find the similarities and differences in collocational
pattering and to develop a competence of correct collocational usage.

4. Methodology

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The corpus of languages is used to find the Urdu collocations and English collocations.

Corpus of Urdu language

Corpus of English language

The corpus use revolutionized the frequency of collocations in English and software tools like
Antconc

is used to find the all collocational structures and combinations with the help of specific corpus
analysis. The selected collocations of Urdu and English languages are made as corpus based, the

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80 words has been compiled to check the equivalents and non-equivalents as the words are
actualized in real setting, so it gives us the exact description of collocated words.

BASHAR MOMIN drama, written by Zanjabeel Asim, was selected to compile the Urdu corpus
and the genre was dramatic. Unicode utf-8 language encoded was used.
The examples of collocations were extracted through Antconc.

5. Data Analysis

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There are two major groups of collocations; lexical collocations and grammatical collocations
(Benson, Ilson, 1986).
Lexical collocations show the combination of open word class and it shows the following
possible structures;
(1) Adjective + noun greatest things
(2) Noun + verb prices fall
(3) Verb + noun withdraw cash
(4) Verb + adverb mediate deeply
(5) Adverb + adjective perfectly capable, ill mannered
(6) Noun + Noun self worth

Grammatical collocations show the combination of close class with the help of one open class
and perform specific grammatical functions for example: to be attracted to etc.
Lexical collocations are more important than grammatical collocations.
The structures of English lexical collocations are found in Urdu.
Example;
(1) Adjective + noun ‫خوبصورت بہن‬
(2) Noun + verb ‫جرم کرنا‬
(4) Adverb + verb ‫سختی سے کچلنا‬
5) Adverb + adjective ‫مکمل ماہر‬
6( Noun + Noun ‫شطرنج کا کھیل‬
The lexical collocation structures of Urdu language as Noun + Verb and Adverb + Verb are
opposite to English lexical collocational structures of Verb + Noun and Verb + Adverb but the
other lexical structures of English and Urdu collocations are the same. Urdu N+V and in English
V+N and same as Adverb + V and V + Adverb structures of collocations are not same but by

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presenting substitutional word class of equivalent collocations can give best understanding in
translating.
Table 1; English/Urdu equivalent collocation (noun and verb)
English Urdu Collocation
Collocation
Verb Noun V+N Noun Verb N+V
Make A mistake Commit a ‫غلطی‬ ‫کرنا‬ ‫غلطی کرنا‬
crime
Made A huge scene Made a huge ‫تماشا‬ ‫کیا‬ ‫تماشا کیا‬
scene

Table 2; English/Urdu equivalent collocation (verb and adverb)

English Collocation Urdu Collocation

V Adv V + Adverb Adv V Adv + V

defend Vigoursly Defend vigoursly ‫ہمت سے‬ ‫ہمت سے دفاع دفاع کرنا‬
‫کرنا‬

Same as the equivalent and non-equivalent of English collocations in Urdu in a systematic way
will enhance the vocabulary as well as increase the competence level of translators to use English
collocations correctly.

Table 3; Equivalent of English collocations in Urdu

Sr. English Collocations Equivalent Urdu collocations
1. Adverse effects ‫برے اثرات‬
2. Beam of light ‫روشنی کی کرن‬
3. Break the law ‫قانون شکنی‬
4, Break the silence ‫خاموشی توڑنا‬
5. Commit a crime ‫جرم کرنا‬
6. Fast car ‫تیز گاڑی‬
7. Make a mistake ‫غلطی کرنا‬
8. Painfully slow ‫تکلیف ده حد تک سست‬

Table 4; Non-Equivalent of English collocations in Urdu

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Sr. English Collocations Literally translated Non-Equivalent Urdu Collocations

1. Make a choice ‫انتخاب بنانا‬ ‫انتخاب کرنا‬

2. Promising start ‫با وعده آغاز‬ ‫اچھا آغاز‬

3. Strong tea ‫مضبوط چائے‬ ‫تیز چائے‬

4. Lose your patience ‫صبر کھونا‬ ‫بے چینی‬
5. Significant number ‫شاندار عدد‬ ‫بہت بﮍی تعداد‬
6. Thick fog ‫موٹی دھند‬ ‫شديد دھند‬

Findings
Firstly, English collocation of table 3 are easy to translate for Urdu background Translators but
the collocations of table 4 without non-equivalent of English collocations result the wrong use of
English collocations. Instead of making literal translation of the collocations, there is a need of
making these non-equivalents as balanced English collocations in Urdu to help the Translators.
Secondly, the Urdu collocations such as verb have inflectional ending like ‫ نا‬,‫ دينا‬,‫ توڑنا‬،‫ کرنا‬etc.
The inflectional ending of the Urdu verbs are not possible in collocations of English Language
and the Urdu collocations also include the adverbs that consist of more than two words such as
‫ مکمل طور پر اہل‬and ‫ تکلیف ده حد تک سست‬. So, it is necessary to categorize Urdu collocations on
frequency basis by using corpus of the Urdu language to solve this problem.

6. Conclusion
The findings of this study suggest that collocations are very problematic for the Translating
‘BASHAR MOMIN’ into English subtitling but if there is a systematic categorization of
equivalent and non-equivalent of English collocations as well as of Urdu collocations can be
facilitated in translating. The importance of translating Urdu collocations in BASHAR MOMIN
is important not only to enhance the value of translation but also to enhance competence of the
English language collocations for the Translators of screen literature. This brief paper concludes
the following points those based on the above discussion; Firstly, the systematic analysis of
equivalents of Urdu collocations in English language is indispensable to support Pakistani
English Translators who always shied away from Translating English collocations. Secondly,
categorization is also important because collocations are language specific and are so many in

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numbers. This study also opens a new horizon for future researchers who have an interest in
contrastive analysis, lexicology, lexicography, translation and other similar kind of fields.

7. References
Shammas, N. A. (2013). Collocation in English: Comprehension and use by MA students at Arab
universities. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 3(9), 107-122.
Anwar, B. (2009). Urdu-English code switching: The use of Urdu phrases and clauses in
Pakistani English (A non-native variety). International Journal of Language Studies, 3(4).
Awan, M. A. Computational Description of Urdu Collocations.
Maurer-Stroh, P. (2004). Towards a bilingual adjective-noun collocation: dictionary of English and
German. na.
Gass, S., & Selinker, L. (1983). Language Transfer in Language Learning. Rowley, Mass.:
Newbury House.

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Firth, J. R. (1957). Papers in Linguistics 1934-1951. London: Oxford University Press. Fries, C.
(1945). Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University
of Michigan Press.
Lado, D. R., & Fries, C. C. (1943). English Pattern Practices. University of Michigan Press
Men, H. (2015). Vocabulary increase and collocation learning: a corpus-based cross-sectional
study of Chinese EFL learners(Doctoral dissertation, Birmingham City University).

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