Staff in the Department of Arabic

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Dr Khaled Al-Shehari, MSc & PhD in Translation Studies (Manchester), PGCert (Durham), Trados Certified

Teaching Fellow in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures

Telephone: +44 (0) 191 33 43454

Fax: +44 (0) 191 33 43421

Room number: 214, Elvet Riverside II

Contact Dr Khaled Al-Shehari (email at khaled.al-shehari@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

I had my MSc (1998) and PhD (2001) in Translation Studies from the University of Manchester. My PhD investigated the strategies and constraints involved in the process of translating advertising texts from English into Arabic, using Semiotics as basis for the model of analysis. After graduating, I worked at the University of Science and Technology in Yemen, teaching different aspects of translation studies, mainly theory of translation, translation and technology, legal translation, translation of news, and interpreting. I also worked as a Legal Translator at the Yemen’s Access to the WTO Project.I joined Durham University in 2007, and have since been teaching Arabic at their undergraduate programme, and legal translation, translation practica and interpreting at their postgraduate level. Since 2001, I have also been working as a freelance translator with different clients including organisations such as the WTO, the EU, the IMF, and UK prisons and courts.

I am currently working on the application of corpus-based methods to the study of news translation as well as on establishing a corpus for the same purpose in the context of Arabic. My interest in corpus-based studies extends to the study of legal translation. Corpus-based studies have recently received more attention by scholars in the field of translation. However, this interest hardly exists in the context of Arabic. My work will focus on building up a translational legal corpus which can help trainers of legal translators, their trainees and legal translators in solving problems they encounter in careers and in the classroom, with relation to the English-Arabic context. I also have a special interest in studying the challenges that face trainers and teachers of legal translators in the context of Arabic, with a particular focus on the diversity of origins of trainees and the legislative systems they belong to in the Arab World. I am looking at the possibility of using corpora and corpus-based studies by trainers in their classrooms.

Winner of the Closing the Loop award at the Durham Students’ Union Awards 2013.

Research Groups

Translation/Linguistics/Pedagogy

Research Interests

Semiotics and Translation
Translation for the Media
Corpus-based Translation Studies

Indicators of Esteem

2008: Membership of Academic Board: Member of the academic board for the International Seminar "New Trends in Corpus Linguistics"
IATIS Membership: Member of IATIS (International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies)
Membership of Advisory Panel: Member of the Advisory Panel of New Voices in Translation Studies, a refereed electronic journal co-sponsored by IATIS and the Centre for Translation and Textual Studies (CTTS) at Dublin City University.
Membership of Research Group: Member of the ECPC (European Parliamentary Comparableand Parallel Corpora) research group. This project is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, and is directed by Dr María Calzada Pérez, Universitat Jaume I, Spain.

Selected Publications

Journal papers: academic

2007 'Semiotics and the Translation of News Headlines: Making an Image of the Other', Translation Studies in the New Millennium 5, pp. 1-12
2004 'Semiotics and the Translation of Terrorism from English into Arabic', Translation Quarterly 31, pp. 1-18

Translated: Book

2008 (co-authored with Abul-Yazeed, Noha) (trans.). OSCE/ODIHR‎, التزامات البعد الإنساني لمنظمة الأمن والتعاون في أوروبا (ODCE Human Dimension Commitments). Poland: OSCE/ODIHR‎

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Media Contacts

Available for media contact about:

Linguistics & Language: Translation Studies
The Media: Translation Studies
Foreign Literature & Language: Teaching Arabic to Non-native Speakers
Foreign Literature & Language: Legal Translation
Linguistics & Language: Translation Pedagogy

Grants Awarded

2007: A four-month fellowship from the British Academy to research on the transfer of brand names from English into Arabic
2006: A full conference grant by the European Parliamentary Comparable and Parallel Corpora to attend the Translation and Conflict II conference, Manchester, 17-19/11/2006
1998: A combination of grants by the University of Science and Technology (Yemen), Sana'a University (Yemen) and UMIST to help with the PhD study in Manchester
1997: A grant from the British Council in Yemen to study for MSc in Translation Studies in Manchester