Register asymmetry in military translation: a corpus-based analysis of English colloquialisms rendered into Modern Standard Arabic

Language is more than a set of words; it is a system of social signals that changes depending on who is speaking and where. In the military, this is especially true. Soldiers develop their own informal language, a mix of slang, nicknames, and inside jokes that builds group identity and marks who belongs to the team. This language is often casual, culturally specific, and packed with abbreviations that make no sense to outsiders. The challenge for a translator is to take these informal, earthy expressions and translate them into a formal, official language used by governments and institutions. This is particularly difficult when moving from English to Modern Standard Arabic. English military slang is loose and conversational, while Modern Standard Arabic is the high, formal register used for official documents, news, and law. There is a vast gap between the casual tone of the source and the serious tone required by the target. If a translator simply copies the words, the result might sound strange or disrespectful. If they change the words too much, they might lose the meaning or the attitude the original speaker intended.

A team of researchers from the University of Jordan set out to understand exactly how professional translators bridge this gap. They focused on a specific problem: how to translate English military slang into Modern Standard Arabic without losing the core meaning or breaking the rules of formal language. They did not look at standard military terms like "tank" or "helicopter," which have clear, direct translations. Instead, they looked at the informal words soldiers use to describe themselves and each other, such as calling a pilot a "fly-boy" or a marine a "leatherneck." The researchers gathered a list of seventy-seven of these English slang terms and worked together to create the best possible Arabic translations for them. Their goal was to see what strategies they used when a direct translation was impossible. They relied on a framework developed by the translation scholar Peter Newmark, which helps categorize how translators make decisions. The framework asks whether a translator should stick closely to the original words and structure, or whether they should focus on recreating the same effect and meaning for the new reader, even if it means changing the words completely.

The researchers analyzed their seventy-seven pairs of English and Arabic terms to see which strategies appeared most often. They found that the translators almost never tried to keep the original English sound or spelling in the Arabic text. In many fields of translation, especially with technical terms, it is common to simply borrow the foreign word and write it using the local alphabet. However, the researchers found that this approach was completely absent in their study. When dealing with informal military slang, the translators did not borrow the English words at all. Instead, they chose to focus entirely on the meaning and the function of the word. The most common strategy, used in more than half of the cases, was to find a neutral, formal Arabic word that performed the same job as the English slang. For example, the informal English term "grunt," used to describe an infantry soldier, was translated simply as the standard Arabic word for "infantry soldier." The casual, rough edge of the English word was smoothed out, but the identity of the person remained clear. This happened because the formal Arabic language does not have a matching informal register to carry the same social weight.

The second most common strategy involved explaining the meaning of the slang term with a longer phrase. This happened most often with the Air Force terms, which were frequently built on metaphors. When a pilot was called a "jet jockey," the translator could not find a single Arabic word that captured both the machine and the playful image of a rider. Instead, they wrote a phrase that described the person as a "fighter pilot," dropping the metaphor but keeping the factual meaning. This showed that the translators were willing to lose the colorful imagery of the original to ensure the official document remained clear and accurate. The researchers also found that the type of military branch mattered. Terms related to the Navy and Marines were mostly translated using the first strategy, simply swapping the slang for a formal title, because those terms were usually just names for roles. In contrast, the Air Force terms, which relied more on metaphors, required the second strategy of explanation.

There were a few cases where the translators felt the attitude of the original word was too important to lose completely. For instance, some slang terms were meant to be insulting or showed a specific kind of respect. In these rare instances, the translators added a small note or a descriptive phrase to explain the tone, ensuring the reader understood that the original word was meant to be derogatory or affectionate. This was a way of recovering a piece of the original meaning that would otherwise have vanished in the translation. The study also looked at terms specific to British military culture, which often included references to nationality or region. Here, the translators sometimes replaced the specific cultural reference with a broader, formal description of the soldier's nationality, again prioritizing the official record over the cultural nuance.

The findings suggest that when translating military slang into Modern Standard Arabic, the priority is always the function of the word in the official document, not the form of the original word. The translators consistently chose to make the text sound formal and clear, even if it meant losing the informal flavor of the English slang. They did this because the target language, Modern Standard Arabic, is strictly regulated and does not have a sanctioned way to include informal speech in official texts. The researchers concluded that this approach is not a failure of translation but a necessary adaptation to the rules of the language. The study provides a clear guide for future translators, showing that when faced with military slang, the best approach is to identify the role or the person being described and use the standard formal term for it. If the slang term carries a strong attitude, a small explanation can be added, but the core strategy remains the same: translate the meaning, not the style. This work helps ensure that military communications between English and Arabic speakers remain accurate and respectful, even when the original language is full of casual jokes and nicknames.