Elective Courses

Course Description:

This course engages the students in a wide variety of writing activities that are geared to the traditional and modern forms of discourse in the Arabic language with a special emphasis on critical, research, and stylistic skills. The course is basically designed for the student who has knowledge of fundamental syntactic and morphological structure of the Arabic language and focuses on the development of skills needed to achieve success in academic and professional goals. At the centre of this advanced Arabic writing course is the introduction of the important elements of argument and style with reference to particular audiences and genres.

Course Objectives:

1. Acquire knowledge of aspects of advanced Arabic writing styles
2. Use syntactic and discourse structures appropriately
3. Demonstrate advanced linguistic skills and functional understanding of Arabic Language
4. Develop skills of critical thinking and analysis across the range of theoretical and contextual modes of Arabc
5. Evaluate literary and creative writing materials produced in Arabic

Course Description:

This course introduces students to the realm of computer-assisted translation (CAT), including the original and the latest techniques and technology. It will examine basic problems and approaches and emphasize the way in which CAT research relies on ideas drawn from, and progress made in, other areas such as translation theory and theoretical linguistics. It familiarizes students with supporting computer applications for translation.

Course Objectives:

1. Provide students with the knowledge and the skills likely to be required by the new computerized multilingual document processing work environmen
2. Introduce students to the use of online resources efficiently for documentation purposes
3. Familiarize students with state-of-the-art computational environments such as bilingual concordancers, multilingual terminology management systems, translation memory and machine(-aided) translation software
4. Enable students to undertake computer-assisted translation projects both individually and as part of a team

Course Description:

This course provides linguistic and stylistic comparisons between English and Arabic in terms of their relation to the practical study of translation. Comparative analysis of the structures of the two languages will be used to outline the common problems of translation and to develop strategies for dealing with them. The course offers students deeper knowledge of the features that distinguish one language from another. It also deals with the relation between culture, language, and cognition. The emphasis is to be on precision of expression and the evaluation of alternative solutions in translation. The course aims at developing sensitivity to style, language levels and discourse articulation for an understanding of style is of great importance for translation .This awareness of style allows the translator to produce translations that are natural and that properly convey the authors’ intentions

Course Objectives:

1. Identify the characteristics which distinguish their mother language from a foreign one
2. Establish correspondences and equivalences in two languages
3. Compare translated texts with the original ones and to analyze them in terms of lexical, syntactic and textual structure
4. Explain a number of general rules describing patterns of stylistic change which occur during translation of literary work from Arabic to English and vice versa
5. Determine how both languages and cultures are used to express the same (or different) world views

Course Description:

Terminology is becoming more and more necessary in many professions in various areas. Situations like translation, documentation, language management, digital documentation management, linguistic engineering, knowledge dissemination, writing specialized texts, teaching specific subjects all require terminology, terminology management and the resolution of terminological problems. In this course, students acquire an overall view of the synergies between terminology and other professional areas. They carry out exercises that respond to real professional needs in areas like translation, lexicography, teaching, documentation, linguistic planning and automatic information management.

Course Objectives:

1. Examine the relationship between terminology and translation
2. Understand the role of terminology in documentation
3. Describe the development of lexicography
4. Analyse linguistic standardization in relation to language planning
5. Consider the part of terminology in linguistic engineering

Course Description:

This course introduces students to the field of Semantics. It covers different areas and topics within semantics such as hyponymy, synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, reference, sentence, utterance, proposition, predicates and other topics. It introduces students to meaning at the levels of the sentence and speech act. It also introduces componential analysis and language universals.

Course Objectives:

1. Enable students to have a clear idea about Semantics and analyze sentences semantically
2. Introduce students to different usages and production of natural language
3. Assist students to know reference, sentence, utterance, proposition and predicate among other topics
4. Distinguish between classes of words; and
5. Apply context to meaning and semantic ambiguity

Course Description:

This course focuses on developing student's summarizing skills which prove to be necessary for situations where the turnaround time for translation is extremely short. Students will read through an original document, assessing the most important elements of the text. This information is then summarized and translated into the target language, providing readers with a concise and accurate summary translation of the main content of the source text.

Course Objectives:

1. Develop techniques to identify the core ideas in a text
2. Develop strategies to summarize source texts
3. Reproduce the content of the original text based on the highlighted substantive fragments
4. Resolve cultural differences between source and target texts
5. Consider the customer’s preferences with respect to the specific points of interest and the summary translation size

Course Description:

This course is designed to provide advanced instruction and supervised practice in translation, from English into Arabic and vice-versa. Through intensive practice, students not only gain a deep insight into the nature and process of translation, but also develop the textual analysis techniques and command of terminology necessary for producing professionally well-versed and accurate texts in both languages. The course, in short, offer students an opportunity to enhance their command of grammar, syntax, and vocabulary both in Arabic and English; develop an aptitude and skills for linguistic analysis and critical thinking as well as the capacity for self-learning and critique.

Course Objectives:

1. Recognize the major translation techniques and approaches
2. Collect the relevant terminology related to the genre of document
3. Apply the textual analysis techniques to the source text
4. Produce an elegant text in the target language

Course Description:

This course is designed to discuss and analyze a particular topic in translation. It concentrates on emerging issues or specialized contents not represented in the main curriculum. Selection of topics is based on instructor and student's needs and interests. Topics vary from one semester to another.

Course Objectives:

1. Reinforce students’ background in theories and principles of translation
2. Allow students to apply translation theories in the areas of communication, teaching, and learning
3. Increase the students’ knowledge in translation issues that have not received enough emphasis; and
4. Provide students with a background of the latest development in the field

Course Description:

This course focuses on the role, function and structure of international organizations. Delving into specific IOs, the course will begin with the International Financial Institutions (the IMF and the World Bank). Then, it will turn to the United Nations System (Security Council, Peacekeeping Operations, Refugees organizations). Subsequently, it will analyze IOs dealing with Europe (EU, ECB). Next, it will consider international trade organizations and regional trade organizations. An emphasis will also be put on the role and structure of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Arab League. The course will offer students an in-depth understanding of the role of international organizations, their historical origins, ostensible functions, the international and domestic political forces that impact their operations, and their effectiveness

Course Objectives:

1. Recognize the role and organization of main International Organizations
2. Understand the concept of international cooperation
3. Describe the ideas and norms that guide world order
4. Realize the role of International Organizations in peacekeeping operations
5. Consider the challenges facing international cooperation

Course Description:

This is a multidisciplinary course introducing students to the basic concepts of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The course provides a broad understanding of AI subfields, applications, and techniques. It also gives an understanding of how AI techniques can be applied to different scenarios and problems. Also, this course is meant to be a multidisciplinary course targeting students who are enrolled in the administrative and humanities tracks.

Course Objectives:

The objective of this course is to develop an understanding of and gain experience with AI applications and techniques. The course has four main objectives as follows: introduction, engagement, encouragement and awareness.