Children Literature

Introduction

Children literature has many purposes as it can be either didactic so as to teach and educate children about life or entertaining so as to provide children with fun and entertainment and some literary works of children literature can be both didactic and entertaining.

Children literature has become very important today as it presents stories that can attract children as well as adults with this kind of topics about life of children and all concerns about them. Today this kind of literature can arouse the attention of educational institutions to make studies about it and movie production companies so as to make movies based on novels and plays from that kind of literature. Children literature purposes are numerous and they could be classified into the didactic ones and the entertaining ones, this essay is going to present some discussions and analysis about the purposes of writing this kind of literature based on real books and stories written as children books in addition to provide some views of some critics about children literature and the way they provide their criticism of the works of some authors written as children literature with a personal opinion of the views of such critics to show how far they were fair in their criticism.

Body

Children literature is not a kind of literature which is written with no purposes but it used to be written for specific purposes since early ages. The purposes of children literature can be classified to two main purposes which are instruction purposes and delight ones, the instructions that children books could contain such as education, warnings, hints, lessons and advice turn the work to be a didactic one which could be enjoyable or boring. When the children book is funny and interesting it is an entertaining book which is written for the purposes of enjoying, entertaining and providing children with funny and delightful time while reading. All such purposes or some can be found in one work of children literature and the best works are written for both main purposes; instruction and delight. The ways instruction and delight are presented into the children books could be very simple and direct or they could be complicated and indirect and this what gives the work its value according to how it is written. Mostly, the authors of children literature are adults and this adds to the children book some sort of adult policies and power with presenting the story of the book to children through the adults own ideologies and this happens in most works of children literature yet today's children literature gives children a wider space of thinking, deciding and reacting with the books' events. (Hunt, 1991)

Didacticism always serves purposes of instruction and this is obvious in earlier children literature which used to present some lessons and advice through didactic technique which clearly appear through the themes, the language and the character. One type of the very early children books is the chapbooks which were cheap and popular and were simply bought from any pedlar. Such books were not in fact written specifically for children but the way they were written in was as if it is addressing an inexperienced audience and they usually attracted children. An example of this is a copy which was cut down from " A Little Pretty Pocket-Book" which was a chapbook written in 1787 and contained some different scenarios such as " Letter to Sir" and " Letter to Madam" that provided a clear example for direct didacticism through a direct advice that tells that rewards are only given to the good people and to be good is to obey, do duties and follow elder instructions and you will get what you wish of materialistic things. The children in those scenarios are classified according to their genders as what is asked from girls to follow is different from what girls should do, for example the good girls should be good at sewing and needle works but boys are thanked for being good at learning their lessons. Didacticism here is serving differentiation according to gender which could lead to other kinds of differentiation between people in societies. Yet through time, there were many tries to improve the children literature and written specifically for children and this lead to presenting didacticism that serves more elevated purposes and presented in a better way; "Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone" which was written in 1997 by J. K. Rowling is a good example that didacticism has been more elaborated and providing better chances for developing children's minds. In that novel didacticism serves indirectly purposes of elevating virtue over vice through the Character of Harry against that of Volde Mort in spite of the religious controversy it made in America. (Hunt, 2009)

From the story of Harry's parents' death, the reader is told that Harry is  representing the power of good against evil which is clear from Hagrid's words:

"‘You-Know-Who killed ’em. An’ then – an’ this is the real

myst’ry of the thing – he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin’ by then. But he couldn’t do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on

yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That’s what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh – took care of yer mum an’ dad an’ yer house, even – but it didn’t work on you, an’ that’s why yer famous, Harry. No one ever lived after he decided ter kill ’em, no one except you, " (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, p45)

The previous words said by Hagrid to Harry to tell him that no one could beat the evil Voldemort but the good powers of Harry which he got since he was born as his parents were good witch and wizard and were killed by Voldemort. Didacticism here in that novel serves deeper purposes such as justice, God, faith and fighting against evil but the writer chose a wide world of characters and events as readers can judge by themselves what is right and what is wrong as perhaps some children se that magic is not a virtue. This shows that the didacticism approach was well elaborated within a magical fantasy world  in order to provide children with the needed fun and entertainment.(Gradesaver team, 2014)

Instruction is related to delight in children literature. Delight is an important element in literature specially when it is written for children. Most the fairytale stories we used to read have the delight element as well as that instructional one such as "Snowhite", "Cinderella" and all the stories about ogres as there is always a lesson to learn about rewarding the good at last but with all the imaginative actions and long journeys which are full of adventures. Sinbad's story is a story which has delighting elements such as all the fun accompanying his travels with a lesson to learn in each travel such as courage and co operation but here in that example instruction was not meant while writing and the excitement took more space than it should take. "Robinson Crusoe", for example included too much religious lessons which made it hard to enjoy the adventure. Critics as Jack Zipes found that the fairytales are not meant to be didactic but were just written for entertainment purposes with the intention to attract children through the imagination element and to have a wide audience. (Zipes, 2005, Jack)

Being respectable is not a condition for a literary work to be popular and vice versa. Chapbooks, for example were popular but they did not receive the respect appreciated as they used to have random parts of everything such as poetry, verse, novels and fairytales. "Children’s literature: birth, infancy, maturity" is an essay for Mathew Grenby affirmed this by talking about the popular book in the 18th century and the respectable books and that they both were different in everything such as the respectable books being well made of good materials, organized and written for specific didactic purposes but most popular books are not having the quality characteristics such as they lack to the good arrangement, preparation, good print and clear fonts and that some books could be both popular and respectable if they could carry all the advantages of both kinds of books for children as to write for children is a main reason to try to be respect in language, words, lessons or ideas presented to children who are ready to receive and apply such lessons. To be respectable also does not mean not to be funny, imaginative and creative as children themselves do not read for didactic reasons or for receiving lessons, they mainly read for pleasure that's why they should be pleased while and after reading. "Alice in Wonderland is a vivid work full of images and adventures with many messages to be sent to children such as having ambition, being brave, helping others and many other didactic lessons.(Grenby, 2009)

The stories we used to read when as children such as the princesses stories which used to provide the ideal girl or boy as beautiful, neat, polite, weak, dependent and almost a complete person, some of them should not receive great respect while others such as :" The Ugly Duckling" presented models that are not that perfect but deserving rights of life, I see that such kinds of children works are respectable and delightful. The stories we read in childhood seemed to be didactic to the degree they were direct enough to make us disobey them  such as the story of " The Girl in red and the Wolf", I remember that I wished to go out to the jungle wasting my time collecting flowers and eating apples, I never felt afraid of the wolf, this is because presenting the lesson was such a kind of forcing a child to be obedient without taking into account the stubborn nature of children or their intelligence and understanding. Yet as they held the intention to be instructive and delightful, we were attracted just for the entertaining scenes and adventures in such books and stories. (Arab Open University, Block1, Children Literature)

There is no literature without criticism which enriches it and gives the literary works such as children literary works, deep dimensions and let the student of children literature understand new things about the work. Critics like Hunt helped me understand the power of the adults I usually felt when I was a child reading a book as sometimes I felt hatred for a story due to the amount of advice and control of the adult held in it. Grenby was good in his presentation for the respectable and popular works but I think that he was not accurate about the difficulty of putting measurements to judge a book as I think this needs deep reading and studying for the book to judge it with clear measurements such as not having the good language or the moral to be not respectable and when the book is well known and read and famous, it is popular so what is the problem? I like Zipes opinions regarding the fairytales as I see that they were written with no intention to be didactic or authors of them should have been more careful as I see that most characters were either rich or get marry at last to the rich handsome prince and live in palaces which is not a lesson to teach as it is not suitable to teach girls to think of rich princes as an ambition in life.

Conclusion

Children literature is a great fun although it was written as didactic as both children and adults enjoy reading it. Instruction and delight are two related elements that construct a good work of children literature and the book written for children should be both respectable and enjoyable in order to be popular and attractive. Children literature can affect people's lives since they are children and when they are grown up adults.

References

• http://www.gradesaver.com/harry-potter-and-the-philosophers-stone/study-guide/about/

• Arab Open University, Block1, Children Literature.
• Hunt, 2009, Peter. ‘Instruction and delight.
• Grenby,2009, Matthew. ‘Children’s literature: birth, infancy, maturity’
• Zipes,2005, Jack, ‘Origins: fairy tales and folk tales’

Reputation (Cleopatra)

Introduction

Reputation could be defined as views, opinions, thoughts and beliefs that are made about someone or something, it could be a result from the characteristics of this person or thing, the action and attitudes relating to this person or thing but at the same time there are other factors to affect reputation. In this TMA we are going to discuss the topic of reputation through a historical character that many opinions and views were held about, it is Cleopatra. Cleopatra's reputation will be discussed from many sides such as the reasons for her fame, factors that formed her reputation, the effect of culture in interpreting Cleopatra's life events that shared in forming her reputation and how her figure was used in movies and literature works. In fact we have to be cautious when building someone's reputation so in this assignment we will try hard to seek truth and distinguish it from myth in order to make an assessment for their effect on forming one's reputation.

Body

 Cleopatra was a queen of Egypt one hundred years before Christ birth, she ruled Egypt for 21 years, she became one of the most famous characters in history for many reasons. Studies and researches about Cleopatra all represent a Roman point of view that no Egyptian opinions opposed. Roman authors were those to get Cleopatra into history. There are many absent points in understanding her real historical figure. Roman political life was a very hard and tough one that a politician reputation can be harmed by any act or words about him or her. Most today's opinions about Cleopatra are driven from the public opinion manipulation that politicians of that age and media of today tried to focus on specific views that tried to make Cleopatra look in a specific way they wanted. Her conflicts with men of the Roman history such as  Mark Antony, Octavian and Julius Caesar helped to make her famous to the West. Cleopatra's image was related to the end of these characters as after killing Julius Caesar, Octavian defeated her with Mark Antony and both of them committed suicide which gave her such reputation of the loser.(The Arts Past and Present, Book1, Reputations, Chapter1)

When we want to discuss verifying the soundness of Cleopatra's reputation, we will find that this is accompanied by many problems. The figure of Cleopatra which is in the mind of most people of today is the figure that media, movies, poets and literary works presented. As movies of the twentieth century tend to put their own views on past events which is a problem as we do not really know what has happened. Another problem when trying to figure out what happened in history so as to make sure of Cleopatra's reputation is that history of ancient Egypt and Rome needs arranging which always lacks completion. Another problem is that past history is not facts but it is complicated views and opinions of poets, historians, authors and writers who had different attitudes and motivations while writing history which forces us to work as detectives to seek truth and be cautious with our own motives when describing Cleopatra as this may affect the presentation of her image by us. .(The Arts Past and Present, Book1, Reputations, Chapter1)

Cleopatra's reputation was constructed throughout history according to many factors that shared in drawing a picture of Cleopatra's reputation as a queen, a lover and a mother. Some of these factors shared more in constructing the reputation of Cleopatra. First of all it was her role in the Roman struggles in the first century ac which gave her the chance to be so mentioned in the Western history. Another factor is her relation with men such as Mark Antony as a lover and an ally to him and an enemy to a man such as Octavian who defeated her and Antony at last, these relations helped more than anything else in constructing the queen's historical reputation. It is historically recorded that the two greatest Romans at that time were captivated by Cleopatra but her failure in captivating the third destroyed her and what constructed her image most is her ending with the failure sides of all struggles. .(The Arts Past and Present, Book1, Reputations, Chapter1)

Cultures and times leave their effects on our readings of the events that are related to constructing reputations and as well as our interpretations to them. Ancient Egyptian culture and Roman culture were of the most effective and great cultures in the history the fact that made Cleopatra gain such great fame in historical writings. When we try to study the events that constructed Cleopatra's reputation, we are affected by the time she encountered. Cleopatra was not Egyptian, she came from a family of Macedonian Greeks, she was concerned with the relation with the Roman Empire. The reputation of her as a cruel ruler could be as a result for her Ptolemy origins who were famous for murdering attitudes and killing for power and ruling and Cleopatra killed her brother and her sister to prevent them from ruling. Those who portrayed Cleopatra such as Plutarch, Shakespeare and Hollywood moviemakers were mostly more influenced by their own times and cultures rather than those of Cleopatra's. There was little in their description about her life as a mother, a leader, a politician, a negotiator and a scholar which affects readers as well to look at the events included her from the points of views of those who portrayed her.

http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/cleopatra-was-a-powerful-and-wise-ruler-116280284/114309.html

When constructing a reputation of a person, we must be cautious when dealing with historical and contemporary source materials portraying such a person. Roman propaganda, Elizabethan drama and the Hollywood movies shared in the great misconceptions in understanding Cleopatra. For example when we read poems wrote about Cleopatra such as Horace poetry, we must remind ourselves that this is not a historical record but it is a verbal art work which may tell about the feelings of people at that time and their opinions of Cleopatra. Reading poems about a person should not be our historical record despite the fact they are historical writings. Horace's poetry portrayed her as a wicked woman at some parts of his poems and as a beautiful admirable woman at other parts. We must give care to the writings before constructing a reputation, some writings about Cleopatra were made by persons who never witnessed the events she encountered but by people from Rome who just hated her. Plutarch also hated Cleopatra that he accused her to be sexually seducing men when she had a relation with Caser which could be understood differently as she might have needed a powerful man to be in her side and support her.(THE STORY BEHIND THE BOOK CLEOPATRA THE GREAT ,The Woman Behind the Legend .By Joann Fletcher)

http://www.harpercollinscatalogs.com/TR/other/9780060585587_0_Extra_Behind_the_Book.pdf  

 Myth can be defined as ancient stories that may include supernatural elements, extraordinary creatures, gods and heroes with special powers, myth can be given to a powerful character through people's exaggerations. Myth is connected with legend and adventures to secret sacred places and when someone is referred to as a mythological character, people believe anything about this person as creation, ending lives or talking to spirits. Truth is completely different from myth as truth is related to facts, real situations and actions of people, it is related to logical action minds can accept and believe with proves and evidences. Truth represents reality, justified actions and stated facts about anything or anyone. Reputation construction is largely affected by myth and truth as people may give extra ordinary features for some people as Cleopatra in order to cast respect and fear over the character. Cleopatra was thought to be a Goddess which was some sort of myth so her reputation was affected, it was said that she was a witch, a killer and a woman of special powers.

http://www.harpercollinscatalogs.com/TR/other/9780060585587_0_Extra_Behind_the_Book.pdf

The issue of "competing reputations" applies to Cleopatra as she was the queen who issued coins with her face on, she ordered to kill her brother and her sister in order to be the only one who could rule, she tried to be famous and tried to have competitive  reputation over men kings and she did all her best to be famous for victories. Yet her efforts were not working for her most times as Romans were competing also to figure her as a witch, a whore and a killer woman with cruel heart and it seems that the Roman competed better than her as most what we know today about her came from Romans who hated Cleopatra.

Conclusion

Reputation is a very sensitive matter and we have to be as detectives when reading about famous people or when assessing them according to their reputations as it is not certain that those who portrayed them were so faithful and honest. Evidences are important when assessing someone's reputation and everyday there are new evidences to appear and it is possible that such new clues may change our attitudes and lead to new results which may be different from the ideas we already have about a person according to his or her reputation. It is interesting to know that there are new debates about Cleopatra telling she was black of African origins yet at last we are still having the influence of Elizabeth Taylor appearance as Cleopatra which proves how much media and art can leave their impacts more than anything else the fact that asks readers to be more cautious when constructing someone's reputation.

References

• (The Arts Past and Present, Book1, Reputations, Chapter1)
• http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/cleopatra-was-a-powerful-and-wise-ruler-116280284/114309.html
• (THE STORY BEHIND THE BOOK CLEOPATRA THE GREAT ,The Woman Behind the Legend .By Joann Fletcher)

http://www.harpercollinscatalogs.com/TR/other/9780060585587_0_Extra_Behind_the_Book.pdf

    

Electronic Translation Programs versus Paper Dictionaries

Chapter One

Electronic Translation Programs have being used widely since the technology revolution expanded and this way has advantages and disadvantages against the old ways of translation.

Translation is a very technical process which depends on conveying the meanings of a text from one language to another and this needs high professionalism because translation is not just turning the words from a language to another but there must be a preservation of semantics and features of the text in addition to forming the translated sentences in an understood way with the same literary style they were written in as in the original text. Translation is a process that depends on vocabulary understanding in addition to know how to form sentences and phrases correctly in the two languages used in translation so using dictionaries is a basis factor in the translation process. A dictionary could be defined as resources that provide the needed meanings of words, their origins, transcription, pronunciation, classifications as being parts of speech, antonyms and synonyms. A dictionary also provides examples of how words could be used differently in sentences and it provides words arranged according to the alphabetic order. There has been great changes in dictionaries throughout times and ages till there are today electronic dictionaries and electronic programs for translation or what is called Machine Translation (MT). Electronic dictionary is a kind of dictionaries which includes the same information that could be found in a paper dictionary but in a digital form and they can be accessed via the internet or saved on a CD or a DVD or any suitable computer hardware. It can be read or used on computers' software. The current research is discussing how electronic translation programs are used today for translation purposes and comparing it with human translation using paper dictionaries or electronic dictionaries mentioning the advantages and disadvantages of both methods.

Methodology

A: Hypothesis

Using electronic programs for translation became a phenomenon today. Such programs are found online easily and most of them are free which made people find it easy to use them even if the quality of translation is not as good as that of human translation. The use of electronic programs in translation was found to produce a translation output which is different from human translation in many aspects. The differences are in the lexical form of sentences, punctuation, phrases, semantics, structure of the output and in the mental outlook impression left on the translated texts. The prevalence of using electronic programs in translation does not mean that using such programs is not good but there are advantages and disadvantages for this. Many translators use electronic programs in translation and this is not a wrong thing but training on using such programs is very good and it makes the professional translator gets the utmost benefits of these electronic programs.

B: Sampling

Samples were collected from students in my college who are at level seven, they were gently asked to perform a task which will be helpful for this research as they were asked to translate some texts from English to Arabic. They were divided into two groups, the first group (group A) contained five students and the other group(group B) also contained five students, group A was delivered the three texts and paper dictionaries and was asked to translate, group B was delivered the same texts but with tablets that contained internet connection and they were asked to use google translate in their work. Time was calculated for each group.

 Chapter Two

Using electronic programs for translation became one feature of today's world that depends mainly on technologies in everything. Today's world cannot do without the internet or computers, their software and applications but translation is a complicated process that humans are main factors in producing it properly.

The Reasons of Using Electronic Programs in Translation 

There are many reasons for the prevalence of using electronic programs in translation by many people today among whom are professional translator, students who study English specifically and people who seek their work translated easily and cheaply. There are many reasons that make people of all kinds look for translation programs and electronic dictionaries to use them in purposes of translation, among these reasons are the following ones:

1-Internet Business

Due to the rapid movement of internet business today, business owners see that the English language is very important for them as people from all over the world can purchase items from any place in the world and most purchasing processes occur in English including banks transactions and other related matters which made business owners and also purchasers think of ways that enable them to use English easily even if they do not know anything about English, they find that it is easier to use a translation program to help them understand and do the translation of texts or perhaps whole sites to understand what they need on different websites and as their need of translation is not technical or professional, the use of such programs spread and it became common among youth and even aged people to log on any translation site and translate any text neglecting any defects that could be found in the output. You can find some websites which are translated to Arabic with sentences and words which are hard to be understood or with no relation to the site ,hence you understand that an electronic program was used to translate it as a whole. (Craciunescu, et al. ,2004).

2-The Desire for Reducing costs

Costs of human translation is usually high which lead people to search for other resources for translating their work such as google translate program, Babylon and others. They tend to get their work translated without paying extra money specially when the translation needed does not have to be perfect or terms are not used in it. Some businesses use electronic translation programs in addition to asking human translators according to the needed work as contracts and commercial papers cannot be well translated using electronic translation programs alone. The problem is that most people who seek electronic translation programs ask for human professionals in translation to retranslate the done papers by programs due to their lack of being convincing.

3- The Desire for Saving time

Some people use electronic translation programs to finish their translation tasks faster than if being given to human translators. People today are in need to save their time by any means specially those who work in business fields or in internet business so such programs sometimes help them save time and do tasks which are urgent in the business such as translating labels, cards, titles or other texts which are not very specialized.

4-Luxury life of today

Today most people live easy lives, they don't exert great efforts to watch a film for example or get a book, buy something from another country, make friends, talk to someone in a very far place in the world or even get a job as the communication revolution has changed many measurements of the past and made accessing to things easier than it was in past times, this attitude made people seek comfort and luxury life where everything is got easily and quickly. This theory can be applied to translation as most people think it is a difficult job to look up words into a dictionary and then consume more effort and time trying to form sentences in a new language rather than understanding the original text deeply and thoroughly to translate it properly. They go to electronic translation programs to make the translation task a more comfortable one.

5-Computer use

Using computers today became a phenomenon that made people and translators use PDF files and word documents to do the translation tasks they need and this way of using computer software instead of using paper documents made it easier to look up words in electronic dictionaries and use electronic programs to help them in the translation process and some people just put texts into the program and then wait to have them translated. Computer using which is prevailing everywhere around the world today helped increase the use of electronic translation programs.

6-Lack of Trust in Human Translators

Today's world is characterized with the lack of trust in general so most people think that human translators do nothing but using translation programs and then get paid for a work they did not make effort in so they try to do the translation by themselves as a result of their doubts in human translators' abilities and hard work.

7-The Availability of Electronic Translation Programs

Because it is not easy to find a human translator who is good at his or her work, people think it is easier to them to do translation tasks by themselves using the available electronic translation programs found on the internet and save the time wasted in finding a good translator then waiting to receive their texts translated.

Examples about Using Electronic Translation Programs

1-Using Google Translate Program

Using Google Translate program became very familiar and common today due to many reasons as even people who are not good at a specific language can do some translation with the help of this program. It is also used by students and teachers, even professional translator use it sometimes instead of traditional ways of translation and it has many advantages in fact. It is considered a free service available 24/7 provided for everyone in the world. This program can translate from about 80 languages to other different languages instantly and it also provides new services everyday such as adding the service of voice translation and adding a service of translating documents and large texts. Although the program has many advantages, it also has many disadvantages that limit its use by professionals and those who study languages academically. (Google, 2014)

2-CAT tools

Such electronic translation programs are usually used by professional human translators who are well trained on them for purposes of saving time and effort in addition to improving the translation quality. These tools depend on a system which keeps many things during the translation process a human translator is doing such as keeping translated terms, idioms and even full sentences and phrases that may be repeated within a text to be translated so this memory system helps a translator a lot during the translation process. These programs have disadvantages also besides their advantages as they need high levels of training on them before working with them which may cost a human translator to spend money to take training courses on how to use them and this also consumes some time of the translator time. (Sánchez, 2014)

Effect of Using Electronic Translation Programs

The use of different electronic translation programs left great effects on the language use today. Among such effects, there are negative effects and positive ones. Using these programs gave people who are not good at languages at all some self confidence in using languages which made them think themselves are really good at a specific language or perhaps many languages and this can be a positive effect when those people use the translation program properly or in good things but it can be a negative effect if their use was too much and they exploited such sites and programs in bad affairs, it also could be a bad effect if they fill the web with bad quality translation which is spreading and is accepted by many people everywhere in the world.

Using electronic translation programs made the translation movement more energetic in fact as they encourage beginner human translators to be trained on how to use them properly and get the utmost benefits from them, they also saved their time and effort.

Learners of a language who are in the beginners levels also get benefits from these programs and throughout time, they can improve their translation and stop using these programs for getting whole texts translated but to use them as helpers only.

It was clear that each of the two groups of students was following a communicative approach in translation as they all worked together to produce the translation outputs as soon as possible. The two groups were separated and each group worked by itself. The outputs were compared according to terminology, spelling mistakes, meaning completeness, clarity, punctuation, editing, language and style. Group A which worked with paper dictionaries took longer time than Group B that used Google Translate program. Both groups translated three texts from English to Arabic. Group A took 90 minutes translating the three texts while group B took only 60 minutes to translate the same texts. Each text contained about 37-44 words, the output was evaluated according to a trusted translation kept only with me. All students mother tongue was Arabic and they all study English as a foreign language. Group A used AlMawred paper dictionaries and group B used Google translate program on their tablets devices. The translation process of the two groups went under the same conditions of the university.

As shown in table 1, total mistakes of group A were less than the total number of mistakes of group B. Lexical mistakes were more in group B than in Group A. Spelling mistakes were more in Group A while group B did not have spelling mistakes. Group A had grammar mistakes and also was group B. Group A had eight mistakes while group B had fifteen mistakes. Mistakes of group B shows that they depended on the program greatly and did not exert the needed effort to perform the task properly as their mistakes were almost in meanings, grammar formation, wrong word order but their punctuation and spelling were correct compared to group A. Group A had spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes but less than those of group B, their meanings and style were better than those of group B.

Differences in	Group A	Group B
Translation Method	AlMawred Paper Dictionary	Google Translate Program
Time Consumed	90	60
Number of Mistakes	8	15
Spelling and Punctuation	poor	good
Semantics, style, word order and Syntax	good	poor

Table1:  Differences between translations of the two groups

Advantages and Disadvantages of each translation method used

Results show that the use of electronic translation programs such as Google Translate had its advantages as it helped the human translators save time and effort and provided them with Arabic words in the correct spelling but it also had disadvantages as it made them neglect forming the sentences carefully, make grammatical mistakes and produce translation that lacks elaborated literal style. It was clear that paper dictionary use or the traditional translation method had advantages as it made translators more aware of forming sentences in a good style keeping their semantics and grammar while it also had its disadvantages such as it is time consuming and it puts all the effort and hard work over the translators.

Chapter Three

Conclusion

The current research is discussing a very common problem around the world today which is the vast use of electronic translation programs against traditional methods of translation using dictionaries such as paper dictionaries and this problem was discussed according to a test made for students of my college who were divided into two groups, one that used paper dictionary to translate three texts and the other used Google Translate to translate the same three texts. Results showed that each method has its advantages and disadvantages.

In my own opinion, I think that it is important to cope with new technologies and not to be old fashioned but at the same time, it is important to use human minds against the full use of machines so as to add a natural feeling on the translation output as translation is a way of communication and exchanging cultures not just meanings.

The solution for this problem is to mix the use of the two methods together by using electronic translation programs by human translators but with great care and not to depend on them fully in translation in addition to raise people's awareness about these programs and how to use them.