The Steering Committee of the Sheikh Hamad Prize for International Translation and Understanding, in cooperation with the Center for Excellence in Executive Education at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, organized a seminar entitled "Translation and the Knowledge Unit" in Qatar, Monday, with academics, experts and professors from both institutions.
On the occasion of the award, which was launched in 2015, the media advisor on behalf of the award, Hanan al-Fayadh, reviewed the role of the award in bridging cooperation between academics and translators.
She also highlighted the role of international awards in stimulating the translation movement and contributing to bridging the cultures of peoples, including the role played by the Sheikh Hamad Prize for Translation and International Understanding. She explained the objectives, criteria and conditions of the award.
Fayadh explained that the award works to adopt translations from and into Arabic in more than one language. Therefore, a new language is adopted each year alongside English. Turkish was chosen in the first year, Spanish in the second and French in the third. The German language has been awarded prizes of up to $ 2 million.
The Dean of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at the Doha Institute, Abdul Wahab Al-Afandi, highlighted the importance of literary prizes. He went on to say that translation itself is an award, because it usually translates only books that have value.
The Executive Director of the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language, Ezzeddin Al-Busheikhi, believes that human beings speak one language in different forms. Translation is a mirror of common knowledge. The linguistic approach of translation is achieved with two objectives: accuracy of translation and unity of cognitive representations.
In the same context, the head of the Arabic linguistics and lexicon program at the Doha Institute, Hassan Hamza, considers translation to be a tool for communication if it takes into account the cultural specificity of societies. Without this cultural peculiarity, the machine would have acted as a translator more quickly and efficiently.
The seminar was moderated by Professor of Arabic Language Studies at Qatar University Julieta Saad and a member of the Media Committee of the Sheikh Hamad Prize for International Translation and Understanding. The lecture was followed by an introduction to Doha Institute students and a discussion session on the most important academic and scientific conclusions.