Differences in Word Formation between Arabic and English: Implications for Concision in Terminology Translation

Terminology standards consider concision as an essential quality in technical terms. It speeds up communication and qualifies terms for further derivation. However, due to morphological differences, the length of terms varies between languages. Different languages, such as English and Arabic, have differences in word formation. English relies heavily on affixation, while Arabic relies on the combination of roots with morphological patterns. Many concepts represented by affixes in English are represented by words in Arabic. English uses productive methods such as blending and abbreviation, which produce short words. Arabic does not have methods that are as productive as these ones. These differences result in dissimilarity in the length of terms created in each language and the differences in the length of English terms and their Arabic translation equivalents. This study highlights the implications of morphological differences between the two languages for English–Arabic terminology translation. The findings show that most English terms are shorter than their Arabic translation equivalents.