The Function of Modality in Translation

Modality deals with the assessment of the intrinsic and extrinsic meanings of a statement in terms of control over a situation and judgement of truth value. This paper focuses on the functionality and translatability of expressing modality from Arabic into English and French to determine its effects in translation. The analyses are carried out on literary translations from Arabic into English and French. The data reflective to the occurrence of expressing modality are identified, collected, categorized and analyzed. The analysis reveals that there are more modality use in the English translations than in the Arabic source texts and French target texts, which reflects some aspects of Arabic language and French language peculiarities on the one hand and some aspects of English language peculiarities on the other hand. Moreover, the frequent use of modality in English is found to be more functional in that it enhances more the meaning.


Introduction 1.Rationale
Translation has become an independent discipline from linguistics since the twentieth century after Holmes paper on translation presented in 1972 in the Third International Congress of Applied Linguistics in Copenhagen (Holmes, 2000).This has channelled translation activities, translation studies, and scope of translation into descriptive research.In this new perspective, Toury (1985) classifies comparative studies in translation into (a) comparative studies of different target translations of one source text (ST) into one target language (TL), (b) comparative study on different phases, and (c) comparative study of one ST into different languages.He writes: One may compare several translations into one language done by different translators, either in the same period or in different periods of time...; or one may compare different phases in the establishment of one translation, in order to reconstruct the interplay of 'acceptability' and 'adequacy' during its genesis...; or, finally, several translations of what is assumed to be the same text into different languages, as an initial means of establishing the effects of different cultural, literary, and linguistic factors on the modelling of a translation.(Toury 1985: 24) This paper deals with the comparative study of one source text into two different target languages.It compares English and French translations produced from one source language, Arabic.Therefore, this study is a product-oriented descriptive translation on one grammatical category, expressing modality.The research is necessary to be carried out due to semantic and functional problems at the level of modality and its semantic aspects.Vinay and Darbalnet (1995: 9-10) point out that the focus of comparative analysis is "to examine how the constituents parts of a system function when they rendered ideas expressed in the other language" in order to develop a theory of translation.For Jones (1997:37), the problems of translations that prevent from translating word-for-word are problems related to semantics, structure, or metalinguistics.Therefore, handling modality in the translation activity necessitates some research a propos of the linguistic and translation norms.The objectives of this paper are: a) to describe the behaviour and function of expressing modality in translating from Arabic into English and French.b) to compare differences and similarities.c) to establish the effects of expressing modality linguistic factors on the modelling of translation for the languages under study.
These objectives are motivated by some research questions relative to the behaviour and functionality of modality.These are: i. what are the peculiarities of the language under study that determine expressing modality in translation?ii.
how does expressing modality affect or enhance translation?iii.
what is the scope of the translators' latitude?
This paper is intended to give a functional insight to translators, interpreters, and linguists on how expressing modality functions and how it is handled in translation.The findings are expected to be reflexive to other genres.

Methodology
The research is a qualitative research which focuses only on the translation quality as far as expressing modality is concerned.Some data analyses apropos of modality, which have already been done on my PhD thesis, Moindjie (2006) are used to show the function of modality in translation.Arabic source text is abbreviated AST, English target text is abbreviated ETT, French target text is abbreviated FTT, and target texts are abbreviated TTs.Textual analysis is carried out, following the comparative theory of translation constructed by Toury (1985: 24) and the theory of expressing modality constructed by Toolan(1998:46-53).
The first procedure to be done is to identify the data.The occurrences of the data that are reflective of the problems of translation apropos of expressing modality are identified.The identification is first done in the AST and then in the TTs, ETT and FTT.To identify the data, the entire texts under study are thoroughly studied.The data is first identified and categorized in the AST.The same data are identified and categorized in the ETT and FTT.Then, the data are collected and analyzed.Both the identification and collection will be done according to the hierarchical continuity of the novels under study.
After the data are identified and collected, analyses are carried out on the ASTs, ETTs, and FTTs.The analyses focus only on expressing modality.Occurrences, concerning expressing modality are provided in the results.Since this is a comparative study, examples will be given in the three languages, i. e. Arabic, English, and French.The Arabic examples are followed by the English examples, and then the French examples.Occurrences are highlighted in bold.If the analyzed aspect does not surface, its presumed and possible location is underlined for better localization and clarification.Moreover, many examples of a particular aspect or occurrences are found in the texts.And due to space constraints, these other occurrences are not reproduced in the body of the paper, but their occurrence page numbers containing these examples are given in the appendices.
To identify language similarities, differences, peculiarities, and translation choices, every occurrence of every category in the AST is compared to the same category in the ETT and FTT.Then the same category occurrence is compared between the ETT and the FTT.
The corpus used is novels.They are chosen for convenience to be reflective to other genres.The choice of novel as a corpus is not done at hazard.It is opted for its literary approach that has made it the dominant genre in literature, and the most popular in terms of translation and readership.Shroder (1969) argues that the success and popularity of the novel are due to its foci which are (a) to depict and reflect the realities of social life world, and (b) educate the readership through the device of irony.Fowler (1977) mentions that the novel reaches its apogee of universality not only because it tackles socio-economic issues and reflects the fantasy of the readers, but also because it has connections with all genres be they literary or non-literary.
There are many writers in the Arab world like Tawfik El-hakim, Taha Hussain, etc., but Naguib Mahfouz is chosen for his great achievements in the Arabic novel writing as a Nobel Prize laureate.Mahamoud (1973) discusses that Naguib Mahfouz belongs to the second generation of Arabic novelists.Although he is not one of the pioneers of Arabic novels, he has become "the leading novelist in Arabic today."He has written many novels, but his Midaq Alley is taken for carrying this study because, according to Allen (1997: 457), it is the most representative, famous, and popular of his work.Tayeb Salih is also chosen because of his literary achievements as one of the famous writers of the Arab world.He has written many novels like Bandarchah, the Wedding of Zain, etc., but Season of Migration to the North is chosen because, Sadgrove (1997: 737) points out, it is his master piece, which made his reputation.
The corpus is, therefore, justified and selected following the above mentioned characteristics of the genre per se; the literary leadership and universal recognition of the writers; and their works as the more representative and popular of the two writers.

1. Midaq Alley
The story of this novel deals with the life predicament of the old generation and the new generation inside Midaq Alley.The former remains in this quarter aloof from modern life outside the alley, whereas the latter is ambitious, and aspire for change, and modern life outside this quarter.The novel presents the conflict between tradition and modernity, past and present, and social problems like degradation, marriage and divorce, polygamy, and piety in Egypt.
The main event of the story is that of Hamida.She is an ambitious girl like her foster brother, Hussain Kirsha, who longs for a different life from the life they have in Midaq Alley.She is seduced by Ibrahim Farahat and elopes from Midaq Alley.Her seducer induces her and forces her into prostitution.Abbas, her first fiancé, meets her unexpectedly.Knowing her predicament, he vows to kill Ibrahim Farahat.But He is killed by the British army when he attacks Hamida with a bottle on her face.Abbas cannot not bear seeing Hamida fondling with the British soldiers.Hamida survives the incident and continues with her life style.

2. Season of Migration to the North
The story is narrated by an unnamed Sudanese narrator, highly educated from London, who is unexpectedly touched and influenced by the predicament of Mustafa Said, a brilliant student of the Sudan.During his studies in the Sudan and Cairo Mustafa Said lacks a sense of fun.His personal feeling and sentiments are repressed.When he arrives in London, he goes native.He becomes, therefore, more brilliant and becomes a professor of Economics.He expresses himself freely and seduces many girls.He has killed one of them of ecstasy and two others have committed suicide due to his promiscuous conduct and lies.He is suspected of killing them.After being prosecuted, he is found not guilty and is freed.
When he has returned to the Sudan, intellectual that he is, he is repelled and marginalized by the society.Trying to find peace of mind he settles in the village; he tries to be friendly, but he faces the same problem of marginalization.He is torn between the western way of life and the Sudanese way of life.He has become a stranger in his homeland.The narrator has become Moustafa Said Friend whom he trusts and advises to take care of his family.His death is mysterious as his body cannot be found anywhere.It is rumoured that he either committed suicide or was killed by his own people.

Literature Review
Due to different linguistic systems of languages, translation studies focuses on the functionality of these systems in translation in order to depict their occurrences and behaviour in the translation activity.Schäffner(1999: 2) argues on the interest of translation studies.She states that linguistic translation studies "were basically interested in the norms of the language systems.The linguistic units of SL and TL were compared in order to set up mechanisms (in the sense of normative translation principles) for overcoming differences in the language structures encountered in the process of translation." Modality is a semantic grammatical aspect.Crystal and Davy (1969) point out that modality is not a kind or feature of province (legal, religious, etc.), status (formal, informal, etc.), and genre (poetry, novel, etc); it only concerns "the suitability of form to subject matter."They are of the opinion that it is a stylistic way used to achieve the purpose of an utterance.It is, therefore, the preference use of a linguistic feature rather than another.They write: In it we describe those linguistic features correlatable with the specific purpose of an utterance which has led the user to adopt one feature or set of features rather than another, and ultimately to produce an overall, conventionalised spoken or written format for his language, which may be given a descriptive label (Crystal and Davy 1969: 74) Unlike Crystal and Davy (1969), Vinay andDarbelnet (1958/1995: 142) argue that the function of modality is to express "the attitude of the speaker towards the utterance, according to whether it is considered a fact, a belief, a necessity, etc."; and every language has its expressive ways in using this aspect.For Carter, Goddard, Reah, Sanger, and Bowring (1997: 143) modality deals with the "relationship between the writer and reader of the text".For Depraetera and Reed (2006) English modality is characterized by "a range of semantic notions such as ability, possibility, hypotheticality, obligation, and imperative meaning"; this does play a semantic role either on the speaker or the addressee in a given utterance.However, Bell (1991: 134-148) distinguishes mood, modality and modulation.Mood deals with the relationships among the three essential sentence elements, which are subject, predicator, and complement.Those relationships are unmarked and occur between "social value and syntactic structure and communicative value just as there are between syntactic structure and logical relationships.Modality deals with a communicator's opinion in terms of probability or frequency, whereas modulation deals with proposal, that is, it expresses "proposals rather than propositions", for example: B Here's a grommet A it could be one Moreover, Nuyts (2001) states that it is believed that there is a control unit "which steers, coordinates and supervises at least some of the operation of the cognitive system."As far as that is concerned, he strongly points out that there is a considerable and important role of the control unit not only at the syntactic and prosodic processing level, but also at the conceptual processing level, such as epistemic evaluations.He discusses that epistemic qualifications can be either performative or descriptive.He writes: In this context, the distinction between performative and descriptive uses of qualificational expressions such as epistemic ones, which has figured so manifestly in our investigation, can now be performed in more theoretical terms.As argued, performative expressions linguistically render the conceptual output of operations of the central control unit directly.But, as suggested in section 1.4, descriptive, commitment-less expressions do not result from an operation of the control system, but rather render qualifications which have somehow become represented and stored as part of the speaker's knowledge of the world.(Nuyts 2001: 361) Halliday and Natthiessen ( 2004) point out that modality deals with "the speaker's judgement, or request of the judgement of the listener, on the status of what is being said."They argue also that modality is an expressive means that indicates 'indeterminacy' which also reflects the nature of the systems per se.They categorize modality into probability, usuality, obligation, and inclination.Its orientation can be subjective, objective, explicit, or implicit; its value can be either high or low; and its polarity can be either direct or transferred.
For Toolan (1998: 46-56), there are four categories of modal markers.These are: 1. Expressing modality, which can be verbs or adverbs.It expresses probability, obligatoriness, willingness, and usuality.They qualify the speaker's utterances in terms of strength and weakness, and they reveal the speaker's attitude and judgments.
That lad will come to a sticky end.
It may rain today.
The patient cannot sleep.
He is likely in Penang.
People do not believe in witchcraft nowadays.
It is obvious that the country progress economically.
(b) Obligatoriness (Should, must, need to, etc).For example: I need to think of some really fun activity to invite her to.
Children must go to school.
Heads of states should respect each other.
(c) Willingness (would, will).For example: I wonder if she would like to go iceskating.
The dean of the school would invite other lecturers from different countries to present papers in the coming language conference.
Will you have some Yogi tea?
She has never written a letter in Spanish.
They often use English language at home. 2. Metaphorized or advanced modality, which expresses modality without conventional modal expressions.This category uses verbs like reckon, guess, believe, and think, for examples: I don't believe we've met.= We surely have not met.
I think it is going to rain.= I will probably rain.
In short, the discussed theories a propos of modality do not differ in the semantic perception of modality.However, they differ in terms of terminology and approach.Based on that, the expressing modality based on the theory of Toolan (1998) will be used in this analysis for convenience.

Results
Expressing Modality is used to indicate the speaker's attitude to the receptor.It can be categorized into probability, obligatoriness, willingness, and usuality.The following results and categories are identified in the texts understudy.

Zukāq el-Midaq
Table 1.Probability Arabic English French Which Cairo do I mean?That is of the Fatimids, the Mamlukes or the Sultans?Only God and the archeologists know the answer to that, but in any case, the alley is certainly an ancient relic and a precious one.How could it be otherwise with its stone-paved surface leading directly to the historic Sanadiqiya Street (p.1).In the AST, these words ‫أڍة‬ ‫ﺣﺎل‬ , ‫ﻛﭕﻒ‬ ‫ﻻ‬ are used.However, modal markers, i.e. 'certainly' and 'could' do only occur in the ETT.The use of more modal markers in the ETT is a language peculiarity and not a translator's choice.If the sentences read or translated literally (…the alley is an ancient relic and a precious one.How was it otherwise…) without the markers 'certainly' and 'could' they may seem dry to the English receptor.

Obligatoriness
Modality expressing obligatoriness is found to occur in the texts understudy.It is expressed in Arabic with words like ‫اﺳﺘﻮﺟﺐ‬ ‫ّﻣﻦ،‬ ‫ﻻﻣﻔﺮ‬ ،ّ ‫ﻻﺑﺪ‬ ‫أن،‬ ‫ﯾﺠﺐ‬ ‫أن،‬ ‫ﯾﻨﺒﻐﻲ‬ ‫ﻻﻣﻌﺪى،‬ ; it is expressed in English with words like must, should, and have to; and it is expressed in French with words like falloir, devoir, and ne...que.It is found that the ETT uses modal markers of obligatoriness more than the AST and FTT, for example: If he wanted to save in these hard times, it was clear he must try something new.How long could he continue to feed on hopes and dreams?Why shouldn't he try his luck like the others?(p.32) S'il voulait vraiment bâtir son nid en ces jours difficiles, il lui fallait trouver une autre issue.Se contenterait-il de rêver et de désirer, recroquevillé dans son trou stérile, les mains liées et la volonté paralysée ?Pourquoi ne tenterait-il pas sa chance et ne ferait-il pas son chemin comme les autres ?(p.

52)
In the Arabic extract the marker, ‫ﻣﻌﺪى‬ ‫ﻻ‬ is used to indicate obligation; it is translated literally to the English extract and French extract.The difference is that the markers are not from the same word class.In the above extract, the Arabic marker, is a phrase in that it is composed of the negative particle, ' ‫ﻻ‬ ' and the noun, ' ‫ﻣﻌﺪى‬ '; in the English extract it is an auxiliary; and in the French extract it is a verb.Therefore, transposition is used.However, a second obligation modal occurs in the English extract expressed by the marker, 'should'.In both Arabic and French extracts, the obligation is not expressed.The present tense, ‫ّب'‬ ‫'ﯾﺠﺮ‬ does not embody any modal aspect.The same happens in the French extract.The use of the conditional tense, 'tenterait-il' indicates supposition.By contrast, the modal occurrence (shouldn't) embodies a sense of obligation and supposition.The obligatoriness can be observed when the sentence concerned, which in the negative-interrogative form is changed to the affirmative and negative, for example: The modal obligation is marked by 'have to' in the English extract.The speaker uses it to indicate that wearing shabby black clothes has become obligatory to the receptor.By contrast, that sense of obligation is not marked in the Arabic and French extracts.The use of bare present in both Arabic and French extracts may indicate a habitual action.However, there is difference in meaning between a habit and obligation.A habit is something you are used to do willingly, whereas an obligation can be for something you do unwillingly.The use of modal obligation here reflects the life imposed on Hamida in Midaq Alley against her will.Abstractness occurs more in terms of obligatoriness in the FTT, for example: "Wisdom says that one should take care of new customers!"(p.67)

-Il est toujours sage de soigner les nouveaux clients. (p. 100)
Obligation is marked by ' ‫ﺗﻮﺟﺐ‬ 'in the Arabic extract and 'should' in the English extract.Taking care is seen to be an obligatory aspect of wisdom by the speaker in the Arabic and English extract.By contrast, taking care is seen to be a habitual aspect of wisdom.This can be inferred through the use of the bare present.It can be noticed that 'toujours' which is a modal of usuality is used in the French extract, but it is the translator's choice because it would still sound French and habitual if the sentence does not contain it, i.e. 'il est sage de soigner les nouveaux clients.'

Willingness
The willingness modalilty is found to be marked by 'would'or 'will' in the ETT.It occurs abstractly in the AST and FTT wherein a bare verb in the AST and FTT are used, For example: Frequently his drinking kindled his hospitality and he would invite his friends to the roof of his house where he would offer them food, wine and hashish (p.29).

Et sans doute une sorte d'ivresse de générosité s'était-elle emparée de lui car il invitait ses camarades chez lui, sur la terrasse, et leur offrait à manger et à boire, puis à fumer le hashisch (p. 46).
Both Arabic and French extracts use simply verbs.In the former, verbs are either in the preterit or present.The preterit indicates a complete action in the past, and the present can indicate a habitual action.Action completeness and habit are characteristics of a tense.Neither of them indicates modal aspect concerning the attitude of the doer of the action.In the latter, verbs are either in the imperfect (an indicative tense), or conditional tense.The imperfect in this context can be used to indicate a habitual action in the past, and the conditional is used in this context to indicate a desired action.Both of them are marked by inflections and not modality.According to Crystal (1992: 182) inflections are only used to "signal grammatical relationship".Therefore, the inflections used like -‫ي‬ , ‫,ا-‬ -ait, -rait signal grammatical relationship of tenses.The willingness modality is, therefore, inferred abstractly in the context and sentence structure.By contrast, the modality of willingness surface concretely in the English extract.It can be said that the English modal markers of willingness embody modal meaning, and tense, whereas an inflection does not embody a semantic aspect.It indicates that the doer of the action is willing to do an action.Without the modal marker of willingnes, the sentences will have a wholly completed action sense if the verbs functions without the modal and so read, 'invited' and 'offered'.That can annul the attitudes of the doer of the action or make abstract like the case in both Arabic and French extracts.The following is another example: Perhaps tomorrow Hussain would think -and he smiled at the thought-that it was he who had awakened him from his stupor (p.32).Demain Hussein penserait peut-être-Abbas souriait à cette idée-que c'était lui qui l'avait arraché à sa léthargie, faisant de lui une créature nouvelle (p.52).
It can be seen also that the Arabic and French extracts depend on the tense of the action.The inflections of the present in the Arabic extract, i.e. ‫‪and‬ﯾﺤﺴﺐ‬ the conditional in the French extract, i.e. penserait are tense markers wherein the modal aspect of willingness remains abstract or implicit.By contrast, the use of a modal marker, i.e. 'would', which is not an inflection but a word indicates concretely the attitude of the speaker or subject.The following is another example: -‫وﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﯾﺮﺿﻰ‬ ‫)ص.‬ ‫ﻰ؟‬ ّ ‫ﻣﻨ‬ ‫ﺑﺎﻟﺰواج‬ 649 ( "Whoever would want to marry me?" (p.18) -Mais qui voudra m 'épouser? (p. 32) In the Arabic sentence, the present is still used, but it does not show any attitude of the speaker.In the French sentence, a simple future is used.The basic verb is vouloir which means to want.The inflection -dra signal the future tense.So any attitude of the speaker must be inferred abstractly.In contrast, the use of the word (would) in the English sentence indicates concretely the attitude of willingness of the speaker.This modal approach may be different from the following modal known as 'usuality' in terms of expressive means.

Usuality
Usuality is the modality that denotes frequency.It is marked by ‫ھﯿﮭﺎت‬ ‫و‬ ‫ًا،‬ ‫أﺑﺪ‬ ‫ﻛﺎد،‬ ‫ﻟﻦ،‬ ‫ﻻ،‬ in the AST; toujours, souvent, ne… jamais in the FTT; and 'almost', 'usual', 'usually', 'never', 'ever', 'always', 'frequently', 'sometimes', and 'occasionally'.The ETT is found to use more markers of usuality than the AST and FTT, for example: He is always panting and out of breath, as if he has just run a race, and he can scarcely complete the sale of a sweet before he is overcome by a desire for sleep.People are always telling him he will die suddenly because of the masses of fat pressing round his heart.He always agrees with them (p.2).

Il ne cessait de haleter et de renâcler, comme s'il venait de courir un cent mètres. A peine avait-il vendu un morceau de basbousa que son assoupissement le reprenait. On l'avait averti plus d'une fois : « Tu mourras brusquement. La graisse qui pèse sur ton coeur te tuera. »Et lui-même le répétait (p.10).
In the Arabic extract and French extract, markers of frequency modality are used sparingly.The second modal occurred in the Arabic extract; it is translated literally into the English extract, and French extract.However, the English extract uses usuality modal more.The idea of a continuous action can be infered in the structure of the Arabic verb.The structure ‫ﯾﻠﮭﺚ‬ + ‫ﻣﺎزال‬ (lit. he continues panting/ he is still panting), and ‫ﯾﻘﻮل‬ + ‫وراح‬ (lit. he began saying) indicate that an action is in progress.By the same token, the structure ne + cessait + de + haleter (lit. he doesn't stop panting), and the use of the verb repeter has a repetitive continuous meaning indicating the continuity of the actions.However, the degree of frequency or mood is abstract.By contrast, the modality is marked concretely in the ETT by the use of the word 'always', which helps the reader cope easily with attitude of the speaker or doer of the action.The following is another example: She went on combing her black hair, waiting for her mother to comment as usual on the visit and visitor.When the silence remained unbroken unusually long, she asked: (p.22).

Ainsi elle peignait ses cheveux noirs, attendant comme d'habitude que sa mère commente la visite qu'elle venait de recevoir. Et comme le silence se prolongeait, la jeune fille déclara : (p. 36-7)
The modal, ‫ﻛﺎﻟﻌﺎدة‬ is used in the Arabic extract to indicate usuality or frequency.It is literally translated into the target extracts as 'usual' and d'habitude; but another usuality modal marker, 'unusually' has occurred in the English extract, and it enhances more the modality aspect in the discourse.In the Arabic and French extracts as far as the second occurrence in the English extract is concerned, the reader can sense habitualness through the tense used, whereas the doer of the action in the English is characterized with more emphatic modalizing meanings.The frequent usage of modality of usuality in the ETT and shifts in the AST and FTT are found to be ubiquitous in texts understudy.However, literal translation as far as this modality is concerned does occur with frequency markers of negation, for example: The modal marker, ‫ﻻ‬ occurs in the Arabic extract; it negates the frequency of an action.It is literally translated 'never' into English and ne…jamais into French.This is found to occur elsewhere on the texts on pages indicated in the appendices.The consistency of literal translation here may indicate that modal frequency markers of negation has a universal perception in the discourse of the the texts under study.6.2 Mawsim el-Hiğra ilā ash-Shamāl Modality markers embody markers of probanility, obligatoriness, willingness, and usuality.They are subcategorized due to their different semantic approaches.

Probability
Words like ‫ﻓﺮض‬ ‫ﻣﺘﺄﻛﺪ،‬ ‫ﺷﻚ،‬ ‫ﻻ‬ ‫ﺑﺎﻟﻔﻌﻞ،‬ ‫ﻻﺑﺪ،‬ ‫ﺳﻮف،‬ ‫اﻟﻮاﻗﻊ،‬ ‫ﻓﻲ‬ ‫اﺳﺘﻄﺎع،‬ ‫ﻟﻌﻞ،‬ are used in the AST to express the modality of probability.Words like perhaps, could, likely, actually, can, will, possible, might, shall, in fact, may, of course, certain are used in the ETT to express the modality of probability; and words like peut être, sans doute, en verité, en realité,, certainment, effectivement, sûrement,and sûr are used to express modality of probability in the FTT.Take for example:: Perhaps, she knew I desired her.But she was sweet, the sweetest woman I've known (p.26).
In the Arabic extract, tthe word, ‫ﻟﻌﻞ‬ is used to express modality of probability.The same happens in the English extract.The word 'perhaps' expresses modality of probability.However, in the French extract no modal marker to indicate probability.The modal sense is abstractly understood through the verb, craindre.This shows that there is no systematic literal translation from Arabic into French.English uses more modality of probability than Arabic whereas French does not have a modal of probability.another example: Wad Rayyes used kohl on his eyes: though he gave as his reason for so doing the fact that kohl was enjoined in the sunna, I believe it was out of vanity (p.78)

… et se maquillait de khôl sous prétexte d'obéir à la coutume (p. 82).
In the Arabic extract, one word, ّ‫أن‬is used twice to express modality of probability.However, in the English extract, the modality which is used is 'the fact that'.The modal marker in the Arabic sentence is repeated twice in the same sentence, which reflects a peculiarity of Arabic language, whereas in the English text it is used once; this also reflects a peculiarity of English, which is conciseness.In the French extract, there are no probability modality markers.Statements occurred without any modality.This has been found to occur throughout all the texts.

Obligatoriness
Markers like ‫ﯾﺠﺐ‬ ‫ﻻﺑﺪ،‬ are used in the AST to indicate obligatoriness; words like must, should are found to be used in the ETT to express obligatoriness; and markers like il faut/fallait, and sûrement are used to express obligatoriness in the FTT.It is found that literal translation do occur in the TTs as they occur in the AST, for example: ‫ﻟﻜﻦ‬ ‫ﺑﺎﻷﻟﻢ.‬‫ﻣﻠﯿﺌﺔ‬ ‫"اﻟﺤﯿﺎة‬ ‫ﻟﻲ:‬ ‫ﺗﻘﻮل‬ ‫وھﻲ‬ ‫اﻟﺘﺨﯿﻞ‬ ‫وأﻓﺸﺤﺖ‬ ‫ﻋﺎرﯾﺔ،‬ ‫وﺗﺨﯿﻠﺘﮭﺎ‬ ‫ﯾﺠﺐ‬ ‫)ص.‬ ‫ﺑﺸﺠﺎﻋﺔ."‬‫اﻟﺤﯿﺎة‬ ‫وﻧﻮاﺟﮫ‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻔﺎءل،‬ ‫أن‬ ‫ﻋﻠﯿﻨﺎ‬ 53 ( I pictured her obscenely naked as she said: "Life is full of pain, yet we must be optimistic and face life with courage."(p.41)
In the Arabic extract, the marker ‫'ﯾﺠﺐ'‬ is used to indicate an obligatory action that must be done.That modal aspect is rendered also into the English extract; the modal 'must' indicates an obligatory action to be done.The same happens in the French extract; 'il faut' express the same modality of an obligatory action to be done.This is found to occur elsewhere on pages 49, 134, and 152 of the ETT; pages 54, 136, and 155 of the FTT.They correspond to pages 63, 160, and 181 of the AST.Nevertheless, the ETT is found to express the modality of obligatoriness more than the AST and FTT, for example: It is important to me that they should know what sort of person their father was-if that at all possible.I am not concerned that they should think well of me.To be thought well of is the last I'm after (p.66).
In the Arabic extract, there is no marker indicating obligatoriness.It can be understood that it is an obligation abstractly.The same happens in the French extract.There is no maker indicating obligatoriness; the sense of obligation may be understood abstractly, and that requires the receptor to have an intellectual capacity.However, in the English extract, the sense of obligation is concrete because modality marker of oblgatoriness, 'should' is used.This helps the receptor to understand easily the sense of obligation.The following is another example: In the Arabic extract, the obligatoriness is abstract because there is no marker indicating that.It is understood that an advice has been given to do the actions of ‫ﻓﺘﺢ‬ ‫.اﺳﺘﻐﻼل،‬The same happens in the French extract.There is no marker indicating obligatoriness; it is understood that an advice has been given to do the action of investir and fonder.By contrast, the actions (invest, and open) are obligatory.The obligatoriness concretely understood by the use of the marker, 'should'.These cases are found to occur elsewhere on pages 12, 18, 32, 37, and 148 of the ETT.

Willingness
This kind of modality is found to be concretely used and marked by markers like would and will in the ETT, whereas in the AST and FTT the modality has no markers and it is inferred abstractly.In this connection AST depends on the use of present tense mostly and the past tense sometimes, whereas the FTT is found to depend mostly on using the conditional tense and the imperfect tense, or simple present sometimes, or nothing at all, for example: Mustafa said it was important that people should submit to the rules of the project, otherwise things would get out of hand and chaos would reign (p.12).

Il déclara que, sans discipline, la confusion et le désordre s'installeraient (p. 19).
In the Arabic extract, the verbs ‫ﺳﺎدت(‬ ‫)اﺧﺘﻠﻄﺖ،‬ are in the preterit, but the actions did not happen; they will happen when the people do not submit to the rules of the project.There are no modality markers.In the French extract, the verb is in the conditional tense.The inflection -raient indicates the form of the verb only.So the modal aspect is abstract in the Arabic and French extracts.By contrast, modal markers of willingness are used in the English extract.It can be noticed that if the modal markers are deleted in the English extract and the sentence read, 'otherwise things get out of hand and chaos reigns', the verbs will indicate habitual actions.The following is another example: When our feet wearied of walking about we would take ourselves off to a café close by the al-Azhar Mosque where we would drink tamarind juice and Mr Robinson would recite the poetry of al-Ma'arri… I would look at the hair of her armpits and would have a sensation of panic (p.26).

Le quartier d'Al-Azhar était leur préféré. Las d'avoir longtemps traîné dans les rues, nous trouvions refuge dans un café proche de la mosquée, nous buvions du jus de tamarin tandis que Mr Robinson récitait des vers de Ma'arri… Les poils sous ses aisselles me fascinaient (p. 33).
In the Arabic extract, the verbs ‫ﻧﻠﻮذ(‬ ‫أﺣﺲ،‬ ‫ﯾﻘﺮأ،‬ ‫)ﻧﺸﺮب،‬ are in the present tense, whereas ‫أﻧﻈﺮ(‬ ‫)ﻛﻨﺖ‬ is in the preterit.The actions may be understood in this context as habitual.In the French extract, the imperfect is used, and they indicate in this context habitual actions.However, in the English extract, the modal marker, 'would' of willingness is used.It indicates the attitude of the subjects to the action.'I was afraid you would go and talk to the others, that you would tell them I wasn't the man I claimed, which would-would cause a certain amount of embarrassment to them and to me (p.17).
In the Arabic extract, there are no modality markers of willingness; the verbs are in the present tense.In the French extract, the modality of willingness is abstract.it can only inferred through tenses and words.By contrast, modal markers of willingness surface in the English extract, and that helps the receptor to know the attitudes of the doer of the actions.The following is another example: The arrow will shoot forth towards other unknown horizons (p.28).

Et la flèche partait vers des cibles inconnues (p. 35).
In the Arabic and French extracts the modality is abstract.In the former the verb is in the future tense and in the latter the verb is in the imperfect.By contrast, a modal particle is used in the English extract.Unlike the affixes used in the Arabic and French verbs, 'will' is not only a formal particle but also a semantic particle as a modal marker.It can be a modal of probability, willingness or unmodalized futurity.These cases are found to occur on pages indicated on the appendices.In short, the modality markers of willingness concretely surface in English language whereas in Arabic and French languages it occurs abstractly.

Usuality
This category is also known as modality of frequency.It is found to be marked in the AST by ‫أﻛﺜﺮ‬ ‫ﻛﺎد،‬ ‫ﺎ،‬ ً ‫أﺣﯿﺎﻧ‬ ‫ا،‬ ً ‫ﻧﺎدر‬ ‫ًا،‬ ‫أﺑﺪ‬ ، in the AST; it is marked by always, never, ever, rarely, occasionally, almost, and often in the ETT; and it is marked by ne jamais, jamais, rarement, subrepticement, faillir, de fois in the FTT.Frequency modality is found to occur more in the ETT, even though literal translation occurs as far as this is concerned, for example:

Conclusion
The expressing modality markers that are identified in the texts understudy are modality markers of probability, obligatoriness, willingness, and usuality.The expressing modality of willingness is found to occur concretely only in the English target texts.The other expressing modalities are found to occur in the Arabic source texts.The English target text contains all expressing modalities, whereas the French target texts contain expressing modalities except expressing modalities of probability and willingness.The research reveals that English language uses more modality markers than the AST and FTT, and it has various expressing modality markers than the other languages, i.e.Arabic and French.
The frequent use of expressing modality markers in the ETT is found to be mostly determined by some of English language peculiarities, precisely concreteness and logicality.This frequent use of modality in the ETTs is not in the translator's latitude because the analysis in Midaq Alley and Season of Migration to the North confirm the same finding despite the fact that the translators are different translators.Although Arabic language is a concrete language and French language is an abstract language, they are found to share certain peculiarity in terms of expressing modality.Both of them rely more on the use of inflection which is merely a structural aspect.Arabic uses often modality of probability, and uses less other expressing modality categories: many propositions modality markers are abstract.As far as French language is concerned many expressing modality markers do not surface.The infrequent use of expressing modality in the French texts is not a translator's choice; it is found to be due to a language peculiarity, abstractness.

Flourishing
" The sentences can be indicative, declarative, open interrogative Squ (whquestion), closed interrogative (yes/no question), and inclusive or exclusive imperative.The following examples illustrate more people I feel this good about.
Mawussim el-Hijrat ila Shimal, translated Season of Migration to the North, and Saison de la Migration vers le Nord .
Page occurrences in the ASTPage occurrences in the ETT Page occurrences in the FTT

Table 3
‫أنّ‬ ‫ﺎ،‬ ّ ‫ﺣﻘ‬ ‫ﻻﺷﻚ،‬ ‫ﻋﺴﻰ،‬ ، ‫ﺳﻮف‬ ،ّ ‫ﻟﻌﻞ‬ ‫طﺒﻌﺎ،‬ ‫ﺷﻚ،‬ ‫ّﻤﺎ،‬ ‫رﺑ‬ ‫ﻗﺪ،‬ ، ‫ّق‬ ‫ﺻﺪ‬ ‫أﺟﻞ،‬ ‫اﻟﻮاﻗﻊ،‬ ‫ﻓﻲ‬ are used to indicate probability in the AST.Words like certainly, will, can, perhaps, could, in fact, and indeed are used in the ETT to signal probability.However, in the FTT the sense of probability is abstract in that there are no expressing modality markers signalling the sense of probability.It is also observed that the ETT does use more modal devices than the AST as far as this category is concerned, for example: must, should, and have to falloir, devoir, and ne...que Why shouldn't he try his luck like the others?= Negative-interrogative He should try his luck with others.= Affirmative He shouldn't try his luck with others.= Negative This indicates that obligatoriness is a deep structure in that it is consistant in transformation.It can also observed in the discourse that obligatoriness does occur in the preceding sentences, marked by ‫ﻣﻌﺪى‬ ‫ﻻ‬ , must, and il fallait.Therefore, it concretely surface, whereas in the Arabic and English extracts it is abstract.The following is another example: How is it they can swagger about in nice clothes, while you have to wear this shabby black cloak".(p.160) -…qu'elles se pavanent dans de beaux vêtements tandis que vous restez enveloppée dans ce voile noir (p.228).