The Translation of Shakespearean Legal Puns into Standard Arabic: Macbeth and Hamlet as a Case Study

: Translation can be impacted by metalinguistic factors that lead translators either to render literal meanings or try their best to communicate what they believe is the intended message of the author of the source text (ST). One of the cases that can best illustrate this situation of the translator is the translation of puns. This study scrutinizes legal puns in Khalil Mutran’s Arabic translations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, translated in 1950 and Hamlet, translated in 1974. This study aims to investigate how Mutran manipulates the occurrences of puns in the source text when he translates them into Standard Arabic. The study examines puns in the source texts by referring to Shakespeare’s Legal Language: A Dictionary (2004) and Mahood’s Shakespeare's Wordplay (2003), and in the Arabic translations by referring to Faruqi’s English-Arabic Law Dictionary (2008). Results show that Mutran opts for either a literal translation of puns using Standard Arabic terms, a literal translation using legal terms or omission of puns in his translation. Results also indicate that Mutran adopts stage-worthy translation rather than law-worthy one.


I. Introduction
"[A pun is a] violent form of language!"(Hooper, 2003, p. 122).According to Hooper (2003), Shakespeare provides several ingenious puns in Macbeth and Hamlet, which is one of the techniques that contributes to a distinguished plot and characters (p.122).Taking into consideration Hooper's (2003) definition of puns as an "instance where a single word or phrase carries more than one independent meaning in a given context", it can be said that Shakespeare seems to augment this common impression as his ingenuity enables him to use words that have the power of bearing double-edged meanings (p.121).Reflecting on the legal puns in Macbeth and Hamlet, Boyarsky (2009) discusses that puns are used by many of the characters in Macbeth and Hamlet to express Shakespeare's dissatisfaction with the legal issues, like laws related to land and marriage choices, during the Elizabethan era (p.571).On a similar basis, as Litvin puts it, one can see "the Arab Hero Hamlet" that appears in Mutrans's translation, emerging as a political martyr and sacrificing himself for the sake of freedom and justice to the country (Litvin, 2011, p. 126).The problems related to the translation of Shakespearean puns have been discussed with regard to several different languages.Examples of these languages include French (e.g.Offord, 1990), Spanish (e.g.Herrera, 2015), Polish (e.g.Adamczyk, 2014), and Arabic (e.g.Mameri & AlAllaq 2020).As far as Arabic translations are concerned, translating Shakespearean puns into Arabic is considered a controversial issue due to the rich possible double-edged meanings of the legal puns inserted in the text, especially in Macbeth and Hamlet.
This study examines puns with legal overtones in Khalil Mutran's translations of Shakespeare's Macbeth and Hamlet; the study also investigates whether Mutran directs his lexical and language choices towards law-worthy or stage-worthy translations.

II. literature review
Meaning related to language use in general, and in literary texts in particular, can be subtle and diverse, and so judgments of the meaning or multiple meanings in a text can depend on how a reader or translator interprets that language and its culture.Translators often have to choose between the various potentialities of phrases and words in a text to render their best interpretation of the source text as well as the communicative meaning related to the target culture.In doing so, they often must abandon potential semantic variety and uncertainty in favor of their selected version that will form the new, supposedly effective, text.Thus, one of the characteristics of several literary texts is that they can be interpreted The Translation of Shakespearean Legal Puns into Standard Arabic: Macbeth and Hamlet as a Case  from different perspectives by taking into consideration the interrelations among ideas within the text itself and how it might be interconnected to other (cultural) perceptions outside the text.In this section, the literature that will be reviewed and consulted about the topic of the present study focuses on the main linguistic and cultural aspects associated with puns and their translations, in general, and on Shakespearean works in particular.
The translatability of puns from one language, and culture, to another language has been the concern of some researchers in relation to literary works.Petrea (2019), for instance, studies the translatability and untranslatability of polysemantic wordplay instances in drama.She analyses some of the instances of wordplay and their translations in two acts in Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons (1960).She sharpens her analysis by drawing on the Politeness Principles theory by Lakoff (1973) and Leech (1983) and the politeness translation strategies proposed by them.Petrea confirms the untranslatability of homonymic and homophonic puns since these phenomena are related to a specific language and culture.She says that the use of "magnifying and eschewing politeness strategies" (2019, p. 167) has been a great benefit to the translation since these strategies help in producing a text that reflects the target culture and civilization and takes into consideration the context of puns in the source text.
Similarly focusing on puns, Offord (1990) points out that translating puns is a "demanding challenge to the ingenuity of translators" (p.104).He examines, in detail, the strategies employed by three French translators in the translation of puns that occur in three Shakespearean comedies, Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Much Ado About Nothing.Offord lists the translation strategies used by each translator for each pun in the three plays, for which he provides a statistical survey.Offord concludes his article by investigating the reasons behind the choice of the used strategies, some of which include psychological factors related to the translator, his/her skill, and the constraints related to the two different linguistic systems.He emphasizes the possible importance of translational intertextuality, which suggests borrowing translation strategies from previous translations.In fact, he gives special attention to the acceptability of wordplay in the target culture as it plays an important role in the effectiveness of the target text.Adamczyk (2014) also investigates the translation of puns in several Shakespearean plays as he attempts to juxtapose two different approaches to translating Shakespearean wordplay, namely the 'global-macro analytic' approach and the 'local-micro analytic' approach.Adamczyk considers two Polish translations of Love's Labour's Lost by Barañczak's (2004) andSlomczynski's (1979), each of which adopts one approach according to Adamczyk's review.According to Adamczyk (2014), Barañczak deals with wordplay as a context and tries to reach a functional translation to enable the target audience to establish a reception of the target text similar to that experienced by the audience of the source text.However, as Adamczyk (2014) argues, Slomczynski adopts only the approach of semantic translation regardless of the unique features of the instances of wordplay.Adamczyk (2014) ends his study by confirming that both translations, whether functional or semantic, involve some loss on one level and gain some features on another level.He insists that the translator should strive to imitate the influence of the humorous instances of wordplay on the target audience.Delabastita (1993) studies the nature of wordplay in Shakespeare's works and their translations.He explores the possibilities of wordplay translation and the underlying reasons for the translator to opt for one translation strategy rather than another.Delabastita, during his study (1993), attempts to illustrate the relationship between the theory and a description-oriented approach to translation by analyzing Hamlet and other Shakespearean texts and their Dutch, German, and French translations.Delabastita (1993) emphasizes that in his examination of wordplay, he does not depend on "stylistic bravura or abstract speculation" (p. 1).That is to say, his study inspects the linguistic and textual aspects of wordplay instances in Shakespeare and their translation, in addition to examining the historical and ideological aspects related to them.
In addition to research about French, Polish, Dutch, and German translations of puns in Shakespeare's works, puns have also been examined with regard to Spanish translations of Shakespeare.For example, Herrera (2015) focuses on the translation of legal puns in the works of three translators.He argues that the audience of the Spanish translations of Shakespeare's plays might not be able to recognize or appreciate the subtleties related to the manipulation of the legal puns since these are not much evident in the translated texts.The study problematizes such strategies in the context of "law-worthy" translations as opposed to "stageworthy" ones.Herrera discusses how 'loose' translations that aimed at 'stage worthiness' led to under-translation of passages related to legal puns while other translations that were concerned with 'law-worthiness' resulted in 'stage unworthy' translations that were not suitable for stage production.However, Herrera (2015) believes that translators who were familiar with the legal system and terminology of the Elizabethan era produced translations that are law and stage worthy (p.178).

III. Translations of Shakespeare into Arabic
Studies of the translations of Shakespeare into Arabic have examined these translations in relation to different perspectives.Mameri & AlAllaq (2020), for instance, investigate the challenges that might encounter translators when translating dramatic texts into Arabic; they conduct a comparative study of two translations of Shakespeare's Macbeth into Arabic by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra and Salah Niazi.They applied four of the seven parameters of translation quality assessment (TQA) suggested by Al Qinai (2000).Mameri & AlAllaq (2020) tackle the semantic and pragmatic problems related to drama translation, especially the translation of Shakespearean plays into Arabic.Their findings indicate that both translators (i.e., Jabra and Niazi) were inconsistent in the translation strategies that they adopted.Most importantly, Mameri & AlAllaq (2020) note the failure of either translation to render the collocations and culture-specific expressions into their communicative counterparts in the target text (p.131).Hanna (2016b) investigates the common trends adopted by some translators and researchers to introduce Shakespeare to the Arab culture.He states that the outset of the translation of a foreign culture into Arabic was highly inspired by the fresh demand to bridge the gap between the English and Arabic cultures (p.1387).Nevertheless, according to Hanna (2016b), though some Arab scholars and translators adopted this thought like the Syro-Egyptian journalist, poet, novelist, playwright, and translator Najib al-Haddad (1867-1899), a vast range of sociocultural and political issues were out of the spotlight during this early period such as calling for nationalistic democracy and unity against occupiers of the Arab countries, which were covered in the translations produced by the turn of the nineteenth century.That is to say, the entry of the Shakespearean works into the Arab world was to meet certain needs by scholars in the late nineteenth century.Some of these needs can be illustrated in the practices of transferring plays into folk narratives that can be sung and by bringing happy endings to them.
On a similar track, Hanna (2016a) discusses Shakespeare's work in his book, Bourdieu in Translation Studies: The Socio-cultural Dynamics of Shakespeare Translation in Egypt, from sociological and cultural perspectives.Hanna (2016a) focuses on the translations of Shakespeare's tragedies in Egypt by analyzing 'the theory of fields of cultural production' in order to spot the light on the remarkable development of drama translation in Arabic.He also believes that due to 'sociocultural dynamics', the translations of Shakespearean tragedies (e.g., Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear and Othello) have shaped up the decisions made by the theatre directors, actors, publishers and, especially, translators.
Correspondingly, Hanna (2005) aims to challenge the 'mainstream histories' of the early translations of Shakespearean drama in Egypt by inspecting the first published translation of Hamlet by Tanios Abdu (1902).Hanna (2005) draws attention to the fact that most of the theater translators in Egypt were Lebanese Christians who immigrated in the last decades of the 19th century like the case of Tanyous Abduh and Khalil Mutran.As a result, these translators endeavored to sift their translations out from the neo-classical terms that can be found in the translations of an Azharite.However, Hanna (2005) concludes that since these Lebanese translators arrived in a new environment, they constantly struggled to master language, where it compromised both their own 'norms' and the 'norms of the literary establishment in Egypt'.Thus, a 'hybrid language', as the translation historians called it, has emerged.
A representative scenario indicated by Hanna (2016b) is the adaptation of Hamlet, by the translator and poet Tanyus Abdu (1901) that was commissioned for the Cairo-based theatre company of Eskandar Farah.It was meant for commercial purposes as well as low-and middle-class Egyptian audiences.This adaptation remained dominant until Khalil Mutran produced his translation in 1918.Hanna (2016b) points out that Abdu's version included melodramatic lyrics sung by Salama Hijazi, which gave a chance for famous as well as new actors and actresses to use their singing abilities and which was a strong expectation of the Egyptian audience to have songs during the performance of the play.Hanna (2016b) reveals that Tanyus's adaptation of Hamlet had been shifted from the tragedy genre into musical melodrama, giving it a happy ending since "theater audiences would not have accepted a dead Hamlet after all the perils he experiences in the play" (p.1389).Consequently, it is clear that the principal purpose beyond translating Hamlet using the method of adaptation during that period was to satisfy the enthusiastic Egyptian audience and so was expected to achieve commercial success.Litvin (2011), in her book Hamlet's Arab Journey: Shakespeare's Prince and Naser's Ghost, studies the reception of Hamlet in the Arab world, particularly in Egypt, since 1952 (and earlier) to the threshold of the Arab Spring in 2011.Litvin (2011) relates her knowledge of Arabic, French, and Russian to the translations of Hamlet in the Arabic political discourse.She brings out the multiple and contradictory meanings evoked by the translators, political leaders, audiences, etc. from Hamlet, and how these meanings contribute to developing the social, political and cultural plans.Litvin (2011) investigates the new 'merits' of a 'new theory of cultural exchange', which she sets against the binary model -source/translation, original/adaptation, empire/colony, center/margin, domination/subversion, West/ The Translation of Shakespearean Legal Puns into Standard Arabic: Macbeth and Hamlet as a Case Study (532-563) East.She finally finds out, through different examples in Arabic and Russian, that the techniques used in the translation of the linguistic elements from one source language to a target language help in creating the relationship between Hamlet and the Arabs, which reflects the fact that the Arab world lived through a difficult epoch.She also demonstrates that, by employing certain kinds of wordings, the translator aims to accentuate his/her chosen political themes.Enani (2016) examines the issue that the dramatic tradition of European languages, especially English, is not generally recognized in the Arabic theatre (p.157).Emphasizing this issue, Enani (2016) states that "the language itself ensures a distance in time, confirming the foreign nature of the work of art presented" (p.158).Referring to the translations of Shakespeare, Enani (2016) insists on the importance of tone in order to employ a suitable method while translating.According to him, the selected tone depends on the type of the audiences and readers to be addressed.Thus, Enani (2016) reveals that, when he started translating Hamlet, he focused on taking the readers' expectations into consideration while, at the same time, aiming to render the essentials of the source text.
The translatability of Shakespearean wordplay into Arabic is investigated by Al-Thebyan, Al Shalabi and Salameh (2011); they criticize Jabra's translation of Shakespeare's The Tempest into Arabic and investigate the problems they believe exist in that translation.They attribute these problems to the gap between the linguistic systems of English and Arabic, the ambiguity of the source text and approach that the translator takes in the process of translation.The researchers refer to the serious challenge of translating the instances of wordplay in the Shakespearean text; they mention that there was a noticeable loss in Jabra's translation when rendering the wordplay occurrences into Arabic since the translator sometimes had no choice but to ignore the problematic wordplay.They conclude that some pitfalls do affect the quality of translation, especially the translation of puns.These pitfalls include, but not limited to, the literal translation, the use of colloquial, inaccurate, and non-poetic words that add to the ambiguity of the text and the omission of some words and lines from the text.Al-Thebyan et al. ( 2011) finally sort out these pitfalls by referring to the differences between English and Arabic linguistic systems, difficulty and ambiguity of the source text, the type of the approach adopted by the translator during translating the text, or his/her misunderstanding of the text (p.74).
All in all, most studies about the translatability of puns indicate that these figures of speech are untranslatable in most cases.Puns are not translatable since they can be looked at as one of the communicative tools that identify a specific culture; one culture cannot be expressed in another language, according to Sapir (1921, p. 237).Nevertheless, the possibility of pun translation as well as the acceptability of the translated puns in the target culture can be conditioned by the adequate translation strategies used by the translator, as examined by Offord (1990).It can be concluded that the translator needs to be aware of all sorts of reasons that motivate the author of the source text to use puns in their texts.It can be said that it is the translator's aim to decide on the translation strategy in translating puns and whether it is important to come up with a different pun that echoes the meaning and the intended effect of the original one.All of this shows that puns, as linguistic devices, are linked to identity and culture, and that they pose tough challenges to the translator to deal with.

IV. The interconnectedness of Puns, Language , and Culture
Puns, as a superordinate of wordplay, have special features with regard to phonological, lexical, syntactic, pragmatic and cultural levels.Thus, any work including a good command of puns can involve a comprehensive semanticpragmatic analysis to decipher the intended meaning in the context as well as its cultural dimensions.In this section, the researchers attempt a definition related to the current analysis.
According to Delabastita (1996), wordplay, as the hypernym, "is the general name for the various textual phenomenon in which structural features of the language(s) used are exploited in order to bring about a communicatively significant confrontation of two (or more) linguistics structures with more or less similar forms and more or less different meanings" (p.128).Much more precisely, Koestler (1964) states that puns are "the bisociation of a single phonetic form with two meanings -two strings of thought tied together by an acoustic knot" (as cited in Klitgård, 2018, p. 235).In the same vein, Attardo (1994) emphasizes that "all linguistic (and non-linguistic) analyses agree on the fact that puns involve two senses" (p.128).Bergson et al. (1914) explains that with a pun, "the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance; in reality there are two different sentences made up of different words but claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound" (cited in Giorgadze, 2014, p. 272).
By shedding light on how puns express their meanings, it can be said that ambiguity is a significant feature of puns.Thus, the manipulation of puns is fostered by factors such as the multiple meanings encoded in a word or an The Translation of Shakespearean Legal Puns into Standard Arabic: Macbeth and Hamlet as a Case Study (532-563) expression and the ambiguity hanging over the situation/context where puns are part of the characters' conversation on the stage.Wordplay, especially puns, work dually on both expected and unexpected words and meanings.Partington (2009) discusses what makes a good pun, and what makes a bad pun.His investigation is based on the analysis of the feasible meanings of puns.He indicates that a well-constructed pun possesses a 'kind of kinship between the combined senses' in the pun whereas a bad pun poses hollowness to the overall content due to the 'missing link' between its two meanings.Supporting his analysis, Partington adds that "puns generally do not play with single words but phrases, larger units of discourse" (cited in Klitgård, 2018, p. 238).On a similar basis, Delabastita (1996) considers punning as "a textual phenomenon relying on specific textual settings, such as either verbal or situational contexts" (p.129).On that account, both possible meanings of the pun, along with the concurrent context, are interlinked to give way for the intended, specific meaning to be conveyed.Delabastita (1996) identifies a typology of puns.According to Delabastita (1996: p. 128), puns, as wordplay in its narrow sense, can be categorized into four classes namely, a. homonymic words that have identical pronunciation and spelling; b. homophonic words that have identical pronunciation but different spelling; c. homographic words that have different pronunciation but identical spelling; and d. paronymic words that have minor differences in pronunciation and spelling.The type that is examined in the current study focuses on puns as homonymic words.
Puns and ambiguity are two sides of the same coin.This can be emphasized by the fact stated by Delabastita (1994) that each language has its peculiar structuralsemantic characteristics such as homonyms, homophones and polysemic words (p.223).Puns have their unique linguistic system that is inherent in the specific structure of each language.Consequently, due to such uniqueness and to the interrelatedness of language and culture, one culture cannot be easily expressed in another language (Sapir, 1921, p. 237).In this fashion, puns are considered cultural as well as complex phenomena that can speak up for the culture related to any particular language and display the basic principles of the language and communication (Winter-Froemel, Thaler & Demeulenaere, 2018, p. 1).Therefore, it is crucial to foreign learners to indulge and expose themselves to the culture associated with any specific language to grasp its lexical, pragmatic, and semantic senses.Hauptman (2009) examines the originality, ingenuity, naturalness, meaningfulness of puns and their relatedness to their own culture.He argues for the fact that punning is one of the tools that works for plugging the gaps when the linguistic norms as well as the cultural values of a particular language is the question (Hauptman, 2009).What supports this notion is the illustration of baroque contexts in Europe in the 17th and early 18th centuries discussed by Filatkina & Moulin (2018).They suggest a broader definition of puns with regard to baroque contexts as "deeply rooted in a particular view of language peculiar to European baroque culture that provided a conceptual background not only for language "theories", poetry, education and standards of knowledge but also for the role and functions of wordplay" (p.235).This definition encompasses the notion that since punning is part of language use, it indicates how the way the language used in certain communication situations within a particular culture is sensibly decided on by how far the language user is aware of the social, cultural, and linguistic norms related to such situations (Filatkina & Moulin, 2018, p. 235).This illustration can serve as a description of how the trilogy of punning, language and culture are melting into one pot.Delabastita (1994) investigates the possibility of separating "meaning (intention, function, effect, communicative value) from verbal formulation when the former seems to be the exclusive effect of the latter" (p.223).He explores the possibility of pun translation with two provoked answers; on the one hand, there is the theoretical argument between the claim of the impossibility of 'real translation' of puns and the claim of the contrary.On the other hand, there is a call for the idea that the translation of puns should be done "in order to circumvent the theoretical obstacles, or at least mitigate their consequences" (p.223).In fact, the present negotiation ascertains the fact of the differences between the linguistic systems of the source text and the target text and the different options available to the translator as well as to which degree the translator can relatively render the pun to the target language (p.225).Therefore, Delabastita (1996: p. 134) compiles a list of translation strategies in order to justify the translatability of puns: a. Pun/ Pun; b.Pun/ Non-pun; c. Pun/ Related Rhetorical Device; d.Pun/Zero; e. Pun ST = Pun TT; f.Non-Pun/Pun; g.Zero/Pun; h.Editorial Techniques.

V. Translation of puns
In a similar fashion to that of Delabastita (1994), Klitgård (2018) tackles one of the major problems that encounter the translator of puns.He indicates that the "covert associative power of language is not the same across time and socio-linguistic cultures" (p.241).Klitgård (2018) refers to Chiaro (1992) who describes, concerning the translation of sexual and political puns, how difficulties arise regarding the equivalency and understanding whenever the source culture  Chiaro (1992) also studies the degree of the similarity of the sociocultural knowledge between the source culture and target culture (cited in Klitgård, 2018, p. 241).
Studying the translation of puns in Shakespearean contexts, Offord (1990) establishes six translation strategies of puns in the context of Shakespearean plays, by which he depends on Delabastita's model of translation strategies (1996).Offord (1990) regards the translation of the Shakespearean puns as a 'challenge' activity for the translator with which he has to cope.Through his study of the translation of three Shakespearean plays, he declares that there are several factors affecting the translator while translating puns.These factors include the skill of the translator, his faithfulness to the original text, whether his translation is directed towards 'page' or 'stage', and the particular linguistic system for each of the source language and the target language (pp.137-138).Delabastita (1994) agrees with Offord's analysis of pun translation (1990); however, Delabastita (1994) prefers that the acceptability of the translated pun in the target culture should be given special attention since it plays a special, vital role in communicating either the author's message or the translator's message as well as their cultural background.Based on this concept, Delabastita (1994) expresses that the word 'translatable' should mean "what must not be translated rather than what cannot be translated" (p.230).Accordingly, it can be concluded that homonymic/polysemic puns seem to be untranslatable with reference to drama translation, such as Shakespearean plays, due to the fact that puns are distinguished linguistic and cultural phenomena that are inherently associated with the language and culture that produced them.As a result, according to Petrea (2019), the available solution to deal with the translation of homonymic puns related to drama context is to apply Pun-Zero translation strategy (p.167).

VI. Objectives of the study
The primary objective of this study is to investigate the Arabic translation of law-related puns in Shakespeare's Macbeth and Hamlet.
This study aims to answer the following questions: 1.
How does Mutran manipulate the problematics of preserving the legal puns in Macbeth and Hamlet into Arabic?

2.
What are the reasons behind the translator's choice of including a lawworthy or a stage-worthy translation of the legal puns?

VII. Statement of the problem
In translation studies, the study of the translation of puns that are related to law has received little attention from researchers.The incorporation of puns in a text demands a witty manipulation of words taking into consideration their denotations and connotations in order to achieve the intended effect.The translation of texts including puns would also need a clever use and management of words and translation techniques in the target text.This study focuses on puns that are related to law in Shakespeare's plays Macbeth and Hamlet and investigates their Arabic translations by the Lebanese poet Khalil Mutran.

VIII. Significance of the study
Since the early translations of Shakespeare's plays, there has been a considerable body of literature on the translation of puns in these works (e.g.Delabastita (1993), Mahood, (2003); Crystal and Crystal, 2004).Such studies have been dedicated to discussing, assessing, comparing, and criticizing the translation of wordplay in Shakespeare.These studies focus on the different strategies employed in translating wordplay and the difficulties faced during such a process.However, analyzing Arabic translations of legal wordplay occurrences in Shakespeare has not received sufficient attention by translation researchers and scholars.
Therefore, this study aims to examine the Arabic translation of legal puns that occur in Macbeth and Hamlet and investigates the possibility of effectively rendering the manipulated language to the target language.

IX. Method
This study is qualitative and serves both exploratory and explanatory aims.It seeks to understand the interrelationship between the legal overtones interwoven with the puns in Shakespeare's Macbeth and Hamlet and in their Arabic translations by Khalil Mutran's.The researchers have focused on, and analyzed, ten of the exemplary instances of legal puns in Macbeth, and another ten occurrences of legal puns from the gravedigger scene in Hamlet.The data were analyzed according to the legal meanings of puns as stated in Shakespeare's Legal Language: A Dictionary (2004) and the wordplay interpretations as discussed in Mahood (2003).The researchers looked up the possible legal and literal meanings of the collected puns by referring to Shakespeare's Legal Language: A Dictionary (2004).Then Mutran's Arabic translation was compared with the possible Arabic legal meanings as stated in Faruqi's English-Arabic Law Dictionary (2008).This The Translation of Shakespearean Legal Puns into Standard Arabic: Macbeth and Hamlet as a Case Study (532-563) was done to find how the legal puns of the source text were manipulated in the translated Arabic text.This can suggest different possibilities; for instance, did Mutran focus on translating legal terms only at the expense of expressing the punning sense of the source text?Or did he produce a literal translation of the legal puns?
The researchers aimed to examine how Mutran tackled the problematics of preserving the legal overtones in the translation of the puns in the selected scenes from Macbeth and Hamlet into Arabic and whether he produced law-worthy or stage-worthy translations.
The choice of Macbeth from among the other Shakespearean plays was informed by the point that the legal puns in Macbeth are less obvious than in the other Shakespearean tragedies.Consequently, though Macbeth has a small number of legal puns e.g.'surcease', 'deed', 'nature's copy', etc., these puns bring the main themes to light, such as the conflict of good and evil and greed for power, and, according to Mahood (2003), they "[preserve] the play's theatrical vigour by contributing to the interplay of characters as fully realised as any in the major group of Shakespeare's tragedies" (p.145).In a similar vein, the researchers' choice of Hamlet was attributed to the issue that the legal puns in Hamlet provide a deep understanding of the 'psychological conflict' occurring in the characters on the stage (Mahood, 2013, p. 113).It is worth to shed light on the reasons of choosing Faruqi's English-Arabic Law Dictionary (2008) in this study.The author highly depends, in its resources, on the old well-known English and American dictionaries and encyclopedias.He indicates that "[he] culled and compiled [his] legal words and phrases of English and American jurisprudence from many highly trusted founts of legal terminology … ample space has been given to titles of old English law and words used in old European and feudal law and to principal terminology of Roman Law" (Faruqi, 2008, introduction).

X. Results and Discussion
Analysis of the discourse segments that include legal puns in Hamlet and Macbeth and their parallel segments of discourse in Mutran's translations has resulted in the following three findings: a. some legal puns were translated literally without legal overtones (Table 1), b. some legal puns were translated into legal Arabic terms with legal overtones (Table 2), and 3. some legal puns were not translated (Table 3).These findings appear in the tables below along with an explanation of the meaning behind legal puns:  38The Shakespearean pun can be expressed in that, to applaud a deed, in the second sense, is to set one's seal to it (Mahood, 2003, .(p. 38 2.

MACBETH:
Cancel and tear to pieces that great .bondShakespeare, 2005,) .( 3 38Clarkson and Warren refer to idea that "the major premise of the copy = 'copyhold' theory is "the similar uncertainty of life and a copyhold (cited in Rissanen, 1969, p. .(7185. :HAMLET Why does he suffer this mad knave… will not tell him of his action of ?batteryShakespeare, 1994,) . (5.1.3502-3504 Hamlet is contemplating the uselessness of the life and how things turned up down when one ends up being buried in the ground.
Hamlet is wondering on how the gravedigger dares to kick one of the skulls, which might belong to a lawyer, who isn't able to sue the gravedigger for .hisassault 6.
:HAMLET Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his ?tricksShakespeare, 1994,) . (5.1.3499-3501 Shakespeare employs such legal puns to convey the conclusion of the life in the eyes of Hamlet to our eyes that "One thing is certain: whatever death may be, it is what all must come to in the end, king and beggar alike… the end for the lawyer, with his quiddits and his quillets, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries, whose fine pate is full of fine dirt" (Doran, 1964, .(p. 277 7. :HAMLET Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his ?tricks(Shakespeare, 1994, 5.1.3499-3501).
(5.1.3509-35011:MACBETH But yet I'll make as-.surancedouble sure Shakespeare, 2005,) .( 4  :HAMLET Hum, this fellow might be in 's time a great buyer of land, with .hisstatutes Shakespeare, 1994,) . (5.1.3504-3507 The overall thrust" of the passage is to indicate the futility…however firmly legally, in the face of death.These terms are quibbles over time and death" (Sokal & Sokal, 2004, p. .(12715. :HAMLET Hum, this fellow might be in 's time a great buyer of land, with…his recogni-.zances(Shakespeare, 1994, 5.1.3504-3507).
:HAMLET Hum, this fellow might be in 's time a great buyer of land, with…his double .vouchers(Shakespeare, 1994, 5.1.3504-3507).Shakespeare, 1994,) . (5.1.3504-3507 The puns are not .translatedThese terms "indicate the futility in the face of death and are quibbles over time and death" (Sokal & .(Sokal, 2004, 127 22. :HAMLET Hum, this fellow might be in 's time a great buyer of land, with…his recover-.iesShakespeare, 1994,) . (5.1.3504-3507 The puns are not .translated The above findings are based on analyzing the collected legal puns by consulting Shakespeare's Legal Language: A Dictionary (2004), Mahood's Shakespeare's Wordplay (2003) and Faruqi's English-Arabic Law Dictionary (2008).The analysis is qualitative-interpretive, and it examines the Shakespearean puns and their translations mainly by referring to the above-mentioned resources in order to understand how the translator rendered the law-related puns to the target language.
Mutran's translation of the law-realted words 'deed', 'seeling night', 'nature's copy' and 'cancel and tear' in segments 1, 2, 3 and 4 in Macbeth, and the translation of 'battery', 'quiddits', 'quillets', 'tenures' and 'indentures' in segments 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 in Hamlet in subsection (A), give illuminating insight about the value and importance of Standard Arabic to Mutran.In the translation of 'deed' into the prepositional phrase ‫جرى»‬ ‫قد‬ ‫,«بما‬ Mutran adds weight to the whole action instead of translating the pun in question into an equivalent pun or even employing a legal term.What supports this fact is that, according to Hanna (2016a), Mutran aims to overlook puns and legal terms embedded in these lines for the sake of "a high degree of autonomy by grounding his linguistic choices in political and nationalist motivations" (p.119).Similarly, in quote 4, Mutran opts for the Arabic The Translation of Shakespearean Legal Puns into Standard Arabic: Macbeth and Hamlet as a Case Study (532-563) collocation ‫المدلهم»‬ ‫«الليل‬ and excludes the legal overtone embedded in this pun as a whole and in 'seeling' particularly.Modelled after Shakespeare, Mutran personifies the 'night' by asking it to conceal its eyes and not witness the crime, yet he employs the formal Arabic word that usually collocates with night(i.e ‫;)«المدلهم»‬ consequently, as per Mutran's point of view, "the way he politicizes his choice of Classical Arabic as a medium assert[s] the autonomy of his translation."Hence, the power of the Classical Arabic that Mutran has in his translations gives way for his political beliefs to forge ahead "a proposed Pan-Arab identity" (Hanna, 2016a, p. 119).Furthermore, In the translation of the legal pun in quote 7 in Macbeth, Mutran was endeavouring to get the suitable terms, which contribute to raise the flag of the Arab nationalism (Hanna, 2016a, p. 120).Based on this, his choice in the translation ‫بخالدين»‬ ‫ليسا‬ ‫«لكنهما‬ might connote that the occupiers are not eternal and will not stay in the Arab countries forever.Translating 'battery' into ‫,«اعتداء»‬ according to Ibn Manzur's Lisan al-'arab, the root of ‫«اعتداء»‬ is ‫,«عدو»‬ Mutran deliberately uses this gerund as he implicitly points his finger towards the occupiers in order to fire up his audience against them.This can be emphasized by the fact that Mutran, since he had come to Egypt, was calling loudly to free the Arab countries form the Ottoman rule and to unify the Arabs under one identity (Hanna, 2016a, p. 76).In like manner, Mutran prefers to translate 'quiddits', 'quillets', 'tenures' and 'indentures' in the above-mentioned quotes in Hamlet into ‫القانونية»‬ ‫«نقطه‬ ‫«مغالطات»,‬ ‫«مالبسات»,‬ and ‫الهائل»‬ ‫الختامي‬ ‫«الضمان‬ respectively.He views his style in translation as "the common bond among the Arabs [and] prioritizes the collective identity over individual, regional, ethnic as well as religious identities.This vision is embedded in his translation" (Hanna, 2016a, p. 123).
Correspondingly, in the translation of 'cancel and tear' in segment 3 from Macbeth, Mutran removes the mythological concept of Macbeth's appeal to night to cancel a bond signed with nature to stay alive.Hanna (2016a) remarks that Mutran deliberately removes the mythological references in his translation of Macbeth "to claim distinction for [his] versions", in order not to engage the audience with such beliefs, though at the expense of translation faithfulness.
Examining the translation of the legal puns associated with the terms of 'great bond', 'lease of nature' and 'double…bond of fate' in segments 10,11 and 12 in Macbeth,and 'statutes','recognizances','double vouchers' and 'conveyances' in segments 13,14,15 and 16 in Hamlet in subsection (B), shows that Mutran's translation seems to be deliberately couched in technical, legal terms.It can be suggested that since Mutran hides feelings of hostility towards the informal Arabic language and aggressively attacks the 'vernaculars', he believes that language "is not only a means of communication, a function shared by all human languages, it also serves a political as well as a symbolic function: it is capable of both unifying the Arab nations whose unity "had been shattered by the vernaculars" and invoking the glorious past of the Arabs" (Hanna, 2016a, p. 120).Like in the translation of 'great bond' and 'lease of nature', ‫«الصك»‬ and ‫المبرم»‬ ‫العقد‬ ‫«يستوفي‬ respectively, and the legal, political terminology used in the translation ‫األمن»‬ ‫التماس‬ ‫في‬ ‫«التشدد‬ and ‫أخذ»‬ ‫«الضمان‬ for 'double…bond of fate', it can be indicated that Mutran's employment of the legal terms is to remind the audience of the treaties with the colonizers that are being declared and the consequences of such action, not to ignore the idea that he was living at a time of colonizing Arab countries.Then as well, Mutran, in his translation of 'statutes', 'recognizances', 'double vouchers' and 'conveyances' in Hamlet, adopts such a style: to overlook the puns and ennoble as well as legalize the language of his translation, for the sake of emphasizing the strong and intimate connection between the language and the legitimate, legal identity of the Arab countries (Hanna, 2016a, p. 120). Nevertheless, Nu'ayma (1927) criticizes Mutran for his use of such an obsolete structure and attributes this to the fact that he wants "to amaze us with his extensive knowledge of language" (cited in Hanna, 2016a, p. 136).Despite Nu'ayma's criticism (1927), several Egyptian theater makers prefer Mutran's translations for this reason (cited in Hanna, 2016a, p. 137).
The results above show that Khalil Mutran does not convey the legal punning sense to the target language.Mutran's omission of Scenes 6 and 7 in Act 1, which include the legal puns, 'approve', 'audit', 'surcease success ',in Macbeth and 'fines' and 'recoveries' in Hamlet in segments 18,19,20,21 and 22 respectively in subsection (C), shows that he implements pun-zero translation strategy for homonymic puns, which seems to suit the 'theatrical production' in Mutran's time.According to Mutran, "this would be more appropriate for acting and more effective for the spectators" (cited in Hanna, 2016a, p. 119).In comparison with Mutran's translation of the Shakespearean puns, in his translation of puns in the Shakespearean play, The Tempest, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra , did his best to investigate a convenient way for conveying the puns into Arabic and avoiding any major loss in his translation.In consequence, he chooses to translate the pun 'line' in "Stephano: Be you quiet, monster.Mistress line, is not this my jerkin?[He takes it down.]Now is the jerkin under the line, you are like to lose your hair and prove a bald jerkin" into two different Arabic words while Shakespeare means two different meanings for the same word; thus, applying pun-zero translation strategy.Nevertheless, Jabra attaches footnotes to his translation where he explains the whole message behind the pun, yet the intended punning is lost (Al-Thebyan & Salameh, 2011, p. 67).Jabra's decision to attach footnotes and avoid translating The Translation of Shakespearean Legal Puns into Standard Arabic: Macbeth and Hamlet as a Case Study (532-563) the problematic puns seems compatible with Delabastita's (1994) remark that 'translatable' means "what must not be translated rather than what cannot be translated" (p.230).
In that event, it seems that the effectivity that Mutran prefers and expressively aims at is boosting the national enthusiasm in the audience rather than what Jabra's purpose to avoid the problematic puns, a feature that signals Mutran's style of omitting unnecessary scenes as acknowledged by him (Hanna, 2016a, p. 152).Above all, Hanna (2016a) articulates that the initial scenes of the Witches deleted by Mutran "could be attributed to self-censorship, possibly exercised by the translator" because at Mutran's time, the plays presenting witchcraft used to be banned due to reports raised by the religious communities (p.119).Therefore, Mutran endorses such action for communicative stage performance and for not busying the audience with such matters over the unity of Arabs in times of revolutions against occupiers.

XI. Conclusion and recommendations
The study investigates the translation of legal puns in different scenes in Shakespeare's play Macbeth and in the gravedigger scene in Hamlet and their Arabic translations in 1950 and 1974 respectively by the Lebanese translator Khalil Mutran through identifying the equivalent terms imposed by the translator for the collected 22 samples.The analysis was made according to a qualitativeinterpretive type of research.The study affirms the difficulty of translating legal puns as they are inherent within the culture and language structures that produce them.These structures involve a manipulation of the interplay between word pronunciation, literal meaning, and legal or socio-cultural meaning.Shakespeare's legal puns are not rendered into puns in Mutran's Arabic translation.Translating them into any other language, especially to a non-cognate language, inevitably suggests that they will lose their figurative meaning and suggestive overtones in most cases due to the diverse language systems and their own cultures.
Our study of the translations of Mutran involving legal puns that appear in the source texts show that he opts either for the use of literal Arabic terms without legal overtones, the use of only Standard Arabic terms or not translating legal puns at all.This study proves that Mutran's translation is directed towards stage 'stageworthy translation'; nevertheless, the Arab audience, similar to what Herrera (2015) investigates about the Spanish audience, may miss the perception of the subtleties behind the legal puns that are not reflected in the translated text.This can be attributed to the variety of the cultures receiving Shakespeare as well as the Shakespearean Legal Puns into Standard Arabic: Macbeth and Hamlet as a Case Study (532-563) 548 University of Sharjah Journal for Humanities & Social Sciences, Volume 20, No. 3 September 2023 9.
The Translation of Shakespearean Legal Puns into Standard Arabic: Macbeth and Hamlet as a Case The Translation of Shakespearean Legal Puns into Standard Arabic: Macbeth and Hamlet as a Case Study (532-563) and the target culture do not have shared notions of what is taboo and what is not;

Table 1 : Occurrences of Legal Puns Translated Literally into Standard Arabic
5.1 ،2012

Table 2 : Occurrences of Legal Puns Translated into Legal Terms
550 University of Sharjah Journal for Humanities & Social Sciences, Volume 20, No. 3 September 2023 12.

Table 3 : Occurrences of Legal Puns Not Translated
The Translation of Shakespearean Legal Puns into Standard Arabic: Macbeth and Hamlet as a Case