ABSTRACT
The present study aims to investigate Arabic modal markers as employed in the Omani constitution (issued in 1996 and amended in 2011), along with their counterparts in the official English translation. The data consists of 200 instances of modality (all deontic) which will be closely examined in an attempt to explore what Arabic employs in this type of legal discourse and to detect what translation procedures are used to capture the shades of modality they encapsulate. The data feature four areas of deontic modality: imposition of obligation (64%), assigning and/or undertaking responsibility (22%), prohibition (20.5%), and conferring rights and permissions (11.5%). In terms of legal jargon, the Arabic simple present and the English legal shall emerge as the most frequent deontic modality markers. However, while both languages may lexicalize deontic modality (e.g., the use of يحق and ‘has the right’), Arabic alone can invest particles deontically (e.g., على and اللام). The study also shows that there are significant differences between British English and American English legal jargon, which may affect the procedures employed when rendering Arabic legal discourse.
