Linguistic and cultural difficulties in Arabic-English translation of sentences among Saudi undergraduates

There have been very few studies on the linguistic and cultural difficulties in Arabic-English translation encountered by Arab undergraduate students to date. The present study aims to explore the linguistic and cultural difficulties experienced by 50 Saudi undergraduate students when they translate...

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Main Author:	Jabak, Omar Osman
Format:	Thesis
Language:	English
Published:	2018
Subjects:	English language - Study and teaching Second language acquisition Language and languages
Online Access:	http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/75533/1/FBMK%202018%2042%20IR.pdf
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id	my-upm-ir.75533
record_format	uketd_dc
spelling	my-upm-ir.755332019-11-22T00:50:43Z Linguistic and cultural difficulties in Arabic-English translation of sentences among Saudi undergraduates 2018-03 Jabak, Omar Osman There have been very few studies on the linguistic and cultural difficulties in Arabic-English translation encountered by Arab undergraduate students to date. The present study aims to explore the linguistic and cultural difficulties experienced by 50 Saudi undergraduate students when they translate Arabic sentences into English and the underlying reasons behind these difficulties along with the solutions to these difficulties. This study uses a qualitative approach and two data collection tools which are evaluation instruments and semi-structured interviews. It also uses Newmark’s (1998, 2011) and Dickins’et al (2017) theoretical views on translation from one’s mother tongue into a foreign language as its theoretical framework. The analysis of the data revealed eleven linguistic difficulties, reasons behind the linguistic difficulties, ways of overcoming these linguistic difficulties, three main cultural difficulties with ten subcategories and reasons for these cultural difficulties and ways of overcoming the cultural difficulties, which all represent the findings of the study. Some of the linguistic difficulties encountered by the Saudi undergraduate students include indirect questions, articles, direct questions, conditional sentences, interjections, prepositions and relative pronouns. Some of the underlying reasons for such difficulties are the students’ adherence to literal translation, the differences in the linguistic systems of Arabic and English, and the application of Arabic grammar rules to English translation. The cultural difficulties are idioms, collocations and proverbs with their respective subcategories. Some of the reasons for these difficulties are the students’ commitment to literal translation, the students’ lack of the cultural knowledge of both Arabic and English, the students’ heavy reliance on bilingual dictionaries, lack of bilingual specialized dictionaries on these cultural aspects of both Arabic and English and lack of Arabic-English translation practice as compared to English-Arabic translation. It is hoped that this study, along with its findings and suggestions, will contribute to improving Saudi undergraduate students’ quality of Arabic-English translation and provide new insights into the difficulties of Arabic-English translation as well as the difficulties of carrying out translation from the mother tongue into a foreign language. English language - Study and teaching Second language acquisition Language and languages 2018-03 Thesis http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/75533/ http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/75533/1/FBMK%202018%2042%20IR.pdf text en public doctoral Universiti Putra Malaysia English language - Study and teaching Second language acquisition Language and languages
institution	Universiti Putra Malaysia
collection	PSAS Institutional Repository
language	English
topic	English language - Study and teaching Second language acquisition Language and languages
spellingShingle	English language - Study and teaching Second language acquisition Language and languages Jabak, Omar Osman Linguistic and cultural difficulties in Arabic-English translation of sentences among Saudi undergraduates
description	There have been very few studies on the linguistic and cultural difficulties in Arabic-English translation encountered by Arab undergraduate students to date. The present study aims to explore the linguistic and cultural difficulties experienced by 50 Saudi undergraduate students when they translate Arabic sentences into English and the underlying reasons behind these difficulties along with the solutions to these difficulties. This study uses a qualitative approach and two data collection tools which are evaluation instruments and semi-structured interviews. It also uses Newmark’s (1998, 2011) and Dickins’et al (2017) theoretical views on translation from one’s mother tongue into a foreign language as its theoretical framework. The analysis of the data revealed eleven linguistic difficulties, reasons behind the linguistic difficulties, ways of overcoming these linguistic difficulties, three main cultural difficulties with ten subcategories and reasons for these cultural difficulties and ways of overcoming the cultural difficulties, which all represent the findings of the study. Some of the linguistic difficulties encountered by the Saudi undergraduate students include indirect questions, articles, direct questions, conditional sentences, interjections, prepositions and relative pronouns. Some of the underlying reasons for such difficulties are the students’ adherence to literal translation, the differences in the linguistic systems of Arabic and English, and the application of Arabic grammar rules to English translation. The cultural difficulties are idioms, collocations and proverbs with their respective subcategories. Some of the reasons for these difficulties are the students’ commitment to literal translation, the students’ lack of the cultural knowledge of both Arabic and English, the students’ heavy reliance on bilingual dictionaries, lack of bilingual specialized dictionaries on these cultural aspects of both Arabic and English and lack of Arabic-English translation practice as compared to English-Arabic translation. It is hoped that this study, along with its findings and suggestions, will contribute to improving Saudi undergraduate students’ quality of Arabic-English translation and provide new insights into the difficulties of Arabic-English translation as well as the difficulties of carrying out translation from the mother tongue into a foreign language.
format	Thesis
qualification_level	Doctorate
author	Jabak, Omar Osman
author_facet	Jabak, Omar Osman
author_sort	Jabak, Omar Osman
title	Linguistic and cultural difficulties in Arabic-English translation of sentences among Saudi undergraduates
title_short	Linguistic and cultural difficulties in Arabic-English translation of sentences among Saudi undergraduates
title_full	Linguistic and cultural difficulties in Arabic-English translation of sentences among Saudi undergraduates
title_fullStr	Linguistic and cultural difficulties in Arabic-English translation of sentences among Saudi undergraduates
title_full_unstemmed	Linguistic and cultural difficulties in Arabic-English translation of sentences among Saudi undergraduates
title_sort	linguistic and cultural difficulties in arabic-english translation of sentences among saudi undergraduates
granting_institution	Universiti Putra Malaysia
publishDate	2018
url	http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/75533/1/FBMK%202018%2042%20IR.pdf
_version_	1747813062473154560

Linguistic and cultural difficulties in Arabic-English translation of sentences among Saudi undergraduates

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