Analysis of Syntactic Errors on the Sudanese University Translation Students' Performance (English – Arabic)

Abstract

Syntactic errors cause bad impacts when translating texts from one language into another. That is because syntax is the part of a language which is related to the structure of a meaningful sentence and the meaning of this sentence will change when it is wrongly built. This paper attempted to analyze such errors on the Sudanese university translation students' performance using English and Arabic languages. The paper aimed at identifying the common syntactic difficulties that the targeted students face when translating Arabic sentences into English and vice versa. It also shed light on some differences between English and Arabic syntactic systems. The descriptive and analytical methods were used to achieve the objectives of this paper. The targeted students were tested and many types of syntactic errors in their work were found, described and analyzed. It was found out that Sudanese university translation students face syntactic difficulties in translation from English into Arabic and vice versa. The nature of these two languages caused difficulties that lead to such errors. It was recommended that Sudanese university translation students need to be helped mastering English and Arabic syntax in order to perform a good translation, free from the errors mentioned above.