Investigating Linguistic Difficulties Arising from Translating Proverbs from English into Arabic

Abstract

This study aims at investigating linguistic difficulties arising from translating proverbs from English into Arabic.To achieve this goal, the Descriptive Analytical method is used and three hypotheses have been postulated. Firstly, linguistic difficulties resulting from literal and non-literal meanings of proverbs have direct effects on the translator's ability when translating them from English into Arabic. Secondly, linguistic difficulties are not effectively dealt with by translators because they lack language abilities and translation skills. Thirdly, the novice translators are unable to identify and utilizetranslation methods and procedures. Two tools are used for collecting the data ; a test and a questionnaire. A purposive sample of 50 translators (males and females) was selected to do a translation test consisting of 15 English proverbs. The other tool is a questionnaire survey for university EFLT and lecturers; (78 )of them responded to a questionnaire composed of 22 items representing the main hypotheses of the research. The study has revealed that among the linguistic difficulties arose were the incapability of translators to render proverbs incorporating non literal meanings, words of synonymy and hyponymy in addition to words that are no longer in the active use. The culturally-bound sayings have also appeared to be problematic for them. The study has revealed that novice translators misusethe accurate words that could give the exact meaning of proverbs under translation.It is also foundthat most of translators are unaware of translation methods and procedures;using literal translation method resulted in making lexical and stylistic mistakes. Based on the findings of the current study, the researcher recommends that since the culture-based expressions and sayings seem to be problematic in translating proverbs from English into Arabic, translators should be exposed to a wider range of reading literature materials in different genres and cultures of both the source language and the target one. Also translators themselves should perhaps be given much more translation practice to help them to identify the most appropriate translation methods and procedures that best suit the text types and language levels. Moreover, Arabic courses in figurative language and style should be included whenspecifying and assigning translation courses.That would help translators in producing correct Arabic versions of the translated texts when doing translation.