Investigating the Difficulties Encountered by Undergraduate Students in Translating English Culture - Bound Terms

Abstract

This study investigates the difficulties that undergraduate students in Sudanese universities majoring in translation face when translating English culture-bound terms. To achieve the aim, the researcher selected a random sample that included 50 of fourth year students enrolled in B.A program in two Sudanese universities. The designed a test by her consisted of 21 terms for students to select the equivalent Arabic translation to the English cultural-bound terms based on Newmark’s categorization of cultural terms. The terms were extracted from different cultural materials, include historical, religious, social…etc, and for the students to identify the strategies used in translation. These strategies were derived from models that have been developed by Newmark (1988), Vinay and Darbelnet (1977) and Harvey (2000). Also designed informal open-ended interviews for experts in the field of translation to provide additional information from the experts’ point of view regarding these problems, their causes and solutions. The results of the study revealed that the undergraduate students faced diverse types of problems when translating the cultural terms. Such obstacles are connected strongly in the issue of the cultural terms, failure to select the equivalent Arabic translation, and not to inform the background knowledge of the translation strategies. Based on these results, it is recommended raising the awareness of the students towards the importance of culture in translation through more exposure to authentic texts on different aspects of the English culture, also drawing the attention of the students to the different translation strategies that can be applied in the translating the English Culture-bound terms into Arabic.