Investigating the Translation Hurdles of Journalistic Figurative Languageas exemplified by Idiomatic and Metaphorical Expressions

Abstract

The present study sets out to examine the difficulties facing MA students of translation in translating newspaper metaphorical language mainly political news. The population of the study are students taking their MA program at the Sudan University of Science and Technology. The type of research methodology adopted in the present study is the descriptive analytical method. To collect the data, a questionnaire was designed and given to 30 English language Teachers as well as 10 copies were distributed to translator working at SUNA and Friendship hall. The test was administered and distributed to 50 MA students of translation at the College of Languages, at the Sudan University of Science and Technology. The data were analyzed by using the statistical package of social science (SPSS). The findings of study revealed that the students do actually face quite a number of difficulties due to the fact that newspaper language has a collocational nature the thing that our students were poorly exposed to during their undergraduate studies. The findings also showed that the nature of phrasal verbs, cause difficulty for EFL University Students particularly those phrasal verbs (language of newspaper) that require good knowledge of cultural background. The study recommended that the teachers of English language of Sudanese Universities should take care of this important linguistic area of phrasal verbs by providing more practice. The study also recommended that to increase students’ practical competence in rendering or translating the cultural gap must be reduced by means of including texts known to have that effect as literature which is fully packed with figurative language required for such kind of translation.