Lexical, cultural and grammatical translation problems encountered by senior Palestinian EFL learners at the Islamic University of Gaza, Palestine

El Haj Ahmed, M

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate, analyze and classify the lexical, cultural and grammatical problems encountered by senior Palestinian EFL university learners in their English-Arabic translations and to find out any gender differences regarding their translation problems. The translation test used in this empirical study consisted of 18 texts covering three types: descriptive, argumentative and instructional. These texts were translated by 28 students chosen randomly from the Department of English at the Islamic University of Gaza. The students also responded to a questionnaire regarding the level of difficulty of each translated text. The analysis of students’ translations was based on the linguistic judgments of a group of Arabic specialists including the researcher’s assessment, a rater’s assessment, the target readership assessment and the work of a professional translator. The results showed that Palestinian EFL student translators committed errors on three levels: lexical, cultural and grammatical. The most frequent errors were grammatical errors, followed by lexical errors and cultural errors. Grammatical errors were mainly attributed to linguistic differences between English and Arabic as well as students’ lack of linguistic competence. Lexical errors were mainly attributed to students’ tendency to adopt literal translation and their total dependence on existing bilingual dictionaries. Cultural errors on the other hand resulted from students’ unfamiliarity with the source language culture and lack of knowledge of the target culture. The study also revealed that male students committed more errors than female students at lexical and grammatical levels. However, male students committed fewer errors than female students at the cultural level. The results of the questionnaire showed that argumentative texts were regarded by students as the most difficult, followed by instructional and finally descriptive texts.

Citation

El Haj Ahmed, M. Lexical, cultural and grammatical translation problems encountered by senior Palestinian EFL learners at the Islamic University of Gaza, Palestine. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Nov 4, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 4, 2021
• Publisher URL: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.517603
• Related Public URLs: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.517603
• Additional Information: Funders : Ford Foundation
• Award Date: Jan 1, 2009