The Arab translation students’ hindrances in translating political culture from English into Arabic

Abstract:

This study empirically investigates the hindrances that encounter the fourth year students of Translation when translating political terms and expressions from English into Arabic. To do so, 40 Yemeni students in the last year of graduation, whose ages ranged 22- 23 translate three authentic texts of seven political terms and expressions from English into Arabic. Their translations of political culture are analyzed and classified into institutions, terms and abbreviations. The students’ percentage of errors reach 64% and the percentage of those who used the dictionary to solve the translation problem is 38%, which reveal that the student encountered considerable difficulty in translating such political expressions from English into Arabic. The students’ errors in  translating the components of political culture are classified into addition, omission, selection and avoidance, which might be resulted  from students’ insufficient knowledge of English political culture (i.e. declarative knowledge) and lack of training in translating political culture from English into Arabic (i.e. procedural knowledge).