The problems of translation from english into arabic: lexical and syntactic issues

Abstract

It is an undeniable fact that translation is a necessity in our lives. It has become a viable venture with the emergence of international trade, increased migration and globalization. The translator therefore plays a pivotal role as a bilingual or multi-lingual transmitter of cultures, concepts, and literary works by attempting to convey meaning from one language to another as accurately as possible. There is no doubt that, there are some problems in any translation process. Linguistic problems such as problems of ambiguity; problems that originate from structural and lexical differences between languages make it difficult for the student of translation.

The differences in the syntax of Arabic and English are typical case regarding the problems in translating from Arabic to English. For example, in translating “the boy wrote a letter” into Arabic, it becomes كتب الولد رسالة "kataba al-waladu risaalatan" kataba is the verb, al-waladu is the subject and risaalatan is the object. Thus, the word order in Arabic normally is VSO contrary to English, the source language. Again, the cultural difference that exists between the two languages is another area which causes problems. This study however, will be limited to the lexical and syntactic difficulties that the students of Arabic at the Department of Modern Languages of the University of Ghana face in translating English texts into Arabic. The paper discusses the problems and offers some recommendations and solutions to the problems in translating from English into Arabic.