awej 5 no.4 full issue 2014

AWEJ Volume.5 Number.3, 2014The Arab translation students’ hindrances in translating political cultureQassemnamely Guardian and Sunday. Besides, presenting political terms and expressions in context issupposed to be of great help to the students translate adequately.The test consisted of three texts that covered different types of political terms. The texts wereshort so that the respondents react positively to the translation test. It is composed of seven itemsthat represented the types of cultural references; every item was given one grade. The full gradewas seven. It was refereed by five professors in Applied Linguistics and Translation.Dictionary Use'The dictionary use' is used as a supplement to the translation test because the use ofmultiple measures gives a more reliable picture of second language learners' output. Thestudents' writing of the symbol 'D' before the items or sections they looked up in a dictionaryaimed at showing the difficulty the students encountered in the process of translation. They wereconcrete evidence about the difficulty of translating some items. They were analyzedquantitatively and verbally. It is an indirect way to elicit data from the students about the itemsand sections that hinder them while translating. This technique is expected to solve the problemsof avoidance. Some students avoid translating the texts because of some difficult items orsections, so this technique frees the students from worry and then they start translating the taskwhen they feel that there is no restriction on the use of different resources. It also denotes to whatextent the use of dictionary is helpful in translating. It is important to mention that the translationtask and the use of the dictionary are analysed together and individually.ResultsPolitical CultureDue to the differences between the political system of the English society and the Arabic one, thestudents encountered problems in translating the political concepts. The students' problem intranslating the political culture was attributed to the lack of background of such concepts. Theliteral translation of such concepts induced the students to deviate from their real sense.Although, the English political concepts have their functional equivalents into Arabic (Ghazala,2008), most of the students could not render them into Arabic. The problematic areas intranslating the political concepts can be classified into government institutions, abbreviations andtitles. These are some elements of English political system that existed in the texts used in thestudy. There are of course other elements of the English political system that are not mentionedin the study. This classification is based on the texts used in the translation test. The students canuse the dictionaries and other resources to overcome the comprehension problems but fewstudents use them which show most of the students were not aware of the problematicity of thetexts they translated.Table.The Frequency of the Students' Errors in Translating Political Culture2-Political CultureN Category Items Frequency Percentage Dictionary useArab World English JournalISSN: 2229-9327www.awej.org245