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العنوان
Semantic and Cultural Problems in Translating Arabic
Political Figures’ Statements as Presented in the Yemeni
English Newspapers: A Pragmatic/Semiotic Approach /
المؤلف
Muhayam,Nabil Mohamed.
هيئة الاعداد
باحث / Nabil Mohamed Muhayam
مشرف / Mustafa Riad M. Riad
مشرف / Nadia Abdul Galil Shalaby
تاريخ النشر
2015
عدد الصفحات
347p.;
اللغة
الإنجليزية
الدرجة
الدكتوراه
التخصص
اللغة واللسانيات
تاريخ الإجازة
1/1/2015
مكان الإجازة
جامعة عين شمس - كلية الآداب - اللغويات
الفهرس
Only 14 pages are availabe for public view

from 347

from 347

Abstract

This study is an attempt to investigate the semantic and cultural problems in the translations of Arab political figures’ statements in Yemeni English newspapers. The data are taken from news reports and interviews published during (2011-2013) in two Yemeni English newspapers, namely, the biweekly Yemen Times and the daily Yemen Fox. The findings of the study show that translation plays a vital role in Yemeni English newspapers and this role is almost visible rather than invisible. Contrary to the results of scholars such as Bielsa & Bassnett (2009) and Schaffner & Bassnett (2010) who claim that in news reporting transediting is the dominating activity and translation in the traditional sense is non-existence, the findings of this study reveal that complete and selective translations are still much practiced in news reporting and interviews published in Yemeni English newspapers. The meaning losses in this study can be described as avertable which are basically related to the incompetency of Yemeni journalist translators and inevitable which are related to the huge differences between Arabic and English. The study uncovers that distortions in meaning seem to be the result of a host of reasons among which are the lack of competency in English and lack of knowledge of the English culture on the translators’ part. The absence of performing quality control measures before a translation is published is another reason. Moreover, the tight time constraints and pressures journalists experience are causes behind some meaning losses. This in turn makes them get caught up in ’getting the job done’ at the expense of producing accurate and adequate translations. The study also reveals that the translated statements are comprehensible but hardly acceptable to the English native speakers. With respect to the translation strategies, too much omission constitutes in addition to literal translation the major strategies employed in this study.
Keywords: semantic problems, cultural problems, translation, Yemeni English newspapers, pragmatic approach, semiotic approach.