Strategies Used for Translating Yemeni Colloquial Proverbs from Arabic into English and Their Effects on Translation

Abstract

This study aims to explore the strategies used for translating Yemeni colloquial proverbs from Arabic into English and their effects on translation. In addition, this study extended to investigate the obstacles may encounter by the 4th level students while translating Yemeni colloquial proverbs from Arabic into English. To achieve the study objectives, a translation test consists of twenty Yemeni colloquial proverbs was made and distributed to 3o students chosen randomly from the 4th level, translation students Faculty of Languages and Translation, Aden University. Moreover, an open- ended questionnaire was given to four translation teachers at the translation department at the same faculty. The study revealed that, the most used strategies to translate the Yemeni colloquial proverbs from Arabic into English is the cultural equivalent followed by the paraphrase strategy. The study also, revealed that the most obstacles encountered by the students are: inability to achieve the correct equivalence, inability to translate culturally unfamiliarity with strategies used to translate proverbs, inability to understand the background of proverb, the literal translation and misuse of the relevant lexical words, committing linguistic, stylistic, and grammatical mistakes, wrong paraphrasing. The study concluded by providing some solutions to the obstacles encountered in the form of recommendations.