Introduction
Statement of the Problem
No one can deny the important role of language in the communication process, since
it is its primary function. Furthermore, no one can ignore or neglect the crucial role of
translation in helping people who do not speak the same language, or who do not belong to
the same speech community, to communicate effectively.
In many instances, second language translators face problems of different kinds:
lexical, grammatical, stylistic, phonological, or cultural. Such problems are due to their
limited linguistic resources in the target language.
Language learners are challenging a lot of problems while translating some English
words into Arabic mainly because they find difficulties in getting the mea ning of some
English words. They fail most of the time in transmitting the meaning clearly. One of these
problems is found during the process of translating polysemous words that have a core and
peripheral meaning.
Aim of the Study
We aim at shedding light on the strategies adopted by a sample of third year students of
English in order to cope with some translation problems they encounter. These problems
lie in the translation of some verbs of sense from English into Arabic, namely to hear, to
see, to smell, to taste, and to touch and the Arabic verbs رأى/raa/, سمع/sami3a/, ذاق/
dhaqa/ and لمس/lamissa/. It aims at examining how equivalence occurs in this specific
area. In other words, it investigates the various meanings that these English verbs may
have in Arabic. It also suggests some solutions to overcome these kinds of problems while
translating.
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Research questions
This research addresses the following questions:
1. How do students translate verbs of senses when they occur in different contexts? Do
they keep the same equivalence of the core meaning?
2. Does the linguistic context help students in translating verbs of senses successfully?
3. What makes students fail in translating polysemous words, in general, and verbs of
senses, in particular? Do bilingual dictionaries play a role?
4. Are the five English verbs of senses : to hear, to see, to smell, to taste, and to touch and
the Arabic verbs رأى سمع ذاق شمand لمسwhich have the same core meaning
really equivalent in all the contexts? If not, are the learners under investigation aware of
other cases?
Hypothesis
We hypothesize the following:
If the third year students at the Department of English, Mentouri University of
Constantine, take the linguistic context into account, they will understand verbs of senses
and translate them successfully.
Research Tools
To test the research hypothesis and to establish its validity, a translation test is devised
because it is the most suitable methodological procedure. This test will be administered to
a random sample among third year students at the English Department, Applied Language
Studies at Mentouri University of Constantine. Students will be asked to translate verbs of
senses that occur in different contexts. They will also answer a questionnaire about the way
they translate verbs of senses. The results obtained will be analyzed in accordance with the
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provided literature review. Finally, we end up by suggesting some recommendations as to
how to improve translation in this particular area.
Structure of the Thesis
The dissertation will be divided into three chapters. The first two chapters will be
devoted to the theoretical review, and the last one will be devoted to the data collection and
their analysis and discussion. The first chapter will be devoted to the definition of the
translation process and the theories about the stage of the process and the problems of
translation and the suggested strategies to solve them. The second chapter tackles the issue
of polysemy. The final chapter will be devoted to the data collection, description and
analysis.