ERIC Number: ED614074
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2010-Jul
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-
EISSN: N/A
Interlingual Pronoun Errors in English-Arabic Translation
Al-Jarf, Reima
Online Submission, Paper presented at the International Symposium on Using Corpora in Contrastive and Translation Studies (UCCTS) (Ormskirk, United Kingdom, Jul 27-29, 2010)
Unlike English, Standard Arabic has two forms of subject pronouns: Independent such as "?na" ("I"), and a pronominal suffix that is an integral part of the verb such as "katab-tu" ("I wrote"). Independent subject pronouns are commonly used in nominal sentences, not verbal sentences. Use of independent subject pronouns in verbal statements depends on syntactic, pragmatic, discoursal and semantic factors available in a particular context. The present study investigates translation students' awareness of the syntactic, pragmatic and discoursal restrictions that determine the use of Arabic subject pronouns when translating connected discourse from English into Arabic. An error corpus of faulty uses of Arabic independent subject pronouns was collected from the translation projects of senior students majoring in translation. Syntactic, pragmatic and discoursal criteria were used to judge the deviations. It was found that students translate imitatively rather than discriminately. Since English sentences begin with a subject pronoun such as "I," "he," "they," the students used an independent subject pronoun followed by a verb + pronominal suffix in declarative, affirmative statement, without realizing that the subject is contained in the verb, and use of "?na" or "huwa" is redundant. Implications for increasing students' awareness of pragmatic, discoursal and syntactic constraints in translating English pronouns into Arabic are provided.
Descriptors: Pronunciation, Error Analysis (Language), Language Processing, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, Translation, Second Language Instruction, Semitic Languages, Morphemes, Form Classes (Languages), Syntax, Pragmatics, Computational Linguistics, Verbs, College Seniors, Majors (Students), Interlanguage, Foreign Countries
Publication Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Saudi Arabia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A