Difficulties of Translating Euphemistic Expressions from English into Arabic by Translation Students at Yemeni Universities

Abstract

This study aimed at exploring the difficulties that Yemeni undergraduate students majoring in Translation face when translating euphemistic expressions, identifying the strategies used, finding out the reasons behind such difficulties, and suggesting solutions from students’ perspective. The researcher followed a descriptive approach to achieve the objectives of this study. The population of the study comprised of 111 level four translation students during the first semester of the academic year 2017/2018. To collect the required data, the researcher designed a translation test and a checklist. In addition, the researcher created a questionnaire consisting of two sections. The researcher used a new method of evaluating test and SPSS program for analyzing. The study results revealed that level 4 translation students encounter real difficulties when translating euphemistic expressions. These difficulties are mostly related to the comprehension, lexical, cultural, semantic and pragmatic difficulties. The participants believed that the reason behind euphemisms difficulties is the lack of courses and materials that made them not aware of translating euphemisms. In addition, participants used both Newmarks’ strategies; semantic and communicative. It was reported that teachers have to pay more attention to euphemisms while teaching translation courses especially English euphemisms as the best solution. At the end of the study, the researcher offered some recommendations and suggestions.