Translating the Ten Arabic Verb Patterns into English: A Morpho-Semantic Study

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the difficulties encountered by translation students when translating the ten Arabic verb patterns into English. To achieve this objective, the descriptive quantitative and qualitative method was followed. A translation test consisting of 16 sentences which included the ten Arabic verb patterns was administered to a sample of 112 participants who were randomly selected from five Yemeni universities. The findings revealed that the additions associated with the Arabic verb root can create multiple semantic changes which are fraught with difficulties for student translators. The difficulties may lie in the fact that student translators lack basic knowledge and understanding of the multiple functions of the morpho-semantic features which might be due to the translators' unfamiliarity of the multiple and underlying meanings of the morphemes affixed to the root form. The findings revealed that the more features the pattern takes, the more difficult it is for student translators. Furthermore, the pattern with infixed morphemes was more difficult to be recognized than the one with prefixed morphemes. The findings also provide further insights on the importance of integrating the Arabic verb patterns into the translation modules with a focus on the link between form and functions of each morpho-semantic feature affixed to each pattern.