Practicality and usefulness of EnglishûArabic dictionaries in translating English metaphors
Babel: Revue internationale de la traduction/International Journal of Translation, (2007)Abstract
This study aims at investigating the nature and scope of the problems that Arab learners encounter in translating English metaphorical expressions into Arabic using EnglishûArabic dictionaries. The strategies involved in translating English metaphors into Arabic have been identified and described. The study also aims at determining the extent to which EnglishûArabic dictionaries are helpful to learners in translating English metaphors.The findings of the study reveal that learners resort to a number of strategies including finding the idiomatic translation equivalents, literal translation, interpretation and guessing. Bilingual dictionaries have been found to be a potential source of error for learners. These dictionaries offer inadequate help to translators in terms of providing equivalents to metaphorical expressions.