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.