Semantic Errors Affecting the Translation of Literary Texts by MA Students

Abstract

This study investigates the semantic errors in the literary texts that MA students face in translating from English into Arabic and vice versa, and the strategies and techniques that employ and use to whenever they come across any difficulty, during their translating the literary texts. The study is based on translating five literary texts (prose, novel, poem, and short story) that vary in their difficulty. The number of participants in this study was Thirty of the master students, in both, Faculty of Languages and Translation and Center of Translation and Studies – University of Aden. Two different instruments were used to collect the data of the study: The questionnaire and text translated test. Results of the questionnaire and text translated test were analysed by using quantitative and qualitative analysis. The research results revealed that most of the participants in the research lacked the ability to understand the meaning (the main idea of the text), as well as following the literal translation method to avoid deep understanding of the literary text, which leads to the emergence of semantic errors in literary translation. The main recommendations of the study were, providing literary sources and books related to literary texts in libraries of Translation and English department, encouraging students to read different literary texts, attending training courses and workshops in the field of literary translation. For the master’s students, the researcher recommends more research in literary aspects, in addition, focusing on meaning away from the literal translation technique.