The Translation of Women-Related Proverbial Expressions from Jordanian Arabic into English: An Error Analysis

Abstract

This study examines the translation of women-related proverbial expressions from Jordanian Arabic into English. Specifically, it aims to identify the common errors committed by MA translation students when translating such proverbs. The study attempts to answer one question: what are the common errors that MA students from the Department of Translation at Yarmouk University commit when they translate women-related proverbial expressions from Jordanian Arabic into English? The data were collected from two books about Jordanian proverbs, 8 elderly Jordanian women, and a translation test. Sixteen proverbial expressions were given to the students in the test to translate. The students’ translations were then analyzed using Na’s (2005) model of Error Analysis. This study has shown that the MA students committed linguistic, translation, and comprehension errors in their translation. The most frequent errors that were committed by the students were the linguistic errors, followed by the translation errors; the comprehension errors were the least frequent.