USING ARABIC COHESIVE TIES: WA, FA AND THUMMA IN TRANSLATING TEXTS FROM ENGLISH INTO ARABIC

Abstract

This study is intended to examine the problems of translating texts; it is one of few studies which tackle the problems of translation at a text level, the area which is ignored by many researchers in the translation field. More specifically, it investigates the problems of achieving the text cohesion by using the Arabic conjunction wa و, fa ف and thumma ثُمَّ while translating texts from English into Arabic. Its population was the third-year students of English who studied the Translation courses at the Faculty of Education-Saber, University of Lahj. Out of this population, 50 students were selected randomly to serve as a sample for this study. Two instruments were used to collect the data of the study: the translation test and the students' questionnaire. The results showed that the students encounter many problems in translating texts from English into Arabic, one of them is the students' inability to connect the sentences of a TT by using appropriate Arabic ties. This problem may be attributed to the students' poor linguistic proficiencies as well as their low experiences in translating texts. Finally, some suggestions and recommendations were provided to both the teachers and students of translation, and for the heads who are responsible for the students' learning. Some further studies were also suggested at the end of this study.