Difficulties of Translating the Pragmatic Meaning from English into Arabic

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to have some insights about the difficulties which face Algerian students when they come to translate English pragmatic meaning into Arabic. We will try to answer the question: Are the cultural and the social concepts of the source language the main weaknesses of students when translating English pragmatic meaning into Arabic. We also aim at finding out the procedures followed by students in translating English pragmatic meaning.The study is carried out through a translation task. The results have given evidence of the students’ unawareness of cultural problems. In other words, cultural and social aspects of the source language must be taken into account when it comes to translate utterances which contain pragmatic meaning