Difficulties Facing M.A Applied Linguistics Students at Mu'tah University in Translating Arabic Language Idioms Used by Speakers of Jordanian Arabic in Tafeilah City into English as a Foreign Language

Abstract

This paper aims at investigating the difficulties facing M.A Applied Linguistics student at Mu'tah University in translating Arabic language idioms used by speakers of Jordanian Arabic in Tafeilah city into English as a foreign language. This qualitative research included 20 M.A Applied Linguistics students. The  researcher  used a list consisting of  20 idioms used in local idioms by speakers of Jordanian Arabic in Tafeilah city in South Jordan. The findings of the research showed that cultural difference between both Arabic and English languages are some of the hinders that face translators translate local idioms successfully. Also, the findings indicated that , the translator must be not only bilingual but also bicultural and possess wide awareness of the target language. Also, the findings showed that the inability of the translators in finding the equivalent meaning in the target language at both the pragmatic and semantic level is one of the causes that formulate difficulties for the translators when translating local Arabic idioms in English language. This research recommends that future studies be conducted in the area.