Legal translator and the reliability of specialized bilingual dictionaries in the transmission of culture

Abstract EN

In a broader sense, bilingual dictionaries are viewed to provide translators with all the needed information in the foreign language through the equivalents chosen by the compilers; it is needless to say that this statement is correct at a certain level, mainly when it comes to simple words that do not represent much difficulty for both source language receptors and target language receptors.

But the matter becomes questionable when the translator deals with cultural-bound words in the frame of the law as a special-field.

That is why attention must be paid to such valuable references in order to pave the way to the translator to transmit the message in an accurate way.

This study aims to investigate the exactness of English equivalents of some Arabic culture-bound terms in a Legal bilingual dictionary (Arabic- English) with regard to their original significance in the source culture of each language, in order to draw a comparison between both significances and the cultural dimensions they reflect.

The researcher adopted a qualitative method in analysing the data of the present research in order to assess the worth of the accuracy and appropriateness of the equivalents provided for the terms targeted.

The results showed a certain inadequacy between the Arabic word and its equivalent in the majority of the cases, especially regarding its cultural value, which represents its most important aspect.

As a result, the findings made us question the quality of the specialized dictionaries used by the translators when fulfilling their tasks.