Major problems in translating Algerian marriage and divorce documents into English

Abstract EN

The paper discusses problems facing the researcher in translating Algerian marriage and divorce documents from Arabic into English, shedding light on major problems facing translators considering linguistic characteristics of these documents and difficulties of conveying their content into English culture and its legal system which are totally different from the Algerian Arabic.

The researcher has applied the linguistic approach to translation.

This approach allows the researcher to minimize problems encountered by focusing on the appropriate meaning and equivalence of terms and expressions.

The paper shows that lexical and stylistic problems are more encountered than syntactic and cultural ones.

This was the result of translating seven documents collected from municipality administration, a lawyer, and a department of family cases in Algeria.

The study shows that a translated legal document could be homogenous if different translation strategies are used particularly the literal translation strategy.

The study suggests that the Translation Departments should require from their MA translation students to attend not less than 200 hours of translation training at translation offices or companies.

This ensures graduating qualified translators who would be able to integrate easily in the translation market.

The study also recommends conducting further research aiming at investigating the problems encountered in translating other legal types of documents.