Context impact in translating sport idiomatic expressions from English into Arabic with regard to types of idioms

Abstract EN

The translation of sport idiomatic expressions from English into Arabic represents a difficult task for the translators.

This difficult task increases when such expressions are decontextualized.

This study aims to pinpoint the impact of context in helping translators to provide appropriate translations for such idioms with regard to idiom types.

The study hypothesizes that the context is indispensable in translating idioms as cultural bound expressions and that the type of idioms also positively affects their appropriate translations.

The data used for analysis comprise 10 sport idiomatic expressions which are carefully selected from 10 different familiar and less familiar types of idioms that are mentioned in the literature following Moon's model (1998), with some modification about the subject.

These expressions are given to 10 teachers from the Department of Translation, College of Arts, University of Mosul, in the form of two tests with an interval of one week between them: decontextualized and in everyday language context.

Chief among the findings of the study is that appropriate translations of sport idiomatic expressions are provided within the context.

Also the findings reveal that the type of idiom plays an essential and effective role in providing such appropriate translations.