Componential analysis of hatred synonymy in the lexicons of English and standard Arabic

Abstract EN

This paper has a three-pronged objective: offering a unitary set of semantic distinctive features to the analysis of nominal “hatred synonyms” in the lexicon of both English and Standard Arabic (SA), applying it procedurally to test its scope of functionality cross-linguistically, and singling out the closest noun synonymous equivalents among the membership of the two sets in this particular lexical semantic field in both languages.

The componential analysis and the matching procedures carried have been functional in identifying ten totally matching equivalents (i.e.

at 55.6%), and eight partially matching ones (i.e.

at %44.4%).

This result shows that while total matching equivalences do exist in the translation of certain English/ST nouns, there are many nouns that can only have partially matching equivalents.

This finding also asserts the fact that translation is significantly an approximation task.

It also highlights the relativity of the scope of functionality ascribable to semantic componential analysis.