Difficulties EFL translation students face in translating legal texts into Arabic

Abstract EN

Undergraduate translation students usually receive training in translating texts of different disciplines such as sciences, law, business, literal, financial, medical, media, etc.

Legal texts form a problematic area for EFL undergraduate translation students.

This study aimed at investigating the difficulties EFL Translation students face in translating legal texts into Arabic.

The participants of the study were 35 undergraduate translation students at Al Buraimi University College in Oman who were selected purposefully.

The primary tool of the study was a translation test consisted of a UN text which was submitted to students to detect the difficulties they encounter in translating legal texts.

The researcher examined the students' translations who were allowed to use all possible references to help them to handle with the text in classroom.

The findings of the study revealed that translation students face major difficulties in translating legal texts into Arabic.

These difficulties can be classified as: Problems in the layout of the text, tenor problems, lexical problems,and collocation problems.

The researcher attributes the results of the study to the specificity of the translation of legal texts which requires high linguistic and pragmatic competence and professionalism in the field from the part of the translator