Translating verbs of senses –to see, to hear, to smell, to taste, and to touch – from english into arabic

Abstract

The present research is concerned with the translation of verbs of senses-to see, to hear, to smell, to taste, and to touch- from English into Arabic. This research aims at investigating whether the pairs to see ) / (رأىra?a/ ; to hear ()سمع /samica/; to smell (/ )شمsamma/; to taste (/ (ذاقdaqa/, and to touch ( / )لمسlamasa/ are really equivalents in all contexts. To achieve that study, different procedures are adopted as well as mistakes made by informants sample- 3rd year LMD students of English, Mentouri University, have been introduced, to check whether or not the meaning of the above mentioned verbs are rendered appropriately from English into Arabic. Since the present study relates directly to an aspect of translation, equivalence, word and sentence meanings, theme and rheme have been dealt with as a theoretical support of the investigation. Focus has been put on Language in Context under the principle that language is best understood in its appropriate context, and not in its decontextualized form. It has been assumed that when converting the English verbs of senses into Arabic, 3rd year LMD students of English take only the linguistic meaning into account, and neglect the contextual meaning.