The Translatability of English Social Media Neologisms into Arabic
Date
2016-12-20
Authors
Kmail, Rahma Abd Al-Rahman Naji
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
An-Najah National University
Abstract
This research examines the translatability of English social media neologisms into Arabic. It sheds light on seventy English, social media neologisms that are used and circulated among English speakers on social networking sites. The researcher obtained the source language data from social media sites and other researches that are conducted on technical neologisms. The researcher collected the translations from the Arabic versions of the social networking sites and the translations of three translation service providers who were chosen based on their ability to provide professional translations. The study investigates the translation strategies used to deal with the source language new expressions to transfer them into the target language. Besides, it shows the difficulties the translators of the social media neologisms encountered in the process of translating them from English into Arabic. The research finds that all English, social media neologisms are translatable into Arabic. However, the target language users do not commonly use the already found Arabic equivalents. The study concludes that most English social media neologisms do not have recognized translations in Arabic. In addition, misinterpretation is the major problem that face the translators of social media neologisms and it leads to unexpressive translations that are not comprehensible and are not communicated successfully for the TL users. Finally, the research suggests recommendations that can help provide expressive, acceptable, and meaningful translations of English, social media neologisms in Arabic. Besides, it recommends deploying the efforts of translating English social media neologisms into Arabic as they are part of our daily lives.