Translatability of Euphemistic Idioms of Death in Arabic and English Cultures: A Contrastive Perspective
Saeed Abu Khadra, Al AlBayt Univ., Mafraq, Jordan.
Abstract
This study identifies the notion of euphemistic Idioms and the problem of terminology, clarifies the linguistic importance and translation problems of these Idioms, and attempt to verify the impact of the cultural elements of Arabic and English on the form and the content of euphemistic Idioms of death.
The significance of this study is to provide a theoretical basis for further studies to test through experimentation. The result of such a contrastive study can be of help, mainly, to translators, language instructors, Arabic learners as a second language, curriculum designers, etc. To achieve the contrastive analysis of linguistic data that were obtained from general and specialized dictionaries representing classical Arabic and Modern Standard English, the study draws upon ideas from semantics and assumptions related to the subject.
Finally, the study reveals, among its other main conclusions, that euphemism of the two linguistic cultures rely, mostly, on similar concepts and linguistic strategies to soften the blow of death. Nevertheless, the elements of the two different cultures, namely the religious one, that have a great influence on formation of such euphemisms, may require a careful aware and a well competence, of translators, to be comprehended and produced.