A Linguistic Approach to Translating the English Past Perfect Aspect into Arabic

Mohammed M Obeidat

doi:10.5539/ells.v4n1p62

Abstract

The present paper aims at examining the English past perfect aspect and its translation into Arabic against empirical data taken from the English novel The Inheritors by William Golding, and translated into Arabic by Sameer I. Nassar. It is shown that a number of strategies were followed in rendering the past perfect aspect into Arabic including: simple past tense, ?? + a simple past tense, a simple past verb + ?? + a simple past verb, a simple past verb + a simple present verb, and quasi-nominalization, respectively. Finally, this paper concludes that the translation strategies adopted by the translator failed to convey the adequate aspect in Arabic which is equivalent to the English past perfect aspect.

Highlights

A basic understanding of the English simple past tense is that it is used for actions completed in the past at a definite time
The present paper aims at examining the English past perfect aspect and its translation into Arabic against empirical data taken from the English novel The Inheritors by William Golding, and translated into Arabic by Sameer I
2.2 Results This paper shows that the translator employed translation replacements as manifest in five main strategies when rendering the past perfect aspect into Arabic, these are: 1) past perfect aspect into simple past; 2) past perfect aspect into ‫ قد‬+ simple past; 3) past perfect aspect into simple past + ‫ قد‬+ simple past; 4) past perfect aspect into simple past + ‫ قد‬+ simple present; and 5) past perfect aspect into quasi-nominalization

Summary

Introduction

A basic understanding of the English simple past tense is that it is used for actions completed in the past at a definite time. The simple past tense is used for a past habit; example (4) They never drank wine The past perfect aspect is formed with had and the past participle. This aspect is used for actions which happened before other actions which took place in the past time; example (5) When Sarah arrived at the party, Paul had already gone home (7) Peter, who had waited for an hour, was angry with his sister when she eventually turned up

Results

Discussion

Conclusion