Ambiguity tolerance of Egyptian EFL undergraduates: A sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic and pedagogical perspective

Abstract

T he study examines why Egyptian EFL undergraduates find it difficult to comprehend the proper syntactic structures of their target language (i.e. English) and particularly translate the meaning of an Arabic-written source text into English. Such differences are analyzed in line with the gender variables (i.e. male and female Egyptian learners) and their ability to tolerate the syntactic and connotative differences which exist between the English and Arabic languages. This difficulty emanates from the syntactic differences which exist between their mother tongue (i.e. Arabic) and their target language (i.e. English). Such syntactic differences lead to linguistic uncertainty on the part of Egyptian EFL undergraduates. The ability of overcoming such linguistic uncertainties may vary among the Egyptian EFL learners particularly when they fulfill a translation-based task from a source text written in Arabic into English. This is attributed to the fact that translation from a mother tongue into the target language is the main field in which such syntactic differences become visible and tangible. The study provides implications for the teaching of translation as a core course at the Department of Languages and Translation.