On the Suitability of some English Equivalents to Arabic Culturally-Bound Terms

Abstract

In a broader sense, bilingual dictionaries are viewed to provide translators with all the needed information in the foreign language through the equivalents chosen by the compilers. Needless to say that this statement is correct at a certain level, mainly when it comes to simple words that do not represent much difficulty for both source language receptors and target language receptors. But the matter becomes questionable when the translator deals with cultural-bound words in the frame of the law as a specialized field. That is why attention must be paid to such valuable references to pave the way to the translator to transmit the message accurately. This study aims to investigate the exactness of English equivalents of some Arabic culture-bound terms in a Legal bilingual dictionary (Arabic-English) about their original significance in the source culture of each language, to draw a comparison between both meanings and the cultural dimensions they reflect. The results showed a certain inadequacy between the Arabic word and its equivalent in the majority of the cases, especially regarding its ethnographic value, which represents its most important aspect.