COLLOCATION TRANSLATION ERRORS FROM ARABIC INTO ENGLISH: A CASE STUDY OF NAGUIB MAHFOUZ’S NOVEL “AWLAD HARATINA”

Abstract

The purpose of this analysis is to understand the notion of translation errors while translating collocations from Arabic into English. The translation errors are found in the Arabic novel “Awlad Haratina” which is written by Naguib Mahfouz. The problem of translating collocations and the reasons behind those problems are studied based on Baker’s model of collocational errors which are the engrossing effect of source text (ST) patterning, misinterpreting the meaning of ST collocations, the tension between accuracy and naturalness, cultural-specific collocation and marked collocation in the source text. descriptive qualitative method is used as the method of this study. 71 errors are examined accordingly to find out the reason behind committing translation errors while translating collocation. The study reveals that the tension between accuracy and naturalness, cultural-specific collocation are the main reasons behind committing errors. As a result, the study finds that translators should pay more attention to the notion of collocation before the process of translation.