British Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 33 April 2015, Vol. 13 (1) © 2015 British Journals ISSN 2048-1268 Mathematical Terms Translation and the Translators' Background Knowledge: A Case Study of Translating Postgraduate Students' Abstracts in M.A Mathematics at Mu'tah University Mohammad Al Rawashdeh Dept. of English Language and Literature, Mu'tah University, P.O. Box: 7 Mu'tah, Al Karak, Jordan E-mail: mmr_82_2003@yahoo.com Abstract The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of the translator's background knowledge on translating technical terms in scientific text produced by postgraduate students at the Department of Science at Mu'tah University in Jordan. This qualitative and quantitative study composes 15 postgraduate students who finished their M.A in Mathematics at Mu'tah university in Jordan. The researcher selected the sample of the study randomly. The researcher used two research instruments that included textual analysis and semi-structured interview. The finding of this research demonstrated that background knowledge has a positive and negative effect on translating technical terms when translating postgraduate abstracts in the field of Mathematics. This study recommends that further future research be conducted to confirm and support the findings of this current study. Keywords: Abstract, Background Knowledge, Technical Terms, Scientific Text and Mathematics. 1. Introduction English is one of the important languages all over the world. It is spoken over 100 countries in the world as the first language. It is also taught as a second language by the majority of the world countries. As it is the world most usable language many scientists think to translate some of their achievements from English to Arabic and vice versa, as a method of cultural exchange between the countries. But they face some problems that include the lack of vocabulary, background knowledge. Translation is an endless learning process, as much as you translate as much as you find it an open field (Jabak, 2014). Translation is the technique of transferring the source language text to target language text (Bhatia, 1992). Translation is not just a structure, or transferring a sentence from one language to another; it is a matter of knowledge and culture. That is, a translator has to be familiar with the subject he/she is translating (Pei,1949). Because background knowledge is one of things that contribute in developing successful translation process especially in scientific texts, there are technical terms that the translator can not handle when translating due to the lack of background knowledge whether in EFL or ESL. This may be related to varied factors such as educational, social and cultural settings. Thus, technical translation started in 1960s and focused on the source language from which text is translated. Technical translation refers to the translation of the scientific text from one language to another. As a result this study attempts to investigate the effect of translator's background knowledge on translating technical terms in scientific texts: a case study of mathematics postgraduate students' abstracts. 2. Literature Review Much research has been conducted to investigate the problems of translation and translators whether in English as a foreign language or English as a second language contexts (Al Khotaba and Al Tarawneh, 2015. Thawabteh (2009) conduct a study on the intricacies of English-Arabic subtitling at Al Quds University in Palestine. The sample of the study consisted 20 M.A translation students. The findings of the study indicated that students faced several linguistic, cultural and technical problems in subtitling which may jeopardize communication that thought to be crucial for target audience. The researcher used