International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR) ISSN: 2319-7064 SJIF (2019): 7.583 Volume 9 Issue 12, December 2020 www.ijsr.net Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY Translation of Collocations into Arabic: A Descriptive Corpus-Based Study Ibrahim Alasmri Abstract: Translation of collocations represents a constant translation problem, where extensive linguistic and cultural gaps between languages result in a lack of equivalence of specific-culture, and bound collocational patterns. This study aims to investigate a number of English collocations and their Arabic translations, in order to measure the degree of domestication versus foreignization in translated Arabic texts. This study applies Baker’s theoretical framework of equivalence and translation strategies (2018), and makes use of the parallel corpus: OPUS2, on the corpus analysis web-based tool Sketch Engine. This study has shown that domestication predominantly characterises the translation of collocations in Arabic, where equivalence is usually achieved using different translation strategies. Keywords: Collocations, English-Arabic translation, Equivalence, Translation strategies 1. Contextualisation Collocation is one of most common linguistic phenomena that has been widely investigated in the area of linguistics and translation studies. The notion of collocations has been familiar since the work of Palmer (1938), who defines collocations as “successions of two or more words the meaning of which canhardly be deduced from a knowledge of their component words” (p. iv). Baker in her translation textbook: In Other Words (2018), refers collocations to certain words to co-occur regularly in a given language, and express a presupposed meaning, which “arises from co- occurrence restrictionson what other words or expressions we expect to see before or after a particularlexical unit” (p. 13). These restrictions, the „collocational restrictions‟, are “semanticallyarbitrary restrictions which do not follow logically from the propositional meaningof a word” (p. 54). Collocation has been a subject of numerous studies in English language. In theirdictionary of English, Benson, Benson, and Ilson (1986) classify collocations into two main types:lexical collocations and grammatical collocations.Both types were divided to some sub-types, for instance, lexical collocationscan be nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs.On the other hand, grammatical collocation include nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs as well, however, those items usually combined with preposition or grammatical structure such as an infinitive or clause. On the subject of Arabic, collocations alsohave been extensively investigated in a number of studies, such as (Emery, 1987, 1988, 1991; Ghazala, 1993; Ghazala, 2007; Hafiz, 2002; Hoogland, 1993), where different categorisations for collocations have been suggested. Ghazala (2007)for example, classifies collocations into 17 categoriesof collocations in Arabic as follows: 1) Verb + noun (object), e.g. (شه دزتا): wage a war. 2) Noun + adjective, e.g. (دزب ضزوص):fatal war 3) Verb + noun (subject), e.g. ( عز أوار دزبسر):war thirst flared up 4) Genitivecase:Noun + noun, e.g. ( خ الذزبلو):woes of the war 5) Noun + preposition + noun, e.g. ( ذراخ المخدزب عل):a war on drugs 6) Noun + noun (genitive/adjective case), e.g. ( دورج حدمى):blood circulation 7) Noun + conjunction + noun, e.g. ( كلء واللماا):water and grass 8) Noun + noun (genitive), e.g. (ز الشعزاءأم):prince of poets 9) Verb + preposition, e.g. ( مهعف):exempt from 10) Noun + preposition, e.g. ( مح الذمىف علول):standing on the truth (grasping the truth) 11) Preposition + noun, e.g. ( مزالثحذد الذ):under probation(On probation) 12) Adjective + preposition, e.g. (مذك ف):right in 13) Collocations of countable noun, e.g. ( سزب مه ىرالط):flock of birds 14) Collocations of un-countable noun, e.g. ( ف مه رغ الخثش):a loaf of bread 15) Collocations of onomatopoeias, e.g. (لفاعخ افذ):hissing of snakes 16) Collocations of similes, e.g. ( ه مه ع أصف امحالذم):Clearer than the pigeon eye 17) Metaphoric collocations (fixed expressions/idioms, proverbs, metaphors), e.g. (لشماقشرع ا):discord sows The importance of collocation in translation lies in their essential role in achieving the coherence and cohesion of the text. However, they represent a constant translation problem, where extensive linguistic and cultural gaps between languages result in a lack of equivalence of specific-culture, bound collocational patterns. Sometimes, what can be culturally acceptable in one language can be totally odd and ambiguous in another. In addition, the low degree oftranslators‟ competence, or the knowledge of collocations,represent another translation problem, where it could lead to difficulties in combining words together, and then resulting in more foreignization, or literal translation, that does not sound native-like nor natural. Furthermore, utilising certain translation strategies in translating collocations can lead to further complications and difficulties. From thetranslation studies perspective, the process of collocational translation has been broadly investigated by different studies, such as (Baker, 1992, 2011, 2018; Newmark, 1988; Vinay & Darbelnet, 1958). In these translational studies, collocations were investigated with as association with translation strategies, where they were referred as solutions for handling collocations translational problems. In her model of equivalence, Baker (2018) proposes eight translation strategies to handle various types Paper ID: SR201220101609 DOI: 10.21275/SR201220101609 1144