A Configurational System-based Approach to Translating Tenses from Arabic to English

Abstract

In this study, I seek to discuss the translation of tenses from Arabic, which does not have a grammatical category for ‘aspect’, to English, which has such a grammatical category. It is hypothesised that in order for the translators to produce an accurate translation and create a similar mental image in the minds of the target language readers, the ‘contextual tense’ should be given serious consideration at the expense of the ‘morphological tense’ or ‘structural tense’.  This study proposes a cognitive model for identifying the contextual tense where categories, such as ‘point of emphasis’, ‘state of dividedness’, ‘state of boundedness’, ‘degree of extension’, ‘plexity’, ‘pace and time lapse’ and ‘extent of causation’ are used.  To demonstrate how adhering to the morphological tense or structural tense without figuring out the contextual tense may lead to inaccurate translations, ample authentic examples taken from a collection of 12 short stories titled ‘Modern Arabic Short Stories: A Bilingual Reader’ (2008) are used. From the analysis of the primary data, it has been shown that failing to identify the contextual tense leads to an inaccurate translation, thereby creating different mental images in the minds of the target language readers.