Teaching and Learning Scientific Translation: Problems, Challenges, and Solutions

Abstract

Scientific translation is not a kind of knowledge that could be gained by practice, or by
implementation of certain techniques. Therefore, teaching scientific translation does not
involve the demonstration of its techniques and strategies only. However, it also involves
the awareness of the requirements for this type of translation such as the expertise needed
in this area, the consequences of neglecting linguistic and grammatical rules when
translating scientific prose, the different barriers encountered, and the preliminary steps
taken before engaging in the translation. Similarly, learners of scientific translation should
not only learn the rules of scientific translation, but also be aware of the scientific
translator’s job which is not the mere replacement of the source lexical terms with target
ones. They should be learned that the translation of scientific prose, though non-literal,
should render as directly as possible the exact meaning of the original. Accordingly, this
paper highlights the problems encountered when teaching and learning English-Arabic
scientific translation. One of them is the students’ neglecting of the grammatical rules in
scientific translation, which affects their translation of other text-types and influences and
other modes of translation such as subtitling. The paper also attempts to offer solutions
and establish possible factors that may lead to a methodology of teaching and learning this
type of translation.