The Impact of Pragmatic Markers Acquisition and Phonological Awareness on Word Choice in Translating Literary Texts from Arabic into English

Abstract

Pragmatic markers, either primary or secondary, contribute to the specificity of languages and are sensitive on being translated. This study traces the use of well, the commonest pragmatic marker in the English discourse, in a corpus of translated Arabic novels. The study, too, addresses the influence of the translators’ phonological awareness on their word choices, in the same corpus. Adjacent consonants, consonant-starting and quarter-syllabic words are studied in four groups: free writing of native authors as a control group (G1), literary translations by native English translators (G2), literary English translations by Arabic translators (G3) as well as literary English translations by joint effort (native-speaking and non-native-speaking translators) [G4]. The findings are statistically compared using one-way ANOVA test. Results show a statistically significant difference in the use of the pragmatic marker well and in the use of the three phonological patterns among the four groups. The findings are interpreted and implications are offered for the pragmatic gap and linguistic competence between native-speaking and non-native-speaking translators.