Public MA Viva-Voce Examination of Ms. Hadeel Rashad Taher Al-Mekhlafi from Department of Translation & Applications, Community Center for Translation & Language Teaching, Sana’a University
Ms. Hadeel Rashad Taher Al-Mekhlafi has been successfully awarded the MA Degree, majoring in Translation, with an average of 95% and a grade of Excellent, from the Department of Translation & Applications, Community Center for Translation & Language Teaching, Sana’a University.
The Public Viva-Voce Examination for her thesis, entitled “Translating Commercial Advertisements from English into Arabic: Linguistic and Cultural Challenges,” was held on Thursday, Shaaban 28, 1446 Hijri, corresponding to February 27, 2025. The Viva-Voce Committee, which was formed based on a resolution issued by the Post-Graduate Studies and Scientific Research Council, consisted of the following:
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Prof. Bushra Al-Musauba, External Examiner, Hajjah University, Chair
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Prof. Abdulhameed Ashuja’a, Main Supervisor, Sana’a University, Member
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Abdulwadood Annuzaili, Internal Examiner, Sana’a University, Member
This study aimed to investigate the linguistic and cultural challenges in translating advertisement texts from English into Arabic and identifying the strategies used in translating advertisements, as well as proposing possible solutions to overcome these challenges. To do so, a descriptive method was used, and quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The study population was MA students majoring in translation at Sana’a University (CCTLT, Faculty of Languages) and Yemen Academy for Graduate Studies. A translation test was used to identify the linguistic and cultural challenges of translating advertisements from English into Arabic, a questionnaire was used to identify the possible strategies used in translating advertisements, and an interview to enhance the results of the translation test and the questionnaire as well as identify the possible solutions to overcome these challenges.
The study findings revealed that the major challenges in translating advertisements were linguistically and then culturally. The linguistic challenges are lexical, cultural, and semantic, respectively, and the cultural challenges are religious, social, and historical. The reasons behind these challenges are due to the linguistic and cultural differences between the SL and TL, insufficient background about the advertising language and features, insufficient background about the cultures of the SL and TL, absence of attention to specialized translation courses in translation programs, lack of training in translating ads, lack of understanding the denotation meaning of the source ad, and the lack of dictionaries of vocabulary items in advertising.
The study provided a set of recommendations, including the following:
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The translator and translation students should be aware of the linguistic and cultural differences between Arabic and English.
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They should enhance their background in marketing, read a lot about advertising in both languages, and be familiar with the language and features of advertising.
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They should enhance their background about the cultures of the SL and TL,
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They should join professional training in translation, improve their translation skills to reach the level of transcreation,
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Finally, they should be able to work closely with experts like translators, language practitioners, and marketers.
The Viva-Voce was attended by several academics, researchers, students, colleagues, and family members of the researcher.
