Semantic Ambiguity The Problem of Translating Polysemous Words in English – Arabic Translation The Case of Second Year LMD Students of English – University of Ouargla

Abstract

The present research is studying the semantic ambiguity of lexical forms. Many, if not most, words have multiple meanings that pose a problems to students, mainly the second year students at Kasdi Merbah university Ouargla while translating from English into Arabic. The first part is theoretical which includes an overview on translation, semantics and polysemy. The second part which is the practical one and in order to investigate this problem, we hypothesis that, If 2nd year LMD students of English at University of Kasdi Merbah Ouargla put the different contexts of the polysemous words into consideration, they will translate them successfully. To check this hypothesis and to achieve the aims of this research, a test and a questionnaire are administered to a sample of second year students. One of the points of focus on this research is how context helps and may be reinforced in translating polysemous words. In other words, second year students rely on the context when attempting translation of polysemous words