Lexical translation difficulties and context-dependent synonymy

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the general difficulties involved in translation equivalence at the lexical level, with examples from English-Arabic translation. The study tackles the major difficulties associated with lexical equivalence that are related to dictionary-based meanings. It attempts to provide a more comprehensive and systematic list of difficulty sources in relation to lexical equivalence, by suggesting additional categories that have been overlooked, or loosely mentioned in the literature, using authentic English-Arabic translation examples as much as possible. Six types of lexical difficulties are added to the ones previously listed in the literature. It also highlights cases in which the literal meaning of some lexical items and their intended or implied meanings are in asymmetric relation and cannot be rendered by the use of dictionary-based equivalents, but by using context-based equivalents.