A Linguistic Approach to Translating the English Past Perfect Aspect into Arabic

Abstract

The present paper aims at examining the English past perfect aspect and its translation into Arabic against empirical data taken from the English novel The Inheritors by William Golding, and translated into Arabic by Sameer I. Nassar. It is shown that a number of strategies were followed in rendering the past perfect aspect into Arabic including: simple past tense, ﺪﻗ + a simple past tense, a simple past verb + ﺪﻗ + a simple past verb, a simple past verb + a simple present verb, and quasi-nominalization, respectively. Finally, this paper concludes that the translation strategies adopted by the translator failed to convey the adequate aspect in Arabic which is equivalent to the English past perfect aspect. Keywords: