Does culture translate?

Abstract

Abstract This study strives to answer one major question: Does culture translate?, employing the translation of English proverbs into Arabic by senior students majoring in English. The study involves 30 English proverbs collected from different sources, based on three criteria, namely complete Arabic equivalence, partial Arabic equivalence and zero Arabic equivalence. These 30 proverbs were distributed to 20 randomly selected senior students as participants. The participants translated the 30 proverbs in the form of a translation test in two phases. The results of the study show that teaching the cultural aspects of the proverbs has developed and improved the participants’ translations considerably, thus providing empirical evidence that culture translates.