Translations of Fear and (Basic) Fears of Translation - "The Little Foxes that Spoil the Vine"

Abstract

The article explores some of the major sources of fear, or anxiety, in translating, and occasionally interpreting, between English and Arabic, based on input from a limited sample of Arab university students, focusing on textual, linguistic and technical aspects, and makes some informal notes on the effects of hatred and ignorance and how fear of translation translates in practice. The fears this article addresses are fear of the unknown and the unfamiliar, including fear of technical vocabulary and neologisms, fear of idioms and metaphors, fear of ambiguity, fear of mistranslation and of written texts, fear of mechanics, and fear of rhythm and rhyme. The article does not offer a panacea for any of these basic fears. It rather provides some options and strategies to overcome each of them.