Exploring the Challenges of Teaching Translation in Qatar: An Intercultural and Linguistic Perspective

This chapter reflects on students’ treatment of intercultural texts through translation. Given that translation aims at bolstering and enriching intercultural understanding, the foreignness of the source culture is generally assumed to be an essential ingredient in the enrichment process. What is common among cultures may travel easily through direct translation. Rather, it is the foreign that usually needs communication through translation. The common can be readily communicated through what is known in translation studies as equivalence. The uncommon is perceived as non-equivalence. To overcome non-equivalence, students are taught to resort to what is known in the field as translation strategies. Based on the author’s experience as a researcher, translator, reviewer and translation teacher, the chapter explores the translation strategies used by students with specific reference to the MA of Translation Studies programme at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. This chapter examines linguistic and culturally specific issues and how students address such challenges with reference to Arabic and English. Specifically, the chapter discusses how students adapt to solve linguistic and intercultural issues. This chapter recommends how the Qatari educational context and experiences contribute to translation as intercultural pedagogy.