Translation is as old as the art of writing or as old as history of education in general. It is
occasioned by the social needs of people. Whenever for instance two linguistic groups
interact as neighbors to each other translation from and to each other's languages becomes
inevitable if they must meaningfully communicate with each other in matters of commerce
intermarriage education legal issues etc. Religious books like those that the Holy Qur'an
and the Bible have been facilitating essentially translated to numerous languages in different
parts of the world. Translation is also regarded a s a significant key that connects the
literary works of authors from diverse culture. It also plays a pivotal role in minimizing the
cultural divergences. Translation has been widely practiced over the centuries in the world in
general and in Arab world in particular. The founding mythology and the sacred texts of the
dominant religions are all based on translations. In short translation has been essential for
development and change in literature commerce technology politics so on and so forth.
Translation mediates between languages societies and literatures and it is through
translation that linguistic and cultural barriers may be overcome. Traditionally translation
is considered a change of form which is a change of surface structures from a source language
into a target language. A rather simple definition of translation as the replacement of textual
material (SL) by equivalent textual material in another (TL) is suggested by Catford (1990
p.20). In this respect Catford is more concerned with formal language rules and grammar
rather than the context or the pragmatics of the text to be translated. Nonetheless he
stressed that:Since every language is formally sui-generis and formal correspondence is at
best a rough approximate on it is clear that the formal meaning of SL items can rarely be the
same(Catford 1990 p.36).Indeed form is a vehicle of meaning and translation consists mainly
of transferring the meaning of the SL text into the TL. Hence translation according to
Nida(2001 p.12) consists of reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent
of the source language message first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style. This
definition reveals a notion of equivalence in translation at the semantic and stylistic levels.
It views translation as a reproduction of a similar response of the TL reader by reproducing
equivalent meaning and style. In other words it favors a maximum equivalence of meaning and
effect as suggested by F.E Tylor (2002 p.37)
