The Acceptability of Euphemisms Translation Done by Yemeni Undergraduates

This study aimed at exploring the challenges that Yemeni undergraduates face through a tailor-made scale of acceptability of euphemisms. Besides, reasons behind these challenges, and suggested solutions were given rise in this study as well. The descriptive approach was followed to achieve the objectives of this study. Translation undergraduates were, randomly, chosen from SU and UST to be the sample of the study during the first semester of the academic year 2018/2019. To collect the required data, the researchers designed a translation test and administered a questionnaire. The study results revealed that translation undergraduates encountered real challenges when translating euphemistic expressions. These challenges were mostly related to the cultural and pragmatic domains. The respondents believed that there were resolvable reasons behind euphemism translation difficulties such as the lack enough syllabus materials and training. The study recommended that undergraduates, instructors and academic institutions have to pay more attention to euphemisms while teaching translation courses especially English euphemisms.


INTRODUCTION
Translators in general and novice translators in particular might go through several linguistic and cultural tropes that need extra-effort translation such as metaphors, non-equiv-ant, detestable or unhappy words and expressions. People substitute these expressions and words with more enjoyable, less shocking ones according to necessity. It saves the language speakers from possible impudence and violation.
Translating euphemisms from Arabic into English or vice versa is not easily attainable especially when the two languages belong to different cultures; Sematic and West Germanic respectively. Consequently, several kinds of challenges might be faced. To convey a natural message in the target language, the translators must be bilingual and bicultural and have knowledge of translation strategies (Al-Adwan, 2015).
Very few studies have been conducted on the difficulties of euphemisms translation (Alaj, 2017). Even though some studies have addressed the issue of translating euphemisms, yet still there are some gaps, for instance, some studies only tackled one aspect of euphemisms translation such as strategies for euphemisms translation, ignoring other aspects of translation such as challenges, reasons or solutions. Therefore, this study is organized to investigate the adequacy of translating English euphemisms into Arabic done by beginner translators who are at the end of the undergraduate program (Al-Mizgagi, 2013).
The translation of euphemisms is indeed a challenge, as the translator in general has to deal with certain and different challenges. These include the comprehension of the source text (ST), spatial and temporal constraints, and an equivalence that is natural as Al-harthi (2016) attributed. A review of the literature dealing with translating euphemisms reveals the need for studies that discuss the euphemisms translation difficulties (Muthariny, 2017). In fact, few studies discussed the students' translation difficulties in universities. Most of the studies are secondary research papers that discussed the euphemisms translation difficulties such as in (Alaj, 2017) and (Alotaibi, 2015).

The Problem of the Study
This study focuses particularly on the acceptability of euphemisms translation done by translation undergraduates from English into Arabic, the reasons that stand behind the challenges and the proposed solutions that may help academic stakeholders overcome the challenges in the undergraduate programs in the Yemeni universities in general and Sana'a University (SU) and University of Science and Technology (UST) in particular.
Apart from the term 'adequacy' which abides by the cultural norms of SL, the term 'acceptability' is a standard of prevail of the TL culture according to Toury (2012) (Munday, 2016) Figure 1 explains this polarization.

The Significance of the Study
The significance of this study exists in expectations that the information mentioned in the study would be useful for translation undergraduates and academicians to raise their awareness of euphemisms, euphemisms translation and potential techniques of rendering them between English into Arabic. This study is useful for translators as well as translation practitioners. Besides, it is hoped that the investigation of this topic will significantly contribute to enhancing the quality and accuracy of the translation of euphemisms after identifying the reasons behind these challenges that professionals in general and undergraduates in particular may face and the suggested solutions.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
There are various features of euphemisms such as: nationalism, regionalism, semantic variations ...etc (Li-Na, 2015). There are also other features such as sociality, having life, re-symbolism, arbitration, relevance, and fuzziness. However, it was explained the most distinguished and popular features to draw attention on them. Wang (2014) gave rise to two types of euphemism; traditional and stylistic. Traditional euphemism is subsidiary and linked with taboo language like birth, illness, death, sex, pee and so on. The taboo language makes people have the feeling of vulgarness, primitiveness, ruggedness, and rudeness if it is said directly. People may have the feeling of elegance and politeness by enhance that purpose. Therefore, people try to generate new expressions as alternatives of taboos, and that is a euphemism. While stylistic euphemism cannot deal with taboo. It rather shows courtesy and attempts for cooperation in the thick of communication. The stylistic euphemisms can be found easily in the fields of politics, war, commerce, education, and advertising.
According to Burkhardt (2010) "when the speaker gets into the situation, it is unavoidable for him/her to use euphemism. He/she may choose one word, compound, phrase, the whole sentence, or even the whole compound sentence" (Burkhardt, 2010). Bearing this in mind, euphemisms can be either syntactic or lexical. From semantic point of view, euphemism is divided into two general types: positive and negative euphemism. The positive euphemism inflates, magnifies, and making the euphemized items seems outstanding and more significant than they really are. Many decorative professional titles are obvious positive euphemisms, e.g. Domestic help is for maid and housekeeper, a beautician for barber, grief therapist for the undertaker, solid-waste ecologist for the garbage collector, and so forth. The negative euphemisms devalue and lessen. They are self-justifying in nature, counterweighing the power of tabooed terms (Abdalla, 2009).
A finite number of English and Arabic models for analyzing euphemisms as strategies of politeness; precisely in strategies linked to specific topics (i.e. sexual references and distasteful topics) have been presented and expanded (Williams, 1975;Warren, 1992;Farghal, 1995;Linfoot-Ham, 2005). Farghal (1995) examined euphemism as a pragmatic phenomenon via analyzing various examples from 'Standard Arabic' and 'colloquial Jordanian Arabic'. In his proposed model, Farghal claimed that euphemisms in Arabic show disdain for one or more of the maxims of conversation drawn by Grice (1975). Accordingly, this leads to the communication of specific implicates. Arab speakers adopt four main strategies in creating euphemisms, namely the usage of figurative expressions, circumlocutions, re-modelings and antonyms, as cited in (Al-Adwan, 2015).
It is crucial to recognize the main types of euphemism in Arabic in order to know the difference between English and Arabic euphemisms. AL-Husseni (2007) in his paper about euphemisms in Arabic and English said, "There are three types for euphemisms in Arabic regarding to its structural" (p. 337) as the following: 1. Situational euphemism ‫التعريض‬ (innuendo); Al-hussaini (2007) added that a good example for innuendo could be seen in the sermon of Ali (May Allah be blessed with him) when he referred death to martyrdom. 2. Contextual euphemism is ‫التلويح‬ (wave or suggestion); It states simple adjacent relations between two substances, such as part-whole, cause-effect, and so on. Consequently, Arabs use a prominent characteristic of one domain in Arab Culture to characterize the whole domain, (the generosity) when they refer to a 'generous man' as ‫الرماد‬ ‫'كثير‬ a man of a lot of ash (a lot of ash expression is a vital feature among other features). 3. Symbol ‫;"الرمز"‬ AL-Husseni (2007) also explained that they use this euphemism ' ‫القفا‬ ‫عريض‬ ' 'a man of wide back' instead of saying "a stupid man" which is an unpleasant expression and cannot be publicly stated ‫,القيرواني,2791(‬ p.275). 4. The hint ‫اإلشارة"‬ ‫أو‬ ‫;"اإليماء‬ This type is clear when the woman wanted to express her problem of poverty to the ruler, she used this type of euphemism by saying: ‫أشكو(‬ ‫بيتي‬ ‫في‬ ‫الفئران‬ ‫قلة‬ ‫)إليك‬

Previous studies
Baker (2018), discussed the problems and difficulties that may face the translator in translating such expressions such as idioms and euphemisms. There are many dilemmas in identifying that expression such as: accepting the form (linguistic genealogy) SL, rigidity in recognizing the cultural genealogy in SL, and determining formal or functional correspondence in TL. The culture gaps between the occident and the orient languages make most of the translation difficulties. Many euphemistic expressions stimulate from cultures. (Edwards, 1976) (as cited in Al-Shawi, 2017) explained the culture "Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society" (Muthariny, 2017).
Some scholars as Unseth (2006) and Newmark (1988) proposed various strategies to be adopted when encountering problems in translation as in translating euphemisms. Mun-day (2012) defined strategy and said; a strategy is an overall orientation of the translator (e.g. towards 'free' or 'literal translation', semantic or communicative, towards the target text or source text, towards domestication of foreignization (Munday, 2016). These difficulties as Alaj (2017) emphasized arise from different reasons such as dissimilarity, lack of equivalence between English and Arabic languages (Alaj, 2017). Venuti, on the other hand, pinpointed two factors deserve translators' consideration when translating euphemisms; stylistic and rhetoric factor (Venuti, 1995). In addition, Al-Shawi (2017) states that, it should be emphasized that when it comes to translating euphemistic expressions, priorities should be borne in the translator's mind: Al-Husseni thinks that replacement process of aggressive words or expressions is very different in both cultures. Every society has its own culture and value system, so what is measured as taboo or offensive words or expression in the Arab society may not be so in the English society. Consequently, the words or expressions that require euphemisms reflect society's ethics and morals of some parts of the society (AL-Husseni, 2007).
Euphemisms' translators face the same difficulties as they would in translating any other text, but difficulties increase especially for beginners' translators. These difficulties have been well summarized by Wilss' (1996, p.166) "The success of translators to come to grips with their translation tasks depends on various factors such as their mental disposition, experience… and the translator's competence level" (as cited in Abdalla, 2009). Swear (2016) examined the socio-cultural varieties in translating euphemistic expressions from English into Arabic. Mostly, the study concentrated on the novel "A Grain of Wheat" to display the different usage of the novel terms by two translators from diverse cultures. It adapted a qualitative approach applies in Leppihalme's (1997) and Unseth's (2006) translation strategies to focus the sociocultural differences in translating 24 expressions like; Death, Sex, Human body, Bodily function.
Besides, Alqaryouti at Zarqa University, of Jordan conducted a study entitled, "Euphemism in the Translations of Surah Al Nisa'a in the Holy Quran". This study aimed at investigating translatability of euphemisms from Arabic into English. He chose Surah Al Nisa'a in the Holy Quran. Moreover, it tried to describe some incongruities and difficulties that encounter the translators when rendering Quranic euphemism into English (Alqaryouti, 2016).
Alotaibi investigated "The Awareness of Euphemism by Kuwaiti Speakers of Arabic". He surveyed the Kuwaiti Speakers' Awareness of Arabic Euphemism. He tested the role of the respondants' age and educational level in comprehending of euphemisms in daily life dialogues. The researcher chose eight taboo words from two ranges, namely, courtesy and physical appearance. He combined into entirely contextualized sentences. The Kuwaiti Arabic native speakers normally had acceptable consciousness of euphemisms as results showed. It was obvious that age and educational level perform a fundamental role in using euphemisms. The consequences disclosed that the educated members, hold-ers of a university degree, did not use aggressive words and consider them inappropriate (Alotaibi, 2015). Shehab, Qadan, & Hussein (Shehab, Qadan, & Hussein, 2014) examined the context role, which plays in defining the translation strategies trailed by translators of Arabic euphemisms into English. The main concern was "the employment of euphemism in a social context might differ in Arabic and English because of dissimilar cultural backgrounds". The evidence was fetched from eleven Arabic euphemistic expressions from five literary masterworks inscribed by the Egyptian novelist and Noble Prize winner Najib Mahfouz, and then checking out the English translation of these euphemisms. The results explained that the most challenging case is when the two cultures have different backgrounds of a certain subject. It could deprive the source language of a cultural trait if we translated euphemisms in this case; nevertheless convey a euphemistically vague message. According to their study, the context had an effective influence upon the use and degree of euphemism.
AL-Dulaimi & Aubed (ND) also took a close look at how translators of the Glorious Quran dealt with the euphemistic expressions based upon the context. They chose some verses to analyze. The findings showed that if the euphemism was translated by a paraphrase, it would be easy for the target receivers to understand what is intended. In addition to that, he found that it is difficult and problematic to translate euphemisms into other languages. It is problematic because it puts the translators whatever their cultures are, in a crucial situation, particularly when they feel the absence of the miraculous nature and the inimitable style in their translations after comparing the SL text with the TL so translating religious texts requires an additional consideration. In translating the Glorious Qur'an, AL-Dulaimi & Aubed demonstrated that several English translations failed to give a functional correspondence of certain euphemistic terms in the Glorious Qur'an (AL-Dulaimi & Aubed, 2012).
Another study was carried out by Al-Hamad (2013) which is entitled "The Translatability of Euphemism in The Holy Quran". In his study, Al-Hamad approved a prescriptive approach in inspecting the errors that translators committed in rendering various euphemistic expressions, highlighting on the main mechanisms used in translating Quranic euphemisms into English. He examined 23 examples of euphemistic expressions from different surahs of the Holy Quran through comparison and analysis the works of Ali, Khan and Hilali, Pickthal and Arberry. He claimed that the "wrong" translations expense the anticipated meaning of the Arabic writing and interrupt readers' understanding of the message in the Holy Qur'an. The outcomes of the researcher based on the investigation of two English translations are few, and the scope of his study is very limited. Khanfar (2012), in his study entitled "Euphemism in Arabic: Typology and Formation", tried to focus on euphemism in Arabic besides the linguistic and cultural relation of euphemism to further linguistic phenomena like taboo, double speak and vulgarity. He gave useful information about how Arabic euphemisms formed. He analyzed some selected related examples of Arabic. The Arabic native speakers depend deeply on the linguistic tool in their daily life since euphemism is a widespread phenomenon.
AL-Husseni (2007) studied the similarities and differences points between the two languages in using euphemistic expressions in both Arabic and English. Al-Husseini claimed that some words measured as aggressive or taboo in Arabic might not be so in English and vice versa. Therefore, the replacement process is different in both cultures. From the other point of view, he titled that the English culture uses euphemism to substitute a word that has an undesirable connotation with a more satisfactory one and that the main conclusion he mentioned at the end of his study (AL-Husseni, 2007).
Farghal, in his investigation about the nature of euphemism in Arabic, explained that the native speakers service four major models for euphemizing: figurative expressions, circumlocutions, remodeling, and antonyms. He explained that there is a strong relation between the Politeness Principle offered by Leech (1983) and the "Cooperative Principle's Maxims of Conversation" suggested by Grice (1975). Farghal (2005) found that "The translator, whose task is to produce a TL text that bears a close semantic and semiotic resemblance to the SL text, should consider euphemism when translating from Arabic into English. The failure to do so will affect the level of politeness between the two languages" and declared that "Arabic and English seem to operate similar euphemizing methods… should be aware of the fact that the Arab culture, in contrast with the English/ American culture" (Farghal, Mohammed, 2014).

The Context of the Study
Translation teaching programs are available in Yemen at BA, MA and PhD levels mostly within English Departments. This study has been carried out at the translation undergraduate programs in the Yemeni Universities. Sana'a University (SU) and University of Science and Technology (UST) were chosen because they are benchmarking universities in Yemen (Al-Mizgagi, 2013). Translation programs are almost similar and slightly differ from each other. Their courses are divided into four core blocks; language skills courses enhance the four language skills mostly of English since English language is a foreign language in Yemen; linguistics courses provide the students with theoretical knowledge of pure English linguistics; literature courses equip the students some knowledge about English literature basics and examples of literary forms that provide them some knowledge about English culture, history and ideology; and translation courses contain of the courses such as; translation theories and translation Methods/Strategies or Techniques, literary translation, commercial/business translation, legal translation, electronic and media translation etc. It is obvious that translation programs include 10 to 13 translation courses. Besides, Arabic courses are provided in more than one course. As the researcher noticed that translations' programs have few specialists and instructors in translation and they are about 4 to 6 specialists. Translation programs specified 33 to 45 credit hours to teach translation theoretically and practically.

Population and Sample
The population of this study was level four undergraduate translation students at Sana'a University (SU) and University of Science and Technology (UST) at the end of the first semester of the academic year 2018-2019. The whole population for the present study consisted of 111 undergraduates (75 from SU and 36 from UST). The population had studied translation courses for more than two years. They had gone through several stages in translation program and dealt with many types of texts as they had studied 10 to 13 translation courses and more than 1 course in Arabic prior to the current study. This means that they had the experience that could enable them to acquire acceptable requirements to translate several texts regardless of its typology and genre.
The sample consisted of eight-six undergraduates (78% of the total population which consisted of 111 graduates from both SU and UST). Fifty-eight from SU and twenty-eight from UST were randomly sampled for the test and questionnaire. Eighty-six graduates (78% of the population) was considered sufficient to generalize the results to the whole population. Moreover, the result of this study can be applicable on translation program under similar conditions especially in local universities.

Data Gathering Tools
The data was collected by employing three research instruments. The aim of this triangulation was to attain exhaustive data, which went deeper into the focused matters in this study that gave more reliability to data findings.
Firstly: A test was given to the sample to translate sixteen euphemistic sentences to induce the potential cultural, lexical, semantic and pragmatic subtleties. An acceptability scale was developed and peer-validated since the evaluation strategies of the previous studies cannot be scientifically measured or directly quantified.
The focus on the style and the degree of softening or politeness (as the tool of euphemism) were given a value to figure out whether the students' translation is acceptable, less acceptable or unacceptable which was the main focus in this study (Table 1).
A pilot study was administrated on a smaller group of 14 students from (UST and SU) to ensure clarity, layout, ease and difficulty, timing, and intrusiveness of the test and the questionnaire (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2007). Three Secondly: A questionnaire through which the respondents, explicitly, decided on the reasons of the challenges of translating euphemism. A close-ended questionnaire was developed to attain one of the objectives of this study: identify the major reasons behind difficulties encountered by level 4 translation undergraduates at Yemeni universities in translating euphemisms and investigate the suggested solutions to overcome the difficulties in translating euphemisms. The questionnaire was prepared depending on the interviews' answers that conducted with three two academicians in theoretical background and previous studies. The questionnaire consisted of 38 statements after modification. The range in the Likert scale started from 'definitely agree to definitely disagree'. The questionnaire gave rise both the reasons of the challenges of English euphemisms translation and the proposed solutions to overcome these challenges.

The analysis of the test (Difficulties)
To identify the difficulties that students face when translating euphemisms from English into Arabic, the performance of the subjects in the test was analyzed by using content-based analysis using SPSS software (v. 22). Data from the test were coded based on test evaluation acceptability scale and entered into SPSS on the four domains; lexical, semantic, pragmatic and cultural. The subjects' responses to the test sentences were measured based on the scale (AT=-Acceptable Translation, LAT=Less Acceptable Translation, UT= Unacceptable Translation). Table (2) provides an overall result data of acceptability of translation of euphemistic expressions in the four domains.
A general view to Table (2) displays that, approximately a tenth of the English euphemistic expressions (11.62%) were unacceptable. Half of the translated expressions (50.87%) were less acceptable. The remainder (37.5%) of the translated euphemistic expressions were translated satisfactorily. The earlier table also shows that pragmatic/cultural difficulties were likely to be more problematic than linguistic ones (lexical and semantic). The following is a thorough demonstration of these four categories of difficulties with reference to one of the test items A. Cultural Difficulties Sentence No. (4): He could be a gay.
The term "gay" is widely known, but only (10.47%) rendered it in most acceptable way as "30.23% ) ‫الجنس".‬ ‫)مثلي‬ translated it in a highly acceptable way "11.63%) . ‫شاذ"‬ translated it in an acceptable way such ‫جنسيا"‬ ‫.»منحرف‬ On the other hand, (43.02%) provided less acceptable translations as in ‫مرحا"‬ ‫تائها،‬ ‫يكون‬ ‫,"ربما‬ and (4.65%) did not mention any translation. It is noticed that some students used the term ‫"لوطي"‬ or more preferably ‫لوط"‬ ‫قوم‬ ‫عمل‬ ‫"يعمل‬ as translation for the term "gay". It is considered as euphemistic expression in the past. However, in these days with knowledge spread, Islamic society considered it as a taboo. This supports the result of (Shehab, Qadan, & Hussein, 2014). B. Lexical Difficulties Sentence No. (2): He dug a little and felt the desire to pass water.
In this sentence, the euphemism occurs in the word "gone". It is the negation form of the word "died". Died is considered as rude and may hurt one's feeling. In Arabic, the word "died" has many equivalents to convey the meaning like ، ‫هللا‬ ‫رحمة‬ ‫الى‬ ‫انتقل‬ so it was translated in most acceptable way by (16.28%) with using equivalent expressions. (26.74%) used a highly acceptable translation like ‫توفي"‬ ".
(12.79%) of the subjects used an acceptable translation without using the equivalent euphemism like"‫."مات‬ However, it considered as a problematic area for (38.37%) who translated it in less unacceptable translation such as, ‫سفر"‬ ‫أخيك‬ ‫مغادرة‬ ، ‫"أخيك‬ and (5.81%) left it without translation. D. Pragmatic Difficulties Sentence No. (12): Where do I work? Actually, I am between jobs at the moment.

The analysis of the questionnaire (reasons)
This section contained seventeen items. To explore the reasons that may cause such a result, students (N=86) has been inquired to express their viewpoint of some probable causes that may stand behind students' translation euphemism difficulties. The results of the descriptive statistics of the statements of section two are presented in Table (3). The overall average of the variable is (3.69) and the standard deviation is (0.56) with an average degree of agreement 67%. The ascending scale of agreement with the reasons showed that on the part of respondents availability of teaching materials of euphemisms translation such as the English-Arabic euphemisms dictionaries took the lead. Ambiguity on the other side was the least challenging.

Suggested solutions
Suggestions for overcoming difficulties were measured by 10 items. The results of the descriptive statistics of the statements of section three are presented in Table (4). The overall average of the variable is (3.95) and the standard deviation is (0.53) with the average agreement degree 74%.
The respondents gave priority to solutions related to the teaching resources such as teachers, courses and performance suggested resolution

FINDINGS OF THE STUDY
The major findings of the test, checklist and questionnaire are the followings: 1-A considerable number of undergraduates are not aware of the euphemisms translation and consider it as anew topic for them. 2-The results of test showed that the most difficult area is when dealing with pragmatic and cultural elements. 3-Semantic and lexical difficulties, in turn, are less challenging areas. 4-Lack awareness of euphemism or euphemism translation is a main reason of difficulties. 5-The study gives rise to the poor language knowledge and skills of the undergraduates in the two languages, namely, English and Arabic. 6-Other important reasons are mentioned such as lack of materials and resources of euphemisms translation from English into Arabic.

Suggested Solutions
The study, thus, comes up with the following recommendations to stakeholders, namely, translators, translation trainers/instructors and academies: 1. Translators should read more in different sources intensively and extensively to acquire knowledge about euphemism and euphemism translation in both English and Arabic literary, and technical texts from books, local newspapers, journals, and publications to absorb trends, pragmatic and cultural nuances, events and jargon used within the language. 2. Translators need to go through translated works of literary and political texts in particular that include a handsome number of euphemisms texts to experience the equivalent expressions between English and Arabic and induce the techniques of rendering them. 3. Translators should use unabridged bilingual dictionaries that contain stylistic troops and metaphorical, including euphemistic expressions. 4. Translators should practice more by translating different types of euphemisms utilizing CAT Tools such as translation memory that can improve translation quality and speed. 5. draw a considerable attention to translation theory and euphemism translation strategies. 6. Translation academies need to reconsider translation programs in terms of including euphemism translation in the course syllabi and encourage holding workshops and seminars that enhance translators and translation undergraduates' ability to be aware euphemisms translation strategies and practice euphemism translation.