Impact of Application of Cognitive Linguistic Theory in Teaching Translation at Libyan Universities

Dr. Youssif Zaghwani Omar,

University of Benghazi, Libya

Many studies and research reveal that teaching translation at universities in most developing countries is based mainly on traditional translation theory, in which students use a bilingual dictionary to translate every single word from one language into another. This, of course, makes a lot of distortion as words individually have general meaning, not specific. Translation does not mean associating words in one language to similar words in another language. Rather translation means conveying meaning and culture from one language into almost similar meaning and culture in another language. This study was conducted as an endeavor to examine cognitive linguistic theory in teaching translation through merging linguistic knowledge with translation experience and knowledge. This study was directed to shed lights on teaching translation from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. Qualitative research method was used in this study, in which the researcher interviewed nine instructors of translation at Libyan universities (Benghazi, Tripoli, and Sebha) as a primary resource and reviewed books, journals, and websites relevant to the topic of the study as a secondary resource. The researcher has reached findings, amongst of which is that using traditional method of translation does not guarantee accurate translation. Based on the findings obtained, the researcher presented some recommendations regarding the significance of applying cognitive linguistic theory in teaching translation at university level.

The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Fourth Annual International Conference on Languages, Linguistics, Translation and Literature (WWW.LLLD.IR), 1-2 February 2020, Iran-Ahwaz.


Print