Problems of Translating Informal Greeting Expressions Used in Iraqi Arabic into English

Greeting expressions represent an important part of conversation and are considered a fundamental element in the Arabic culture. Arabic language has more various and colorful greeting expressions with a culture-specific nature than other languages. However, dealing with the translation of such expressions, especially the Iraqi Arabic informal ones, poses a significant problem for translators, complicating the task of translating these expressions accurately and appropriately. Therefore, this study aims to identify the problems translators face when translating informal Iraqi Arabic greetings into English. To achieve this aim, a total of (4) informal greeting expressions collected from the Iraqi Arabic community were used as a sample of the study. These expressions were distributed to (5) MA candidates, from the Department of Translation, College of Arts, University of Tikrit, representing the subjects of the study to translate them into English. As for the data analysis, the study employed Vinay and Darbelnet's (1995) direct and oblique strategies of translation. The results showed that the study subjects face numerous problems in translating greeting expressions, mainly due to the lack of understanding the cultural contexts in which these expressions are used, in addition to the difficulty of finding a one-word equivalent to the informal greeting expressions under study.