Cultural Translation of English Idiomatic Expressions of Weather into Arabic with the Aid of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Talking about the weather is a popular topic of conversation starter for many English speakers. Since the weather in the United Kingdom is very changeable, it is common to discuss it in everyday conversation. There is a wide range of idiomatic expressions in English concerning the weather. Such idiomatic expressions as "raining cats and dogs", "come rain or shine", and "under the weather" are culturally specific and metaphorical. This paper investigates the translation of such idiomatic expressions into Arabic and examines how Artificial intelligence can help to replicate the cultural insight of human translators. One aim of this research is to identify the linguistic, cultural and contextual difficulties in translating English weather idiomatic expressions into Arabic .In addition, another aim is to evaluate the AI –powered translation accuracy in handling the figurative meaning and cultural relevance of these idiomatic expressions. A qualitative –descriptive approach is used to analyze (20) English weather idiomatic expressions. It is concluded that translating English idiomatic expressions related to weather culturally is difficult and needs a deep understanding of both source and target cultures. Furthermore, AI-translation systems or tools prove to be a good support in identifying some common idiomatic expressions and giving paraphrased versions. But, they failed marinating the figurative meaning and cultural relevance of some idiomatic expressions where the role of human translators will remain essential to ensure clarity, accuracy and cultural equivalence.