Intonation in Arabic-Tamil Oral Translation Among the Students of South Eastern University of Sri Lanka: A Descriptive Study

Abstract

This study aims to examine the current situation of students in practicing intonation in oral translation and to identify their needs in this area. Observations indicated that students do not have a strong command of intonation in Arabic and are unaware of its multiple functions, which negatively affects the quality of translation. Clear errors in intonation were observed when expressing sentence intentions such as questioning, informing, and exclaiming, leading to difficulties in performance and sometimes necessitating repetition or emphasis. The researchers adopted a descriptive-analytical approach, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Primary data were collected through interviews with four lecturers and questionnaires administered to 39 specialization students in Arabic Language and Literature, Linguistic and Translation from the Department of Arabic at the South Eastern University of Sri Lanka in the academic year 2021/2022. while secondary data were gathered from books, research papers, articles, and theses. MS Excel was used for data analysis. The results demonstrated a direct relationship between intonation and oral translation, as 64% of students made various errors, including incorrect translation of sentences according to intonation (46%), errors in Tamil sentence structure (10%), and grammatical errors (8%). These errors are due to insufficient training in intonation, the difficulty of applying it in Arabic–Tamil oral translation, an excessive focus on semantic aspects while neglecting phonetic features, limited awareness of tones and patterns, weak listening skills, the influence of the mother tongue, a lack of knowledge regarding phonetic phenomena such as stress and intonation, and the lack of educational programmes and specialised laboratories.