IMAGO Interculturalité et Didactique
Volume 24, Numéro 2, Pages 239-254
2025-12-27
Decoding Cultural Connotations: An Investigation Of The Use Of Machine And Dictionary Translation For The Understanding Of Idioms
Auteurs : Boulkroun Fouad .
Résumé
Idiomatic expressions are a defining characteristic of languages and cultures. As such, one way of understanding idioms is by digging into their cultural background; conversely, much cultural knowledge can be derived from the learning and understanding of idiomatic expressions. When it comes to the translation or use of idioms, difficulty may arise for they are not identical across cultures. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether such difficulty, or understanding, is significantly related to the instrument used for translation (dictionary vs. machine). Besides, a parallel aim is to determine whether idioms are more difficult in productive or receptive skills. Four research questions were raised along with four hypotheses. A pencil-and-paper questionnaire was administered to 44 Master 1 English language learners at the University Centre of Mila. The collected data were coded and submitted to a Chi-square test using IBM SPSS 28. The analysis yielded a mixture of results in terms of significance. Implications and recommendations are thereby discussed.
Mots clés
Culture ; dictionary/machine translation ; idioms ; productive/receptive skills
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