Journal Title: International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies (IJHCS) - Year 2014, Vol 1, Issue 3
Abstract
The present paper examines the difficulties encountered by Emirati students in comprehending English and American literary texts due to semantic and trans-cultural ambiguities deployed in the target texts. The paper identifies several types of culturally loaded vocabulary embedded in American slang and popular culture proliferated on a wide scale in contemporary American fictional and dramatic texts. Due to lack of cross-cultural and collocational knowledge on the part of EFL students, culturally determined vocabulary such as military slang in American war novels represents a major obstacle in analyzing and understanding the texts. Since most of the American slang and idiomatic expressions in literary texts are language and culture specific elements with no equivalence in TL, Emirati EFL students fail to understand them. Through inappropriate inter-lingual transfers, they reach perplexing conclusions formulating misconceptions about English language.
Authors and Affiliations
Seddik M. Gohar| UAE University, UAE
Keywords
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