The Effectiveness of Using Monolingual and Bilingual Dictionaries in Translating English/ Arabic Texts on Learners’ Vocabulary Retention The Case of Second Year EFL Students

Abstract

The current work is an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of using the monolingualand bilingual dictionaries on learners' vocabulary retention when translating English Arabic texts. More precisely, the aim of this study is to identify which sort of dictionaries is more helpfulfor learners to construct and expand their vocabularies. Besides, it tries to demonstrateto learners what dictionary to use to translate texts from English into Arabic. This workis based on the hypothesisthat if EFL learners use monolingual dictionaries instead of bilingual ones for the purpose of translating English Arabic texts, they will acquire far more vocabulary. The current research is a case study. We have adopted an experimental research design based on an experiment. We used one data collection tool which is the experiment. The experiment comprised three stages, the pre-test, the treatment, and the post-test. To conduct the experiment, we chose fifty second yearEFL students at the department of English at Mohammed Seddik Benyahia University from the whole population which is slightly above two hundred and fifty students. When translating English Arabic texts, learners would inevitably tend to rely on an English Arabic dictionary to reveal the meanings of certain ambiguous words. That is the result of the existence of ready equivalents in such type of dictionaries. Besides, monolingual dictionaries seem to be less useful in the domain of translation. Explaining a word in the same language would enable the learner to have an understanding of the meaning of the word, however, this would raise another challenge for learners to find the right equivalent in the language to which they aretranslating. The findings of the research revealed that monolingual dictionaries help learners to widen their vocabulary more than bilingual dictionaries. This has revealed the usefulness of monolingual dictionaries in the domain of translation. The learners are henceforth advised to use monolingual dictionaries when translating English Arabic texts for its usefulness as a translational tool and its effectiveness for broadening learner’s vocabulary.