This research claims to differ from previous researches undertaken on collocations in that it considers collocations from the point of view of translation. It tackles analytically the problems of translating English collocations into Arabic, and succinctly traces the possible solutions embodied in the translational strategies.
It is universally admitted by linguists and translation theoreticians that the domain of translation is very thorny. Therefore, knowing which lexical items go together, i.e. intercollocate, is an important part of understanding the text and translating it appropriately.
The strategies that this research aspires to highlight include: substitutability, expansion, contraction, transposability, predictability, and cohesion. However,
considerable discussion has been devoted to each strategy separately, illuminating the different possibilities with which each strategy may be manipulated. Examples have
been systematically and extensively chosen covering two significant areas: first, those extracted from English-Arabic bilingual dictionaries; and second, those chosen from
Modem Standard Arabic and, in particular, the Arab Press. This presents the miscellaneous problems of rendering collocations, which follow the discussion of these strategies.
Collocation is defined in this thesis as ''the frequent co-occurrence of lexical items that naturally share the characteristics of semantic and grammatical dependencies".
This definition, as will be seen in Chapter I, characterises the discrepancy between collocation and non-collocation; and demarcates the features of collocational ties that are basic to the process of their transference.
A review elaborating areas indispensable for understanding collocations such as kinds of collocations and meaning by collocations, among other relating issues, is carried
out as will be seen in Chapter II. The translation of lexical collocations, i.e. those being recorded in English-Arabic bilingual dictionaries, is examined and assessed in
the light of the translational strategies that are mentioned above, as will be seen in Chapters III and IV. The translation of non-lexical collocations, i.e. those not yet recorded in English-Arabic bilingual dictionaries, and which can be traced back to English collocations, is also examined and assessed in the light of these translational
strategies. I have named them neo-collocations, that is those invented by the Arab Press and often not yet having gained circulation among Arab readers as will be seen
in Chapters V and VI.
The main contribution of this research is, however, the manipulability of these translation strategies in giving natural and acceptable Arabic equivalents to English
collocations, and in particular cases when there are no TL equivalents. This highlights the possibilities of transferring collocations as either collocations or non-collocations.