A Cognitive Approach in Specialized Translation: Obstacles Faced by ESL Students at the UFE

Translation is the art of communication, which takes place through language to transfer the meaning from the Source Text to the Target Text. So, the translator requires a double-sided ability to translate a specialized text. Such ability deals with the fluency of the Target Language and the comprehensive knowledge of the original text. Thus, this paper aims at applying a cognitive approach to specialized translation to help in understanding the original text to be translated, which takes place through applying: Lexico- grammatical patterns (collocations), Semantic patterns (metaphors), and Register patterns (domain-knowledge) to overcome the obstacles faced by ESL freshmen in translating from English into Arabic and vice versa. The analysis is based on providing some extracts from economic articles published in Reuters, CNBC, and Elwatannews and the proposed translations by students of year 1 and 2. The results show that students need to be aware of collocations, metaphors, and domainknowledge to be able to transfer the meaning to the Target Language.