Investigating the Difficulties and Problems Faced by the English Language Students of Al Quds Open University in Legal Translation Process

Following experimental descriptive method, the paper explores the difficulties and problems faced by the English language students of Al Quds Open University in legal translation process; that is, while translating legal terms/documents from Arabic to English and from English to Arabic. A test was designed by the researcher in order to explore and investigate the difficulties and problems faced by the students. The test included four questions: 1) Translating English legal paragraph, 2) Translating Arabic legal paragraph, 3) Translating ten Arabic legal terms and 4) Translating ten English legal terms. The test was applied on the English language students of Al Quds Open University in Gaza Region in Palestine during the second course of the academic year 2010/2011. The samples of the study were chosen and selected randomly. Following suitable statistical methods, the paper offers the obtained results with critical discussion. Possible solutions, recommendations and suggestions to overcome these difficulties and problems also form important parts of the discussion in the paper.