The Implications of Polysemous Words for Arabic/English Translators With Specific Reference to Badr Shakir As-Sayyab's Rain Song

Lexical semantics, which is a branch of linguistic semantics, studies the meanings and relations of words. in this regard, dealing with the meanings of lexical items or words requires paying close attention to the cases where multiple meanings of a certain word are existent. within the field of lexical semantics, polysemy is of main concern. it is defined as the association of two or more related senses with a single linguistic form. this means that polysemy refers to a lexical relation where a single linguistic form has different senses that are related to each other by means of regular shifts or extensions from the basic meaning. polysemy is derived from the greek poly- , ‘many’, and sem- ‘sense’ or ‘meaning’. therefore, polysemy is mainly the case of a single lexical item having multiple meanings. for instance, the word ‘fix’ has many meanings such as arrange, attach, get ready (food or drinks), set right (the hair), punish, and repair. this paper, in its theoretical and practical parts, will shed the light on the ambiguous nature of the arabic and english polysemous words, which create lexical and syntactic ambiguity in both languages, while translating. it will also focus on and the problem polysemous words impose on english/arabic translators with specific reference to their translation in as-sayyab's rain song. in order to investigate this problem, the researcher hypothesizes that if the translators make use of the context in which polysemous words are used and eliminate their ambiguity , they will succeed in translating them.