The problems of lexical Ambiguity
in German/Arabic translation of legal texts

Ambiguity is a linguistic phenomenon that exists at all linguistic levels, making the text hard to translate, particularly when translating a legal text between two different cultures. Ambiguity could be an aim in itself in some types of texts, such as literary texts and advertising. On the other hand, in legal texts the lexical equivalence must be explicit. However, some legal texts may contain ambiguous or polysemous. The aim of this paper is to highlight the problem of ambiguity at the lexical level and its impact on the quality of the translated text. It also discusses the different types of equivalence, addressing the causes of linguistic ambiguity such as technicality of the legal language, as well as the culture-specific terms etc.