This study addresses certain questions related to the role of temporal information and temporal structure of an
English narrative text in representing and sequencing time, and how these (as a whole) are rendered into Arabic. Building
on the fact that temporal information as conveyed by tense and aspect features of language differ across the language of the
world, it is hypothesized that it can be rendered from one language into another in a variety of ways (e.g. futurity in
English). Yet problems are expected, especially if the temporal information is tackled unidirectionally; that is, either form
or meaning is concentrated on. A possible solution to misconceptions, as presented in this study, is a more comprehensive
text based approach to the study of temporal information where psychological, philosophical as well as linguistic
dimensions are taken into account. The study concludes that identifying the actual time frame of a narrative text is a
prerequisite in any act of translation;