A Relevance Theory Perspective on the Quality of Simile Translation in Al-Mutanabbi’s Selected Panegyric poem on Sayf Al-Dawlah

Abstract

Simile is a figure of speech, which involves “an explicit comparison between two things or actions” Cruse (2006, 165). Similes compare things “normally felt to be incomparable, typically using vivid or startling images to suggest unexpected connections between the source and the target (Israel et. al, 2004, 124). Like metaphors, similes, especially creative and poetic similes or ‘open similes’ (Walaszewska, 2013) involve ‘open mapping’ (Croft and Cruse, 2004) and normally leave out the grounds or the connections between the source and the target domains. This elliptical phenomenon creates a cognitive challenge for simile interpretation and translation as the relevance of the ground on which comparison is based, is usually implicit and tends to be open for multiple interpretations, hence the difficulty of establishing relevance. Purpose : Based on these cognitive features of simile and using a relevance-theoretic framework (Sperber and Wilson, 1986/1995 and Gutt, 1991/2000), this paper aims to answer the following two questions: (1) What are the translation strategies used by the three translators Arberry (1967), Wormhoudt, (1971) and Ibrahim, (1992) to achieve optimal relevance in translating simile in one of Al-Mutanabbi’s panegyrics on Sayf Al-Dawlah? (2) Comparing the three translations and the translation strategies used by the three translators, which translation is the most optimally relevant? Results: The paper shows that Ibrahim’s translation seems to be the most optimally relevant because it tends to design the translation in such a way as to provide the target addressees with the shortcuts to the intended meaning, sometimes even by ignoring ostensive stimulus provided in the source.