Interpersonal Deception Theory across Qur'an 12 Narrative: Cognitive-Interpersonal Sociolinguistic Analysis

Abstract

This study lies at the heart of cognitive sociolinguistics and Translation Quality Assessment (TQA). Firstly, the interpersonal deception theory representing the 'cognitive sociolinguistics dimension' is integrated with the 'translation quality assessment approach' -focusing on the interpersonal meaning as one of the three functions stated by Halliday (1973)- to examine Ghali's (2003) English rendition of the Qur'anic narrative 12: Surat Joseph/Yusuf. Given the cognitive sociolinguistic origin, the deceptive process is achieved through three main stages; rationalization, evasion, and jamming. The Qur'anic narrative depicts three 'interpersonal deception' instances a long Joseph's life; when he was a child 'i.e. father deception'; when he was a young man and Zulaikha attempted to deceive both him and the folk of women; and when he became the treasurer of Egypt deceiving his brothers. Secondly, translation refers to rendering the ST linguistic features as well as their functions to the TT. The problem of equivalence (i.e. function equivalence) stems from that the rendering of the ST linguistic features and/or their functions may/not be adequate in the TT due to the target language linguistic and socio-cultural rules (House, 2015). Therefore, this study addresses the issue of representing the equivalent linguistic terms as well as the interpersonal deceptive function across the three selected deceptive instances in Surat Yusuf to figure out the textual-situational dimensions