Abstract
Translators of the Holy Quran confront many quandaries in their attempt to transfer the Qur’anic verses from Arabic into English. One of these quandaries is how to rhetorically communicate the intended meanings (implicatures) of the prepositional phrases in the Holy Qur’an. The translation of Arabic prepositional phrases in the Holy Qur’an as a source text (ST) may lead, in some Qur’anic verses, to a rhetorical loss in communicating their implicature in the target text (TT). That implicature or implicitly communicated meaning other than the explicature is the one intended to be expressed and required to be faithfully translated. In rendering the preposition into the target language (TL), translators bring into home only the explicitly stated meaning unaware of the implicitly stated meaning created as a result of the application of this specific rhetorical device. This study investigates the problem of the rhetorical loss encountered in the translation of prepositional phrases of the Qur’anic verses and identifies the cause of this problem. It also attempts to suggest a mechanism that is, to some extent, helpful and insightful in coping with the difficulties of translating Arabic prepositional phrases in Qur’anic verses. This research adopts a descriptive qualitative content analysis of the Qur’anic verses and their English translations that are relevant to the focus of the research. The source of failure of the English translations of the verses in conveying the rhetorical meanings of prepositional phrases has been identified in terms of the Relevance Theory and the distinction between explicature and implicature of these phrases. The study concludes that meaning equivalence in translation requires translators to be aware of not only the explicitly stated meanings of prepositions but the implicitly communicated ones as well which are recoverable through referring to Arabic heritage resources and interpretation books dedicated to exploring the rhetorical purposes of prepositions alternation in Qur’anic verses. The results of the analysis and the new suggested mechanism have been verified by an Arabic language and Qur’anic sciences expert who is a proficient speaker of English as well.
Highlights
Translation, in general, is a process of transferring a message from the source language (SL) into the target language (TL)
The ostensive-inferential communication intended by the evidence provided is the notice that Almighty accepts His slaves’ sincere repentance and their good deeds which is explicitly communicated by the meaning of the prepositionمنbut forgives their earlier sins and erases them completely to be pure again (Al-Kudari, 1989; Al-Shafi’I, 1994)
The loss can be attributed to the lack of the knowledge of the Qur’an-specific linguistic-rhetorical device of prepositions alternation, which states that any alternation of preposition in the Holy Qur’an is accompanied with a new meaning that is not explicitly stated, but pragmatically inferred, an implicature
Summary
Translation, in general, is a process of transferring a message from the source language (SL) into the target language (TL) In view of this definition, translation, from its inception, has been a form of communicating thoughts among different peoples, languages, and cultures (Imre, 2012; Sadiq, 2008). Torop (2008) argues that translators work at removing the boundaries among languages, cultures, and communities In their contributions to render a text from one language into another, they are harbored a position between the poles of specificity and adaptation manifested in the skills of their translational activities. The translator renders a message of the source text (ST) and encodes it into target text (TT) in such a communicative way that meanings and intended
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