Topicalization in English Translation of the Holy Quran: A Comparative Study
الموضوعات : نشریه زبان و ترجمهSoheila Mohammadpour 1 , Jahanbakhsh Nikoopour 2
1 - Department of Foreign languages, Islamic Azad University; Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran
2 - Department of English Language Teaching, Islamic Azad University; North Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran
الکلمات المفتاحية: comparative study, Syntactic pattern, Topicalization, Translatability, Untranslatability,
ملخص المقالة :
The Holy Quran, as an Arabic masterpiece, comprises great domains of syntactical, phonological, and semantic literary patterns. These patterns work as the shackle of translators. This study examined the application of the most common shift strategies in Catford‟s linguistic model for translation of topicalization in chapter 29 of the Holy Quran. The topicalized cases were compared to their counterparts in the three English renderings accomplished by Shakir, Nikayin, and Arberry. The study adopted Widdowson‟s classification based on syntactic, phonetic, and semantic features of the literary devices as the main framework and Halliday strategy for the exemplification of topicalization as the second framework. The findings of the study depict that, Arberry, Shakir and Nikayin have shown a considerably greater tendency towards employment of Category Shift than Level Shift. Among the category shifts, unit shift and Literal translation respectively enjoyed the highest frequency in the translation of topicalization. All the current translators preserved topicalization into target texts (un)intentionally. Finally, since the unit shift and literal translation proved the most frequently applied types of shifts in translation of syntactic patterns of religious texts from Arabic into English, the mentioned strategies may be considered as the part of schedule of translation workshops. Moreover, since syntactic literary devices includes parts of the meaning of source text, so translators should pay more attention to preserve this phenomenon in translation procedure.
Abdelwali, M. A. (2007). The loss in the translation of the Quran. Translation Journal, 11(2). Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 265522068_The_Loss_in_the_Translation_of_the_Qur%27an
Abdul-Raof, H. (2006). Arabic rhetoric: A pragmatic analysis. Routledge
Abulhassan Hassan, B. (2015). Thematic structure in the Arabic translations of Edgar Allan Poe is the Black Cat. International Journal of Languages and Linguistics, 3(3), 132-139.
Ali, A., Brakhw, M., Nordin, M., & Islam, S. S. (2012). Some linguistic difficulties in translating the Holy Quran from Arabic into English. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 2(6), 588-590.
Amjad, F., & Farahani, M. (2013). Problems and strategies in English translation of Quranic Divine Names. International Journal of Linguistics, 5(1), 129-137. Retrieved from Macro Think website: http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/ijl/article/download/3301/pdf
Arberry, A. J. (1955). The Qur’an interpreted.
Barzegar, H. (2012). Marked and unmarked translation of English thematized literary sentences into Persian. The online translation journal of the Department of Interpreting and Translation (DIT) of the
14. Retrieved from
Catford, G. C. (1965). A linguistic theory of translation. London: Oxford university press.
Elimam, A. S. (2009). Marked word order in the Quran: Function and translation. Across Language and Culture, 10(1), 109-129. Retrieved from Retrieved from Cambridge Scholars website:
www.cambridgescholars.com/ download/sample/59525
Ford, D. C. (2009). The influence of word order on modern standard Arabic information structure 3(2), 1-12. Retrieved from Special Electronic Publication of the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics website: Retrieved from Special Electronic Publication of the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics website:
http://www.gial.edu/documents/gialens/Vol3-2/Ford-Info-Structure-and-Word-Order-MSA.pdf
Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (second Ed.). London: Edward Arnold.
Lirola, M. M., & Lirola, M. M. (2009). Main processes of Thematization and postponement in English. Germany: Peter Lang AG.
Munday, J. (2004). Introduction translation studies (second Ed.). London and Newyork: Routledge.
Nikayin, F. (2000). The Quran: A poetic translation from the original. USA: Ultimate Book, Inc.
Salehi, M. (1996). The holy Quran: Literary pattern-(un) translatabilities. Tehran: Imam Hosssein University Press.
Widdowson, H. G. (1975). Stylistics and the teaching of literature (Eighth Ed.). Hong Kong: Longman.
