Explicitation in the English Translation of the First 13 Surahs of Part (Juz) 30 of the Holy Qur'ān

Document Type : Original Research

Author

Department of English, Marvdasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Marvdasht, Iran

Abstract

The issue of literal versus free translation has always been a controversial matter in the translation of the Holy Scriptures, including the Holy Qurʼān. Explicitation, as a translation universal, has received increasing attention in the area of translating religious texts. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of explicitation on the translation of coherence in the first 13 surahs of Part (Juz) 30 of the Holy Qurʼān. In doing so, the model proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet (1995), along with coherence aspects in Sherman’s (2010) framework were used. To this end, the first 13 surahs of Part (Juz) 30 of the Holy Qurʼān in Arabic and their five English translations by Asad, Shakir, Pickthal, Yusufali and Saffarzadeh were examined. The overall goal of the analysis was to find whether explanatory coherence was used in the English translation and how explicitation affected the coherence of the content in all translations. Findings show that explicitation not only resolved ambiguity but also strengthened the coherence of the text. However, translators, in some translations, preferred to be loyal and faithful to the original and did not add anything to their translation. Additionally, in a few cases, the addition of more words to the translation turned it into redundant mess, leading to an incoherent translation.

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©2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.

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History

  • Receive Date: 02 June 2022
  • Revise Date: 24 September 2022
  • Accept Date: 28 October 2022

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