Socio-pragmatic failure in English translations of euphemistic culture-bound expressions in the Qur'an by non-muslim translators
This study investigates socio-pragmatic failure in the translation of the culture-bound euphemistic expressions in the Qur'an since they imply many cultural aspects of Arabic. As used in the Qur'an, they have their own distinctive linguistic and nonlinguistic features, namely, they a...
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Format: | Thesis |
Language: | English |
Published: |
2016
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/66044/1/FBMK%202016%2057%20UPM%20IR.pdf |
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Summary: | This study investigates socio-pragmatic failure in the translation of the culture-bound
euphemistic expressions in the Qur'an since they imply many cultural aspects of
Arabic. As used in the Qur'an, they have their own distinctive linguistic and nonlinguistic
features, namely, they are highly euphemized, basically culture-dependent,
and largely context-sensitive. Accordingly, the meanings and functions they tend to
convey are not easily captured because they lie not in what is literally said but in what
is intended. As a result, the selected translations of the said expressions seem to be
replete with two major translation problems: (a) skewing and ambiguity of source text
intentionality and (b) inaccuracy in rendering the pragmatic functions in the target
text. Moreover, the studies on the Qur'an translation reviewed in this study had never
examined the socio-pragmatic failure in the renditions of the culture-bound
euphemistic expressions in the Qur'an. The importance of this study lies in identifying
that such a failure perplexes the target reader's understanding of the original text and
leads to cross-cultural communication breakdown. The following objectives are
targeted in this study:(1) to investigate the Qur'anic intended meanings of the culturebound
euphemistic expressions in the selected translations with reference to the
Qur'anic exegeses,(2) to identify the extent to which the translators cited have retained
the same pragmatic functions of source text in the target text, (3) to analyse the
translation strategies translators of the Qur'an have adopted for translating the source
text, and (4) to propose, as much as possible, the English functional-pragmatic
equivalences to the culture-bound euphemistic expressions investigated. The data on
the translation of source text were collected from the Qur'an and its four English
translations carried out by four non-Muslim native speakers of English. The data,
related to sexual matters and body effluvia, were selected for analysis on the basis that
they are culture-bound and therefore difficult to translate. Qualitative content analysis
was used to examine the source data by consulting the widely used traditional
exegetical and rhetorical books to determine the source text intentionality.
Additionally, the translated data were analysed according to the [exegetically-based]
functional-pragmatic equivalence framework proposed by Searle (1969, 1975); Baker (1992, 2011); Gutt (1998, 2000). Further, the translated data were assessed according
to House's (1997, 2001, 2015) model of translation quality assessment. The findings
of the analysis revealed that the translators examined have followed three translation
trends: Firstly, they are often “woodenly” literal to the extent of distorting the original
or produce meanings not intended at all. Secondly, they have rendered the source text
into English counterparts that imply negative connotations via dysphemizing the
original that is highly euphemized. Thirdly, they try to render not only the textual but
also the contextual meaning by resorting to exegetical interpretation. However, the
present study concludes that the difficulty of accommodating the functional
equivalence of the Qur'anic concepts in English can be overcome when the translator
does his/her best in looking for the areas of common interest and experience in both
the source culture and target culture. |
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