The Translation of Metaphors in the Holy Qur’ān: An Investigation of Chapters Eighteen to Thirty

Document Type : Original Research

Author

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

Abstract

Metaphor, as a rhetorical device, is mostly culture-specific and plays a vital role in some texts. In some sacred texts such as the Holy Qur’ān, the form and meaning are inseparable, and hence, translating metaphors can be challenging. This study aimed to demonstrate the translation of metaphors in the Holy Qur’ān and to identify the strategies applied in the translation of Qur’ānic metaphors. To this end, Chapters 18 to 30 of the Holy Qur’ān, which included thirteen chapters, were selected and analyzed for metaphorical expressions along with their English translations by three celebrated native translators: Arberry (1964), Irving (1985), and Pickthall (1954). These chapters contained forty samples of metaphor, which were analyzed using six celebrated commentaries to find their literal and metaphorical meanings. The translations were then compared to the source text. The procedures suggested by Newmark (1988b) were used to find the strategies used by the translators. The results revealed that among the proposed procedures, five procedures were applied in the translation of the Qur’ānic metaphors. The most dominant procedures were the first and fifth procedures (reproducing the same image in the target language and converting the metaphor to sense, respectively); whereas, the remaining procedures were only used in two or three cases. It was also revealed that in most of the cases, the translators preferred to preserve the form of the original texts.

Keywords

Main Subjects

©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.

References

Abdul-Raof, H. (2001). Qur’ān translation: discourse, texture and exegesis. London: Rutledge.
Abrams, M. H. (1993). A glossary of literary terms. Orlando: Harcourt Brace College Publications.
Alshehab, M. (2015). Two English translations of metaphors in the Holy Qur’ān. Retrieved September 15, 2015 from http://awej.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=669:mohammad-alshehab&catid=56&Itemid=138.
Arberry, A.J. (1964). The Koran interpreted. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Berube. M.S. (2004).  American Heritage College Dictionary. Fourth edition. Boston. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Bullon, S. (2007). Longman advanced American Dictionary, Second Edition. Harlow, UK: Pearsom Education Limited.
Carrell, P. (1987). Readability in ESL. Reading in a Foreign Language, 4(1), 21-44.
Dagut, M. B. (1976). Can metaphor be translated? Retrieved from https://benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/babel.22.1.05dag/details
Elimam, H. (2016). Translation of metaphors in the Holy Qur’ān. Retrieved May 25, 2016 from https://dspace.aus.edu/xmlui/handle/11073/8701
Hornby, A.S. (2010). Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Eighth Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Irving, T. B. (1985). Qur’ān translation. New York: Good word books.
Kovecses, Z. (2002). Metaphor: A practical introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Larson, M. L. (1984). Meaning-based translation: A guide to cross-language equivalence. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Maula, A. (2011). A metaphor translation of the Holy Qur’ān. Retrieved June 22, 2011 from ejournal.iainsurakarta.ac.id/index.php/islimus/article/download/424/pdf
Nelson-Herbert, J. (1986). Expanding and refining vocabulary in content areas. Journal of Reading, 29(7), 626-632.
Newmark, P. (1988 a). A Textbook of translation. United States: Prentice Hall.
Newmark, P. (1988 b). Approaches to translation. London: Prentice Hall.
Newmark, P. (1991). About translation. Clevedon, United Kingdom: Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Nuttall, C. (1982). Teaching reading skills in a foreign language. London: Heinemann Educational.
Pickthall, M. M. (1954). The meaning of the Glorious Koran. United States of America: New American Library.
Snell-Hornby, M. (1988). Translation studies: an integrated approach. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamin's Publishing Company.
Ulijn, J. (1985). The scientific and technical register and its cross-linguistic constants and variants. UNESCO/ALSED Newsletter, 8(2), 148-158.
Van den Broeck, R. (1981). The limits of translatability exemplified by metaphor translation.  Poetics Today 2. Retrieved March 18, 1981 from http://gupea.ub.gu.se/dspace/bitstream/2077/694/1/Monti.pdf

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 13 January 2023
  • Revise Date: 18 May 2023
  • Accept Date: 10 June 2023

Share

How to cite

Statistics