Micro-Linguistics Perspective in the Translation of Sensitive Issues of Sūrah Al Hujurat (The Chambers) into English

Abstract

ABSTRACT

The study aims at examining the problems the Qurʾān translators encounter while translating the Qurʾān. It is based on the translation of professional translator namely, Yusuf Ali. The translated text is compared to the original text to determine to which extent the translation reflects the real  meaning of the original Qurʾānic text. In short, the study sets out to identify the problematic areas in the translated Qurʾānic texts on the syntactic and semantic levels. The study is an intersection between Qurʾānic exegeses (tafsīr) and applied linguistics. The researcher consults different books on translation theories, as well as Qurʾānic exegeses (tafsīr) to facilitate the process of analyzing Sūrah Al Hujurat (The Chambers). The researcher opts for eclecticism, instead of confining to a particular rigid model or approach, in the process of analyzing and evaluating the problems encountered in Arabic-English translation of the Qurʾānic text in general, and Sūrah Al Hujurat (The Chambers) in particular. The study concludes that the Qurʾān translator, compared to other literary genres, faces many difficulties in conveying the Qurʾānic ST message. The selected translations of the Holy Qurʾān have failed to measure up the depth of the Qurʾānic message, its originality and the connotative shades of meanings of the original expression. It was found out that most translation strategies adopted by Ali were not near to the original text, where he resorted to explain vague words, however, committed many semantic and syntactic errors as shown in analysis of data.

Key words: Quran, exegeses, linguistics, semantic, syntax, translational strategies, meaning.