Document Type : Research
Authors
1 PhD, Arabic Language and Literature, Assistant professor of Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty member of Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
2 MA student of Arabic Language and Literature, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
The urge to translate books and other sources of knowledge, as harbors (providers) of experience and skill, to different languages and cultures is presumably as old as the history of writing. An accurate and comprehensive understanding of a book under translation is of paramount significance for translators as any lack of understanding or misunderstanding potentially distorts the real and intended meaning of the selected book. Needless to mention, a translator should possess a comprehensive command of ideas and concepts articulated in a text. The flourishing of translation industry, accompanied by the flood of translated books, within the last decades gave birth to the emergence and development of various translation theories which provide critical criteria to evaluate translated items. Translation criticism soon asserted itself among other branches of academic studies. Prominent scholars like Antoine Berman, Herbert Paul Grice, Carmen Garcés, Basil Hatim, and Juliane House, among others, have propounded diverse aspects of translation criticism. The translation of scriptures (holy texts) is one of the domains which necessitates understanding and accuracy as million people around the world base their beliefs on the them. Thereby, the translation of these texts should be performed with outmost vigilance. The Holy Quran, the religious book of Muslims, embodies sacred concepts that are expressed through morphological, syntactic and rhetorical structures of Arabic language. It is not surprising, therefore, that numerous translators from around the world have assigned themselves the task of translating the Holy Quran to different languages. Such an undertaking, however, has witnessed a number of challenges as, for example, theologians and scholars, including Al-Zamakhshari and Al-Suyuti take the translatability of the Holy Quran with serious doubts. Despite challenges and obstacles, this holy book has been translated to many languages. The critical assessment of the quality and features of different translated versions of the Holy Quran constitutes the main bulk of papers and dissertation written in this field. The faithful translation of the Holy Quran into Persian, among other available types, has received a considerable deal of attention as scholars/translators like Makarem Shirazi, Meshkini, Elahi Ghomshei, Khoramshahi, and Fooladvand have attempted to provide a faithful rendition of this holy text. Like many translated literary and non-literary books, these translations potentially exude advantages and disadvantages. Carmen Garcés’s theory has widely been utilized to critically assess the translation of literary texts. This work, accordingly, draws on Garcés’s theory, with a particular attention to the second level of his model (syntactic-lexical axis), to examine the translation of “MA as negative maker” in the first and second chapters of the Holy Quran. This study follows two goals: to pinpoint some of the important challenges in this field and to propose some suggestions for handling these challenges.
Adopting an analytical-descriptive approach, this study draws on Garcés’s(1994) framework which is divided into four distinct levels: semantic-lexical; syntactic-morphology; discourse-applied; and stylistic-scientific. In addition, some other branches of translation criticisms dealing the with quality and legibility of translation are consulted. At the second level of Garcés’s framework, which constitutes the focal point of this study, four types of translation are proposed: literal translation, syntactic reduction, syntactic expansion, and syntactic changes (modification in form) in sentences.
Based on the critical observations made in this study, it is safe to conclude that Makarem Shirazi and Meshkini are more successful than their peer translators in providing a faithful translation of the Holy Quran. Likewise, none of the translators has confined his translation of the Holy Quran to “literal” translation, which Garcés discredits. Finally, the most important shortcoming in this field concerns the lack of a concerted effort to identify exact equivalents in the target language (Persian), which would lead to overlooking of religious concepts and commands reiterated in the Holy Quran.
Keywords
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