The Translation of Marked Order in the Holy Qur’an: Surah Al-Baqarah as a Case Study
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Date
2019-12-05
Authors
Al-Haj Ali, Nour
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
جامعة النجاح الوطنية
Abstract
This dissertation addresses the translation of the Holy Qur’an from Arabic into English from a linguistic functional standpoint. It focuses on the translation of the marked rheme-theme organization in the Holy Qur’an following the functional sentence perspective (FSP) theory. Particularly, the Firbasian tripartition of FSP is adopted. The corpus of the thesis is extracted from Surah Al-Baqarah (chapter 2: The Cow); it is the longest chapter in the Qur’an containing many different instances and forms. The data covers both nominal and verbal clauses of Arabic. The researcher followed the qualitative analytical methodology. Where the grammatical, semantic, and contextual forces interrelate in a particular communicative act, certain meanings and functions occur. Hence, the marked rheme-theme order adds several layers of functions to the clause causing crucial challenges in translation.
The clauses are viewed as communicative acts where the arrangement of the communicative units convey certain functions and meanings. The development of communication i.e communicative dynamism is determined through the interplay of the grammatical, semantic, and contextual factors.
This study mainly reveals the forms and functions of the marked rheme-theme order in the Holy Qur’an. It also investigates the extent of rendering such functions into four English translations. The selected translations cover distinct translation styles, time, and backgrounds of translators. They include Pickthall (1930), Arberry (1955), Hilali and Khan (1998), and Abdul Haleem (2004). The study examines the strategies of successful translations in term of the FSP and offers strategies for the deficient translations.
The paper concludes that several forms of marked rheme-theme order exist in the Holy Qur’an in both nominal and verbal clauses. Such include -but not limited to- (Rh-Th), (Tr-Rh-Th), and (Rh-Tr-Th). Some of English translations reflect the marked thematic order. However, the functions of these marked rheme-theme orders are much more important to be rendered into English rather than the marked structures themselves. In some cases, the translators resort to other strategies to emphasize the concerned elements in terms of FSP such as cleft construction, pseudo cleft sentence, fronted object/ complement, addition of lexical elements, existential sentence there, and marked rheme-theme order. The researcher also suggests similar strategies including verb change, passive voice, reverse pseudo cleft sentence and others. Through these strategies, the English translations successfully reflect the discursive functions of the (ST) marked rheme-theme order