The Role of Free Translation in Rendering the Collocational Phrases of the Quranic Text into English Item Type Thesis or dissertation Authors Ali, Abdalati Citation Ali, A. (2019). The Role of Free Translation in Rendering the Collocational Phrases of the Quranic Text into English (Doctoral thesis). University of Chester, UK. Publisher University of Chester Rights Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Download date 29/09/2021 05:18:42 Item License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10034/623513 The Role of Free Translation in Rendering the Collocational Phrases of the Quranic Text into English Abdalati Mohamed Ali A Thesis Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of PhD Department of Theology and Religious Studies Faculty of Humanities The University of Chester September 2019 1 Abstract The following thesis presents an investigation into the problems of rendering the Arabic collocational phrases in the Quran into English. The research reveals that literal translation may sometimes deform the meaning of the collocations found in the source text, while free translation is able to convey a better sense of their implicit meaning. The thesis studies three translations of the Quran – those of Muhammad Pickthall (1930), Abdullah Ali (1934) and Al-Hilali and Khan (1974) – and undertakes an in-depth comparison of their translations of a selection of collocations. It explores the advantages and disadvantages of the methods adopted by the translators with the aid of the Quranic exegeses of Al-Tabari (839-923 CE), Al-Razi (544-604 CE), Al-Qurtubi (1214-1273 CE), and Ibn Kathir (1300-1373), and relevant works by prominent Muslim theologians such as Al- Damaghany (1007-1085: 1983) and Ibn Al-Jawzy (510-597: 1987), as well as a number of established Arabic-English dictionaries, such as the Arabic-English Dictionary of Quranic Usage (DAEQU) (Abdel-Haleem and Badwi,2008), the Dictionary of the Contemporary Arabic Language (DCAL) (Omar,2008) ,and the Lisān Al-Arab (DLA) ( Ibn Manzur,1955). This research is the first of its kind to examine collocations in the Quran from the perspective of translation theory. It adopts the methodology of Peter Newmark’s (1988) semantic and communicative translation theory and James Dickins’ exegetic translation model (2002). The application of these theoretical approaches is intended to act as a guide for future translators of the Quran, particularly when faced with the problem of providing English translations of collocations that successfully convey the implicit meaning of the Arabic text. In addition, it recommends the use of some translation techniques suggested by Newmark (1995) and Vinay and Darbelnet (1958: 1995), such as paraphrases, footnotes, transpositions, cultural borrowing, additions, compensation and descriptive equivalents, which give the target readers a broader contextual knowledge and provide them with the tools they need to grasp the deeper meanings of these collocations. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Notes on Transliteration 7 List of Abbreviations 9 Acknowledgements 10 Author’s Declaration 11 Chapter One: Introduction 12 1.1 Background to the research 12 1.1.1 Aims of the research 14 1.1.2 Research questions 15 1.1.3 Research methodology 16 1.1.4 Significance of the research 18 1.1.5 The concept of translation 18 1.1.6 Types of translation 21 1.1.7 Collocation as a semantic notion 24 1.1.7.1 The problems of translating collocations 1.1.7.2 Previous studies on the translation of collocation 1.1.7.3 Previous studies on the translation of Quranic collocations 1.1.7 Structure of the thesis 33 Chapter Two: Translation Theory 36 2.1 Introduction 36 2.2 What is translation theory? 36 2.3 The aim of translation theory 37 2.4 Translation theories before the twentieth century 38 2.5 Translation theories in the twentieth century 41 2.5.1 Different views about literal translation 2.5.2 Skopos theory 2.5.3 Nida’s formal and dynamic equivalence 2.5.4 Semantic and communicative translation theory 2.5.5 Exegetic translation method 2.6 The problem of meaning and equivalence 51 2.7 Translation loss 52 3 2.8 Translation strategies 54 2.9 Conclusion 58 Chapter Three: Translating the Quran 60 3.1 Introduction 60 3.2 The Quran as divine revelation 60 3.3 The Arabic of the Quran 62 3.4 The unique features of Quranic Arabic 64 3.5 The Quran as (un)translatable 67 3.6 The Quran’s translational challenges 71 3.6.1 Cultural problems 3.6.2 Linguistic problems 3.6.2.1 Lexical problems 3.6.2.2 Syntactic problems 3.6.2.3 Semantic problems 3.7 The ideology of the translator and its effect on translations of the Quran 86 3.8 Approaches to Quranic translation 89 3.9 The role of tafsir (interpretation) in translating the Quran 93 3.10 Conclusion 99 Chapter Four: Collocations in Arabic and English 101 4.1 Introduction 101 4.2 Collocation as a linguistic phenomenon 101 4.3 Linguistic theory of English collocations 102 4.3.1 Collocational meanings 4.3.2 Collocational restrictions 4.3.3 Collocational clashes 4.3.4 Collocation is (not) an idiom: differences among linguists 4.3.5 Classification of English collocations 4.4 Linguistic theory of Arabic collocations 114 4.5 Classification of Arabic collocations 117 4.6 A comparison of Arabic and English systems of collocation 121 4.7 Classification of collocations in the Quran 124 4.7.1 Collocational clusters in the Quran 4 4.7.2 Culturally specific Quranic collocations and their translation 4.8 Conclusion 130 Chapter Five: A Critical Assessment of Selected Translations of the Quran 132 5.1 Introduction 132 5.2 A brief history of English translations of the Quran 132 5.2.1 English translations of the Quran by non-Muslims 5.2.2 English translations of the Quran by Muslims 5.3 Overview of the selected translators 136 5.3.1 Muhammed M. Pickthall (1930) 5.3.2 Abdullah Y. Ali (1934) 5.3.3 Taqiaddin Al-Hilali and Muhammed Khan (1974) 5.4 Critical assessment of the selected translations 140 5.4.1A critical assessment of Al-Hilali’s and Khan’s translation 5.4.2 A critical assessment of Abdullah Ali’s translation 5.4.3 A critical assessment of Pickthall’s translation 5.5 Conclusion 147 Chapter Six: Comparative Semantic Analysis of Translations of Collocational Phrases in the Quran 149 6.1 Introduction 149 6.2 Problematic issues with the translation of collocations in the Quran 149 6.3 Semantic analysis and evaluation of the translations 153 6.4 Strategies and procedures employed by the selected translations 193 6.5 Conclusion 197 Chapter Seven: Discussion and Conclusion 199 7.1 Inroduction 199 7.2 The research findings 199 7.3 Responses to the research questions 201 7.4 Translations related to a semantic and communicative translation theory 202 7.5 Translations related to an exegetic translation method 204 7.6 The contribution of the study 206 5 7.7 The limitations of the study 208 7.8 Recommendations for future research 208 Bibliography 209 6 This transliteration system applies to all the Arabic words transliterated in this thesis except the names of authors with Arabic names as some of them provide their own spelling of their 7 names in English which may not confirm to this transliteration system. Accordingly, a name like ‘Abdel-Haleem’ is not transliterated as ‘Abdel-Halīm’.This transliteration system also includes the three short and the three long vowels in Arabic which are represented in English as /a/, /i/, /u/ and /ā/, /ī/, /ū/ respectively. 8 List of Abbreviations AACD Al-Hafiz Arabic Collocation Dictionary DAEQU Dictionary of Arabic-English Quranic Usage DCAL Dictionary of Contemporary Arabic Language DEDC Dar El-Ilm’s Dictionary of Collocation DLA Dictionary of Lisan Al-Arab MSA Modern Standard Arabic RL Receptal Language SL Source Language ST Source Text 9 Acknowledgements All praise and thanks are due, above all, to Allah, for giving me the inspiration, intention and ability to produce this work. If Allah had not helped me, I would not have been able to achieve the writing of this thesis. “And my success cannot come except from Allah, in Him I trust and unto Him I turn” (Hūd: 88). I would like to extend my deepest thanks and gratitude to my supervisors. Prof. Oliver Scharbrodt’s guidance, his invaluable comments and excellent advice as well as his constructive feedback helped steer me in the right direction. His useful detailed discussions have been of great benefit in helping me produce a rigorous academic work. I also wish to thank Dr. Caroline Tee for her tremendous support and encouragement. My special thanks should also go to the head of the department of theology and religious studies, Prof. Wayne Morris, and to all members of staff in the department at the University of Chester who helped and supported me in times of distress and frustration. I am deeply grateful to the staff of Brotherton library at the University of Leeds for their help and cooperation as well as for their resilience – they treated me as one of the staff throughout all these years of research. I owe special thanks to the Libyan government for granting me a scholarship to complete a PhD programme. I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues in the UK and in Libya for their support. Finally, I could never have completed this research without the support and the encouragement of my family. My deepest appreciation goes to my father and mother, sisters and brothers who were always calling from Tripoli, encouraging me and trying their best to raise my morale and create a suitable atmosphere for me until I finished my work.