An analysis of the textual addition in parentheses strategy in the translation of a Quranic text / Mohammad Amin Y. H. al-Hawamdeh
In light of a set of renowned theories in translation studies, text-linguistics and language communication, this study aimed at analyzing the textual addition in parentheses (TAiP) strategy as encountered in a translation of the Quranic text into English. As a case study, this translation is titl...
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| Format: | Thesis |
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2017
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| Online Access: | http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/7676/ http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/7676/1/All.pdf http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/7676/5/Hammad_Amin_Y._H._al%2DHawamdeh_%2D_Thesis.pdf |
| Summary: | In light of a set of renowned theories in translation studies, text-linguistics and
language communication, this study aimed at analyzing the textual addition in
parentheses (TAiP) strategy as encountered in a translation of the Quranic text into
English. As a case study, this translation is titled as "The Noble Quran: English
Translation of the Meanings and Commentary" produced by Taqi-u Din Hilali and M.
Muhsin Khan (1996); it is officially approved yet highly criticized, causing
controversy worldwide due to its too many parenthetical interpolations. This analysis
thoroughly addressed the TAiPs in this English version of the Quran in four aspects:
the functional nature of explicitation carried by the TAiPs, the TAiPs as lexically and
grammatically cohesive devices of texture, the TAiPs as factors of textuality in terms
of both coherence and intentionality and the comprehensibility of a TAiP-enriched
text to English readers. Methodically, the study employed a relational content-analysis
approach for the first three objectives. A corpus of six small-sized Makki/Madani
chapters of the Quran including a total number of 442 TAiPs was selected. For the
fourth objective, a survey-analysis approach was employed. A number of 73 native-
English/non-Arabic speaking persons were contacted to participate in a 2-case, selfadministered
questionnaire.
Each aspect of this analysis was qualitatively and quantitatively presented and
discussed in search of new translational norms and in an attempt towards improving
such an English translation of the Quran as the Hilali-Khan one. The TAiPs were
found to be: explicitatively, of linguistically obligatory and optional or referentially
pragmatic and technical types in either filling-out or specifying manners; cohesively,
lexical and grammatical devices of texture—in form of recurrence, reference,
substitution, ellipsis and conjunction; relationally as factors of coherence and intentionality—in form of reiteration, collocation, connotation, evocation and
interpretation; and lastly, communicatively, observing or helping the TAiP-including
text, to a large extent, observe the comprehensibility measures of trueness,
informativeness, relevance and perspicuity. New types/subtypes of the Quranic-textoriented
TAiPs—set in figures and supported by representative examples from the
text and statistical accounts in form of tables and charts—were provided as much
illustratively as appropriate. Eventually, an improved version of this subject English
translation—in which a number of such TAiPs were either included, modified or
excluded—was developed. |
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