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Volume :37 Issue : 146 2019
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A Comparative Study between the Qur’anic Contextual Meanings in Arabic and Their English Translation (in Arabic)
Auther : Mohammad al-Munajid
This study sheds light on the expressive devices employed by the Arabic language in contrast to their counterparts in English. It compares the Qur’an to three different English translations of it. The paper adopts the descriptive and contrastive methods to examine the accuracy of the English translation of the meanings of the Qur’an and the extent to which they match the meanings that the Qur’an brings forth in Arabic in terms of semantics, syntax, and morphology.
The study includes an introduction that handles issues related to translation theories. In addition, the study includes four sections that provide a discussion of the translations of Qur’anic verses and encompass the science of the Arabic language at the lexical, syntactical, morphological, and semantic levels.
Each verse in the Qur’an is plurisignative. Thus, the researcher investigated the multiple meanings that the Arabs have attributed to the verses in Arabic. Afterwards, the meanings in the translations are examined in order to identify the similarities and differences in the expression of these meanings between the translations themselves, as well as between the translations and the Qur’an in its original language.
The findings of the study show that the fifteen verses contain thirty-seven meanings, while all the three selected translations include nineteen meanings only. One of the translations has fifteen meanings, while the other two have sixteen meanings. Each verse is limited to one meaning. On the one hand, the three translations have twelve similar meanings. On the other hand, they have three different ones.
Furthermore, two of the translations match one another on two meanings for one verse only. Finally, the paper ends with a conclusion and two recommendations.
Keywords: Qur’an translation, Plurisignation, Semantics