الخلاصة:
Translation is very important to bring people all over the worldby making them know about others culture, civilization, etc.This is why the translator must have a background concerning the source text to be able to transfer its approximate meaning.
Translation used to be simply regarded as a linguistic phenomenon, and a pure corresponding code switch between languages. Along with the development of translation study, translation theorists have realized that translation is not just a matter of language but also a matter of meaning and understanding.
In this research paper, we attempt to investigate the methodology of translating elliptic Qur’an verses from Arabic into English by choosing a corpus of three translations for twenty Quranic verses.The objective of this study is to find what are the best translation choices to be followed in order to get a successful
translation that is as much as possible faithful to the meaning.
Ellipsis in the Qur’an is not an arbitrary phenomenon; it’s due to the context that plays a big role to clarify the meaning of elliptical verses but some need from the researcher or the translator to look in tafasir as well as grammatical books to find out their complete meaning of them.
״ Alhadhf "or ellipsis causes some ambiguity but it has a big role to link text parts since text considered as one unity.So, when we translate elliptic structures we are going to fall in redundancy.Generally, the problems of translating Qur’an are based on two aspects which are the meaning and the form. In others words, the translator has to be able to keep the meaning without making some adjustments on the source text.
The Qur’ān has been translated into many languages by Muslims and non- Muslims as well.This divine book has a rhetorical side that shows its beauty style by which deletion is more expressive than saying.
In this study, we aim at serving both rhetorical and practical goals by analyzing some verses to be able to find answers to our questions such as:
1-As long as ellipsis is a human phenomenon and it does exist in all languages could we as translators transfer the elliptical verses without adding some extra information to keep the same form as in the source text ?
2-Considering elliptic verses, we need to addsome explanations to make the meaning clearer, so, should the translator adopt or adapt to avoid ambiguity when these verses are read in another language?
3-Quranic elliptic verses require to be clarified, but sometimes unsaid words have multiple meanings and all of them are considered true according to tafsir books.So, the translator finds himself in front of two choices: the first is adopting one
estimation and canceling other possibilities; the second one is to keep the form as it is without any interference despite the obscurity of the text translated.
4-In case of following the second method how could the translator justify his choice and neglect the other possibilities?
5-If he decides to adopt an estimation at the expense of the rest chioces, what guaranties had he resorted to the best choice?
6-Can we consider theseaddings as a part of translation or just footnotes? In order to answer these questions, we have chosen to divide our research into four chapters with a preface and a conclusion.
In the introduction we mentioned the definition of the theme, and we have stated the main methodological framework adopted for this thesis, and seize on the main questions of the study as well bringing out its objectives and also the reasons of choosing this theme.
After introducing our theme we have started:
The first chapter:it represents the theorical side of the research.In this chapter, we dealt with some selected theories and techniques of translation that help in achieving a near translation such as the sense theory or the interpretative hermeneutics and the equivalence in translation with making some adjustments
proposed by Nida to overpass the differences between languages on so many levels as structural grammatical semantic, and so on.
The Interpretive Theory, or Theory of Sense, called by some Theory of the Paris School, is based on an all-important principle: translation is not a work on words or languages; it is a work on message, on sense.
After understanding, one must de-verbalize, and then re-express, say things in another language Seleskovitch (1975) and Lederer (1994), who established this theory and defended it with force, had the great merit of showing that this process is both important and natural.
Of course, both stages imply some skills on the part of the translator: a
knowledge of the source language, an understanding of the subject matter, a mastery of the target language, but also a method, a capacity for applying reflexes and adopt an attitude which will yield the effective results through the research of equivalences rather than the simple use of correspondences.
Hermeneutics is another translation strategy adopted in this research was established by some rhetoricians like Gadamerwho saw that hermeneutics is composed of the interpretation of the whole text in the light of its parts, and interpretation of the parts in light of the whole. However, with each interpretation a deeper understanding of the previous part or whole emerges.
Steiner (1998), also belongs to this school of translation.So, He divided the process of translation into four steps: trust, aggression, incorporation and compensation emphasizing on the specific correlation between comprehension and expression on the part of the translator during the process of translation. First of all, the translator has to select the original version by aesthetic judgments, and be sure that the text is significant and worth translating.In the second step, the translator enters the translation phase.At this point he may face hostility and resistance from the original.
We also resorted to Nida (1976) ,in his book “Towards a Science of Translating” , he emphasizes the importance of transporting the meaning of the letter even at the expense of the form since the translation consists on transferring the impact of a translation of a text so it has the same influence that this text makes in its source language. Nida is also interested in the receptor or the listener reaction towards a translation by comparing the reaction of the original textr readers.
He considered the translator as someone who explainsthe meaning.In other words; he must take into consideration that he is going to transport what is said in the original with the means and structures of the target language which is totally different from the source language.
As long as we are discussing translation strategies by adaptation, we mentionned the point of view of a theorician who was against any modifications while transporting the meaning from a language to another one.we are talking about Berman (1999)who defends the idea of “Foreignization” which means retaining aspect and structure of the original text in the translation.So, he believes that translators are not obliged to simplify,clarify the meanins, since every language has its tools to express the meaning without makings such as technics.
The second chapter is about the history of the Qur’an translation during centuries.We began this chapter by mentioning the concept of Qur’an then we talked about difficulties in translating religious texts and the translation of the Qur’an in particular.
Qur’an is a sacred book revealed to the prophet Muhammad and is accepted as the last sculpture for human guidance. It has been translated into various languages.
This study aims to investigate the miraculous nature of the holy Qur’an pertaining to the elliptical structures and the reasons of these ellipses.
In fact,the Qur’an translation is the most prominent type of translation because it bears the translator a huge responsibility to transport the exact meaning of the sacred book and keep the aesthetic side of the original as much as possible.
We also discussed some Qur’an translation problems while transferring its meaning from Arabic into English translators confessed the difficulty mainly in its rhetorical side which made them avoid literal translation since it leads to misunderstanding and ambiguity.
Qur’an word- by -word translation was discussed by Muslim"shouyoukh"and scholars.The majority of them agreed that this method is forbidden because it does not serve Qur’an but rather contributes in distorting its meaning.
So, they suggested to translate it after understanding its implicit meanings first because this holy book is rich of implicitness that oblige everyone to consult "tafasir" books which are many and renewed.Muslimm scholars put some conditions for its interpretative translations to ban translators from free translating
which is not always justified.
The third chapter dealt with the phenomenon of ellipsis itself by putting different definitions of this style by Arabic rhetoricians.Then,wediscused about reasons, rules for omission , as well as their conditions.After that, we examined the a set of grammatical styles that are used in the Qur’an as clauses are omitted such as condition / swearing / interrogation /warning,etc.
We had followed the same steps in studying ellipsis phenomenon in English language and at the end of the chapter we compared this phenomenon in both languages. This chapter was ended by mentioning that allowing ellipsis when the context can be inferred.The last chapter or the practical one deals with the representation of the corpus which is composed from twenty elliptical verse taken from the holy Qur’an
with three translations by Yusuf Ali, Pickthall and khan & Al-Hilali.Then, we talked about tafsir books that we had consulted since these verses type need from every translator or researcher in the domain of Qur’an to know about the complete explanation.
We based our work on four tafasir or Qur’an interpretations.Two are ancients like the one of Ibnkathir and Azzamakhshari the two others are new the first one is by Ibnashour and the second is for Aljazairi, and what pushed us to choose those four Qur’an interpretation books is to look for the implicit meaning or the elliptic words Ibnkathir is a great book in which we can find the reasons of every verses revelation that play a big role in finding out the missed parts of these verses.
As forAl-ZAMAKHSHARÎ, his interpretation was interested in the rhetorical side because ellipsis is a part of it. In this book "Interpretation" we can find the reasons for this phenomenon. The two following interpretations are by IbnAchour and aljazairy to get an updated research.
So, according to what preceded, the conclusion of this research includes a general assessment of the translation operated by the three translators and different results obtained through this study.
Despite the attempts of those translators to keep the rhetoricalQu’ranic style, their efforts gone vain because they were obliged to transfer the implicit meaning which pushed the to add some information not mentioned in the source language which resulted different translations confirms the relativity of translating this Qur’an.
We found also the literal method cannot render the implicit meaning because each language has its strucure,meansof expression, and characteristicsof course.Further more, we noticed that Pickthall adopted word-for-word translation ,asa result, he failed in achieving an acceptable comprehensive translation on the
other hand he is excused because elliptic verses have many interpretations.
Yusuf Ali reproduced a new meaning by providing the receptor with extra information and his translation is full of commentaries to simplify the meaning for the readership. On the other part,Al-Hilali khan’s translation was very long sometimes to the extent of creating some redundancy.
In order to get satisfactory results, translators should depend on many of academic resources and references in grammar rhetoric and interpretation books, since following literal translation caused a loss of meaning but depending on the Qur’an Interpretations leads translator to keep the meaning regardless the form of
the target text.
Finally, we can confirm that using adaptation strategy in translating elliptic verses is useful in clearing the hidden meaning, but at the same time it kills the aesthetic style of divine book and proves its inimitability.This point that translators must pay attention to.
All that we can say, the translation of the Qur’an can be achieved , but translators must pay attention to the implicite meaning of its verses, its style, respect the receptor capacities, and the context that plays a major role in disambiguating the indistinctness of that structure and leading the translator to choose a certain syntactic meaning and not another.It provides the translator with clues to the possible readings of elliptic verses.