A Comparative Study of Pragmatic Losses in English Translations of the Holy Quran"

Abstract

The chief objective of a translation is to convey the meanings of the source text to the target text readership. It is the transfer of the content as well as the textual mood to the possible extent. However, achieving this objective remains a crucial challenge on account of social, cultural and linguistic differences among the people of different colors, religions and geographical regions. Morphological, lexical, phonological, syntactical, stylistic, social, psychological and cultural differences among the languages result cumulatively into a broad range of pragmatic losses during the process of translation. The situation gets more intricate when it is the matter of religious literature, especially, the revealed sacred texts. In this regard, it is deemed highly significant to identify the elements of pragmatic loss in the source text and their respective manifestations in translated texts for the awareness of the translators and readers to curtail the possible distortion of the meaning enshrined in the source text. The present qualitative research aimed at investigating three different English translations (wordfor-word translation, literal translation and running translation with lexical and syntactic expansion) of Sūrah al-Kahf of the Holy Qur’ān. The researcher traced and analyzed the instances of pragmatic losses in these three English translations employing comparative pragmalinguistic model which has been tailored for this study. The findings reveal significant similarities as well as differences in these three translations entailing clear manifestations of pragmatic losses. These pragmatic losses occur in the forms of loss of tense, loss of texture, loss of grammatical category, loss of gender, loss of textual meaning, loss of culture-specific terms etc. Finally, certain recommendations have been made for the contemporary and future translators of the Holy Qur’ān in particular and other religious or non-religious Arabic texts in general.