The (Un)Translatability of Qur'anic Idiomatic Phrasal Verbs: A Contrastive Linguistic Study - Paperback

by Ali Yunis Aldahesh (Author)

Qur'anic idiomaticity, in its all aspects, poses a great deal of challenge to Qur'an readers, learners, commentators, and translators. One of the most challenging aspects of Qur'anic idiomaticity is Qur'anic idiomatic phrasal verbs, where significances of proper Arabic verbs are entirely fused with significances of prepositions following them to produce new significances that have nothing to do with the basic significances of those verbs and prepositions.

By examining a corpus of ten of the most influential English translations of the Qur'an, this study scrutinizes how some translators of the Qur'an have dealt with the phenomenon of Qur'anic idiomatic phrasal verbs, the difficulties that they have encountered when translating them into English, and the strategies that they have employed in their attempts to overcome the inherent ambiguity of such expressions and provide their functional-pragmatic equivalents for English readership.

The study proposes a working model for analysing and assessing the translation of the Qur'anic idiomatic phrasal verbs and provides a number of theory-based recommendations for translators in general and Qur'an translators in particular.

Author Biography

Ali Yunis Aldahesh is a lecturer in Arabic language, literature, and culture at the University of Sydney, Department of Arabic Language and Cultures, School of Languages and Cultures, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. He holds a PhD in translation and linguistics, an MA in translation and linguistics, and an MA in Semitic studies. Dr Aldahesh's area of research interest is translation and linguistics, with a special emphasis on the language, text, and translation of the Qur'an. His published works include English Translations of the Qur'an: A Descriptive Comparative Study in their Aspects of Disagreement (2020), The Concept of Taqwa in the Holy Qur'an as Understood by Muslim Commentators (2010), and Translating Idiomatic English Phrasal Verbs into Arabic: A Contrastive Linguistic Study (2009).