Translation of Religious Texts: Difficulties and Challenges

Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Special Issue on Translation No.4 May, 2015

12 Pages Posted: 18 Oct 2016

See all articles by Rachid Agliz

Rachid Agliz

Sultan Moulay Slimane University - Faculty of Letters

Date Written: September 26, 2016

Abstract

Throughout history, people have always tried to get through many different spheres. Their incessant thirst for knowledge brought them in close contact with other cultures and provided them with means to transfer their opinions to other cultures and civilizations that are different or similar to them. One of the effective means of ensuring this cultural exchange is translation. This paper is mainly concerned with the difficulties and the challenges that Arab translators are confronted with when they deal with religious texts. A case in point here is Shalabi’s insightful book, Islam Between Truth and False Allegations: A Response to the False Allegations against Islam.(1997) This religious book is full of instances which demonstrate clearly the diverse difficulties that Arab translators face while translating source texts which encompass very sacred religious terms. It seems that grammatical equivalence, redundancy and paragraphing are the most important key elements that ought to be taken into account in order to produce an accurate and appropriate translation. The main objective in this paper is to draw the reader’s attention to the difficulties and challenges that I encountered while translating some religious extracts from Shalabi’s book.

Keywords: Grammatical Equivalence, paragraphing, redundancy, religious texts

Suggested Citation

Agliz, Rachid, Translation of Religious Texts: Difficulties and Challenges (September 26, 2016). Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Special Issue on Translation No.4 May, 2015 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2844009 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2844009

Rachid Agliz (Contact Author)

Sultan Moulay Slimane University - Faculty of Letters ( email )

Bd Ibn Khaldoun
Beni-Mellal, 23000
Morocco

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
2,478
Abstract Views
7,594
Rank
10,602
PlumX Metrics