Translating Figurative Language in the Chapter of Taha: A Study of Two Translations

Received: 30 Oct. 2021 Accepted: 28 Nov. 2021 Volume: 1 Issue: FALL DOI: This paper is concerned with reviewing the difficulties faced by translators rendering figurative language in the Chapter of Taha and raises the question of whether the translation choices suggested by the two selected translators to express the intended meaning of the figure of speech in question are appropriate ones or not. Hence the major concern of this paper is acceptability: do the suggested choices achieve the level of acceptability targeted by the two translators or not? KEYWORDS


Introduction
Translating the Holy Qur'an poses a serious challenge for translators for different reasons the most important of these is that any mistake or distortion, whether intentional or unintentional, is not forgiven by those who believe in that Holy Book. Mistakes, however, translation loss, semantic inaccuracy, absence of an accurate equivalent, etc. are all to be expected in rendering a linguistically rich and figuratively-loaded book like the Holy Qur'an. This is why "translators should not agonize over the loss, but should concentrate on reducing it" (Dickens, Hervey and Higgins: 21).
A simple definition of the translation process is that it is crossing barriers; in other words, during the translation process, the translator tries to fill in many gaps: semantic, figurative, cultural, syntactic, etc. to win the target reader's approval. These gaps represent the obstacles or the barriers that the translator has to overcome. Rich texts are the ones that contain more barriers.
Under rich texts definitely come Holy Books in general and the Holy Qur'an in particular. The Qur'an provides readers with distinctive and unique realms of meanings, connotations, interpretations, insights, etc. that really overwhelm them even those who are non-Muslims or non-Arabs.
Translators of the Qur'an in their introductions or prefaces admit that rendering the Qur'an is really a hard task that involves an expected amount of loss on the different levels: semantic, cultural, figurative, etc. In the introduction to his translation, Arthur J. Arberry (1955) writes that translating the Qur'an is similar to measuring "the ocean of prophetic eloquence with the thimble of pedestrian analysis" (Introduction: XI).

Theoretical background
The use of language has been divided in the theories of meaning into two types: literal and figurative. Literal use of language means using the actual, denotative meaning of words, that is, literal use refers to solid facts and statements, e.g. the language of science and law. Metaphorical or figurative use of language refers to the "flowery" use of words to convey meanings and symbolic values beyond the literal meaning of words. Writers and authors usually use figurative language to have more insight into a character or situation. For example, a metaphor like "time is money" is expected to instil the idea of the preciousness and importance of time in its reader's head than the literal sentence "time is important". such elements are not likely to occur in the same context or structure) to signify something beyond the literal meanings of words.
A metaphor is usually used either to convey meanings and connotations beyond the literal meanings of words, or because the literal meaning alone cannot convey what the speaker wants to express. It is an integral part of human language: man's language contains metaphorical expressions beside the solid facts of daily life. It is metaphor that adds beauty and sublimity to human language and creates new rhetorical horizons for the human mind. Even the language of science, supposedly 'precise' and 'dry', contains metaphorical structures, e.g., "gold is the master of all metals".
Theorists differed amongst themselves about how metaphor is structured and how it functions in a given situation to communicate the intended meaning. Some of them studied metaphor from a psychological point of view trying to pinpoint the interrelationship between metaphor and man's cognitive processes. Others tried to relate metaphor to the culture in which it is "born" pointing out that a full understanding of the content of metaphor can never be separated from its cultural and social habitat.
Semanticians looked at metaphors as a kind of semantic anomaly as metaphor usually relates two unrelated subjects in a new and unique manner. For example, in "Tom is a lion", the metaphor here not only tells that Tom is brave, but it creates a picture or an image of Tom that remains at the back of the reader's mind (based on the anomaly that combines 'Tom' and 'lion'). The Qur'anic metaphor ‫تنفس"‬ ‫إذا‬ ‫,"والصبح‬ which compares ‫"الصبح"‬ to a human being, creates a beautiful image of freshness, newness and vitality.
This means that figures of speech are not simply ornamental substitutes for literal expressions: they are usually used when they express more than the literal meaning of words can do, or to express an abstraction in a comprehensible way. In other words, figurative language is not purely a decorative substitution or rhetorical models for literal and ideational meaning. It (figurative language) is productive of meaning within a metaphorical framework that addresses both the heart and mind of the readers as metaphor creates a being-in-the-world atmosphere that increases the emotional response of the reader and increases the effect of the illocutionary force. It also "has the virtue of clothing tired literal expression in attractive new garbs of alleviating boredom" (Soskice: 24).
Figurative language is vital in talking about God with his infinite power, dominance and glory: it simply "guides our thought about God and is in some sense descriptive and explanatory" (ibid: 104-105) e.g. ‫كمشكاة"‬ ‫نوره‬ ‫"مثل‬ ، ‫أيديهم"‬ ‫فوق‬ ‫ﷲ‬ ‫"يد‬ . Such metaphors not only "retain their metaphorical nature, but they have become more than simpler metaphor, they are almost emblematic" (ibid: 158). This is why part of the beauty of Qur'an consists in its figurative language which the reader must master to fully understand the Qur'an and enjoy its rhetorical excellence (1). Issa J. Boullata (1988) comments on the role of figurative language in the Qur'an: The Qur'anic style imparts vividness, immediacy, and dynamism to its images so that abstract ideas take on shape or movement; psychological states become perceptible tableaux or spectacles; events and scenes, and stories turn into actual and dramatic appearances; human types are fleshed out as present and living beings; and human nature becomes embodied and visible. (15)

Problem statement
The problem of figurative meaning is one of the problems that lie at the heart of translation. When translating a text, the translator should do his/her best to convey figurative language in the target language. When it comes to the Qur'an, a translator must definitely consult more than one interpretation of the Qur'an to opt for the most accurate meaning of each figure of speech. This is special for the Qur'an and other rich texts where figurative meaning needs certain linguistic knowledge to be understood; that is why "in most of the English interpretations of the Qur'an, cases of non-equivalence and untranslatability will be more frequent with plenty of scope for ambiguities, obscurities and fuzzy boundaries." ( Al-Qinani, 2012: 83).

Objective of the research
The present study hopefully sheds more light on the difficulties encountered by translators in rendering examples of figurative language in the Qur'an, more specifically in the Chapter of Taha with the aim of providing suggestions that will assist in decreasing translation loss. In addition, it is supposed to answer the question about the most appropriate trouble shooter to be used in rendering such examples. It also presents an analysis of the choices made by the two translators and how each of them tries to keep the effect of figurative language and reduce the amount of loss.

Research methodology
This study is an attempt to study and analyze  "And loosen the knot from my tongue" It is clear that both translators feel satisfied to translate the image almost literally. This simply means that they seem to have found no difficulty in finding an English equivalent that conveys the message and keeps the rhetorical effectiveness of the original image. The target reader feels at home with the translation. The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary mentions a metaphorical idiom under the entry 'loosen': "to loosen sb's tongue make sb talk freely" (661). This simply means that the same image is idiomatically used in English confirming its universal significance and non-problematic nature.
To sum up, as long as the image is universal and its propositional content can be understood by any reader, the translator is not expected to find any problem in rendering it. Roger Bell (1993) stresses the same fact: "The fact that the proposition is universal (not tied to a specific language but underlying all languages) gives it central position in communication and provides us with a major clue in our attempt at making sense of the process of translation (109).

Culture-specific Figures of Speech
Translating is not a process of transferring meaning from one language to another. It involves transferring one culture (or frame of thought) to another. This simply means that the translator's job is not confined to the search for semantic equivalents, but s/he should try to find functional equivalents and cultural substitutes that would help to maximally convey the message of the source text and bridge the gap between the source text and the target reader, especially if they belong to two completely cultural backgrounds.
The translator, as Enani (2000) puts it, "is a cultural medium: no translator can hope to evade the cultural implications of his or her translated text" (36). This emphasizes the importance of the fact that the translator should be well-acquainted with the cultural background of both the source and target texts. The difficulty of translating culture-specific images stems from the fact that they describe "a culture remote from the second reader's experience, which the translator wants to introduce to him, not the original reader who took or takes it for granted, but as something strange with its own special interest" (Newmark: 11).
Let's take a detailed example from the Chapter of Taha, namely, the translation of ". ‫ت‬ ‫قر"‬ ‫"القر"‬ in Arabic means ‫,"البرد"‬ 'coldness', and ‫"القرور"‬ means ‫البارد"‬ ‫"الماء‬ 'cold water'. Out of this literal meaning, a metaphorical expression has been created, that is ‫"تقر‬ ‫العين"‬ as stated by Ibn Manzour and Al-Asfahani (2). The two definitions mentioned by them (Ibn Mazour and Al-Alsfahani) refer to one of the Arabs' beliefs: the Arab, who suffers from a hot environment, finds coldness nice and pleasant and this is why s/he believes that the happy tears are cold and the tears of pain and agony are hot: a belief created by the effect of his/her environment. The English man, who lives in freezing conditions, finds the above fact odd, weird or at least irrelevant to his cultural context. Thus, what is normal and common to an Arab seems totally abnormal to the English man. Eugene Nida (1966) comments that "what is quite implicitly understood in one language is not so understood in another, especially in those instances where the cultural context is very different" (24).
The root-cognates, words derived from the same stem, of " ‫تقر‬ " , namely, ‫"قرى"‬ ، and " " ‫قرة‬ are metaphorically used in the Qur'an in seven different contexts to refer to a state of happiness, satisfaction and contentment. The following verse from the Chapter of Taha is one of them: Arberry's Translation: "We returned thee to thy mother that she might rejoice, and not sorrow." Ghali's Translation: "So, We returned you to your mother so that she might comfort her eye." What is noticeable is that ‫"تقر‬ " is associated with ‫"عين"‬ to indicate the metaphorical origin. It is clear that the image is confounding to the translators: rendering it literally will not achieve the aim of their translations. Also the metaphorical meaning of ‫"القر"‬ is a cultureme: a common phenomenon in the Arabian Peninsula which will be irrelevant to the members of the other cultures as previously stated.
Arberry solves this problem by reducing the image to its sense: he prefers to opt for a communicative choice, namely, 'rejoice' to avoid the cultural specifity of the image. Ghali, a native speaker of Arabic and seems quite aware of the cultural background of the image, prefers to choose "comfort" and "eyes" to reach a kind of middle ground: keeping the spirit and origin of the image in choosing "eye" and combining it with "comfort" aiming at reaching a functional translation that keeps the meaning-formulation process active and preserves, partly, the spirit of the image in question.
He also resorts to footnotes in an attempt to remove any communication barriers that might be created by the cultural specifity of the image: he writes in his footnote that ‫عينها"‬ ‫"تقر‬ "literally: that her eye might settle down" (314). This footnote activates the communication between the source-text image and the target reader. Yet, it does not help to convey the origin of the image or its interrelationship with the culture in which it is born.
To sum up, it can be concluded that semantic translation, if adopted by the translator, in translating the root-cognates of " ‫تق‬ ‫ر"‬ will not achieve the required degree of communication and interaction between the source text and the target reader.
Opting for a functional choice will achieve the function of the target text i.e. communication, and achieves the required level of intratextual coherence. A good functional translation of the image in question is provided by Enani (2000) in his translation of Hafez Ibrahim's poetry in which he praises Omar Ibn El Khattab, the second caliph, for his justice.
ُ ‫بينهم‬ ‫العدل‬ ‫أقمت‬ ‫لما‬ ‫أمنت‬ ‫نوم‬ ‫فنمت‬ ‫العين‬ ‫قرير‬ ‫هانيها‬ You feel safe, having established justice among your people. And now sleep with an easy conscience and a happy heart.

Figures of Speech Involving auto-antonyms
This type of ambiguous words has three distinctive features: firstly, it is peculiar not to Arabic (English also has words that have two opposite and functional meanings at the same time, e.g. "spouse" and "let"). Secondly, it represents no problem to translators who have to be decisive in this case: choosing one meaning and forsaking another. Yet, this deprives the target reader of one of the distinctive features of Qur'anic Arabic, that is, the figurative richness and multi-layered nature of words; this is why a translation of the Qur'an "is only scratching the surface of the multi-layered Qur'anic meanings" (Abdul-raof: 180). Thirdly, in many cases, the context itself plays no role in guiding or helping the translator to opt for one choice, i.e.
preferring one choice to the other (3).
On the level of semantic loss, this kind of ambiguity, as mentioned before, compels the translators to opt for one of the two opposite senses which represents a kind of lexical and/or semantic loss that can be minimized by the use of trouble shooters representing the exegetic element palliating, to some extent, the expected loss. The following verse reveals this fact: The word ‫)4(أزر‬ in Arabic has two opposite meanings: "weakness" and "strength" (there is also a third uncommon meaning, namely, "back"). In the above verse, authorized exegeses of the Qur'an mention that Moses, peace be upon him, is praying to Allah to make his brother, Aaron, a prophet to increase his (Moses') strength or help him get rid of his weakness. Thus both meanings can be functional. Here the translator is free to opt for one of the two meanings provided that s/he should provide the reader with the other meaning in a trouble shooter. In other words, the translator in such a case should realize that "every act of translating involves first recognizing the potential equivalents, and then selecting from them the one best adapted to the particular context" (Reiss: 51). Arberry and Ghali follow different strategies: Arberry and Ghali seem decisive about one of the denotative meanings of ‫أزر‬ in this verse: they render it as "strength" and "back" respectively; the meanings mentioned in authorized exegeses and reliable Arabic dictionaries. However, neither of them provides the target reader with the other sense of the word, i.e., weakness by using any of the trouble shooters mentioned before. They seem to be satisfied with the translation provided, not trying to bother the reader with the third meaning of the word; a strategy that can be accepted but still causes figurative (and semantic) loss! This, however, might not be seen as "a betrayal of the ST effects, and therefore count as a serious translation loss" (Dickens, Hervey and Higgins: In contrast to Arberry and Ghali, Rodwell seems to opt for an idiomatic choice, "gird up my loins", which is "biblical or humorous to get ready to do something" (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English: 596). He seems to believe that this functional strategy, i.e. the use of this Biblical idiom "preserves the idiomaticity and essential message content" (Dickens, Hervey and Higgins: 46). To put it differently, he , like Ghali, chooses the uncommon meanings of the word, namely, 'back", more specifically, the lower part of the back as "loins" is "the part or parts of the human being or quadruped situated on both sides of the vertebral column, between the ribs and the pelvis" (The New Shorter Oxford: vol. I, 1621). This choice is emphasized by his comment in his endnotes, that is, "or strengthens my back" (463). This means that his translation "grid up my loins" is idiomatic and "Biblical" to win the target reader's approval. However, his choice is not common as that of Arberry, or even Ghali, as revealed in authorized exegeses and reliable Arabic dictionaries.

Translating Anthropomorphic Images
One of the risky and quicksand areas in the Qur'an is translating anthropomorphic images, that is, images that describe God in terms of human qualities. Such images are difficult to translate because the translator, in this case, is torn between two choices: translating the image literally (out of faithfulness to the original, or for fear of making a translational mistake) or opting for a communicative choice that might not communicate the meaning or significance of the source-text image because what such images name "may transcend human understanding so that our language cannot capture it" (Harries: 74). The translator has also to realize that "It is God himself who communicates his image. The diminished image ensures an imperfect and inadequate representation of the divine exemplar, half-way between fusion in a single form and radical heterogeneity" (Ricoeur: 274). A good example is verse No 5 in sura Taha: ‫استوى"‬ ‫العرش‬ ‫على‬ ‫"الرحمن‬ Arberry's Translation: "The All-compassionate sat himself upon the Throne."

Ghali's Translation:
"The All-Merciful has upon the Throne levelled Himself." Both Arberry and Ghali, for fear of opting for an unsuitable, less communicative choice, are satisfied to opt for a semantic, literal choice. Their literal, semantic choices make them avoid problems of ta'wil (different interpretations) (5). What affirms this view is the fact that Ghali in his footnote comments "the 'how' is known only to Him". I also consulted another translation of the Qur'an, namely, that of Abdullah Yusuf Ali (1999) entitled The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary and found the following choice: "(God) most Gracious is firmly established on the throne (of authority)." In contrast to Arberry and Ghali, Yusuf Ali adds a prepositional phrase 'of authority' which might communicate the upshot of the image. Furthermore, he comments on this image, in his footnote, to fully convey the upshot of the image to the target reader: If things seem to be wrong in our imperfect vision on this earth, we must remember that God, who encompasses all Creation and sits on the throne of Grace and Mercy, is in command, and our Faith tells us that all must be right. God's authority is not like an authority on earth, which may be questioned, or which may not last. His authority is firmly established. (790)

Figures of Speech involving a Special Use of Prepositions
Prepositions have similar roles or functions in both Arabic and English: typical and common usages involve referring to place (e.g., She put the cake on the table), tool (e.g., He killed the old lady with a knife), direction (e.g. He went to school), etc. Arabic almost has the same semantic functions of prepositions and thus translators face no problem in such cases.
However, problems arise when prepositions are used to convey a more subtle figurative meaning or deeper connotations, different from those associated with the common usage of non-problematic ones.
The Holy Qur'an abounds with examples of the second usage of prepositions. This notion leads us to a more important one, that is, a deep understanding of the Qur'an requires a lot of tools on the part of the readers or the listener, the most important of which is to read between the lines to reach the multi-layered messages of the Qur'anic verses. In this process, prepositions are not passive participants, that is to say, they are key players in this meaning-formulation process. The following example is indicative of this fact: ‫"وﻷصلبنكم‬ ‫في‬ ‫النخل"‬ ‫جذوع‬ (Taha:71) Arberry's Translation: "Then I shall crucify you upon the trunks of the palm-trees."

Ghali's Translation:
"And indeed I shall definitely crucify you upon the trunks of the palm-trees." The speaker in the above verse is the Pharaoh who threatens the sorcerers (the addressee) that he will punish them for believing in Allah and Moses and leaving worshipping him (the Pharaoh). One aspect of this punishment or torture is to crucify them 'on' the trunks of the palm-trees. Interpreters of the Qur'an almost agree that Allah uses the preposition ‫"فى"‬ (literally 'in') to indicate that the palm-trees will become the graves of the sorcerers. Shawky Deif (1994) indicates that Allah "uses 'in' and not 'on' to indicate that their bodies will remain there for a long time"(translation is mine: 522) (6). The same interpretation is supported by Az-Zamakhshari and ATh-Thacalibi who indicate the same fact (7).
Arberry and Ghali seem to ignore the original preposition and the comments of authorized exegeses and opt for 'upon' which deprives the target reader of the figurative meaning indicated. However, it should be mentioned that the target reader will easily understand the meaning, but a rhetorical figurative feature will be lost in the translation process.

Reflections on the Nature of the Problem
It has become obvious that figurative language usually represents a quicksand area to the translator because it sometimes implies certain features or phenomena in the source language that might have no equivalents in the target language. In other words, figures of speech reflect the mentality, attitude, philosophy and frame of thought of a certain people. The same image, when translated, may not evoke the same atmosphere in the target language or cannot evoke the same emotive response from the target reader. Thus, cultural considerations have to be taken into account when a figure of speech is translated.
The translator's role is not just a mediator between the source text and the target reader: s/he acts as a creator of new targetlanguage figurative structures that do not sound odd to the target reader and preserve the rhetorical effect and metaphorical content of the message of the source text. This is due to the fact that the effectiveness and the communicativeness of the image depend largely on the shared knowledge of the hearer (or target reader) and the speaker (or source text).
The problem occurs when there is a discrepancy between the cultural background of the source text and that of the target reader. For example, the common image ‫"أثلج‬ ‫صدري‬ " , which is part of daily usage, represents an example of culture-specific images. The cultural equivalent of this idiomatic expression is "it warmed my heart". Paradoxically ‫"أثلج"‬ in Arabic is rendered as "warm" in English due to cultural differences. To make this point clearer, the Arab who lives in hot atmosphere, as previously stated, believes that ‫"الثلج"‬ is something pleasing and this is why ‫"أثلج‬ ‫صدري‬ " refers to something pleasing to the speaker. In contrast, the English man who lives in a cold atmosphere considers warmth one of the pleasures of life and this is why s/he says, "it warmed my heart".
Another revealing example is Shakespeare's famous line of verse "shall I compare thee to a summer's day". The beauty of the line is highly appreciated by an English man who considers summer one of the pleasures of life, but to an Arab, to whom summer is totally unpleasant, the comparison will be strange and alien. A good translator will be satisfied to translate summer here as ‫صيف"‬ ‫"نسمة‬ (the breeze of summer) which is a good functional choice. Similarly, the ‫كالقمر"‪image‬‬ ‫"جميلة‬ She is as beautiful as the moon) in Arabic is functionally translated into English as "she is as beautiful as a rose". The beauty of the moon is felt by people, Arabs, who live in the desert where the moon is the only source of light at night: it represents light, romance and love. The English man who lives in a foggy climate will hardly appreciate the image in question. In the English culture, the moon is metaphorically used in some idioms to refer to a person's changeability and moodiness e.g., "Jane is as changeable as the moon". This is why Howard Nemerov (1985) points out this fact: "metaphor depends upon a compound of likeness and difference not always stable in the fashions of thought: one man's metaphor may be another man's foolishness" (115).
Mona Baker (1992) points out that a culture-specific concept "may be abstract or concrete; it may relate to a religious belief, a social custom, or even a type of food" (21). She mentions the word "privacy" as a difficult example to translate. The English concept of privacy "is rarely understood by people from other cultures" (ibid: 21). Another illustrating example is the English weather idioms: the English people are famous for using expressions related the weather which are very difficult to translate such as "come rain", "come shine", etc. Another interesting example is the word "owl", ‫,"البومة"‬ and its different connotations in both Arabic and English. In Arabic, the word ‫"بومة"‬ is associated with ill-omen, gloom and jinx (8). In the English culture the owl is associated with wisdom and respectability: in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the adjective "owlish" is defined as "serious and clever" e.g. "Professor Jay looked owlish in his horn-rimmed spectacles" (1014) meaning respectable and solemn. This meaning will be odd to the Arab reader who has totally different connotations of the same adjective, 'owlish'.
Such examples reveal the cultural differences between languages: what is common and acceptable in one language or culture may be abnormal and weird in another. Roger Bell (1993) mentions the word 'dog' as an example emphasizing cultural differences: For example, the denotative meaning of the item dog in English is straightforward and common property (so to speak). The connotations vary from person to person, extending, no doubt, from servile dedication to the well-being of the species to the abhorrence and from society to society; the connotations of kelb for Arabs are likely to be more negative than those for dog for English speakers, even though the denotation of the two words is identical. (99)

Conclusion
The analysis attempted in this study has encouraged me to make the following suggestions and recommendations: 1-To translate Qur'anic figures of speech, whether problematic or non-problematic one, properly, the translator has not only to comprehend the image in question, but also to find a cultural equivalent that wins the reader's approval, e.g. "loosen my tongue".
2-Using trouble shooters is of prime importance to provide the reader with the background information s/he needs to fully understand figure of speech used in the Qur'an. Newmark comments that "if the SL text is entirely bound up with the culture of the SL community … the translator has to decide whether or not the reader requires, or is entitled to, supplementary information and explanation" (21). They are vitally important if the translator resorts to transliteration or reproducing the same image in the target language.
3-Adopting the functional approach enables the translator to avoid inappropriate and unacceptable choices. In other words, the translator, who adopts functional translation properly, will end up with producing a translation that presents "a new offer of information in the target culture about some information offered in the source culture and language" (Nord: 26).
4-In the case of translating culture-specific images, the translator has to first opt for a cultural equivalent that sounds familiar to the target reader. If s/he fails to do so, s/he may resort to other strategies such as transliteration, paraphrase, reducing the image to its sense, etc. But before making his/her decision, s/he has to decide which strategy will help to achieve the skopos of his translation. For example, a strategy like paraphrase "is only justified when an item of terminology (technical, institutional, cultural, ecological, scientific) cannot be handled in any other way" (Newmark: 130). For example, an image like ‫عينها"‬ ‫"تقر‬ can be paraphrased "so that she may rejoice".
5-Translating the image as a separate unit is a wrong strategy and negatively affects the translator's choice. The translator has to realize and comprehend the function that the image performs in the source-text context and opt for an equivalent that performs the same function in the target language. 8-This is pointed out by Ibn Manzour in ‫العرب‬ ‫لسان‬ when he mentions ‫كالبوم‬ ‫"ينعق‬ "